[Commlist] Call for Papers: Women and Leadership in the Creative Industries

Call for Papers: Women and Leadership in the Creative Industries
An interdisciplinary symposium at Bournemouth University, UK. 12th-13th 
September 2024

Leadership and Management in the Creative Industries has been a matter 
of some concern in recent years. In the UK, a succession of challenges 
from Covid to economic slow-down and from high-profile instances of 
bullying to a quiet leeching away of talent (especially diverse and 
experienced talent) from these industries has raised awareness of the 
need for leadership that is robust, creative and compassionate. 
Diversity remains a concern across the creative and cultural sectors, 
but most particularly in the critical area of leadership – where, 
notwithstanding the predominantly female profile of new entrants in many 
industry roles, women remain woefully under-represented in leadership 
positions. In July 2023, Variety reported a raft of women, and 
particularly women of colour, exiting leadership positions in the UK 
(Ravindran 2023), as well as in Hollywood (Davis 2023), while in 
September The Media Leader critiqued the gender ageism that, it claimed, 
is ‘killing women’s careers’ and thus depriving the UK industries of 
both leadership and innovation. (Kemp, 2023). The UK and US media are 
not unique in this respect, with similar concerns being raised in recent 
years across creative industries, and in countries as diverse as New 
Zealand (Molloy and Larner, 2013), Catalonia (Barrios & Villarroya, 
2022) and Malaysia (Kamalul Ariffin & Ibrahim, 2022). This symposium 
will address women’s leadership in the creative industries, taking into 
account the very broad definition of the term in an industrial ecosystem 
characterised by its dependence on freelance workers and 
micro-businesses alongside more traditional institutions. Its scope will 
encompass routes into leadership and associated barriers as well as 
concepts of creative entrepreneurial, as well as institutional 
leadership. The symposium will adopt an inclusive perspective on 
‘leadership’ recognising that this is not limited to hierarchical role 
(Dodd, 2012) but is subject to many definitions. The organisers are also 
interested in the experiences of women who do not yet identify as 
‘leaders’ but who form part of an emerging pipeline, negotiating 
barriers along the way.
Research into women in leadership positions across the wider economy has 
highlighted several factors that appear to disrupt the careers and 
prospects of female leaders, contributing to vertical as well as 
hierarchical segregation. Acker’s (1990, 1998) work has been widely used 
to explore how organisations in themselves are gendered with systems and 
practices that favour an ideal worker as ‘unencumbered with caring 
responsibilities and ready to devote his life to the job’ (Acker, 2006, 
p. 69). The gendered nature of organisations is built upon processes 
which allocate resources along various lines of inequality. Such ideal 
worker prototypes can be exacerbated within creative industries which is 
characterised by casualised labour, creating increased competition for 
scarce resources (Scharff, 2016), and unsocial working hours (Banks & 
Milestone, 2011). Furthermore, progression within the creative 
industries relies on relevant social capital and networking practices 
which disadvantage women (Gill, 2002; Eikhof & Warhurst, 2013). Such 
contextual factors form part of the systemic barriers to advancing 
women’s careers within the creative industries: an area which requires 
further analysis. Turning from the organisational context to the 
experiences of women traversing these barriers, while the ‘glass 
ceiling’ has most decidedly cracked since Marilyn Loden coined the 
phrase over 40 years ago, female leaders continue to be faced by 
additional challenges compared with their male peers. Eagly and Carli’s 
notion of the ‘leadership labyrinth (2007) and the perils of the ‘glass 
cliff’ as described by Ryan et al (2007) outline some of the particular 
obstacles encountered by women aspiring to or attaining leadership 
positions. These include receiving more limited opportunities, compared 
to their male counterparts, as well as negotiating career breaks and 
caring responsibilities. Indeed, the impact of the motherhood penalty, 
in particular, on women’s careers has recently been highlighted by the 
Nobel prize-winning work of the economist Claudia Goldin. (Elsesser 
2023). Notwithstanding the socially progressive values so often 
espoused, or at least projected, by the creative industries, employment 
conditions and hiring decisions are frequently regressive – chiefly as a 
result of a lack of regulation, a notable informality in business 
relationships, and a tendency to uncritically lionise the ‘creative 
genius’ which is often seen as driving both reputation and profit in 
creative organisations. Leadership, moreover, often manifests in 
different, more flexible ways than more formally hierarchical working 
environments, with creative leadership and organisational leadership not 
necessarily aligned.  Given these conditions, the creative industries 
present some very particular opportunities and challenges for female 
leaders, besides a nuanced perspective on those encountered more 
generally across the wider economy. This symposium is designed to bring 
together from a range of disciplines including, but not limited to, 
media industries and production studies, business and management 
studies, organisational psychology and sociology. It is our hope that by 
sharing diverse perspectives on women and leadership in the creative 
industries, participants will make new discoveries, form new, 
interdisciplinary alliances and open up this under-explored topic to a 
wider audience – including stakeholders in the industries themselves. 
With these aims in mind, the organisers propose a special issue in a 
relevant journal showcasing the work of contributors. Topics may 
include, but are not limited to:
-	Women in the leadership ‘pipeline’ – development, retention and 
‘resilience’.
-	The myth of meritocracy and how women’s progress is impacted by 
divergent standards and opportunities.
-	Sexism, sexual harassment and psychic safety. -	Specialisation and 
stereotyping: are women taking the ‘right’ roles? -	The operation of the 
motherhood penalty and career breaks on the leadership pipeline.
-	Work/life balance and the retention of mid-career women.
-	The ‘glass ceiling’ as limiting internal narrative and external obstacle.
-	Intersectionality, with particular emphasis on the experiences of
o	women of colour, o	women with disabilities,
o	older women,
o	LGBTQ and trans women,
o	Working-class women.
-	The impact of social capital and networks on women’s careers.
-	The impact of the concept of the ‘ideal worker’ within creative 
industries.
-	Management and leadership training: availability, efficacy, impact.
-	The operation of the ‘glass cliff’ and how women might avoid it.
-	Women and ‘creative leadership’.
This symposium is organised by: -  Christa van Raalte, Associate 
Professor of Film and Television, Bournemouth University;  Melanie Gray, 
Dean of the School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Roehampton 
University; - Parisa Gilani, Principal Academic in Leadership, 
Bournemouth University;  Melissa Carr, Lecturer in International Human 
Resource Management, Henley Business School, University of Reading.
It will be an in-person event at Bournemouth University, UK on Thursday 
12th and Friday 13th September 2024, however there will be an 
opportunity to present remotely at an online pre-symposium panel on 
September 10th. Please indicate in your submission if you would prefer 
to present online
Please submit a 400-500 words abstract, accompanied by a biography of up 
to 150 words here by midnight GMT on January 29, 2024. We aim to 
communicate decisions by March 1st, 2024. Further details of the 
conference will be confirmed shortly but in the meantime we can confirm 
that delegate fees will be £75 inclusive of catering (£50 for RGRs and 
independent scholars; £25 for online delegates). For further information 
contact Christa van Raalte at (cvanraalte /at/ bournemouth.ac.uk)

