Developing female middle managers in Australian universities

Universities should be developing female middle-managers for reasons of gender balance (Aitkin 2001), the skills shortage, pending mass retirements (Chesterman 2004) and sustainable, postbureaucratic organizations (Kira and Forslin 2008). Investigating the learning and development of women managers is timely. Research assumes that women in academe have the qualifications, experience and skills for management. Is this the case? The paper provides the first national demographic and development profile of women middle-managers in academic and the researchneglected administrative streams in Australian universities, with a sample of 342 women (46% response rate). Age is a particularly notable demographic with the majority of academics within five to ten years of retirement. Nearly sixty percent of academics experienced few current development opportunities and their discipline-based qualifications did not prepare them for management. However, a greater number of administrative managers received relevant preparatory training. Once in their current management roles women experienced markedly fewer development opportunities. If higher education institutions are learning organizations, continuous learning should be evident (Watkins 2005). Our research shows this is far from the case.