Marieke C.L. van den Brink

• BA MSc PhD
• Professor (Full) at Radboud University

Purpose One of the urgent questions in the field of diversity is the knowledge about effective diversity practices. This paper aims to advance our knowledge on organizational change toward diversity by combining concepts from diversity studies and organizational learning. Design/methodology/approach By employing a social practice approach to organ...

As most scholarly work on the conceptualization of organizational inclusion seems to be implicitly based on contexts of high-wage labor, this article investigates whether the common themes of organizational inclusion as identified by Shore et al. (2018) also align with the low-wage labor context. Our respective analysis identifies several mismatche...

Organizational research has come a long way in understanding and dealing with inequalities in the workplace. Despite this, there has not been enough progress toward equality. The reason for the stymied progress, we argue, is in large part due to the conceptual gaps in our understanding of equality. This has not been clear enough to prevent previous...

This article explores novel forms of proactive support for fathers in organizations and analyzes how newly instituted organizational promoters of father‐friendliness in Germany (organizational consultants, fathers' representatives, and fathers' networks) legitimize and strengthen organizational acceptance of fathers' use of family‐friendly workplac...

There is widespread recognition among scholars, international aid providers and evaluators of the need to take into account the unintended outcomes of international development efforts. Practitioners have also signed on to charters that promise they will do their utmost best to ‘do no harm’. This article focusses on the often overlooked unintended...

Dossier In this feature authors discuss recent research findings that are of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij .

Workers in the low-wage service sector represent a sociodemographically heterogeneous and particularly vulnerable group in terms of job security, job quality and health implications. However, organizational inclusion research has largely neglected this group. In contrast, this article builds on a qualitative study of a Dutch aircraft cleaning compa...

Scholars have widely documented the challenges women face in being evaluated as competent leaders. The authors contribute to this field by addressing whether and when female supervisors might have a favorable position by examining evaluations of social competencies in supervision and by examining different organizational workplace features. To test...

Gender and diversity interventions often do not have the planned effect, at least partly because of resistance. As a result, resistance is predominantly perceived as a negative to overcome. Contributing to theories on resistance to gender change, this paper increases our understanding of resistance practices and explores how these contribute to org...

Kernwoorden: diversiteit en inclusie, exclusie, hoger onderwijs, intersectionaliteit, ongelijkheidspraktijken D iversity and inclusion have a prominent place on the agenda of higher education institutions. As higher education institutions strive for equal opportunities, they increasingly develop diversity policies. In order to have effective polici...

Gender-based violence and sexual harassment (GBVH) by and towards academics and students has been under-theorised at an organisational level in higher education institutions (HEIs). The methodology involves a critical review of the literature on GBVH and organizational responses to it, locating it in the context of an analysis of organizational pow...

Using examples from an ethnographic study of aircraft cleaning, we discuss and illustrate how ‘writing differently’ can be performed throughout the research process ‐ in the literature review, data collection, data analysis and writing up. We argue that writing differently is an ongoing methodological tool in order to rethink/refeel research practi...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advance knowledge of organizational change towards diversity by bringing together concepts from organizational learning and diversity studies. Design/methodology/approach This longitudinal study was conducted over two years. It involved interviews, observation of meetings and consultation of documentation an...

dit stuk wordt in december gepubliceerd in Them@, het tijdschrift voor Hoger Onderwijs Wat doen Nederlandse universiteiten met het thema diversiteit? Op basis van beleidsdocumenten en interviews met medewerkers inventariseerden de auteurs wat ze zoal ondernemen en op welke problemen ze stuiten. Een van de geïnterviewden: 'Ze roepen allemaal tegen e...

This study investigates whether female supervisors hold less traditional attitudes towards gender in business leadership than male supervisors and non-supervisors, and whether these attitudinal differences vary between countries. It uses the sociological notions of self-interest and exposure and a multilevel approach to advance and expand the inves...

