1.3.2 Academic relevance

This PhD research contributes to the existing knowledge in this field by developing further insights for the debate on how to achieve gender equality at the corporate top.

Several barriers exist to women’s access to the corporate top.1 Extant literature often presents these barriers in isolation and fails to address the interrelatedness thereof.2 This PhD research will fill this gap in the existing literature by not only examining which barriers hinder women in their access to the corporate top from the perspective of various disciplines, but also by analyzing whether and if so how, these barriers are interrelated. The identification of the barriers and the interrelatedness thereof is of particular importance for the analysis of which governmental and organizational interventions are suitable for overcoming the barriers encountered by women.

The results of this PhD research also feed into the academic debates in the legal and social science disciplines concerning what interventions could be designed by governments and companies to achieve gender equality. Interventions can be designed by governments as well as by companies. Governments can impose legislation requiring companies to make gender equality happen, and companies can design a variety of interventions aimed at changing the composition of their corporate top in order to achieve gender equality.3 The governmental intervention discussed in this dissertation is that of gender quota. The research on gender quota is operationalized by comparing the Belgian gender quota legislation with the Dutch proposed gender quota legislation. A comparison between the newly proposed Dutch quota legislation and the existing Belgian quota legislation has not yet been undertaken in academic literature. Hence, this research contributes to an existing gap in the literature.

In the Netherlands, research concerning organizational interventions generally focuses on universities rather than companies.4^,5 It is, however, of relevance that research on organizational interventions is also directed at companies in order to generate new knowledge regarding the question which gender equality interventions are implemented by companies and whether they are successful in achieving gender equality. Qualitative empirical research especially is needed to gain in-depth knowledge about how organizational interventions work and whether they are perceived to be effective.6 This research contributes to the existing gap in literature by examining and analyzing organizational interventions within companies in an in-depth manner.

Finally, literature on (the success of) governmental and organizational interventions directed at overcoming barriers to gender equality is scarce7 in the Netherlands. As has been stressed by scholars: ‘rather than isolating views, integrative approaches are needed to provide a holistic picture of career equality that takes into account cross-disciplinary organizational- and individual-level factors for research and interventions’.8 This PhD research intends to contribute to the academic debate on this subject by providing a holistic picture of the barriers to women’s advancement and by providing insight into the interventions that are needed to overcome these barriers.