Search results

Gender concerns have been almost totally ignored within organizational analysis. This chapter attempts to redress that ignorance. It has four related tasks: (1) to illustrate examples of gender-blind approaches to the study of organizations; (2) by way of a selective review of the organizations and culture debate, to argue for the utility of an organizational culture focus for an understanding of gender; (3) to root an organizational culture focus, along with gender concerns, within a feminist materialist method of analysis; (4) to explore, by way of a strategic application of Clegg’s (1981) “rule” focus, the potential of a feminist materialist analysis for understanding the relationship between gender and organizational culture.

The purpose of this paper is to show how an application of the qualitative diary method reveals the gendered organisation.

The paper draws on the author's experience of her own design and implementation of the diary method, using qualitative diaries, dialogues and interviews. The application is known as the “diary project” and is carried out in a case‐study organisation in which the researcher is addressing wider questions about gender, change and organisation.

The outcomes show how the diary project methodology is effective for learning about gender norms and practices embedded in organisational culture. Reflections on the interface between the personal and the professional, the formal and the informal, emotion, sexuality and power, hierarchies and difference, draw out significant organisational phenomena which shape advantage and disadvantage and unequal access and control.

The diary project methodology is about the organisation in the present. To study gender embedded in the organisation requires the organisational researcher to also work with other research methods, to achieve a deep understanding.

The experience of the diary project is that it offers organisational researchers and change practitioners a methodology for study and intervention.

The paper is of use to readers looking for a participatory organisational research methodology to examine the gendered organisation. Findings highlight the value of the diary project methodology for a deep analysis of organisation.

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.

The present study consists of managers and professionals in 26 countries including seven from Central and Eastern Europe. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether culture dimensions predict country differences in the relationship between gender and organizational commitment. The study integrated theories of social learning, role adjustment and exchange that link commitment to organizational roles to explain such differences in gender effects. Findings indicate that an alternative modernities perspective on theories of gender and commitment is better warranted than is a traditional modernities perspective.

This study examined the relationship between gender and organizational commitment using primary data collected in 26 counties. The cross-level moderating effects of individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, power distance and restraint vs indulgence was examined using hierarchical linear modeling.

Organizational commitment is found to be higher among men than women in four countries (Australia, China, Hungary, Jamaica) and higher among women than men in two countries (Bulgaria and Romania). Results shows that large power distance, uncertainty avoidance, femininity (social goal emphasis) and restraint (vs indulgence) predict an association between being female and commitment. These all suggest limitations to the traditional modernity-based understanding of gender and the workplace.

This study is unique based on the three theories it integrates and because it tests the proposed hypothesis using a multi-level nested research design. Moreover, the results suggest a tension between an alternative modernities perspective on top-down governmental effects on commitment through exchange and bottom-up personal effects on commitment through social learning with role adjustment in an intermediate position.

By the very nature of its concerns (i.e. a search for deep‐seated meanings within our understandings of organizations and the people who enact them), psychoanalysis has much to offer management practice in the twenty‐first century. We contend that, given its focus, the growing concerns with the dynamics of gender at work places a particular burden on psychoanalysis. Drawing on insights from debates within feminist psychoanalysis, we suggest a strategy for applying psychoanalysis that is capable of dealing with the gendered aspects of organizational dynamics.

This paper uses a combination of organisation theory, gender theory and the work environment to study the generation and implementation of new ideas in organisations. How do employees' perceptions of organisational structure and the work environment affect idea generation and implementation, and how does gender moderate this relationship?

The study develops and tests a structural equation model using data from a survey of a large Norwegian energy corporation. Survey items are measured using five-point scales and show good internal consistency levels. Exploratory factor analyses are used to ensure internal consistency, and confirmatory factor analyses are used to assess the fit of the model. Convergent and discriminant validity tests are also performed. Common method bias and invariance are evaluated across the female and male samples.

The theoretical model had a better fit for the male sample than the female sample, indicating that men's innovations were better captured than women's. The relationship between creativity and implementation is moderated by gender: women's ideas are not implemented to the same degree as men's. Work pressure has a positive effect on creativity; support from colleagues affects both idea generation and implementation, though support from managers does not.

The study has the usual limitations of cross-sectional surveys. The findings confirm that the two phases of the innovation process (idea generation and implementation) depend on similar intrinsic motivational factors in the work environment. However, implementing ideas also depends on decision-making authority.

Managers should be aware of how to increase innovative potential among employees. Employees should be given decision-making authority and work in an environment with supportive colleagues. The gendered findings in the study indicate that more attention should be paid to women's innovations in male-dominated corporations.

The study integrates research from disciplines that traditionally do not communicate into one theoretical framework to explore the conditions for employee-driven innovation. The findings highlight the need for developing gender-neutral innovation measures and understanding context-embedding innovation processes.

Results of a survey of Canadian work organizations reveal a broad set of gendered values embedded in organizational cultures. The findings of this study show stereotypically masculine values in the culture of these organizations and a desired change toward a culture that is more friendly, less accepting of established authority and less dominant. In addition, current cultures are perceived to reward men and women differently in terms of the values shown in their behavior, contributing to a discriminatory climate that makes many women feel unwelcome and uncomfortable. This makes many organizational change efforts particularly difficult.