Why Are There So Few Female Leaders in Higher Education: A Case of Structure or Agency?

A significant gender imbalance remains at executive management level within higher education despite a number of initiatives to increase the number of women in the leadership pipeline and ensure they are better prepared for these roles. This article presents findings from a recent study on the appointment of deputy and pro vice chancellors in pre-1992 English universities that provide fresh insights into why this might be the case. These findings challenge the notion of women’s missing agency - characterised by a lack of confidence or ambition and a tendency to opt out of applying for the top jobs - as an explanation for their continued under-representation. Rather, they highlight the importance of three structural factors associated with the selection process: mobility and external career capital, conservatism, and homosociability. An approach of ‘fixing’ the women is therefore unlikely to be sufficient in redressing the current gender imbalance within university executive management teams

Exploring the Oversight of Risk Management in UK Higher Education Institutions: The Case of Audit Committees

We explore how audit committees (ACs) oversee risk management in UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), using semi-structured interviews, attendance at AC meetings and documentary analysis. We find that the AC’s oversight seems constrained by a fixation on the process of risk management, an over-reliance on risk registers, and varying levels of emphasis on operational risks. Theoretically, the AC’s oversight reflects different shades of symbolic and substantive activities designed to maintain the HEI’s legitimacy and that of its governing board, hence providing a symbolic representation. We raise concerns as to the AC’s ability to monitor effectively the HEIs’ risk management practices

Distributed leadership in higher education: rhetoric and reality

Accepted for publication in Educational Management, Administration and Leadership, 2008/9. Final version available online on Sage Journals Online at http://ema.sagepub.com/In this paper we present findings from research in 12 UK universities that sought to capture a range of perspectives on ‘distributed leadership’ and reveal common and competing experiences within and between institutions. From analysis of findings we identified two principle approaches to the distribution of leadership: ‘devolved’, associated with top-down influence, and ‘emergent’, associated with bottom-up and horizontal influence. We argue that whilst the academic literature largely promotes the latter, the former is equally (if not more) significant in terms of how leadership is actually enacted and perceived within universities. We conclude, therefore, that as a description of leadership practice, the concept of ‘distributed leadership’ offers little more clarity than ‘leadership’ alone. As an analytic framework it is a more promising concept drawing attention to the broader contextual, temporal and social dimensions of leadership. Fundamentally, though, we argue that distributed leadership is most influential through its rhetorical value whereby it can be used to shape perceptions of identity, participation and influence but can equally shroud the underlying dynamics of power within universities

Governance, leadership and university values: do universities critique social norms and values, or copy them

The New Zealand Education Act of 1989 lists characteristics of universities, including ‘a role as critic and conscience of society’. My contention here is that universities in the UK, at corporate and senior manager level, have lost the moral high ground necessary to fulfil such a role. The Code of Practice of the Committee of University Chairs (of governors) sets the Nolan Principles of conduct in public life as a benchmark for recognised standards of good practice, but states that members must act in line with the accepted standards of behaviour in public life. I demonstrate that what is accepted in action – operational values and standards – falls well below espoused values and principles. With mass participation, universities have become part of mainstream society, not separate, monastic communities in the reflective Newman tradition. They, therefore, receive attention from a press acting as their ‘critic and conscience’. I examine some of the discourse used in this context, straddling the campus boundary in scope and style. The values essential to academic autonomy operate throughout a university, so enacted values will be examined within the context of organisation culture to draw out lessons from contemporary events to show how they mirror campus norms, as well as to emphasise to leaders the ethics and behavioural standards essential within a higher education context in defending the exceptionality of universities