Gender differences in the academic career: evidence from the accounting and finance departments

Purpose The aim of this research is to examine gender differences in the context of research productivity, research collaboration and academic promotion. Design/methodology/approach This research analyzes data related to 863 academics in the accounting and finance departments in Turkish universities by using OLS, Binary Logistic, Ordered Probit and Multinomial Probit Regressions. Findings The findings show that female academics have in overall a representation ratio of 32%, and that there are no significant differences regarding the opportunities for female academics to be employed in public compared to private, and in high-rank compared to low-rank universities. The results also indicate that female academics have lower research impact compared to male academics, and that this difference is more pronounced for professors, and in universities with low ratio of female representation, and also in public universities. In addition, female academics engage more in research collaboration and are less likely to hold the academic title of full professor than male academics. Practical implications The findings of this study provide significant signals about the need for improving gender policies that mitigate the conditions adversely affecting research productivity and impact by considering the supporting circumstances for female academics and improving the representation ratio, which also can play vital role in reducing discrimination and bias and contribute to better research and scientific environment. Originality/value To the author’s knowledge, this article is the first to examine gender effect regarding research productivity, research collaboration and academic promotion in Turkish universities.