Elisabeth Kelan is a German-British academic, executive, researcher and writer and a leading scholar on gender studies, generations and leadership in .
She is a professor of leadership and organisation at Essex Business School and director of the International Centre for Women Leaders at Cranfield School of Management. She writes for Routledge, at the Academic journal Gender, Work and Organization and the British Journal of Management. In 2017, she was voted one of the Most Influential Thinkers by Human Resources Magazine in 2017.
Early life and education
Kelan was born in West Germany and earned earned a masters and a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Career
Kelan has worked as an
Professor in the Department of Management at King's College London,
Research fellow in the Centre for Women in Business at London Business School, and at the Gender Institute of the London School of Economics.
In 2012, she was a Visiting scholar at Georgetown University. In 2017, she was the board of the Women's Empowerment Principles initiative of UN Women and the UN Global Compact
Kelan is a professor of Leadership and Organization at Essex Business School and Director of the Cranfield International Centre for Women Leaders at Cranfield School of Management. She holds Editing for Routledge, at the Academic journal Gender, Work and Organization and the British Journal of Management
Since 2015, she has also taught regularly at the United Nations System Staff College worldwide.
Research
Kelan is considered a leading thinker, researcher and academic on leadership practice,
on women, and on gender.
She has conducted research on gender in High tech professions and in MBA education, generational changes and what Generation Y want from work,
For her British Academy fellowship, analyzed the role of management as change agents.
Work
Kelan has presented her research at various international institutions including the United Nations in 2007, 2009,
and 2010, the European Central Bank in
Frankfurt,
the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2011 and 2012; and the Council of Europe and
CERN in 2013. She has collaborated with numerous organisations including
Google,
General Electric,
Airbus, PwC, and
KPMG,
She has featured on TED and in Cosmopolitan magazine.
Views
Kelan has welcomed the use of artificial intelligence to improve diversity in the workplace but warned that it would be naïve to presume that AI will do away with
Cognitive bias.
She is known for having coined the term
Gender Fatigue to denote that whilst gender discrimination evidently continues to exist in organizations, people struggle to deny its existence in their attempt to construct their workplaces as gender neutral.
Honours
Kelan was a
British Academy Fellow for 2014 and 2015. She received the Leadership Award for the Most Influential Leadership Research in 2016 and was voted one of the Most Influential Thinkers by
Human Resources Magazine in 2017.
Select bibliography
Books
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Kelan, E.K. (2012) Rising Stars: Developing Millennial Women as Leaders, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Kelan, E.K. (2009) Performing Gender at Work, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Articles
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Kelan, E.K. and Wratil, P. (2018) 'Post-heroic Leadership, Tempered Radicalism and Senior Leaders as Change Agents for Gender Equality', In: European Management Review.
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Gill, R., Kelan, E.K., Scharff, C. (2017) 'A Postfeminist Sensibility at Work', In: Gender, Work and Organization, 24:3, 226–244.
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Adamson, M., Kelan, E.K., Lewis, P., Rumens, N., Śliwa, M. (2016) 'The Quality of Equality: Thinking Differently about Gender Inclusion in Organizations', In: Human Resource Management International Digest, 24:7, 8–11.
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Kelan, E.K. (2014) 'From Biological Clocks to Unspeakable Inequalities: The Intersectional Positioning of Young Professionals', In: British Journal of Management, 25:4, 790–804.
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Kelan, E.K. (2014) 'Organising Generations – What Can Sociology Offer to the Understanding of Generations at Work?', In: Sociology Compass, 8:1, 20–30.
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Kelan, E.K. (2013) 'The Becoming of Business Bodies – Gender, Appearance and Leadership Development', In: Management Learning, 44:1, 45–61.
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Kelan, E.K. (2013) 'The Gender Quota and Female Leadership – Effects of the Norwegian Gender Quota on Board Chairs and CEOs', In: Journal of Business Ethics, 117:3, 449–466.
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Kelan, E.K. and Dunkley Jones, R. (2010) 'Gender and the MBA', In: Academy of Management Learning and Education, 9:1, 26–43.
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Kelan, E.K. (2010) 'Gender Logic and (Un)Doing Gender at Work', In: Gender, Work and Organization, 17:2, 174–194.
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Kelan, E.K. (2009) 'Gender Fatigue - The Ideological Dilemma of Gender Neutrality and Discrimination in Organisations', In: Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 26:3, 197–210.
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Kelan, E.K. (2008) 'Gender, Risk and Employment Insecurity: The Masculine Breadwinner Subtext', In: Human Relations, 61:9, 1171–1202.
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Kelan, E.K. (2008) 'The Discursive Construction of Gender in Contemporary Management Literature', In: Journal of Business Ethics, 18:2, 427 – 445.
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Kelan, E.K. (2008) 'Emotions in a Rational Profession: The Gendering of Skills in ICT work', In: Gender, Work and Organization, 15:1, 49–71.
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Kelan, E.K. (2008) 'Bound by Stereotypes?', In: Business Strategy Review, 19:1, 4–7.
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Kelan, E.K. (2008) 'Emotions in a Rational Profession: The Gendering of Skills in ICT Work', In: Gender, Work and Organization, 15:1, 49–71.
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Kelan, E.K. (2006) 'Zur (De)Konstruktion von Geschlecht in neuer Managementliteratur' ((De)Constructing Gender in Newer Management Literature). In: Bendl, R. (ed.) Betriebswirtschaftslehre und Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung, Teil 1: Verortung geschlechterkonstituierender (Re-)Produktionsprozesse, Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang.
