6.4 Limitations of the research

The research is subject to a few limitations. One of the limitations pertains to the time horizon of the study. The research was conducted cross-sectionally, meaning that the research in Chapters 2, 3 and 5 only include one datapoint in time.

Another limitation of the research is that the case study research to identify organizational interventions was conducted at – only – four Dutch companies. Due to this, the 23 interventions that were identified may not encompass all possible interventions that have been implemented in Dutch companies. Furthermore, the results of the research may have been different if other companies had been selected for the research.

Another limitation relates to the scope of the research. The study was conducted (mainly) in the Netherlands. The contextual factors for the Netherlands, such as its part-time work culture, were considered, but could have been factored into the research more. For instance, by investigating how the Dutch contextual factors, such as part-time culture, form a problem for gender equality in the Netherlands, and how this differs from other countries where a part-time culture is not present or prevalent.

The analysis of the barriers and required interventions (Section 6.3) shows that the intervention of governmental gender quota does not help to overcome one of the identified barriers. However, as discussed, other types of governmental interventions could be implemented that may be more suited to overcoming the identified barriers (Section 6.3.4), such as a campaign to get more women in STEM. Besides quota, the Dutch government has also implemented other policies that were not included in the research but could be investigated in the future to ascertain whether these programs can be linked to the barriers and whether these are useful for overcoming them. Examples of these programs and policies are the ‘Women to the top’ program1 and policies concerning the emancipation of women.