Research, teaching and advocacy centre looks ahead to a focus on inclusive organisations
Erasmus Centre for Women and Organisations (ECWO) marked 10 years of elevating female leadership within organisations at an event on 18 June 2024 that also gave insight into the centre’s focus for the coming decade.
Speaking at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), where ECWO was founded by the late Prof. Dianne Bevelander in 2014, Executive Director, Prof. Hanneke Takkenberg, said that the original vision was to empower women and to create a level playing field by building communities for organisational change.
Making noise and moving mountains
“From the start, Dianne wanted to make a noise and move mountains and I think we can be extraordinarily proud of how she did that – first by actually getting ECWO established, and then by developing the different programmes, research projects and advocacy that have comprised our work over the past decade. We are thankful to everyone who believed in Dianne’s vision from the start and who joined and collaborated on what has been a fantastic journey so far. We are energised and ready for the next decade.”
Imperatives for inclusion
“In the next ten years, ECWO is building on a strong foundation of research, programming and advocacy that explores and elevates the value of feminine leadership in organisations,” added Dorothy Grandia, ECWO’s Associate Director of Programming, before outlining what lies ahead for ECWO.
“We’re now using that foundation to explore the imperatives for inclusive organisations from all angles. The energy transition, the transition to sustainable healthcare, the transition to sustainable food supply chains – these are all wicked socio-economic challenges that require inclusive dialogue and a more collaborative approach to problem solving. Research is just starting to show us how important inclusion is to fostering innovation, to establishing effective cross-sector partnerships, and to complex decision making in organisations. ECWO is leveraging what we know about the value of women in leadership decision making to support organisations to harness the value of inclusion in a more strategic way.”
As one of the first centres to focus on gender within a European business school, ECWO has enjoyed remarkable success in its first decade. Among many other achievements, and together with expert and passionate faculty, it has delivered 23 in-company programmes to more than 2700 participants working in a diversity of economic sectors while more than 850 women have taken part in ECWO’s trio of signature open programmes – Women in Leadership, Communication with Power and Impact and Negotiation with Power and Impact – that will continue to form an integral part of its work going forward.
The power of networks
One of the most powerful threads that connect ECWO’s foundational work to the vision for the next decade is the role of networks.
“There is a timeless element to understanding the importance of networks – of building community, of respecting differences and the respective relative strengths of individuals in different areas but of working together to transform,” stated Prof. Mike Page, Mike Page, Professor of Finance and Management at Bentley University and ECWO's senior researcher.
“The idea that the individual can do anything is a huge overstatement. One of the challenges we have in management education is we find individuals who, through undoubted talent, have become leaders of their organisations. But I think it is a mistake to attribute the success of an entire organisation to one individual – there are a lot of people working together who have achieved that goal. That is the network, that is the community, and that is what ECWO has believed in from the start and will continue to bring into its work over the next decade.”
ECWO’s 10 year celebration in 2024 will culminate on November 15th with its annual conference which will continue to honour the foundation laid by Prof. Bevelander, and all those who helped bring her vision to life, while focusing intently on the imperatives for inclusion that are driving the centre into the coming decade.
