Gendering digital education: a role model for public management

IMPACT: This article provides university managers with practical insights into the social and organizational dynamics needed between same-sex colleagues to achieve the best educational results. University governance bodies can leverage on these results to redefine managerial roles and responsibilities so as to better cope with the digital transformation of academia. Evidence from this article also has implications for policy-makers in terms of supporting equal opportunities for all employees. © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Blending both managerial and social identification theories, the authors explore whether female academics in different organizational ranks behave as role models in a technology-rich teaching environment. Multivariate regression analysis, with data from 58 public universities covering four years, shows that the co-presence of female academics improved digital education. However, collaboration among female academics was impeded by ‘queen bee’ behaviour by senior staff.