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The purpose of this study is to explore the use of shared services by end-users and why this may conflict with the use as intended by the shared service center (SSC) management.

By applying structuration theory, this empirical study draws on qualitative data obtained from semi-structured interviews with managers and end-users of an SSC. This SSC is part of a Dutch subsidiary of a multinational corporation that produces professional electronics for the defense and security market.

We find two main types of shared services usage by end-users which were not intended by the SSC management: avoidance and window-dressing. These forms of unintended usage were the result of contradictions in social structures related to the centralization and decentralization models as appropriated by end-users and management.

Our findings show that the benefits of shared services depends on how well contradictions in managers’ and end-users’ interpretive schemes, resources, and norms associated with centralization and decentralization models are resolved.

A popular argument in existing studies is that the benefit of shared services follows from the design of the SSC’s organizational structure. These studies overlook the fact that shared services are not always used as their designers intended and, therefore, that success depends on how the SSC’s organizational structure is appropriated by end-users. As such, the originality of this study is our focus on the way shared services are used by their end-users in order to explain why SSCs succeed or fail in reaping their promised benefits.

Based on qualitative data from a large study exploring Muslim experiences in the workplace, this chapter explains how Muslim dress standards inform identity and are influenced by US cultural ideals about self-presentation and perceived anti-Muslim hostility. Theoretical sampling was used to find 25 men and 59 women, 32 of whom are veiled. These individuals worked at major corporations as numerical minorities or held professions where they encountered non-Muslims regularly. Informed by theories of orientalism and social identity, findings examine hegemonic representations of organizational power and describe how men could employ masculine practices to navigate anti-Muslim discourse and foster a sense of belonging at work. Within immigrant-centered workplaces, women face cultural backlash for appropriating Western styles deemed immodest. While working outside their community, women who wore hijabs emphasized their femininity through softer colors, makeup, or “unpinning” their veil to offset the visceral reaction to their hijab. Thus, adapting to workplace dress expectations is structured by intersections of gender, religion, and workplace location. This chapter illustrates how Muslim dress strategies indirectly reflect how Western standards of dress, behavior, and self-expression determine qualifications and approachability within workplace structures, marginalizing Muslims and reproducing racial and gender hierarchies.

Appearance has two meanings. On the one hand, appearance is about the physical qualities of a person being of certain height, weight, complexion and having a particular hair, eye and skin colour as well as choice and style of dress and attire. On the other hand, appearance has a social dimension, as those physical qualities of a person are interpreted, rated and judged, and attributed varied meanings and values across different settings. Appearances can influence the experiences of individuals in the workplace in both positive and negative ways: Positive, when they are mobilised as a resource that increases the influence and advantage of individuals on others; and negative, when individuals are discriminated or disadvantaged on the basis of their appearance. Drawing on a Bourdieusian conceptual repertoire, this chapter delves into this duality of appearance and frames appearance both as a resource (a form of carnal capital) and a source of symbolic violence. As appearance is an aspect of an individual's self-identity in the workplace, this chapter explores appearance and intersectionality across gender, ethnicity, class and sexual orientation at work. Appearance is examined as a cross cutting category of diversity as both privilege (carnal capital) and disadvantage (symbolic violence).

The purpose of this case study is to investigate one conduit through which racial inequality is perpetuated in American schools. Using Bourdieu’s theory of capital, this chapter uses visual ethnography to examine the signage of one predominately African American high school in the Midwest. Some of the signs, which are featured photographically in the chapter, include bans on “sagging,” bans on certain slang words, an emphasis on individual accountability, and more. The chapter finds that this school works to normalize forms of cultural capital considered valuable in the White, middle to upper-middle class communities while simultaneously discrediting and preventing less dominant forms of capital. The implications of this analysis are that Black students must gain access to dominant forms of capital in order to experience success in school. Such an analysis asks leaders in higher education to: (1) recognize that high schools often negatively evaluate a student’s non-dominant cultural capital – as reflected in poor student discipline records, low achievement and attainment; (2) consider transforming the college admissions process to be more inclusive of measures of non-dominant capital; and (3) consider how to authentically value what matriculating students with non-dominant forms of capital bring to the campus.