Improving gender balance in the leadership of major projects through 'whole systems' change

尽管几十年来一直在努力提高妇女在管理和领导中的代表性（和经验），使她们能够在改变实践中发挥自己的技能作用，但组织中仍然存在持续、持久的结构性性别不平等。国际社会现在承认，进展已经停滞，世界经济论坛和国际劳工组织等各种团体将其视为经济和社会未来的关键风险。为什么项目管理的增长与两性平等方面进展停滞之间的关系值得仔细审查？妇女在重大项目领导团队中的代表性更低。尽管对项目管理的新的调查有所增加，批评的观点也有所增加，但还没有作出协调一致的努力，将这种认识论的观点应用于项目领导中的妇女和性别问题。人们曾多次试图解释为什么在重大项目的管理和领导中没有妇女，所谓的教育、管道、文化、工作生活、准备、经验和妇女只是使用了不同的解释。这个职业的历史和发展让我们对为什么项目管理中女性如此之少有一些了解。通常情况下，项目经理来自STEM（科学、技术、工程、数学）专业，因为过去的项目主要位于建筑、基础设施、技术、国防、工程领域;人们期望从该领域晋升人员（因此主要是男性）。这些对高层领导中缺乏女性的“解释”有多大帮助--或者说有多准确？迫切需要通过“全系统”变革，改善重大项目领导层的性别均衡。本研究的目的是希望能产生重大而广泛的影响，帮助企业实践的转变，并探索雇主所需的技能。分析和评价旨在解释重大项目领导中性别不平衡现象的现有理论框架2。评估现行组织策略及措施在改善性别平衡方面的成效3.通过与主要项目企业合作伙伴建立纵向、参与性行动研究联盟，巩固“学习社区”。跟踪和监控组织战略的进展，提供研究见解，以便随着时间的推移调整战略5。为了识别和分享最有效的战略和实践，以改善组织，项目企业和“整个系统”的性别平衡。这个博士生将特别作出新的贡献的理论和战略，以改善项目领导的性别平衡。将与妇女和领导能力方面的国际研究人员团体进行合作，并继续发展项目管理中性别问题的研究和实践团体。对于工业家来说，将为主要项目组织建立一个实践社区，使他们能够在这个目前棘手的问题上取得深思熟虑和系统的进展。将酌情就改善重大基础设施规划和项目管理方面的性别均衡向政府提出政策制定建议。还将支持现有的和新的网络重新思考有效的变革战略。

In spite of decades of effort to improve the representation (and experiences) of women in management and leadership, and so allow them to play their skilled part in transforming practices, there is continuing, persistent, structural gender inequality in organisations. Progress, it is now internationally recognised, has stalled, identified as a critical risk to economic and social futures by groups as diverse as the World Economic Forum and the International Labour Organisation. Why does the relationship between the growth of project management and stalled progress on gender equality deserve scrutiny? Women are even more under-represented in the leadership teams of major projects. In spite of the growth of new inquiries into project management, and the growth of critical perspectives, there has not been a concerted effort to apply this epistemological perspective to the question of women and gender in project leadership. There have been many attempts at explaining the absence of women in the management and leadership of major projects, so called educational, pipeline, cultural, work-life, readiness, experience and women are just different explanations have been used. The history and development of the profession gives us some insight into why there are so few women in project management. Typically, project managers are drawn from the STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths) professions, on the basis that projects in the past were largely located in construction, infrastructure, technology, defence, engineering; the expectation is that people (therefore largely men) are promoted from within that field. How helpful - or indeed how accurate - are these 'explanations' for the absence of women in senior leadership? There is a critical need to improve gender balance in the leadership of major projects through 'whole systems' change. The ambition is to have significant and widespread influences and to help in the transformation of business practices and to explore the skills needed by employers.The objectives for this research are: 1. To analyse and evaluate the current theoretical frameworks which are intended to explain the gender imbalance in major projects leadership2. To evaluate the effectiveness of current organisational strategies and practices employed to improve gender balance 3. To consolidate a 'learning community' through a longitudinal, participative action research consortium with major project enterprise partners.4. To track and monitor progress of organisational strategies, contributing research insights in order to adapt strategies over time5. To identify & share the most effective strategies and practices for improving gender balance in organisations, projects enterprises and the 'whole system'.This PhD studentship will specifically make a fresh contribution to theories and strategies to improve gender balance in projects leadership. There will be collaboration with international groups of researchers in women and leadership and the continuing growth of a community of research-and-practice on gender in project management. For industrialists, a community of practice for major project organisations will be created to allow them to make deliberative and systematic progress on this currently intractable issue. Recommendations will be made to government for policy development, where appropriate on improving gender balance in major infrastructure planning and project management. There will also be support for existing and new networks to think afresh about strategies for change that work.