International Women’s Day—Female Leadership in Focus at WHU

Women researchers at WHU have made substantial contributions to their fields of study, both through their noteworthy empirical work and their engagement with new and innovative perspectives. Yet women, on the whole, are underrepresented in the scientific community—a fact reaffirmed by a recent ranking published by WirtschaftsWoche. In fact, women constituted only five percent of the researchers appearing in the magazine’s analysis of business administration education in German-speaking Europe. Notably, two of WHU’s faculty members were among the ranking’s top three female researchers, with Professor Nadine Kammerlander at #1 and Professor Fabiola H. Gerpott at #3. 

For International Women’s Day, celebrated each year on March 8, WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management champions women in science by shining a light on the unique achievements of some of its own female faculty. And in honor of this day, the school’s bachelor and master’s programs have announced they will waive application fees for female candidates until the end of the month. WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management has made it its mission to support the next generation of female researchers at all stages of their academic journey—as they progress from being students, to becoming doctoral candidates, to beginning a potential professorship—and help them become changemakers who contribute to the bettering of society. 

Today, the school’s numerous female researchers serve as role models, each of them embodying academic excellence. Assistant Professors Julia de Groote and Pisitta Vongswasdi, for example, have focused their research on understanding what founding one’s own company means for female entrepreneurs, i.e., those who do not mirror the archetype of the White male entrepreneur. The duo collaborated with WHU alumna and entrepreneur Janine Heinrich (MSc 2022) as a basis for their study, the results of which reveal three core obstacles that women on the start-up scene commonly encounter: They must constantly prove themselves. They are frequently excluded from important networks. And they often have to confront investors who engage in “diversity washing,” i.e., those who verbally promote diversity but fail to actively support minority groups. “These obstacles frequently lead to female entrepreneurs cancelling their plans out of frustration before the businesses ever have a chance to get up and running,” noted Assistant Professor de Groote.

Assistant Professor Vongswasdi has noted that recent developments in certain countries are further complicating matters: “DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] initiatives are experiencing significant backlash, particularly in the United States at the moment.” And the researchers, supported by the empirical results of their study, therefore recommend that the DEI initiatives currently employed within the entrepreneurial ecosystem be re-examined, as not all of them are effective. Nevertheless, from their point of view, the existence of such initiatives is imperative, as they afford people from all walks of life fairer access to venture capital and support.

Dr. Lioba Gierke and Dr. Sofia Schlamp, active at the school’s Chair of Leadership, study diversity in leadership, specifically from a gender perspective. “It’s not about setting one gender against another, but rather on how we as a society can eliminate obstacles for women,” says Dr. Schlamp, noting that today’s challenges can be tackled by confronting our own biases. “It is not about changing women. It’s about implementing changes at an organizational level to overcome barriers that are deeply rooted in our society. Often times, such changes are beneficial to all employees, regardless of their gender,” says Dr. Gierke. And she recommends that companies adopt an intersectional perspective that considers a wide range of their managers’ attributes (e.g., gender, age, professional background) to better understand the challenges each individual manager faces. 

“When we take a closer look at the scientific landscape, we can see that the workplace behaviors that male and female managers exhibit are not all that different from one another,” says Dr. Schlamp, backed by relevant studies on managers’ verbal behaviors. “What often differ are the ways in which others perceive those behaviors,” Dr. Gierke adds, noting those perceptions are often colored by stereotypes. 

The studies conducted by female researchers at WHU prove that women have a significant influence on how management and entrepreneurship will be regarded in the future—and can hopefully serve as an incentive for young women to get excited about a career in economics.