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The purpose of this paper is to examine the identity work undertaken by female next generation to navigate (in)visibility in family businesses with male successors. To enhance understanding of gendered identity work in family businesses, the authors offer important insights into how female next generation use (in)visibility to establish legitimacy and exercise power and humility in partnership with male next generation in their family business.

This empirical qualitative paper draws upon in-depth interviews with 14 next generation female leaders.

This study offers a model to show how female next generation establish their legitimacy amongst male next generation in power via a careful balancing act between vying for visibility (trouble) and forgoing visibility (exclusion). These female next generation gained acceptance by endorsing their own leadership identity and exercising humility in partnership or by endorsing their brother's leadership identity and exercising power in partnership.

This study highlights the need for the incumbent generation to prepare successors, regardless of gender, via equal opportunities for business exposure and leadership preparation. This study also shows that vocalizing female-centric issues and highlighting hidden power imbalances should be led by the entire management team and not simply delegated to a “family woman” in the management team to spearhead.

This study advances understanding of gender dynamics and identity in the family business literature by identifying specific strategies utilized by female next generation to navigate (in)visibility in family businesses with male successors.

This study aims to explore the individual lived crucible experiences of women leaders in higher education (HE) and business as the catalyst to investigate organisational inequality regimes that prevent women leaders from fully participating, contributing and flourishing at work. Drawing upon Bolman and Deal’s four-frame theoretical organisational model, this study analyses women’s lived crucible leadership experiences to better understand the organising processes and practices that render intersectionality invisible that reinforce and perpetuate inequality regimes.

A collaborative autoethnographic research method was selected for data collection. The research team members each selected one significant crucible moment from their professional career and used the Gibb’s six-part reflective cycle to document their narrative and reflect on their leadership experience. A reflexive thematic analysis was used based on Braun and Clarke’s six phases.

The study features the importance of creating a climate in organisations that acknowledges the need for greater equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) to support women leaders. Four global themes emerged from the analysis of the leadership narratives: organisation, power dynamics, emotional distress and perseverance and intersectionality. These themes illuminate a greater understanding of organisational life for women and confirm the presence of inequality regimes of gender and race.

This is the first study to explore the impact of women leaders’ crucible experiences through the lens of the Bolman and Deal’s model that highlights the need to consider an EDI lens as the fifth frame.

Dirty workers occupy jobs and perform tasks that are unpleasant and considered distasteful or “tainted” to other members of society. However, while they experience challenges in managing stigma, they are generally successful in creating positive self-identities. Among these dirty jobs is prostitution. As dirty workers, women sex workers in American history have been treated with humor, ridicule and derision. This study aims to explain the social contexts and the limited economic choices these women faced and examine how they may have managed their dirty work’s stigma to create positive self-identities.

This paper uses primary and secondary sources to examine a 53-year period of American history and to frame these women’s stigma management within a “dirty work” perspective.

The author suggests that sex workers in riskier roles (e.g. street walkers, crib workers or “upstairs girls” in saloons) would have been less able to effectively manage stigma and create positive self-identities as compared to brothels workers, due to the brothel’s strong social support, healthier work culture and richer resources.

While sex work has changed significantly in the past century, the principles of identity management in this difficult and dirty work remain. Understanding the economic, social and individual challenges faced by these dirty workers will aid our understanding of the difficulties confronted by today’s sex workers.

Sex work is nearly absent from scholarly management literature. The lack of historical perspective and knowledge in this field limits a full understanding of how various types of dirty workers manage stigma.

This study aims to explore the challenges and barriers encountered by Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) women entrepreneurs in an emerging country context – Sri Lanka – within a context of strict gender role stereotyping beliefs and norms.

Using qualitative research methodology, 15 in-depth, in-person, semi-structured interviews were conducted with STEM women entrepreneurs using the theoretical lenses of intersectionality and social role theories in tandem.

