Breaking the Glass Ceiling - Understanding the Gender Gap in Art Museum Management
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2025-11-20
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en
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This narrative inquiry explores the lived experiences of women leaders in Dutch art museums, examining how they perceive, navigate, and transform the gendered structures within their institutions. Through in-depth interviews with eleven female directors, the research investigates the complex interplay between individual agency and institutional norms. Framed by Role Congruity Theory, the concept of Gendered Organizations, and Feminist Institutionalism, the analysis reveals that women directors encounter a landscape shaped by informal recruitment networks, gendered double standards in evaluating authority, and organizational cultures that often privilege masculine-coded norms of leadership and availability.
The findings are structured around three core themes. First, the study identifies the subtle structural and cultural constraints that shape women's access to and experience of leadership. Second, it details the strategies women employ to navigate these barriers, including strategic self-presentation, building alliances, and balancing authenticity with institutional expectations. Third, it highlights how these leaders act as agents of institutional redesign, implementing policies and practices—from flexible work arrangements and equitable parental leave to diverse acquisitions and inclusive governance—that foster more equitable pathways.
The study concludes that the experiences of these leaders demonstrate a critical shift in the sector. Achieving meaningful change requires moving beyond individual adaptation to systemic reform of both formal procedures and informal norms. This research contributes to the discourse on gender and leadership by centering the voices of women directors, showing that transformative leadership involves reshaping museum institutions to value and integrate feminist principles of care, collaboration, and inclusivity
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen