Bridging the gender gap: analyzing women’s participation and leadership representation in university governance

The purpose of this article is to investigate the connection between female leadership representation in Uganda’s public universities and gender participation. The study’s design was cross-sectional and quantitative. To provide the data, 280 employees answered a survey using a questionnaire. To analyze the data, a fourth-generation smart partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed. To gather data, questionnaires were employed. The results demonstrated that the representation of women in leadership positions in Uganda’s public universities is influenced by two aspects of gender participation: level of involvement and gender gap. By illuminating whether gender participation factors influence women leadership representation in Uganda’s public universities, this study advances our knowledge of women academic leadership. This suggests that women’s representation in leadership roles is based in large part on gender participation. This study uniquely explores the impact of gender participation on women’s leadership representation in Uganda’s public universities by focusing on two key factors: level of involvement and the gender gap. Using fourth-generation Smart PLS-SEM analysis, it provides fresh insights into how these elements shape women’s leadership roles, especially within the under-studied Ugandan context. This research offers a new perspective on the mechanisms influencing gender representation in leadership.