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Purpose—The notion of organizations as gendered is not new, yet critical gaps in the understanding of the processes responsible for the creation and maintenance of these gendered organizations still exist. Within the existing breadth and depth of feminist organizational scholarship, an increasing number of researchers have been drawn to Joan Acker’s notion of the “gendered substructure” as one of the more promising frameworks for analysis of the gendering of organizations. In this chapter, the authors seek to develop an analysis of Acker’s gendered substructure through, and reflection on, its application.

Design/methodology/approach—Acker’s framework of gendering processes is explored through a case study of the gendering of a single organization over time—Pan American World Airways (Pan Am). The authors’ “reading” of the archival materials was informed by a combination of feminist poststructuralism, critical discourse analysis, and critical hermeneutics.

Findings—Through an exploration of the roots of Acker’s framework and its application to a case study of a single organization over time (Pan Am), the chapter contends that its greatest potential lies in examining the four process sets—division of labor, workplace culture, social interactions, and (self) reflection—through a fifth process of “organizational logic” that is seen as temporal and contextual. Drawing on poststructuralist feminist theory, it argues that organizational logic can be viewed through analyses of organizational, and organizationally based, discourses.

Originality/value—The chapter argues that the (widely recognized) heuristic value of Joan Acker’s “gendered substructure” has not been realized due to inconsistencies in its interpretation and application. This study engages Acker’s framework in its entirety, as gendering processes do not exist in silos and are likely more interdependent than typically credited. The chapter looks at the dynamics of, and between the five sets of, gendering processes.

The notion of organizations as gendered is not new yet critical gaps in the understanding of the processes responsible for the creation and maintenance of these gendered organizations still exist. Within the existing breadth and depth of feminist organizational scholarship an increasing number of researchers have been drawn to Joan Acker's notion of the “gendered substructure” as one of the more promising frameworks for analysis of the gendering of organizations. In this paper the authors seek to develop an analysis of Acker's gendered substructure through, and reflection on, its application.

Acker's framework of gendering processes is explored through a case study of the gendering of a single organization over time – Pan American World Airways (Pan Am). The authors' “reading” of the archival materials was informed by a combination of feminist poststructuralism, critical discourse analysis and critical hermeneutics.

Through an exploration of the roots of Acker's framework and its application to a case study of a single organization over time (Pan Am), the paper contends that its greatest potential lies in examining the four process sets – division of labor, workplace culture, social interactions and (self) reflection – through a fifth process of “organizational logic” that is seen as temporal and contextual. Drawing on poststructuralist feminist theory, it argues that organizational logic can be viewed through analyses of organizational, and organizationally based, discourses.

The paper argues that the (widely recognized) heuristic value of Joan Acker's “gendered substructure” has not been realized due to inconsistencies in its interpretation and application. This study engages Acker's framework in its entirety, as gendering processes do not exist in silos and are likely more interdependent than typically credited. The paper looks at the dynamics of, and between the five sets of, gendering processes.

Theorizing that was conceived in the 1970s about gendered processes in organizations helped explain gender inequalities in organizations. This article aims to take the opportunity to re‐examine these processes – including the gendered substructure of organizations, gendered subtext, the gendered logic of organization and the abstract worker from the perspective of the original author in a present‐day context.

A reflexive approach was used to consider how gender theorizing itself has become more complex as captured in the notion of intersectionality when gender process interacts with other forms of inequality.

The key finding is the persistence of inequality regimes despite organizational changes, which still make developments in theorizing gender processes relevant.

This article is an opportunity to reflect on the conceptualization and development of one's theorizing over three decades, which has suggested that there are still key questions that demand answers from academics and practitioners who want to challenge these inequality regimes.

Findings of an extensive archival study of Pan American Airways (PAA) strongly support Acker’s (1990) notion of the presence and importance of a dominant discourse of organizing logic in structuring a gendered order. Findings also demonstrate that the presence of alternative, but not necessarily feminist, discourses can serve to upset the gender order of organizations. Thus, we conclude that changing the organization’s gender substructure (Acker, 1992b) by changing the dominant discourse or introducing competing discourses may help to destabilize “truths” and interrupt the perpetuation and reification of policies, practices, and understandings that are often taken-for-granted despite their ability to silence voices and privilege some groups over others.

In this paper the authors seek to understand how academic conferences [re]produce deeply embedded gendered patterns of interaction and informal norms within the business disciplines.

Drawing on Acker's (2012) established and updated theory of gendered organisations, the authors focus on the role of academic conferences in the reproduction of gendered practices in the business disciplines. The authors surveyed academics at top universities in Australia and New Zealand who had attended international conferences in their discipline area.

Academic conferences in the business disciplines communicate organisational logic and act as gendered substructures that [re]produce gendered practices, through the hierarchy of conference participation. Even in disciplinary conferences with a significant proportion of women delegates, the entrenched organisational logic is manifest in the bodies that perform keynote and visible expert roles, perpetuating the notion of the “ideal academic” as male.

