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This paper aims to reflect on the work of Virginia E. Schein and her paper “The functions of work‐related group participation for poor women in developing countries: an exploratory look.”

Professor Schein traveled to Nicaragua, to lower‐income settings, where she observed and recorded the experiences of women working in self‐organized groups, and used those observations to argue to the profession generally that self‐organized groups of women, however marginal the work itself, can be instrumental in developing the key sense of agency, and self‐efficacy. These are basic capabilities; the stuff of the Millennium Development Goals.

For this special issue, therefore, the authors have made Schein's 2003 study a focal point. To set the context they asked Dr Schein to reiterate the rationale for the research, and provide a brief overview of the original observations. To help expand the debate on gender, work and poverty reduction, the authors have asked noted colleagues to provide a series of Commentaries on the original article.

Women, especially those raising children alone, are among the poorest of the poor in developing and more developed economies. Research that is applicable and relevant to their work‐related concerns can and should be a larger part of worldwide efforts to reduce poverty. Organizational psychology has much to contribute to those long‐overdue efforts.

Women in Management Review Volume 9 No. 1 of this journal contains five articles of interest. In the first, entitled “Power, Sex and Systems”, Virginia E. Schein examines the power‐related properties of professional and organisational systems and considers their influence on reactions to sexual harassment. It is argued that, when the socio‐cultural power model of male dominance operates within pluralistic/political professional and organisational systems, these systems can become breeding‐grounds for sexual harassment behaviours that are tolerated rather than told on. A contrast between careers within systems and less system bound jobs illustrates the influence of context on decisions to tell or tolerate.

A major barrier to women's progress in management worldwide continues to be the gender stereotyping of the managerial position. The purpose of the paper is to examine how this “think manager – think male” attitude has changed over the three decades since the author's initial research and to consider the implications of the outcomes for women's advancement in management today.

The paper reviews the author's research, first conducted in the 1970s and replicated in the USA and internationally, on gender stereotyping and requisite management characteristics.

The overview reveals the strength and inflexibility of the “think manager – think male” attitude held by males across time and national borders. Over the last three decades corporate males in the USA continue to see women as less qualified than men for managerial positions. Internationally, the view of women as less likely than men to possess requisite management characteristics is also a commonly held belief among male management students in the USA, the UK, Germany, China and Japan.

Women's continued progress depends on recognizing the intractable nature of these negative attitudes and continually seeking ways to ensure that these attitudes do not derail their success. The need to maintain and expand legal efforts is discussed. An argument is also made for challenging the “corporate convenient” way of working and restructuring managerial work to facilitate a work and family interface.

Based upon three decades of research, the paper highlights the importance of maintaining and increasing efforts to ensure that women advance to positions of power and influence in organizations worldwide.

Examines a recent managerial sex typing research project. Results show that it is still very difficult for women to reach top managerial jobs and those who do are very much in the minority. The “glass ceiling” appears to be still intact although women are gaining some “middle” ground. Posits that “think manager – think male” should become “think manager – think qualified person!”

Examines the power‐related properties of professional and organizational systems and considers their influence on reactions to sexual harassment. It is argued that, when the socio‐cultural power model of male dominance operates within pluralistic/political professional and organizational systems, these systems can become breeding‐grounds for sexual harassment behaviours that are tolerated rather than told on. A contrast between careers within systems and less systems bound jobs illustrates the influence of context on decisions to tell or tolerate.

Despite the high interest in work/family issues, little attention has been paid to changing the design and structure of managerial work so as to facilitate the work/family interface. Outdated work designs and unquestioned assumptions about “how things are done” may be a significant barrier to women′s advancement in management. Proposes that human resource management professionals need to examine managerial work from the perspective: “What activities and demands are ′corporate convenient′ and what are job related?” Discusses the implications of challenging corporate convenient requirements.

Quebec was the first Canadian jurisdiction to legislate on pay equality. It did so through the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedom, in 1976, a passive legislation since it is based on complaints. It seems to be a matter of time before the Quebec Government passes a pro‐active legislation on pay equity and, in doing so, it will likely draw its inspiration from the Pay Equity Act (PEA) passed by the Ontario Government in 1987. One of PEAs important features is the emphasis on institutional structures and practices in determining the appropriate unit for the purpose of achieving pay equity. In practice, such units will often match up with the usual job families (e.g. clerical or office vs production jobs). However, the historical development of jobs families is intertwined with the evolution of occupational segregation between men and women in the labour markets.

Equal pay for men and women was a principle en‐shrined in the Treaty of Rome and was the subject of a European Directive in 1975. This investigation of progress towards equal pay in three member‐states, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, reveals the importance of differences in employment structures and reward systems in determining relative pay for women. The author argues that differences in the structure and size of pay differentials among countries suggest that more attention needs to be paid to the general system of labour market regulation than to explicit equal‐pay policies. She concludes that women would be more likely to benefit from a strategy of establishing labour standards and regulation than from equal‐pay Directives which have little effect on the general practices and principles of pay determination.

The Sixteenth Annual Report of the Equal Opportunities Commission for Northern Ireland argues that the enforcement of individual rights is a crucial pre‐requisite for change. There was a 28% increase in the number of legal complaints and enquiries dealt with during the year under review. The most marked increase was in the area of employment (34%). With the increasing influence of European law many of these complaints have led to the commencement of very complex actions.

After two decades of women′s increasing presence in management, raises the question of what impact this has had on perceptions of management. Discussion of the impact of work by Virginia Schein on supporting “women only” training, based on reducing female “deficiencies”, and by Sandra Bem in developing the idea of the androgynous manager leads to consideration of valuing diversity as an important theme for management development in the 1990s. Sets the argument for recognizing diversity against evidence from a small‐scale study which showed that both male and female managers saw increasing masculinity as crucial to being effective and successful. Raises the implications for trainers, and argues the need for management development programmes to include consideration of diversity from a contributory perspective.