Prior research has demonstrated the role of gender in recruitment and selection processes. We contribute to this literature by moving beyond studying persisting barriers for women and exploring collective practices that can contribute to gender equality. Drawing on in‐depth case studies of recent appointments to corporate boards in the Netherlands,...

Since the 1960s, public support for gender egalitarianism has risen substantially in many western countries. Although earlier research proposed that structural and cultural developments, such as educational expansion, declining religiosity, and the rise of women’s employment may explain this upward trend, these theoretical speculations have not yet...

In this report, we present the outcomes of the first Dutch national explorative study about the different manifestations of harassment experienced by women academics. For this study, we conducted 20 in-depth interviews and collected 33 written testimonials about women academics’ own experiences with harassment. Even though participants were somet...

This paper contributes to understanding transformational change towards gender equality by examining the transformational change potential of a mentoring programme for women, a type of gender equality intervention both criticized and praised for its ability to bring about change. Drawing upon an empirical case study of a mentoring programme for wom...

This paper investigates how the recruitment and selection for project-based postdoc positions are organised in the current academic landscape characterised by increasing temporary research funding and how principal investigators construct the ‘ideal’ postdoc. Our findings are based on a qualitative comparative multiple-case study in Social and Natu...

This article examines how macro-discourses of internationalisation and excellence shape formal and applied selection criteria for early-career researcher positions at the meso-organisational and micro-individual levels, demonstrating how tensions between the various levels produce inequalities in staff evaluation. In this way, this article contribu...

The aim of this paper has been to further our knowledge on diversity management practices by applying an intersectionality lens to single category diversity networks. Diversity networks are in-company networks intending to inform and support employees with similar social identities. Their focus on single identity categories is exemplary of current...

This article examines the potentially damaging role that gender beliefs can play in hindering women's equal representation in leadership positions. Based on a secondary analysis of a large‐scale EU‐wide survey (Eurobarometer 76.1), the article shows that essentialist gender beliefs lower support for equality interventions such as quotas or targets,...

In recent years, the use of diversity networks as diversity management instruments in organizations has increased tremendously. Diversity networks support the needs of employees with different social identities, such as women, ethnic minorities, LGBTs, disabled and young people. The aim of this study is to come to a better understanding of how dive...

Understanding the complex relationships between childcare, education and work is crucial to acknowledging how young mothers express agency in their pathways to economic independence. Instead of considering them as a policy target group at risk for multiple reasons, this research reverses the perspective by focusing on young mothers’ agency in schoo...

Diversity in the workforce ‐ in terms of social identity categories such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, and class ‐ has become a prime concern for organisations in both the public and private sectors. Despite decades of equal-opportunities legislation and numerous initiatives, progress towards equality, diversity, and inclusion in organisations r...

Joan Acker can be considered the godmother of gendered organizations. In this paper, we reflect on the impact that Joan Acker's work has on our thinking and our careers as gender scholars in management and organization studies in Europe. First, we tell our personal stories of close encounters with Joan Acker. Second, we highlight what we consider t...

Previous studies have documented strong resistance towards gender interventions. By contributing to theories on gender change, this paper increases our understanding of the reasons for this resistance and looks at how this resistance can be made productive in gendered interventions. Drawing on a case study in the Dutch Police force, the authors use...

There are still too few women in senior positions in the Dutch business world. Research shows that the proportion of women on executive boards and supervisory boards is not yet approaching the target of 30 percent, although it is slowly rising. The purpose of the study was to better understand the gender practices that play a role in recent appoint...

Purpose Translating the well-established theory of the gendered organization into strategic interventions that build more gender equitable organizations has proven to be difficult. The authors introduce the emergence of the “bifocal approach” and its subsequent development and examine the potential of the “bifocal approach” as a feminist interventi...

