Search results

Despite the breadth of knowledge on self and identity formation across the study of organizations, the field of organizational development and change has limited research on the construction of professional identity. Much has been written to describe the “self-concepts” of those practicing and researching in the field, but there have been no investigations that have explored how these “self-concepts” form. In addition, although women have contributed to defining the “self” in the field, men have held the dominant perspective on the subject. Thus, in this chapter, we address a disparity in the research by exploring the construction of professional identity in the field of organizational development and change, and we give voice to the renowned women who helped to build the field. Using the profiles of 17 American women included in The Palgrave Handbook of Organizational Change Thinkers, we perform a narrative analysis based upon the concepts and models prevalent in the literature on identity formation. By disentangling professional identity formation of the notable women in the field, we can begin to see the nuance and particularities involved in its construction and gain deeper understandings about effective ways to prepare individuals to work in and advance the field.

Reflections on gender and OD over a 50-year career as a scholar, an OD practitioner, and a woman managing a complex life and career.

My journey in OD has spanned 50 years which is also about as long organization development has been around. In this essay, I will reflect on my experiences with special attention to issues of gender. I will also mention some issues of concern that confront us as OD scholars and practitioners, especially the balance between thinking and doing. As I describe my experiences, I hope they will lead to an appreciation of all that has happened in just 50 years! My experience is not everyone’s experience. I make no claim to that. I hope that some of the issues I raise resonate with you, or fill in some blanks, or lend a different perspective.

This paper poses the question of whether the mainstream feminist movement in the United States, in concentrating its efforts on achieving gender parity in the existing workplace, is selling women short. In it, I argue that contemporary U.S. feminism has not adequately theorized the problems with the relatively unregulated market system in the United States. That failure has contributed to a situation in which women’s participation in the labor market is mistakenly equated with liberation, and in which other far-ranging effects of the market system on women’s lives inside and outside of work – many of them negative – are overlooked. To theorize the effects of the market system on women’s lives in a more nuanced manner, I borrow from the insights of earlier Marxist and socialist feminists. I then use this more nuanced perspective to outline an agenda for feminism, which I call “market-cautious feminism,” that seeks to regulate the market to serve women’s interests.

This chapter discusses the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) within the context of the container liner shipping industry. It looks at the current practice of CSR in this industry and outlines the framework, the reasons and the drivers for companies to adopt and implement a CSR strategy. These include, among others, the increasing commitment to fostering CSR in the private sector at EU level, the changing expectations of customers — that is shippers — with regard to social and environmental standards of their contractors and suppliers, and the improving situation with regards to guidance and tools for adopting CSR and identifying and implementing the relevant measures (e.g. ISO 26000 and the European Commission's communication on CSR). The authors take the position that in an industry, which is as strongly consolidated as container liner shipping, the adoption and implementation of effective CSR strategies by a few companies at the top can have a profound impact on the industry as a whole. The Japanese NYK Group's CSR strategy is discussed in more detail to illustrate one of the best — if by no means perfect — examples in the current market. The chapter closes with a sector-specific definition of CSR for the container shipping industry.

The purpose of this chapter is to combine research findings around gender bias and the challenges women face in academia, and to present a unified conceptual framework. Ample research indicates that the issue is far from sufficiently addressed. Even in cases where policies are in place, mediocre outcomes are observed. Fewer women climb the ladder of academic progression all the way up to senior positions, especially in certain institutions and certain disciplines.

After thoroughly reviewing the literature, the authors integrate and organize the different multifaceted causes that appear to obstruct women in academia. They propose a scheme that divides between contextual and non-contextual factors, emphasizing their interplay.

Even when policies are in place, they appear to have limited results, because they mainly address isolated factors rather than taking a multifaceted, integrative approach.

Future research should further examine the interplay of contextual and non-contextual factors by combining multiple variables that contribute to gender bias in academia.

Policy-making should consider both contextual and non-contextual factors, thus providing more integrative solutions and taking a broader perspective on the issue.

Despite the ample and rising amount of research findings, there is no coherent framework to adequately include all the factors that contribute to gender bias in academia. By integrating and organizing the different, multifaceted causes already pointed out by previous findings, the authors hope to contribute to future research with specific variables to test and correlate, as well as to the formulation of more sophisticated policies.

Entrepreneurship involves complex interactions between individuals and environments but there is little research on these dynamics. We address this gap by conducting an inductive qualitative study of entrepreneurs in the exclusive tourist destination of Tiradentes, Brazil. Tiradentes has a unique architectural, cultural, and economic heritage that serves as a unique sociocultural backdrop that influences entrepreneurs’ models of start-up thinking and action. Specifically, our investigation revealed that entrepreneurs’ backgrounds (native vs. nonnative) and social identities come together with the sociocultural fabric of the community in a way that moved them towards a “Joia” or “Bijuteria” orientation, each of which were associated with a distinct mindset. This diversity had implications for entrepreneurs’ conceptualizations of start-up models possible within the backdrop of Tiradentes sociocultural fabric and this influenced the actions entrepreneurs took such as the geographic location chosen for the business and the business practices used. We discovered that entrepreneurs favoring one orientation over another tended to occupy predictable physical and social positions in the community while also espousing similar values and perspectives. These results are used to elaborate the theory on the link between the external and internal explanation for entrepreneurial thinking and action. The net effect is new understanding regarding ways models of start-up thinking and action can be investigated.

What are the social and ecological roots of export diversification in the developing world? On the one hand, I attribute the growth of nontraditional, manufactured exports from the Dominican Republic to the traditional agro-export elite's use of free trade zones to offset the consequences of urban biased, import-substituting industrialization in the 1970s, and thereby portray diversification as an incremental response to government predation rather than a coherent product of government planning. On the other hand, I hold that the nature, timing, and location of the nontraditional export supply response have necessarily been circumscribed by preexisting social and ecological circumstances, and thereby underscore the structural impediments to similar diversification efforts elsewhere in the developing world. My findings are of both theoretical relevance and policy import, for they serve to underscore the limitations to the regnant neoliberal development orthodoxy as well as the available sociological alternatives.