Abstract
Diverse and inclusive workplace participation is increasingly recognised as critical to a field’s success. Females have traditionally been underrepresented in leadership and science fields which, in western societies including New Zealand-Aotearoa, have been dominated by white males. Socially constructed systems of privilege, often unconsciously and subtly perpetuated by both males and females, create barriers to female advancement. The opportunity cost of not fostering and deploying half the world’s talent pool is widely recognised to have a major impact on innovation and economic advancement. The complex system in which females pursue scientific careers and leadership opportunities is analogous to an ecosystem in which individual processes operate synergistically, giving rise to new, emergent, processes and properties.
This thesis is an examination of barriers to female progression within a New Zealand (NZ)-Aotearoa government institution, the Department of Conservation (DOC), and a new theoretical framework was developed for this purpose. To provide context for females’ experiences in DOC, the thesis examined the experiences of females in science and leadership in western societies and NZ-Aotearoa. First, a wide body of published analyses on the factors conditioning females’ decisions in science and leadership were synthesised into a generalisable PEOPLES framework, to provide form to the intertwined themes. The PEOPLES framework represents seven drivers influencing females’ options and choices in science and leadership - Parenthood, Education, Opportunity, Pay, Leadership, Environment, Status.
Second, the new PEOPLES framework was applied to the question of females’ progression within DOC. The use of the new framework, along with an assessment of twenty years of DOC’s corporate literature synthesised into a Timeline (Appendix 1), allowed institutional factors that might limit progression to be identified. The research question examines whether there are discernible barrier patterns to internal career progression and aspirations experienced by DOC’s non-management workforce and how any identified barriers affect females relative to males? The null hypothesis under examination is thus that there is no statistically distinguishable difference in females’ access to professional leadership development or talent opportunities than males’ within NZ-Aotearoa’s DOC workforce.
Examining gender participation patterns in isolation from environmental context would lead to an incomplete understanding of systemic influences. Ecological concepts are useful for describing systemic influences. DOC represents a complex adaptive system subject to nonlinear system dynamics, with layers of influencing and interacting physical and social factors, comprising people who can learn and adapt. For the purpose of this thesis, interdisciplinary social-ecological theory provided the framework to fuse social phenomena with ecological concepts. Using social ecology as the theoretical base, a Gender Participation Approach was constructed for this thesis. A Gender Participation Approach describes ecological principles to examine the drivers underpinning gender dynamics within DOC’s complex adaptive system. The ecological lens approach generated a set of questions about individual experiences, that were used in a structured census survey. Ethics approvals were obtained from the University of Otago’s human ethics committee (reference number D19/319) and DOC’s Deputy Director General-People & Engagement (6/11/19). A 46% response rate was derived from a sample population of n=1666. The gender ratio was close to that of the organisation as a whole and diverse roles and views were captured.
Response patterns in the DOC survey data align broadly with those in the literature, however, some differences are also apparent. Female respondents are significantly more likely than male respondents to identify one or more barriers to leadership and are twice as likely as males to identify caregiving as a limitation to leadership aspirations. Role congruity and imposter syndrome barriers are apparent. Among respondents with leadership ambition, female respondents are significantly more likely than male respondents to identify confidence and skills as limitations. Fewer than half of the respondents think that there is gender bias in hiring at DOC. Male respondents are significantly more likely than female respondents to think bias of some form exists and the sentiment that younger, female candidates are favoured is particularly strong among males 55 and older. Respondents with 10+ years’ service are twice as likely to perceive a bias toward new, young, female recruits as to perceive a bias toward recruits with opposite attributes. This response is highly gendered. Female respondents are significantly more likely than male respondents to perceive bias toward internal, male and older candidates while male respondents are significantly more likely to perceive bias toward female candidates. However, the survey also found that female respondents are significantly more likely to express interest in becoming a DOC leader or otherwise advance their DOC career than male respondents, despite the other barriers identified in this research. A majority of respondents do not believe hostile behaviour is tolerated within DOC and views regarding staff development systems were balanced across different demographic groups within the survey.
The Gender Participation Approach was used to form key recommendations to reduce gender participation barriers within DOC. Key recommendations include actions to recognise essentialist ideology where it manifests. Creating transparent career progression pathways for internal staff and consistently applying institutional mechanisms to offer opportunities would help facilitate staff aspirations. Over half of respondents expressed interest to having access to a mentor to help shape their career, although female respondents were approximately 1.5 times more likely than male respondents to express interest in having a mentor. The belief by some respondent cohorts that DOC leaders prefer young, external, female recruits, informs respective age, length-of-service and gender barriers. Valuing staff and acknowledging strong performance would help to address the statistically significant findings which show various staff cohorts believe bias is working against them.