This study examines whether strategic planning explains gender differences in environmental responsibility among owner-managers in small and medium-sized food sector enterprises. While prior research has produced mixed findings regarding gender and pro-environmental behavior, little is known about the managerial mechanisms through which such differences translate into firm-level sustainability practices. Drawing on survey data from 202 Finnish food sector SME owner-managers, the study employs hierarchical regression analysis and structural equation modelling with bias-corrected bootstrapping, controlling for firm size and entrepreneurial status. Initial regression results showed that men reported higher environmental responsibility than women (M = 4.26 vs. 3.72), but this effect became non-significant once strategic planning was included. In the SEM analysis, gender significantly predicted strategic planning (B = –0.504, p = .011), and strategic planning strongly predicted environmental responsibility (B = 0.484, p < .001). The indirect effect of gender on environmental responsibility through strategic planning was statistically significant (95% BC CI [–0.475, –0.054]), indicating full mediation. These findings suggest that gender differences in environmental responsibility are not primarily attitudinal but embedded in organizational decision-making systems. By identifying strategic planning as a mediating managerial capability, the study contributes to gender and sustainability research and highlights the importance of strengthening strategic capabilities to support environmentally responsible practices in SMEs.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) are fundamental to achieving fairness and representation in radiological research and practice. This review aims to examine how structural inequities related to race, sex, gender, age, disability, and socioeconomic status shape imaging research, workforce composition, and clinical outcomes. Racial disparities persist through outdated diagnostic assumptions and unequal access to imaging, while the limited representation of minority clinicians in leadership continues to affect research priorities and inclusivity. Similarly, sex and gender inequities also remain, with women being underrepresented in academic and interventional radiology, and transgender and gender diverse individuals often excluded from research and clinical systems. These gaps highlight the importance of inclusive mentorship, equitable leadership opportunities and consistent use of inclusive terminology. Differences in age, disability, and socioeconomic status affect participation and outcomes in imaging research. Older adults, children and people with disabilities are often excluded from imaging datasets, reducing generalisability and limiting the safe application of new technologies such as artificial intelligence. Socioeconomic inequities affect access to timely imaging and distort normative datasets, leading to misinterpretation of results in deprived populations. Inclusive recruitment, adaptive imaging protocols, and explicit consideration of social context in research design are essential to address these disparities. To address this, radiology must prioritise inclusive recruitment, adapt imaging protocols for underrepresented groups, and integrate EDI principles into study design, dataset curation, and peer review. Embedding these practices will enhance scientific validity, ethical integrity, and patient-centred care, ensuring that imaging research truly reflects the diverse populations it serves. CRITICAL RELEVANCE STATEMENT: This review highlights how addressing equity, diversity, and inclusion in radiological research and practice is essential for improving the relevance, accuracy, and fairness of imaging data and emerging technologies across diverse patient populations. KEY POINTS: Persistent gaps in diversity affect fairness within radiological research and clinical practice. Inequities hinder equitable representation and limit the generalisability of radiological findings. Inclusive practices better serve the diverse populations we care for.

ABSTRACT Gender inequality in higher education has long been a topic of scholarly debate and policy concern, particularly within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Indeed, our analysis of 1,142 gender-specific publications in top higher education journals indexed in Web of Science reveals a significant increase in interest in gender research, especially between 2018 and 2024. The United States leads in higher education gender research, followed by the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, while countries from the Global South, except China, have a limited presence in the field. Transnational collaboration in gender research remains limited, with the United States playing a central role in international academic collaboration; it also exhibits strong regional partnerships among English-speaking countries. Our analysis also indicates a shift in gender research from focusing on structural and institutional barriers to more nuanced understandings of individual experiences and the complexity of gender identities. One notable gap in gender-focused research is the limited attention given to gender in teaching and learning, highlighting the need for future studies on gender-sensitive curricula, inclusive pedagogy, and their potential outcomes in promoting gender equality in and through higher education.

