19293: It’s Complex: Exploring the Effectiveness of Gender Equality Plans in Balkan Academia (session 25891)

Persistent gender inequalities within universities have prompted the adoption of various gender policies, though their effectiveness and success remain ambivalent. Recent EU-level mandates have introduced Gender Equality Plans (GEPs), prompting further reflection due to their relative under-exploration and growing prominence. This study explores the effectiveness of GEPs, through the specific case of GEPs implemented in Balkan academia. GEPs are conceptualized as complex interventions within gendered organizations, viewed as complex and adaptive systems. This approach enables a systems-based process evaluation that assesses the fidelity, including quality, of GEPs’ implementation. Data are drawn from semi-structured interviews with 42 employees and the secondary analysis of archival documents from seven universities in the Balkan region, specifically in Greece, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Our results highlight complex and systemic barriers rooted in the local organizational and national culture, and the situated practice of gender. These hindrances are compounded by non-linear interdependencies and activated feedback loops, which intensify their obstructive effects and overall shape GEPs’ ambivalent effectiveness. Ultimately, we theorize these interdependencies and mechanisms within an integrative causal loop model of GEP effectiveness, yielding a refined programme theory specific to GEPs. Recommendations to enhance GEPs effectiveness are similarly provided, centered around addressing the contextual factors influencing their implementation, and accounting for the complex dynamics of universities. Finally, drawing from the strong influence of contextual factors on GEPs, this study suggests the need for a more nuanced view on organizational gender dynamics in non-colonial settings, beyond North-South dichotomies, to accommodate the epistemological value of diverse contexts.

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