The authors call for disciplinary associations to formulate an equality policy, which covers all facets of conference delivery, to which institutions must then respond in their bid to host the conference and which then forms part of the selection criteria; explicitly communicate why equality is important and what decisions the association and hosts took to address it; and develop databases of women experts to remove the most common excuse for the lack of women keynote speakers. Men, question conference hosts when asked to be a keynote speaker or panelist: Are half of the speakers women and is there diversity in the line-up? If not, provide the names of women to take your place.

The contribution of this study is twofold. First is the focus on revealing the underlying processes that contribute to the [re]production of gender inequality at academic conferences: the “how” rather than the “what”. Second, the authors believe it to be the first study to investigate academic conferences across the spectrum of business disciplines.

Gender differences in leadership and issues around differential progression of male and female leaders are receiving more attention in the fields of human resource and leadership development. However, little is known about how interventions designed to support female leaders are being experienced within real-world contexts of global organizations. There is limited research and discussion on how such interventions are experienced at a more systemic level. This study aims to contribute at this very level.

This study reports on a predominantly coaching-based development program that was designed to further the careers of female leaders within a complex multi-national organization. The study was conducted in a large, global health-care corporation employing 100,000 people based in over 120 countries. The qualitative research design for this study was exploratory, involving a reflexive process at each of the two stages.

The findings from this qualitative research take the debate on “the gendered organization” further by including the voices of female leaders. They demonstrate that whilst theoretically the concept of the “ideal worker” may inhibit progression, this is not necessarily a barrier to career advancement. Coaching, both individual and group, is shown to have a powerful effect on promoting reflection, self-confidence and focus.

There are two research limitations. While confidentiality was promised, the responses of some interviewees were nevertheless still guarded. Other limitations relate to the extent to which this study can be generalized to other contexts, as it was conducted inside a single global corporation.

The study addresses the complex and urgent topic of differential progression and makes a broader contribution by offering a systemic perspective on gender and development in global organizations.

This study identifies gendered disparities among women students participating in work-integrated learning and explores the effects of the disparities on their perceptions on perceived opportunities, competencies, sense of belonging, and professional identity.

A series of semi-structured focus groups were run with 59 participants at six higher education institutions in four countries (Australia, Canada, Sweden, United Kingdom). All focus groups were designed with the same questions and formatting.

Thematic analysis of the transcripts revealed two overarching themes, namely perceptions of self and interactions with others in work placements. Theme categories included awareness of self-presentation, sense of autonomy, perceived Allies, emotional labour, barriers to opportunity, sense of belonging, intersections of identity, and validation value.

This study fills an important gap in the international literature about gendered experiences in WIL and highlights inequalities that women experience while on work placements.

The growth in women’s entrepreneurship that has been witnessed recently in regions such as the USA has been lauded by scholars and policymakers alike. However, women continue to start businesses in sectors that reflect the kind of work that women do in the home, such as cooking, cleaning and catering. Research shows that women’s ‘choices’ for female-typed businesses are driven by their need to accommodate domestic responsibilities – that is, caring for children. This raises questions about whether women without such responsibilities are freer to start businesses in the types of industries (e.g. high technology) that have long been dominated by men. Furthermore, given pronatalist assumptions, there are questions about the extent to which childfree women operating businesses in male-dominated sectors are perceived as legitimate by their business relations. Taking these questions as a starting point, this chapter examines the way in which the intersections of parental status (mother/other) and gender role (in)congruence (congruent/incongruent) make the entrepreneurial experiences of women working in male-dominated/masculinised industries and sectors qualitatively different from the experiences of women working in female-dominated/feminised industries. Focus is upon the resources (i.e. social capital) that women entrepreneurs are able to secure from their social network, for the ability to secure such resources is a prerequisite to business success.

Purpose—Joan Acker proposed her gendered theory of organization as a framework to analyze organizations and to understand how gender underlies organizational structure in such a way as to subordinate women. Much of the previous work that has utilized this framework has examined highly (male-) gendered organizations. This archival case study aims to use Acker’s framework to examine a purportedly female-gendered organization—the 1970s feminist organization, Stewardesses for Women’s Rights (SFWR).

Design/methodology/approach—Using these archived materials, this chapter uses a critical hermeneutic approach across Acker’s framework of gendered organization to make sense of the rise and fall of SFWR. The chapter discusses lessons learned from this short-lived organization.

Findings—The chapter finds that societal pressure and organizing women’s understanding of what is “real” and valued in an organization pushed them to create an organization that was as highly (male-) gendered as the organizations from which they were escaping. Many in the organization never saw SFWR as a “real” organization because of the underlying organizational logic that was directing what the organization should be. Even if the organization did, on the surface, look different than other explicitly male-gendered organizations, the same underlying organizational logic manifested itself in similar organizational structure.

Originality/value—This archival case study uses Acker’s framework to examine a purportedly female-gendered organization—the 1970s feminist organization SFWR and reveals lessons learned.