Bibliography Acker, Joan. "Inequality regimes: Gender, class, and race 
in organizations." Gender & society 20, no. 4 (2006): 441-464.
Banks, Mark, and Katie Milestone. "Individualization, gender and 
cultural work." Gender, Work & Organization 18, no. 1 (2011): 73-89.
Barrios, Maite, and Anna Villarroya. "What is needed to promote gender 
equality in the cultural sector? Responses from cultural professionals 
in Catalonia." European journal of cultural studies 25.4 (2022): 973-992.
Davis, Clayton. “Black Women Executives Are Exiting Studio Leadership 
Posts and Hollywood’s Doing Nothing About It.” Variety, July 5, 2023
Dodd, Fiona. "Women leaders in the creative industries: a baseline 
study." International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship 4, no. 2 
(2012): 153-178.
Eagly, Alice Hendrickson, and Linda Lorene Carli. Through the labyrinth: 
The truth about how women become leaders. Harvard Business Press, 2007.
Eikhof, Doris Ruth, and Chris Warhurst. "The promised land? Why social 
inequalities are systemic in the creative industries." Employee 
relations 35, no. 5 (2013): 495-508.
Elsesser, Kim. “Claudia Goldin Wins Nobel Prize In Economics For 
Studying Women At Work.” Forbes, 9 October 2023.
Gill, Rosalind. "Cool, creative and egalitarian? Exploring gender in 
project-based new media work in Euro." Information, communication & 
society 5, no. 1 (2002): 70-89.
Kamalul Ariffin, Kartini, and Faridah Ibrahim. "Contributing factors 
towards women’s leadership in Malaysia creative industry: preliminary 
findings." In Forum Komunikasi, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 70-86. Faculty of 
Communication and Media Studies (FCMS), 2022.
Kemp, Nicola. “Addressing media’s missing middle.” The Media leader, 
September 12, 2023.
Loden, Marilyn. "Recognizing women's potential: No longer business as 
usual." Management review 76, no. 12 (1987): 44.
Molloy, Maureen, and Wendy Larner. Fashioning globalisation: New Zealand 
design, working women and the cultural economy. Chichester: John Wiley & 
Sons, 2013.
Ravindran, Manori. “BBC Creative Diversity Head Joanna Abeyie to Exit.” 
Variety, July 3, 2023
Ryan, Michelle K., S. Alexander Haslam, Mette D. Hersby, Clara Kulich, 
and Cate Atkins. "Opting out or pushed off the edge? The glass cliff and 
the precariousness of women's leadership positions." Social and 
Personality Psychology Compass 1, no. 1 (2007): 266-279.
Scharff, Christina. "The psychic life of neoliberalism: Mapping the 
contours of entrepreneurial subjectivity." Theory, culture & society 33, 
no. 6 (2016): 107-122.

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