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1 – 10 of over 40000Cecilia Bjursell and Lisa Bäckvall
Writings in the media have the potential to influence our standpoint and, thereby, our actions. In this paper, the authors analyze how women in family business are represented in…
Abstract
Purpose
Writings in the media have the potential to influence our standpoint and, thereby, our actions. In this paper, the authors analyze how women in family business are represented in media to understand the frames set by this discourse in terms of women owning and leading family businesses. The aim of the paper is to explore how the counterposed roles of business person and mother are presented in media and what implications this might have for role enactment.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper opted for an exploratory study of 308 articles about women in family business over a 15‐year period. In the interpretative, qualitative analysis of media texts, the discursive construction of the mother role and the business role are explored.
Findings
The paper provides empirical insights into how the mother role is taken for granted while the business role is approached as problematic in portrayals of women in family business. The authors discuss whether the media discourse reinforces traditional roles or stimulates role innovation.
Practical implications
Understanding role as something separate from the individual provides a means to critically review expectations of women in business and how these expectations hinder business activities.
Originality/value
The study examines data over a 15‐year period in the Swedish media setting and describes changes in attitudes about women's roles in family business. Regarding the family business as an arena for performative acts provides a perspective that can highlight the intertwinement of the private and professional arenas in family business.
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T. Alexandra Beauregard, Mustafa Ozbilgin and Myrtle P. Bell
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how traditional definitions of family, in the context of employment, have not kept pace with actual family formation in the USA and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how traditional definitions of family, in the context of employment, have not kept pace with actual family formation in the USA and much of the rest of the world, and how this disadvantages individuals from atypical (i.e. non‐nuclear), but increasingly common, families.
Design/methodology/approach
A wide range of literature from disciplines spanning industrial relations, gerontology, management, and family studies is invoked to illustrate how employers' definitions of “family” are often incompatible with actual contemporary family structures, and how this poses difficulties for employed individuals in non‐traditional families.
Findings
Many family structures are not accounted for by employment legislation and thus organizational work‐family policies. These include same‐sex couples, multi‐generational and extended families (e.g. including parents or other elders; members from outside the bloodline or with grandparents providing primary care for grandchildren) and virtual families.
Practical implications
The authors discuss a number of problems associated with current provision of work‐family policy and practice among organizations, and recommend that governments and organizations expand upon the traditional definition of “family” to better enable employees in a variety of familial configurations to successfully balance their work and family demands.
Originality/value
This paper identifies current failings in employment legislation and suggests improvements so that both governments and organizations can better facilitate employees' work‐life balance. As such, it will be of use researchers, practitioners, and policy makers interested in the interface between work and family.
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Kimiko Tanaka and Deborah Lowry
Japanese women’s life courses have changed dramatically in recent history. Yet, transformation of the meanings and experiences of childlessness did not follow a linear…
Abstract
Japanese women’s life courses have changed dramatically in recent history. Yet, transformation of the meanings and experiences of childlessness did not follow a linear, one-dimensional path. Childlessness in Japan today – strongly influenced by Western, modern education after the World War II – can indeed be interpreted as a form of liberation from a restrictively gendered life-course. However, in Japan’s pre-modern period, there were in fact alternative paths available for women to remain childless. As Japan became nationalised and the meanings of Japanese womanhood shifted, childlessness became increasingly stigmatised and notably, stigmatised across social classes.
This chapter provides concise accounts of the social meanings of marriage and fertility from the Tokugawa period through the Meiji period and continues with analysis of pressures faced by contemporary Japanese women who are childless. Also highlighted are the particular socio-demographic contexts which have brought involuntary childlessness, too, into the realms of public discussion and expected action on the part of the government. Through its account of the Japanese context, this chapter emphasises the larger theoretical, sociological argument that the historically placed social construction of childlessness – and thus, of the experiences and identities of childless women – always occurs through particular intersections of cultural, political-economic and demographic conditions.
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Ashton Chapman, Caroline Sanner, Lawrence Ganong, Marilyn Coleman, Luke Russell, Youngjin Kang and Sarah Mitchell
Stepgrandparent-stepgrandchild relationships are increasingly common as a result of relatively high rates of divorce and remarriage and increased longevity. When relationships are…
Abstract
Purpose
Stepgrandparent-stepgrandchild relationships are increasingly common as a result of relatively high rates of divorce and remarriage and increased longevity. When relationships are close, stepgrandparents may be valuable resources for stepgrandchildren, but the relational processes salient to the development of these ties remain largely unknown. The purposes of our research were: (1) to explore the complexity of stepgrandparent-stepgrandchild relationships, and (2) to examine processes that affected stepgrandparent-stepgrandchild relationship development.