Purpose This study aims to conceptualize female authentic entrepreneurial identity as a collective and relational identity process that integrates authenticity, gender and entrepreneuring in context marked by gender inequalities, and to explain how this identity functions as a stabilizing and protective resource for women's psychological and subjective well-being in gendered entrepreneurial environments. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual study is grounded in entrepreneurial identity and gender role scholarship. It develops an interdisciplinary dialogue with feminist theory, identity-based perspectives and psychological approaches to well-being. The framework examines how female authentic entrepreneurial identity is collectively constructed and how it operates as a stabilizing resource within structurally gendered entrepreneurial contexts. Findings The study shows that female authentic entrepreneurial identity emerges as a collective, relational and multidimensional process sustained through shared narratives, peer recognition and gender-attributed relational practices. This identity functions as a stabilizing and protective mechanism for women's well-being, mitigating chronic gender-related stressors and supporting the continuity of entrepreneurial action in masculinized environments. Originality/value This article advances gender and entrepreneurship research by conceptualizing female authentic entrepreneurial identity as a collective and relational process, rather than an individual property or solely individual process. By integrating feminist theory, social identity, authenticity and evolutionary psychology, it demonstrates how coherence between entrepreneurial “being and doing” supports women's well-being and enables every day, situated forms of social change in gendered entrepreneurial contexts.

ABSTRACT Utilizing lived religion and embodied intersectionality, this article theoretically explores ways of capturing the nuance and complexity in religion, gender and sexuality research to understand embedded forms of inequality. Dominant conceptualizations understand sexuality and gender to be in tension with ‘religion’. Yet this assumes these terms are fixed, rather than fluid and unstable. Research into the lived realities of religious-identifying queer 1 individuals disrupt these assumptions. Drawing on in-depth interviews from three individuals belonging to minority religions in the British context (Islam, Buddhism and Judaism), this article foregrounds queer voices to understand religion as lived, embodied and intersectional. I argue that a framework deploying lived religion and embodied intersectionality offer a much-needed lens to critique the taken-for-granted, unpack power relationships and deep-seated gender and sexual hierarchies. This approach recognizes that real-life bodies are impacted by the gendered and sexual hierarchies that are communally forged, and listening to marginalized individuals is necessary to not only map complexity and understand inequalities, but to challenge power differentials.

Do women benefit more from gender-homophilous (all-women) or gender-heterophilous (mixed-gender) groups in remote training? Existing theories offer no clear answer, as remote training environments disrupt the social architecture that enables peer effects—weakening not only the collaborative structures that encourage cross-gender exchange but also the interpersonal cues that foster same-gender bonding. We argue that remote training environments reveal a key mechanism through which all-women peer groups confer distinctive benefits: identity-based trust. In all-women peer groups, shared gender identity can help participants transcend the relational barriers of remote interaction, fostering trust-based ties that facilitate mutual support. We test this argument in an 18-month randomized field experiment on a leading online career training platform, which randomly assigned over 2,700 unemployed women to all-women or mixed-gender virtual peer groups. We find that women in all-women groups were significantly more likely to complete their training on time, earn professional certification within a year, and secure in-field employment. Analyses of text communication data reveal three key patterns underlying identity-based trust in all-women groups: (1) multiple shared identities (i.e., marriage, motherhood, career), (2) affective expression, and (3) reciprocal exchanges of support. By contrast, interaction in mixed-gender groups was inhibited, preventing supportive dynamics—even among women—from forming. This study provides the first causal evidence on how peer gender composition shapes women’s career outcomes in remote training and illuminates the microgroup mechanisms through which gender-homophilous groups foster success even in digitally mediated environments. Funding: This work was supported by the Tuck School of Business, the Stanford Institute for Research in the Social Sciences, the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and the Stanford VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2025.20602 .

