Gaining Access to the “World's Largest Men's Club”: Women Leading UN Agencies

Beating the Odds: Women’s Leadership in International Organizations

“…For example, when and how woman leaders are appointed determines their impact. Existing work highlights that quotas help increase the number of women leaders (Beaman et al 2009;Haack 2017) and that the appointment of women typically occurs during times of crisis (e.g., Haack 2014;Ryan, Haslam, and Postmes 2007); two examples are the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). 4 While there is extensive literature on women's representation in politics and the corporate world (e.g., Ferreira and Gyourko 2014;Fitzsimmons, Paulsen, and Callan 2014;Flabbi et al 2019), our article expands the analysis of female leadership roles to include heads of international organizations (IOs).…”

“…For example, when and how woman leaders are appointed determines their impact. Existing work highlights that quotas help increase the number of women leaders (Beaman et al 2009; Haack 2017) and that the appointment of women typically occurs during times of crisis (e.g., Haack 2014; Ryan, Haslam, and Postmes 2007); two examples are the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) 4…”

Women, Organizational Crisis, and Access to Leadership in International Organizations

“…How did women break the 'glass ceiling' (Wirth 2001) in these less conducive environments, convincing their electorate of their leadership potential? Differences can be accounted for in part by the nature of the appointment process and the nature of the organization's portfolio (Haack 2014b): As the UN funds and programs are largely soft, female portfolios and the specialized agencies are masculine portfolios, more women can be found in the former than in the latter. Secondly, the UN Secretary-General appoints executive heads in the funds and programs, while candidates for executive positions in the specialized agencies are elected by member states.…”