INTERVIEW
As business educators, we should keep in mind the unique elements that often constitute small firms that set them apart from global giants
persist, and women continue to be under-represented in leadership positions in organisations. Along with my co-authors, I have emphasised the unintended
While progress has been made, the lack of women in senior leadership roles remains a problem. The gender pay gap is still significant across most sectors of business – and this is a bigger issue than just monthly pay. Its ripple-effects impact whole careers and even affect pensions – so inequality is felt throughout life, including retirement. Bigger strides need to be made. As a sector shaping tomorrow’s leaders, we don’t just need to talk the talk. We also need to walk the walk. You’re passionate about entrepreneurship. How do you think business education needs to further evolve to develop entrepreneurs to the same extent as its focus on learnership and management for larger corporates? LUMS has a well-deserved reputation for working with SMEs, having nurtured relationships with SME networks for almost 25 years. We also have a strong Entrepreneurs in Residence (EiR) programme, which is an important pillar of the LUMS community; leaders from businesses of all shapes and sizes volunteer time to support our School and students through mentoring and enhancing our teaching. This legacy helps our students cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset from the start of their journey with us. Since our EiR network began more than 14 years ago, it has grown to involve more than 80 entrepreneur members from across five continents. It is a diverse group of men and women who span
more girls into these subject areas from a young age. There’s also the issue of salary differentials between departments and disciplines. Some disciplines attract greater salaries in the global marketplace, but this creates disparities – especially if these departments (subjects) tend to attract more men. From my perspective, Business Schools should have more gender awareness built into the curriculum. At LUMS, we have some real pockets of excellence, such as in our Academy for Gender, Work and Leadership, where teaching has been consciously organised around the awareness of power dynamics. We are still learning how we can best ensure inclusivity; using the lens of inequality to interrogate our methods for teaching and learning will help ensure students have the same excellent experience. What do you think business education needs to do to truly impact the equality, diversity and inclusion agenda in the wider business context? As the principle investigator for Lancaster’s element of a Europe-wide piece of research looking at gender representation in Business Schools, it is abundantly clear that there is a long way to go. If we don’t look at our own processes, understand them, and the culture Business Schools develop that contribute to gender inequality within our own institutions, how can we possibly translate this into a different future for our students entering the business world?
consequences of ‘gender neutral’ macro- and micro-level policies and how they are shaped by gendered social assumptions and norms. This helps to explain why the gender pay gap persists, why there are fewer women in the leadership pipeline, and the continued balancing act of managing one’s personal and professional lives – which, unfortunately, tends to be a key issue for women. So, even though policy can be very well-intentioned, until we address these gendered assumptions and question our own perceptions, practice, and behaviours, disadvantage will remain. Projects you’ve worked on include examining gender inequality in academia. What are the challenges here in terms of the business education sphere? While there is inequality across the higher education sector more generally, it manifests quite differently in business education. Management Schools are quite complex beasts with different operating models, sub-cultures, and a host of disciplines which carry their own challenges in terms of attracting diverse applicants to roles. For example, for some Management School departments which are more STEM-subject based, there’s a clear pipeline problem that needs to be unpicked on a grander scale to encourage
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Ambition | BE IN BRILLIANT COMPANY
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