With immigration dominating headlines and political agendas across Europe and elsewhere, and increasing numbers of refugees and asylum seekers, the Global Young Academy, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Dutch Young Academy decided to explore this agenda through an interdisciplinary lens. Over twenty young scientists – wit...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the knowledge on the slow gender change in academia by examining university leaders’ defensive patterns of responses to feminist knowledge. Identifying the most common responses will enable scholars and practitioners engaged in equality work in academia to anticipate them and implement special...

This paper gains insight into the role of gender in interpersonal networks, which is largely neglected in research on networking. We do so by exploring the concept of ‘practising gender’, the spatial-temporal accomplishment of gender practices, when people build, maintain and exit social networks. The paper is based on a study of male-dominated tec...

This chapter focuses on the practices used to appoint the most influential people in the academic world – full professors – in order to contribute to our understanding of gender in the system of academic evaluation. Professorial appointments are considered to be of crucial relevance in the reproduction of gender inequality or equality in academic o...

Gender equality strategies involve changing processes of power and therefore invoke resistance. In this chapter, we review existing research on change towards gender equality in organizations. We summarize the different strategies and zoom in on the post-equity or small wins experiments and quota regulations. We analyze these contrasting interventi...

The aim of this study is to build a theoretical framework to understand how gendered networking practices produce or counter inequalities in organizations. We introduce a practice approach combined with a feminist perspective in organization network studies. The notions of gender and networking as social practices allow better insights into what pe...

The aim of this article is to unravel the gendered practices in ambition and challenge the hegemonic masculinity within it. Our findings are based on a qualitative study using focus groups in which Dutch men and women, full-timers and part-timers, constructed different meanings of ambition. The men and women in our study used three manifest discour...

Talent and performance management are becoming a key strategic HRM issue for universities. This study adds to our knowledge by critically examining recruitment and selection practices for junior and senior academic talent in the Netherlands. We show that academic subfields differ in terms of how appointments are organised, how candidates are sought...

In this article we propose a multi-level distinction between gender inequality practices and gender equality practices to come to better understanding of the slow pace of gender change in academia. Gender inequality resembles an unbeatable seven-headed dragon that has a multitude of faces in different social contexts. Based on an empirical study on...

In this article we propose a multi‐level distinction between gender inequality practices and gender equality practices to come to better understanding of the slow pace of gender change in academia. Gender inequality resembles an unbeatable seven‐headed dragon that has a multitude of faces in different social contexts. Based on an empirical study on...

Academic excellence is allegedly a universal and gender neutral standard of merit. This article examines exactly what is constructed as academic excellence at the micro-level, how evaluators operationalize this construct in the criteria they apply in academic evaluation, and how gender inequalities are imbued in the construction and evaluation of e...

This paper contributes to current literature on the under-representation of women in academic medicine by critically examining appointment practices for medical professors in the Netherlands. By opening the black box of these highly secretive appointments, it is shown how allegedly gender-neutral practices contribute to the perpetuation of gender i...

Talent and performance management are becoming a key strategic HRM issue for universities. This study adds to our knowledge by critically examining recruitment and selection practices for junior and senior academic talent in the Netherlands. We show that academic subfields differ in terms of how appointments are organized, how candidates are sought...

Gender research has made a call for more transparency and accountability in academic recruitment and selection in order to overcome the inequality practices that have led to an underrepresentation of women among full professors. This paper provides insight into the multiple ways in which the notions of transparency and accountability are put into p...

Gender research has made a call for more transparency and accountability in academic recruitment and selection in order to overcome the inequality practices that have led to an underrepresentation of women among full professors. This paper provides insight into the multiple ways in which the notions of transparency and accountability are put into p...

Recent contributions in the field of gender and organization point to the notion of paradox to unveil the persistence of gender inequality in organizations. This article seeks to contribute to this growing body of knowledge. We used the notion of paradox to reveal the processes of doing gender at an earth science department of a Dutch university in...

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to show that upward mobility of female academics in regular selection procedures is evolving extremely slowly, especially in The Netherlands. This paper aims at a more profound understanding of professorial recruitment and selection procedures in relation to gender differences at Dutch universities. Design/...