The budgeting process at the University of Augsburg, Gdansk and the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration

As gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting are, among others, strategies for the development of organisations, it was an essential part of the project to observe the budgeting process within scientific organisations with the example of three universities in Austria, Germany and Poland.

With the help of the process analysis we wanted to find out if and which gender-specific or gender-typical collective attitudes and behaviour patterns exist among the stakeholders for budgeting and for equal opportunities. We also wanted to find out if there are basic mindsets towards gender equality and gender budgeting as an instrument to achieve equal opportunities for women and men. This might be seen in an adequate representation of women and men on all levels and in all boards up to a certain extent, however, it should be taken into consideration that an adequate representation of women and men alone does not automatically mean that gender equality is supported.

Furthermore, we wanted to find out how the budgeting process is made in respect to criteria such as democratic structures or transparency concerning decision making and power relations. It seems to be also important if and how the idea of work-life-balance is included in budgeting considerations, that is: are there possibilities to combine private life, children and work and how are they accounted for in budgeting planning?

This was our approach during the observation of the complex and subtle development processes on the micro-level (individual attitudes and motivations) and on the meso-level, the organisational set up and culture, which can show starting points for process indicators to promote a gender responsive budgeting.

The budgetary process is obviously strongly influenced by the scientific hierarchies, cultural aspects and the legal framework while equal opportunity measures do not have any sustainable impact on the budgeting process up to now. Nevertheless, interdependencies between budgeting and equal opportunities at the university exist. On one level there is the budgeting process itself with a formal and an informal course and which is influenced by official and informal stakeholders within the budgeting process and by agents for equal opportunities. This formal process is shown as well as an evaluation of the formal process in comparison to informal power relationships and the decision making structures within the budgeting process at the three universities.

Apart from the budgeting process itself we will look at the process of negotiating equal opportunity measures and its influences on budgeting. The process of negotiating future equal opportunity measures is at a critical point now because the new university laws require many changes within the universities. This special situation may allow supporters for equal opportunities to formulate new or additional objectives in order to improve the situation of women in science and to change the organisational culture in the scientific organisations towards gender mainstreaming.

With the evaluation of the actual situation and the analysis of the budgeting process at the three universities University of Gdansk in Poland (UG), the University of Augsburg in Germany and the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration in Austria (WU) we compared the situations of women and men in scientific organisations in a tri-national framework and took a closer look at the interdependencies of equal opportunities and budgeting.



 

For further information please contact the coordinator:

Frauenakademie München e.V. (FAM)
Baaderstraße 3
80469 München
Tel: ++49 (0) 89-7211881
Fax: ++ 49 (0) 89-7213830
info@frauenakademie.de www.frauenakademie.de

Dr. Andrea Rothe
Tel: ++49 (0) 170 - 89 13 624
info@andrea-rothe.de