Background Cisgenderism has led to trans people being studied through an inaccurately transnormative dysphoria-centric lens. Trans-led research on gender euphoria has illuminated a promising perspective on trans communities that transformatively explores the nuances and joys of transness that are recurrently unrepresented. Aims To investigate how trans people perceive trans gender euphoria research findings and practices. Method Six trans-led focus groups were conducted over Zoom with a sample of trans people from across Australia to reflect on Kulesza et al.’s (2025) findings on gender euphoria and research practices. Following transcription, data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. A single follow-up focus group was conducted to reflect on the discussions and member check themes. Results Three themes were developed: 1) Euphoria as authenticity in the face of distrust explores the impact of historical marginalization on our need for authenticity, 2) Research grounded in grassroots connections affirms the importance of trans research being grounded in community, and 3) Decolonizing our sense of gender unpacks the impact of colonization on academic understandings of transness. Conclusions Gender euphoria is an important area of research that seeks to dismantle institutional privilege and transnormativity in trans research. Through adopting community-informed practices, we can move toward trans research that prioritizes nuance, authenticity, and diversity.

Existing energy research is frequently criticised for its lack of gender sensitivity and for reproducing masculine biases. While literature exploring energy and gender is growing, there remains a significant gap in understanding how these fields precisely interact. Exploring this intersection is important to advance the agenda for gender equality in energy research, policy and practice. This article presents a systematic review of papers published on the topic from 1991 to 2021, employing a novel two-stage interdisciplinary approach: a quantitative bibliometric mapping of literature, concepts, and methods, followed by a qualitative analysis of selected studies through a critical gender lens. The results reveal that while publications are increasing, the field is dominated by quantitative methods and often treats gender as synonymous with biological sex, failing to engage with critical gender theories. Importantly, the review highlights that energy–gender research is often conducted by scholars with limited engagement with gender theory, leading to research that frequently reinforces, rather than challenges, gender stereotypes. A small number of studies adopting feminist or queer perspectives illustrate how alternative theories of gender can enrich energy research. Considering these limitations, we argue for the advancement of a transformative energy agenda by shifting from analyzing sex-disaggregated data to “doing gender equality”. We conclude with eight procedural and thematic recommendations, including the necessity of interdisciplinary teams that include gender scholars, the adoption of qualitative methods to capture lived experiences, and a commitment to challenging gender stereotypes and incorporating alternative gender theories within energy research.

ABSTRACT This study adopts a positive and contextually grounded representation of married women in Global South (GS) countries through the theory of gender and power (TGP) and Kabeer's empowerment framework, to examine factors driving financial independence (FI) and empowerment among women in Mauritius and Zimbabwe. Drawing on 55 in‐depth interviews with married women (28 in Mauritius and 27 in Zimbabwe), findings indicate that gendered power relations and institutional forces are pivotal in shaping empowerment for married women. Three interconnected themes emerged: “ societal and institutional factors ,” “ context‐embedded financial independence and autonomy ,” and “ women's relational empowerment .” Theoretically, we intersect Kabeer's empowerment framework with the TGP to illustrate how FI operates at the nexus of resources, agency, gendered power relations, and structural constraints, both aligning with and challenging universalized assumptions in gender, development, and empowerment research. Empirically, the paper advances scholarship by providing nuanced insights into empowerment processes within under‐researched GS contexts.