Findings revealed that participants were confronted with an array of structural/administrative and gender-related challenges at the intersections of gender, entrepreneurship and characteristics mapped with STEM fields. Accordingly, lack of access and reach to networks and opportunities, procedural obstacles, difficulties in staffing, difficulties in obtaining finances, lack of understanding and support from family and society, difficulties in managing work-life, and legitimacy obstacles appear to restrain the participants in starting and running their businesses. These challenges have their roots embedded in a complex web of ideologies and expectations related to gender.

This research contributes to the scant body of literature on STEM women entrepreneurship in general and specifically to the literature on challenges facing STEM women entrepreneurs from the perspective of a non-Western – emerging economy, which is built on strong cultural strictures and gender ideologies.

The purpose of this study is to examine how a group of special companies, i.e. highly acknowledged and awarded ones operating in Brazil handle the gender issue.

This investigation relies on historical analysis by addressing essentially a surface-level indicator (i.e. gender preferences). Rather, this study is grounded on data from the companies that were awarded as one of the best organizations to work for in Brazil by Época-Great Place to Work® Institute and Guia Você S/A lists (between 2012 and 2016). As a result, four organizations were selected, that is, the most representative examples of gender doing.

Overall, it found that the glass ceiling is apparently breaking down within at least some germane Brazilian organizations. However, data suggest that other sorts of institutional discrimination may be taking place, i.e. the one in which a feminist mindset may be permeating an organization or even a whole business sector. Under such a scenario, male workers will likely have only a few opportunities.

The sample size of this study does not permit that the results be generalized. In addition, data were elicited from only a specific cohort of companies.

It was found no substantial evidence that these organizations are making strides toward at least mitigating the effects of their gender unbalance, although gender equality and, broadly speaking, diversity does not constitute a new management topic anymore.

Unlike other investigations, it encompasses a larger sample of companies, draws exclusively upon gender-based organizations and is grounded on multiple sources of information. Additionally, data revealed that gendered organizations may encompass different levels of salience.

The topics of gender and sustainability are firmly anchored within a social discourse. Based on both factors, customers are placing demands on companies and have specific ideas on how they should be represented in advertising. The case study presented herein combines these two topics and examines the portrayal of gender in the external marketing communication of the fair fashion label ARMEDANGELS. By analysing individual Instagram publications, the case study identifies how the topic is generally portrayed on the company’s channel. Furthermore, the perspectives of customers are determined through conducted interviews. When comparing the two sides, it becomes apparent that customers mostly approve of the attempt to break with conservative gender roles as well as an equal representation of the male and female personas. In addition to expanding the theoretical considerations of the triple bottom line as well as the S-O-R model, we derive recommendations for ARMEDANGELS and for other companies in the fashion industry. For customer retention purposes, companies should therefore focus on aligning the sexes, breaking with the general gender binary and integrating LGBTQ+ communities in future marketing measures.

This study considered the use of video conferencing virtual backgrounds with employees located in a large multinational corporate organisation in Ireland and the USA to discern if background images evoking gendered stereotypes of leadership can cue stereotype threat in female technology workers undertaking a leadership activity, thus negatively effecting performance. This study aims to contribute to the body of research on stereotype threat by establishing whether virtual backgrounds used in video conferencing software are inherently identity safe or whether their use could have a negative performance impact on marginalised groups.

Using a mixed methods research design with 22 participants in two countries working in the one large organisation, using two quantitative methods (an experiment and a survey) and one qualitative method (semi-structured interviews), the study examined the relationship between performance on the leadership activity and exposure to gendered backgrounds on a video conference call.

It found that female leaders undertaking a leadership test experienced more anxiety and achieved lower scores on average when exposed to a male-gendered virtual background compared to male colleagues or female leaders exposed to a female gendered background. It was also found that these leaders were aware of the stereotype of leadership being White and male, and showed symptoms of prolonged exposure to stereotype threat in the workplace. While the authors still are working through a post-pandemic environment, it may be judicious for organisations to restrict the use of virtual backgrounds to identity-safe ones, specifically chosen by the company.

The study makes several practical recommendations, indicating actions which can be taken at the individual, team and corporate levels. Re-running this experiment in a more controlled environment with a larger sample set could yield more definitive, statistically significant results and contribute more to the literature.

