Women, Organizational Crisis, and Access to Leadership in International Organizations

Abstract

Women, Organizational Crisis and Access to Leadership in International Organizations Women who successfully break the glass ceiling have historically done so in the context of crises. Crises offer unique windows of opportunity for women because they either legitimize women as suitable candidates or create 'glass cliffs' that make positions unattractive to men. This article examines four elections in the WHO, IMF and UNESCO, applying findings from the national to the international. First access to executive office international organizations-the breaking of the glass ceiling-is facilitated by organizational crisis; however, once broken, the importance of crises diminishes. Organizations become regendered or women become seen as acceptable candidates.

Beating the Odds: Women’s Leadership in International Organizations

“…For example, when and how woman leaders are appointed determines their impact. Existing work highlights that quotas help increase the number of women leaders (Beaman et al 2009;Haack 2017) and that the appointment of women typically occurs during times of crisis (e.g., Haack 2014;Ryan, Haslam, and Postmes 2007); two examples are the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). 4 While there is extensive literature on women's representation in politics and the corporate world (e.g., Ferreira and Gyourko 2014;Fitzsimmons, Paulsen, and Callan 2014;Flabbi et al 2019), our article expands the analysis of female leadership roles to include heads of international organizations (IOs).…”

“…For example, when and how woman leaders are appointed determines their impact. Existing work highlights that quotas help increase the number of women leaders (Beaman et al 2009; Haack 2017) and that the appointment of women typically occurs during times of crisis (e.g., Haack 2014; Ryan, Haslam, and Postmes 2007); two examples are the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) 4…”

Madame President, Madame Ambassador? Women Presidents and Gender Parity in Latin America’s Diplomatic Services

“…1We focus exclusively on women in diplomacy. See Bashevkin (2014) and Barnes and O’Brien (2018) on women foreign policy leaders; Aggestam and Svensson (2018) on women in conflict mediation; and D’Amico (1999), Barraza Vargas (2019), and Haack (2016) on women’s presence in international organizations.…”