Methodology/Approach
We present results from four grounded theory projects, which were based on semistructured interviews with 58 stepgrandchildren who provided data about 165 relationships with stepgrandparents. Collectively, these studies highlighted key processes of stepgrandparent-stepgrandchild relationship development operating within four distinct pathways to stepgrandparenthood – long-term, later life, skip-generation, and inherited pathways.
Findings
Stepgrandchildren’s closeness to stepgrandparents was influenced by factors such as timing (the child’s age and when in their life courses intergenerational relationships began), stepgrandparents’ roles in the life of the middle-generation parent and the quality of those relationships, whether or not the stepfamily defined the stepgrandparent as kin (e.g., through the use of claiming language), intergenerational contact frequency, and stepgrandparents’ affinity-building.
Originality/Value
Our study furthers understanding of stepgrandparent-stepgrandchild by attending to the importance of context in examining the processes that affect intergenerational steprelationship development. Exploring processes related to intergenerational steprelationships strengthens our understanding of the benefits and challenges associated with steprelationship development. Our study also sheds light on the “new look at kinship” and the processes that inform the social construction of family in a changing familial landscape.
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Barani Kanth, Ananda Krishnan and Debasmita Sen
India has a distinct family hierarchy and a vertical collectivistic culture. Indian traditional cultural norms discourage young adults from having romantic or sexual relationships…
Abstract
India has a distinct family hierarchy and a vertical collectivistic culture. Indian traditional cultural norms discourage young adults from having romantic or sexual relationships before marriage. Romantic liaisons and marriages are fiercely opposed outside the caste and social network. Despite this cultural practice, research in the last decade demonstrated that more young adults in India engage in premarital romantic relationships and prefer a marriage of choice. However, they strongly wish their parents to approve of their partner and arrange their marriage. This increasing trend of love-cum-arranged marriages could be considered how Indian culture adapts to the demands of modernization strongly impelled by globalization. This chapter discusses the dynamics of change in the romantic and marital agency among young adults in India. First, the authors provide a brief historical introduction to the Indian marital system. Then, the authors discuss the changing cultural dimensions that promote marital choice and independence in partner selection (e.g., filial piety). Further, the authors provide an overview of the trends in premarital romantic relationships in India. In addition, the authors discuss the distress and conflict in Indian families due to the increasing premarital romantic and sexual relationships among Indian youth, as evidenced by eloped marriages, forced marriages, and honor killings.
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Mareike Reimann, Charlotte Katharina Marx and Martin Diewald
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how employed single-parents differ from parents in two-parent families in their experience of work-to-family conflict (WFC) and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how employed single-parents differ from parents in two-parent families in their experience of work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC). Looking at job-related as well as family-related demands and resources, this research investigated to what degree these demands and resources contribute to differences in WFC and FWC, how their relevance in predicting conflicts varies between single parents and other parents and the role of compositional differences in work and family demands and resources.
Design/methodology/approach
Cross-sectional linear regression analyses were applied to analyze a random sample of employees in large work organizations in Germany. The sample included 3,581 parents with children up to the age of 25, of whom 346 were single parents.
Findings
The results indicated that single parents face more FWC, but not more WFC, than other parents. For all parents, job demands such as overtime, supervising responsibilities and availability expectations were associated with higher levels of WFC, whereas job resources such as job autonomy, support from supervisors and flexible working hours were associated with lower levels of WFC. In predicting FWC, family demands and resources played only a minor role. However, results provide only scant evidence of differences between single parents and other parents in terms of the effects of job and family demands and resources.
Originality/value
This study offers interesting insights into the diversity of WFC and FWC experiences in Germany. It provides first evidence of the impact of job and family demands and resources on both directions of work–family conflicts among employed single parents as a specific social group.
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Christine Cress, Tricia Mulligan and Thomas Van Cleave
Transformational learning outcomes of short-term faculty-led international service-learning experiences can by stymied by cultural shock and improperly facilitated programs…
Abstract
Transformational learning outcomes of short-term faculty-led international service-learning experiences can by stymied by cultural shock and improperly facilitated programs. Moreover, dissonance in dimensions of the self in contrast to foreign traditions and social interactions can be especially salient in American student encounters in India. How students resolve and make meaning of their own emotional entropy is traced across two institutional programs, two courses (1 undergraduate and 1 graduate), and multiple India community partner sites. An evidence-based pedagogical model and strategies for preparation, praxis, and processing are offered in supporting student reflection of themselves as global beings and in development of global agency which is manifested as intrapersonal, interpersonal, intercultural, academic, and professional competencies.
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