Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Women Leading in the Margins: Gender, Structure, and Strategy in Chinese Environmental NGOs

Deng, Gaohan LU (2025) In IIIEE Master Thesis IMEM02 20251
The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics
Abstract
While women comprise the majority of employees in Chinese Environmental NGOs (ENGOs), little is understood about how they navigate leadership within gendered and politically constrained organisational structures. The gap in understanding gendered dynamics in environmental organisations persists, particularly in non-Western contexts such as China.
This study focuses on female leaders in Chinese ENGOs, who face challenges as women, employees, and managers in their environmental practices. It investigates how female ENGO leaders experience and respond to gendered barriers at both individual and organisational levels, aiming to contribute to managerial and environmental outcomes.
Drawing on 14 semi-structured interviews with 11 female... (More)
While women comprise the majority of employees in Chinese Environmental NGOs (ENGOs), little is understood about how they navigate leadership within gendered and politically constrained organisational structures. The gap in understanding gendered dynamics in environmental organisations persists, particularly in non-Western contexts such as China.
This study focuses on female leaders in Chinese ENGOs, who face challenges as women, employees, and managers in their environmental practices. It investigates how female ENGO leaders experience and respond to gendered barriers at both individual and organisational levels, aiming to contribute to managerial and environmental outcomes.
Drawing on 14 semi-structured interviews with 11 female leaders from grassroots ENGOs and three experienced facilitators, the paper adopts a qualitative method to identify their barriers and agency. The findings reveal that female leaders engage in multi-layered agency to challenge structural inequalities; however, they are sometimes constrained by broader socio-political and organisational conditions. Using Ackers’ concept of the gendered organisation (1996; 2008), it argues that ENGOs in China continue to perpetuate gender inequalities and reinforce the regime of gender inequality, even with women occupying the majority in number. Nonetheless, it offers female leaders a space to dismantle gendered practices.
By linking the agency of grassroots female leaders with gendered organisational change, this research contributes to feminist organisational theory with empirical insights from China and calls for a robust framework to guide the undoing gendered processes in practice. This paper also provides practical suggestions for leaders within ENGOs in China. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Deng, Gaohan LU
supervisor
organization
course
IMEM02 20251
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
gendered organisation, undoing gender, leadership, ENGO, China
publication/series
IIIEE Master Thesis
report number
2025:26
ISSN
1401-9191
language
English
id
9210021
date added to LUP
2025-08-19 09:27:21
date last changed
2025-08-19 09:27:21
@misc{9210021,
  abstract     = {{While women comprise the majority of employees in Chinese Environmental NGOs (ENGOs), little is understood about how they navigate leadership within gendered and politically constrained organisational structures. The gap in understanding gendered dynamics in environmental organisations persists, particularly in non-Western contexts such as China.
This study focuses on female leaders in Chinese ENGOs, who face challenges as women, employees, and managers in their environmental practices. It investigates how female ENGO leaders experience and respond to gendered barriers at both individual and organisational levels, aiming to contribute to managerial and environmental outcomes.
Drawing on 14 semi-structured interviews with 11 female leaders from grassroots ENGOs and three experienced facilitators, the paper adopts a qualitative method to identify their barriers and agency. The findings reveal that female leaders engage in multi-layered agency to challenge structural inequalities; however, they are sometimes constrained by broader socio-political and organisational conditions. Using Ackers’ concept of the gendered organisation (1996; 2008), it argues that ENGOs in China continue to perpetuate gender inequalities and reinforce the regime of gender inequality, even with women occupying the majority in number. Nonetheless, it offers female leaders a space to dismantle gendered practices.
By linking the agency of grassroots female leaders with gendered organisational change, this research contributes to feminist organisational theory with empirical insights from China and calls for a robust framework to guide the undoing gendered processes in practice. This paper also provides practical suggestions for leaders within ENGOs in China.}},
  author       = {{Deng, Gaohan}},
  issn         = {{1401-9191}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  series       = {{IIIEE Master Thesis}},
  title        = {{Women Leading in the Margins: Gender, Structure, and Strategy in Chinese Environmental NGOs}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}