Opportunities and Challenges for Women Leaders in Environmental Management

Literature Review

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the role of women in leadership roles in the field of environmental management. As public awareness of climate change, sustainable development, and environmental preservation has grown, so has the demand for strong leadership in these areas. However, women continue to be underrepresented in leadership roles in environmental management when compared to their male colleagues. The purpose of this literature review is to investigate the opportunities and challenges that women leaders confront in the context of environmental management.

Jackson (1993) contends that women's environmental interactions cannot be understood apart from men's, and that community service and natural resource defence by women have political, ideological, social, and economic causes. The essay also emphasises that women's environmental knowledge is a social product, and that gendered analysis of property relations is required to understand men and women's distinct incentives for conservation. Finally, it argues that gendered environmental decision making should be viewed through the lens of both cooperative and conflicting intrahousehold connections.

Kimball et al. (2012) contributed to the theory on the impact of leadership characteristics on corporate behaviour by investigating the effects of female leadership on corporate environmental performance in general. The authors discovered that organisations that include women in their top management team and board of directors have stronger environmental performance, with the board having a greater impact. Furthermore, adding women to a company's senior management has an impact on its environmental performance only if the company also has women on its board of directors. In particular, the authors explore how these findings contribute to studies of upper-level management and female leadership in major corporations. According to the article, gender diversity has positive effects on company environmental performance when it is present in leadership positions.