Some individual impacts were found via the interviews. Male leaders in the organisation need to do more to mentor and endorse their female colleagues. By doing this, they can counter the negative effects of solo status and the subsequent performance degradations of their female counterparts, while also setting an example for other leaders. Participation in the mentoring programme and initiatives such as Dare and value, inclusion, belonging, and equity should be encouraged and supported. Reverse mentoring should also be encouraged among the population of male leaders to aid in allyship and bias-awareness.

Teams should note that a democratic vote is not always the best way to decide on the names of teams, projects or meeting rooms. These may skew towards niche interests that can serve to alienate members of the team who do not associate themselves with that interest. Rather, the teams should strive to be fully inclusive and educated on the need for identity-safety. Team events may also serve to alienate members if teams are not mindful of the need to be inclusive. Activities, such as “go-kart” racing and physical or competitive team events have been highlighted as unsuitable for some team members, and should be avoided in favour of inclusivity.

A significant body of research has documented the effect to which stereotype threat can be triggered by both the physical environment and by the use of various technology media. However, there is a dearth of research exploring the relationship between stereotype threat, defined as “the concrete, real-time threat of being judged and treated poorly in settings where a negative stereotype about one’s group applies” (Steele et al., 2002, p. 385), and video conferencing software features, such as virtual backgrounds.

This study aims to examine how entrepreneurship education influences intentions for starting a technology venture among science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students with particular attention to gender differences. This study builds on the model of entrepreneurial event and social role theory to assess the impact of entrepreneurship education on feasibility, desirability and intentions for technology entrepreneurship.

The hypotheses are tested with a sample of 879 Bulgarian science and engineering students from 15 universities. To test the models, this study uses ordinary least squares and logistic regressions with robust standard errors and Hayes mediation analysis with bootstrap bias-corrected confidence interval estimations for indirect effects. Two-stage Heckman regressions to control for sample selection bias and other robustness checks including propensity score matching were used.

Results show that entrepreneurship education, measured as participation in an entrepreneurship course, has a stronger impact on feasibility, desirability and intentions for technology entrepreneurship for female STEM students compared to their male counterparts. As such, this study supports the notion that entrepreneurship education could be part of a solution to counteract societal norms that position technology entrepreneurship as a less desirable and/or less feasible choice for women in STEM. However, attention should be paid to the operationalization of entrepreneurship education, as other measures of entrepreneurship education (role models, entrepreneurship education support) did not have a moderation effect with gender.

The authors assume a positive correlation between entrepreneurial intentions and entrepreneurial behavior. Future studies should include actual entrepreneurial behavior to paint a more complete picture of the effect of entrepreneurship education.

Little is known about the role of entrepreneurship education in the field of technology entrepreneurship, and even less about the potential gender differences in entrepreneurship education among STEM students. The study contributes to the literature by examining factors that could help close the persistent gender gap in technology entrepreneurship.

The aim of this paper is to explore how men entrepreneurs construe their success and the influence of the socio-cultural context and political and economic turbulence on their construals of success in the context of the Arab country of Lebanon.

To achieve the objective, the author draw on intersectionality theory and capitalise on twenty in-depth, semi-structured interviews with men entrepreneurs.

The findings reveal how construals of success by men entrepreneurs occur at the nexus between patriarchy, gendered expectations and adverse economic and political conditions. As a result, success is construed through the perseverance and legitimacy of their business and their compliance with expected family roles. These construals unfold as the men hold themselves accountable for and do gender and success per the ideal expectations indoctrinated by patriarchy.

The originality of this study lies in its theoretical contributions. First, it is the first study to explore the construals of success by men entrepreneurs in an Arab Middle Eastern country. Second, it contributes to a growing body of work that explores gender as a situated practice and demonstrates how it is performed by men entrepreneurs while construing their success. Third, it contributes to research on intersectionality in entrepreneurship and sheds light on the interconnections of gender, patriarchal socio-cultural values, economic and political conditions and entrepreneurship in Arab countries.