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Article
Publication date: 7 August 2018

Nceba Ndzwayiba, Wilfred Isioma Ukpere and Melissa Steyn

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the facticity of the dominant construction of black professionals as job hoppers that derail workforce reforms in corporate…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the facticity of the dominant construction of black professionals as job hoppers that derail workforce reforms in corporate South Africa particularly in leadership roles.

Design/methodology/approach

Historical literature review was conducted to trace the genesis of the alleged racialised job hopping phenomenon. Melissa Steyn’s (2015) idea of Critical Diversity Literacy was also applied to critically examine the implicit power dynamics, strengths, limitations and biases involved in the construction, valorisation, circulation and contestation of this dominant narrative.

Findings

The authors found the popular racialised job hopping phenomenon to be an overgeneralisation that lacks credible evidence. It ignores multiple variables that are crucial in studying employee turnover behaviour.

Research limitations/implications

The paper is conceptual. It is mainly based on critical literature reviews. Empirical studies could be undertaken within this domain in the future to confirm or disconfirm some of the findings of this paper.

Practical implications

These allegations are emblematic of the endemic systemic racism in South Africa’s corporate labour market that remains an enclave of whiteness.

Social implications

Race is a highly contentious phenomenon and a major field of social inequality. Black bodies confront numerous challenges that undermine their human rights and opportunities to participate meaningfully in society and the economy. This paper calls for organisations to play an active role in healing racial divisions and building social cohesion by critically examining, challenging and changing discourses that propel inequality.

Originality/value

By addressing one of critical socio-economic and political issues confronting the world’s most unequal society, the paper hopes to stimulate healthy debate that can bring real change for marginalised groups in workplaces.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 45 no. 9
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 December 2018

Nceba Ndzwayiba and Melissa Steyn

The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the discourses of gender empowerment in South African organisations to determine the extent to which they reify or resist the…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse the discourses of gender empowerment in South African organisations to determine the extent to which they reify or resist the entrenched oppressive gender binaries.

Design/methodology/approach

Multiple case studies design and critical discourse analysis were employed to collect and analyse the data. Research entailed critical analysis of 36 published documents containing information on gender and gender empowerment. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with six transformation managers as change agents who are tasked with the responsibility of driving gender empowerment in the selected organisations.

Findings

The authors found that gender in studied organisations was insularly defined within the confines of the male–female gender binaries. Consequently, designed gender empowerment strategies and ensuing initiatives mainly focussed on promoting the inclusion of heterosexual women in and on protecting these women from heterosexual men. Thus, gender empowerment systematised heteropatriachy in organisational culture and processes while invisibilising and annihilating the possibility of existence of alternative genders outside these naturalised binaries. Transformation managers, as change agents, fell short of acknowledging, challenging and changing these entrenched ideologies of patriotic heterosexuality.

Research limitations/implications

The paper uses Galting’s (1960) and Paul Farmer’s (2009) concept of structural violence and Rich’s (1980) notion of “deadly elasticity of heterosexual assumptions”, to theorise these gender empowerment discourses as constituting and perpetuating violence against queer bodies and subjectivities.

Practical implications

The paper recommends that corporates need to broaden their conceptions of gender and to design and entrench gender discourses that promote gender justice and equality.

Social implications

This inquiry proves Joan Acker’s (2006) and Baker’s (2012) views that inequality and injustice are produced and entrenched in a reciprocal relationship between society and the workplace.

Originality/value

This paper focusses on constructions of gender in organisations. By doing so, it links the observed violence against women and gender binary non-conforming people in society with organisational discourses of gender that perpetuate such violence instead of challenging and changing it so that democracy can be realised for all.

Details

International Journal of Social Economics, vol. 46 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0306-8293

Keywords

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