Purpose The paper aims to explore the often-overlooked career challenges faced by men from disadvantaged backgrounds, particularly in Western contexts. It seeks to highlight the underutilization of intersectionality frameworks in studying men's vocational and career experiences. By focusing on how gender norms, disadvantages, as well as technological and demographic shifts intersect, the paper intends to uncover unique barriers these men face. It ultimately aims to provide recommendations for organizational and policy interventions and identify avenues for future research to better support disadvantaged men's career development and integration. Design/methodology/approach The paper employs a critical approach, drawing on interdisciplinary literature from sociology, psychology, management, and cultural studies. It integrates an intersectional framework with a social structural perspective, analyzing existing empirical studies predominantly from Western countries. The authors conduct a broad literature review covering career stages such as vocational preparation and career entry and consider demographic and technological trends affecting disadvantaged men. Empirical examples and critical theoretical concepts are used to illustrate how masculinity intersects with variables such as socio-economic status, race, or migrant status to create unique career hurdles for men. Findings The paper reveals that men from disadvantaged backgrounds face multiple barriers throughout multiple career stages considered in this paper, rooted in gender norms, socio-economic inequities and systemic biases. These men experience educational disadvantages and career misalignment due to labor market shifts. Structural changes favor cognitive and social skills associated with upper-class masculinity, making physical strength less valued and diminishing opportunities in traditionally male-dominated sectors. These challenges contribute to social exclusion and barriers to joining emerging occupations. Research limitations/implications The paper primarily relies on data and studies from Western, affluent countries, mainly the USA, UK and parts of the EU, which limits its generalizability globally. Additionally, much of the research cited focuses on specific intersections and contexts; thus, findings may not apply universally. The authors acknowledge the scarcity of intersectional research on disadvantaged men, calling for more studies across diverse geographical and cultural settings to validate and extend current knowledge. Future research should explore the nuanced interactions of gender, class, race and other identity variables relevant to other regions, and to examine institutional practices affecting men's careers worldwide. Practical implications The paper proposes targeted organizational and policy interventions to support disadvantaged men's vocational and career development. Recommendations include enhancing educational programs that address boys' academic challenges, increasing the visibility of male role models in education and in female-dominated professions, and promoting inclusive workplace cultures that challenge harmful gender norms. These initiatives aim to broaden employment opportunities for disadvantaged men while contributing to gender equity and workforce diversity. Social implications The paper highlights the social consequences of neglecting disadvantaged men's career challenges, including increased risks of social exclusion, political backlash, and susceptibility to radicalization. It underscores how feelings of victimhood and insecurity linked to masculinity and socio-economic disadvantage can fuel hostility towards marginalized groups and lead to the rise of extremist and antisocial movements. Addressing men's unique career barriers is thus not only a matter of individual well-being but also crucial for social cohesion, equity, and the prevention of social unrest. The research encourages policies that foster inclusion and address intersectional inequities. Originality/value This paper makes a valuable and original contribution by bringing attention to an underexplored area: the career disadvantages faced by men from underprivileged backgrounds. It challenges prevailing assumptions that men universally benefit from organizational and societal structures, emphasizing the complexity of masculine situations and identities shaped by class, race, and other factors. By advocating for a social structural and intersectional framework, it broadens the scope of gender and career research and provides a foundation for future studies. The integration of technological and demographic megatrends further enriches the understanding of men's evolving career experiences and potential for future growth.

Introduction Engineering education remains one of the least examined domains within sexuality and gender research, despite mounting evidence that heteronormative academic cultures push queer students toward concealment, psychological distress, and attrition. The absence of an integrated synthesis of these experiences has hindered both scholarly understanding and the development of inclusive educational practices. This systematized review addresses that critical gap by consolidating and analyzing fragmented empirical evidence on queer students’ identity negotiation, belonging, and inclusion within U.S. engineering programs. Methods Nine empirical studies on queer students in U.S. engineering education were identified through comprehensive database searches and examined using thematic synthesis. Drawing on Foucauldian and queer theoretical frameworks of power, heterotopia, and identity assemblage, data extraction emphasized participants’ lived experiences, contextualized within institutional and sociocultural forces shaping inclusion and exclusion. Results Across studies, queer students engaged in adaptive strategies of covering or selective disclosure to manage stigma—coping mechanisms that safeguarded social survival but eroded authenticity and wellbeing. Persistent isolation and a heightened intent to leave the discipline were common. Yet, heterotopic spaces such as peer networks, affirming mentors, and visibly allied faculty emerged as sites of resistance and belonging that redefined the cultural boundaries of engineering. Discussion By critically integrating these findings, the review clarifies recurring patterns in identity negotiation and institutional climate and proposes evidence-based directions for future inclusion research and practice. The findings underscore the pressing need to move inclusion efforts beyond recruitment metrics toward structural and cultural transformation. To fully realize diversity in engineering, queer identities must be recognized not as peripheral but as integral to the discipline’s intellectual and social fabric.

