Academic excellence is allegedly a universal and gender neutral standard of merit. This article examines exactly what is constructed as academic excellence at the micro-level, how evaluators operationalize this construct in the criteria they apply in academic evaluation, and how gender inequalities are imbued in the construction and evaluation of excellence. We challenge the view that the academic world is governed by the normative principle of meritocracy in its allocation of rewards and resources. Based on an empirical study of professorial appointments in the Netherlands, we argue that academic excellence is an evasive social construct that is inherently gendered. We show how gender is practiced in the evaluation of professorial candidates, resulting in disadvantages for women and privileges for men that accumulate to produce substantial inequalities in the construction of excellence.Keywords construction of excellence, gender practices, inequality, meritocracy, recruitment and selection, women in academia Almost a decade ago, Scully (2002) called upon critical management scholars to address errors existing within meritocratic systems in universities, as faith in the meritocracy is in the heart of how inequality is reproduced. Scully argued that we should start scrutinizing our own institutions and considering how unquestioned assumptions (e.g. 'The university is a meritocracy') support and reproduce inequalities (p. 400). This would require a critical examination of who gets ahead Organization 19(4) 507-524

The aim of this study is to build a theoretical framework to understand how gendered networking practices produce or counter inequalities in organizations. We introduce a practice approach combined with a feminist perspective in organization network studies. The notions of gender and networking as social practices allow better insights into what people say and do in networks, and the ways that networking produces or counters gender inequalities. We draw on empirical material about professorial appointments in Dutch academia and analyse the accounts of gatekeepers illuminating their networking practices. The accounts show which networking practices gatekeepers routinely use in recruitment and how these networking practices are intertwined with gender practices. We use the notion of mobilizing masculinities to understand the self-evident identification of men gatekeepers with men in their networks, and to understand how both men and women gatekeepers prefer the male candidates that resemble the proven masculine success model. Furthermore, this study provides the first empirical insights in mobilizing femininities in which women search for and support women candidates. We show how the gender practice of mobilizing femininities is a more precarious and marked practice than mobilizing masculinities. Mobilizing femininities in networking is intended to counter gender inequalities, but is only partially successful. Through constructions of 'who you can trust' or 'who is a risk', gatekeepers exercise the power of inclusion and exclusion and contribute to the persistence of structural gender inequalities.

In this article we propose a multi-level distinction between gender inequality practices and gender equality practices to come to better understanding of the slow pace of gender change in academia. Gender inequality resembles an unbeatable seven-headed dragon that has a multitude of faces in different social contexts. Based on an empirical study on the recruitment and selection of full professors in three academic fields in The Netherlands we discuss practices that should bring about gender equality and show how these interact with gender inequality practices. We argue that the multitude of gender inequality practices are ineffectively countered by gender equality practices because the latter lack teeth, especially in traditional masculine academic environments.

Gender research has made a call for more transparency and accountability in academic recruitment and selection in order to overcome the inequality practices that have led to an underrepresentation of women among full professors. This paper provides insight into the multiple ways in which the notions of transparency and accountability are put into practice in academic recruitment and selection, and how this has enhanced — or hindered — gender equality. The methods employed consist of a qualitative content analysis of seven recruitment and selection protocols, interviews with 64 committee members, and an analysis of 971 appointment reports of full professors in the Netherlands. Our analysis contributes to the study of organizations in three respects. First, it shows that recruitment and selection processes are characterized by bounded transparency and limited accountability at best. Second, it explains that the protocols that should ensure transparency and accountability remain paper tigresses, because of the micropolitics and gender practices that are part and parcel of recruitment and selection. Third, it contributes to gender equality theory in organization theory by showing how a myriad of gender practices simultaneously increases and counteracts gender equality measures in academia.

Talent and performance management are becoming a key strategic HRM issue for universities. This study adds to our knowledge by critically examining recruitment and selection practices for junior and senior academic talent in the Netherlands. We show that academic subfields differ in terms of how appointments are organised, how candidates are sought and identified and how performance indicators play a role in recruitment. We identify three key dilemmas in talent and performance management for universities: (a) transparency versus autonomy, (b) power of HR versus power of academics, (c) equality versus homogeneity. This article challenges the view of an academic world where the allocation of rewards and resources is governed by the normative principles of transparency and objective performance systems, and it highlights the distance between these HRM instruments and the actuality of social interaction in academic recruitment practices.