ABSTRACT The tourism industry relies heavily on tour guides, yet gender bias remains pervasive, consistently privileging male guides over female counterparts. While tourism scholarship has increasingly examined women’s participation, gender bias as experienced in the everyday professional relationships of tour guides remains underexplored, and industry practices continue to lag behind academic calls for gender equality. Drawing on qualitative interviews, this study investigates how gender bias is produced and negotiated through female tour guides’ interactions with tour managers, male colleagues, drivers, and tourists in Vietnam. The findings reveal that gender bias operates relationally rather than episodically, manifesting through the systematic undervaluation of competence, gendered workplace power dynamics, and persistent exposure to harassment and disrespect. By foregrounding female tour guides as a critically overlooked occupational group, the study contributes to gender and tourism research by demonstrating how informal practices and everyday interactions reproduce structural inequalities in customer-facing tourism work. The study concludes by emphasising the need for organisational accountability, gender-inclusive policies, and protective mechanisms to create safer and more equitable working environments for female tour guides.

ABSTRACT The potential of livestock in food and nutritional security in lower income countries is undermined by lack of high-quality and sufficient animal feeds. Despite livestock feed research and development efforts, the livestock feed challenge persists with limited adoption of feed innovations partly because gender considerations attracted little attention in feed research and development. Gender dynamics and norms govern intra-household roles and control of benefits from livestock leading to gender-differentiated feed-related needs, challenges, and opportunities that vary depending on context. In this framework, we identify key stages of feed and forage research programs, and propose key gender research questions at all stages that, if investigated, would provide insights into how we can develop feed interventions that respond to gendered needs and opportunities. The questions mostly explore gender roles, gendered control over resources and benefits, gendered access to information, and gendered decision-making about adoption in feed systems. The questions aim to (1) increase the relevance of feed innovations to increase adoption and livestock productivity and (2) leverage feed innovations to support gender equality.

ABSTRACT This study empirically examines the impact of female heirs on corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and its underlying mechanism using a sample of A-share listed family firms from 2009–2021. The study finds that female heirs significantly contribute to the overall ESG performance of their family firms, and this contribution is more significant when the degree of external gender discrimination is high and the family control within the firm is weak. This suggests that female heirs use ESG performance enhancement to combat gender pressures. The study findings expand the perspective of gender research on the intergenerational inheritance of family firms, reveal the value of ESG as a strategic tool for female heirs to break through the constraints of patriarchy, and provide a theoretical basis and practical inspiration for the modernization of corporate governance, policy formulation, and female leadership development.

“You can never unhear that”: Gendered mental health and emotional labor in civilian volunteer search-and-rescue organizations

ABSTRACT Since the 1980s, strategic communication research has focused on gender research. Despite the growing body of research on gender in strategic communication and related fields, and the increasing call for diversity and alternative conceptualizations of gender, previous studies in this area appear to lack sufficient diversity. This paper aims to advance strategic communication research on gender and issues related to gender by conducting a systematic review of previous gender research in strategic communication published in 11 journals in the field of strategic communication from 1983 until 2022. 175 journal articles were systematically reviewed across various categories. Results show that gender research in strategic communication increased over time and points to multiple theories and methods used. However, previous gender research has mainly been conducted at the individual, industry, and organizational levels, while research on the media and societal levels is lacking. Furthermore, gender conceptions and measurement in previous scholarship often remain binary, negating the role of social norms, culture, religion, and ideologies in gender constructions and identities. By systematically reviewing past research on gender and gender-related topics, this study identifies significant trends and gaps in gender research in strategic communication and offers future research directions.

ABSTRACT This paper offers an analysis of the kinds of stories that are told about sexuality and schools in research with gender and sexuality diverse (GSD) teachers. The paper draws from the authors’ own experiences of working as queer teachers across national and international contexts, as well as from over 30 years of research in the field. The presence of GSD teachers within schools has, over time, been linked to moves towards social justice, however, as global politics swings to the far right, the presence of GSD in schools has circled backwards to become synonymous with a threat to childhood innocence, inappropriate content for sexuality education and, in the case of Safe Schools, a Marxist agenda that threatens the very fabric of Australian society. The paper takes up some of the key themes that characterise GSD teacher stories to argue that the experiences of GSD teachers, their persistence and tenacity make them not only stronger, but valuable assets for education. Finally, GSD struggles within places of learning are framed as a refusal of the contingent hospitality that is offered to queer people by the straight world, as Sara Ahmed articulates. The paper concludes by positing that joyful readings of unhappy histories and presents are needed as part of the canon of GSD educator research.

Based on data from the 2020 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), this study investigates the determinants of delayed first marriage from a gendered perspective. Incorporating individual-, family-, and regional-level variables, we employ OLS and interaction models to assess how educational attainment, parental background, and regional context affect men and women differently in their timing of first marriage. Results show that higher education is significantly associated with delayed marriage, particularly for women. The effect of paternal education is also more pronounced among daughters than sons. In addition, urban residency and living in economically developed regions are linked to later marriage, especially among women. These findings demonstrate how gender intersects with structural and familial factors to shape marriage timing, highlighting the role of education and regional opportunity in transforming traditional gendered life-course expectations. The study contributes to demographic and gender research by documenting how modernization and shifting gender norms reshape family formation patterns in contemporary China.

Purpose: This research aims to analyze the impact of digital technology on women's economic empowerment, particularly in the context of entrepreneurship, in both developed and developing economies. While there is growing recognition of the transformative potential of digital finance and platform-based entrepreneurship, there are still gaps in access, regulatory issues, and uneven empowerment outcomes. This paper reviews the intellectual framework and thematic development in the literature from 2016-2025, focusing on the economic inclusion and empowerment of women in the digital economy. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study utilizes a bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review (SLR) approach, examining 50 articles indexed in Scopus between 2016 and 2025. The research categorizes the findings into two main thematic categories: financial inclusion and empowerment, which are closely linked with digital entrepreneurship, governance, and sustainable development. Network analyses are also conducted to understand interdisciplinary collaboration between technology, gender, and sustainability research streams. Findings: The findings indicate that there is significant research collaboration across multiple disciplines, including gender, technology, and sustainability. The research identifies that digital inclusion mechanisms are crucial for increasing women's participation in entrepreneurship and socio-economic development. However, disparities in access and institutional challenges persist. Financial inclusion and empowerment are highlighted as central themes, with a clear connection to sustainable development objectives. Implications/Originality/Value: This paper concludes that while digital inclusion mechanisms play a vital role in empowering women entrepreneurs, further research is necessary. Future studies should focus on causal analysis, gather longitudinal evidence, and develop governance models to reinforce sustainable and inclusive empowerment processes, especially in emerging technologies.

This article critically examines the theoretical foundations and methodological commitments of gender critique as an interdisciplinary framework for analyzing gendered power relations. Drawing on feminist, queer, postcolonial and poststructuralist theories, it explores how gender is performatively constructed and institutionally enforced through sociocultural mechanisms. Emphasizing anti-essentialism, intersectionality and decolonial epistemologies, the study outlines the core theoretical concepts underlying gender critique and demonstrates their relevance in analyzing contemporary gender issues. It also engages with challenges from biological determinism, materialist feminism and western-centric frameworks, arguing for a reflexive and context-sensitive approach to knowledge production. Methodologically, the article underscores the significance of qualitative, reflexive, participatory and discourse-based research practices that center marginalized voices and challenge epistemic hierarchies. The article also discusses the relevance of feminist standpoint theory, critical discourse analysis and decolonial methods in contemporary gender research. By interweaving theory and praxis, gender critique emerges as a dynamic and politically engaged field that addresses urgent global issues such as trans rights, algorithmic bias and environmental injustice. Ultimately, it argues that gender critique must remain adaptable, inclusive and politically engaged, fostering new vocabularies of resistance and envisioning equitable futures across social, cultural and technological domains.