Illuminating gendered organization assumptions

One key to why organizations have been less successful at integrating a work–family agenda into their organizational cultures is that workplaces have failed to consider how gender assumptions influence workplace practices, policies and cultures. This paper presents a theoretical framework for considering how gender role assumptions have prevented organizational attempts to become family friendly. Further, this paper uses an organizational case study to illustrate this point. Specifically, a theory of gendered organizations is used to frame an analysis of 30 employee interviews. Data suggest that gendered organizational assumptions inherent to several workplace policies and practices contribute to employee strain associated with negotiating the demands of life on and off the job. Further, the findings show that these gendered organizational assumptions prevent organizations from developing workplace cultures responsive to employees' work, family and personal needs. A brief review of the interdisciplinary work–family field is presented, followed by a discussion of gendered organizations. Then, using interview data collected from management and ‘front‐line’ female and male workers employed at a municipal government, this paper examines how workplace practices, presumably gender neutral, affect employees and the organizational culture in which they work.     

LGBTQ Activist Organizations as ‘Respectably Queer’ in India: Contesting a Western View

This study contests the distinction of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) organizations suggested by earlier scholars as ‘respectable’ — i.e. normalizing, professionalizing and conforming to the dominant cultural and institutional patterns — and ‘queer’, meaning challenging the cultural and institutional forces that ‘normalize and commodify differences’. Using Bernstein's model of identity deployment, it is found problematic to distinguish LGBTQ organizations this way because when the actions of LGBTQ organizations are more complex to describe, it is not warranted to conflate identity goals with identity strategies — whether normalizing (respectable) or differentiating (queer). To examine these concerns, a qualitative inquiry was used to study five LGBTQ organizations in India where the intersections of post‐colonial ethnicity, gender, social class and sexuality offer an intriguing context through which to study queer activism. Based on the findings, it is argued from a post‐colonial perspective that when the socio‐cultural and historical existence of non‐homonormative queer communities and practices is strong, LGBTQ organizations challenge the heteronormative and/or other forms of domination to become ‘queer’. But they may simultaneously become ‘respectable′ by conforming to the diversity politics of non‐profit business, donors, and social movement organizations they seek support from, and turn out as ‘respectably queer’.     

Coming Out,But Into What? Problematizing Discursive Variations of Revealing the Gay Self in the Workplace

There is a substantial mainstream literature on coming out in organizations, which investigates the positive effects for gay people of being out at work, but very few contributions that challenge the discourse of coming out. Taking as its starting point Butler's famous question ‘So we are out of the closet but into what?’, this paper problematizes coming out discourses in the workplace. We report on a study in which ten men were invited to talk about their coming out in the workplace. There were three main ways through which our participants constituted themselves as gay men when they talked about coming out: by defining themselves as, and admitting to, being gay; by introducing themselves as being in a gay relationship; and by adopting legitimate subject positions such as the Other, the different one, or the normal gay. Through our analysis, discussions and conclusions, we show how participants position themselves within different discursive variations, thus revealing the multiplicity of ‘the gay self’ and highlighting how coming out repeats and supports normative systems.     

Restructuring Flexibility: Case Studies of Part‐Time Female Workers in Six Workplaces

The article is based on six workplace case studies within a local economy and investigates the reasons behind the different utilization of part‐time workers within these workplaces. The research examines the content and nature of part‐time work in these organizations and the experiences of the part‐time workforce. The findings suggest that we need to distinguish between three types of part‐time workers; core, peak and ancillary. It is argued that such distinctions capture the variegated utilization of part‐time workers and contribute to the debate concerning the integration or marginalization of part‐time staff within workplaces. Furthermore, workplace cultures are an important arena for contextualizing these discussions. It is contended that the different uses of part‐time workers can be explained by different sectoral and organizational contexts but that the nature of part‐time work is also influenced by existing social relations within the workplace, notably with respect to gender, class and age.     

Organizational Commitment over the Gendered Life Course at a Mexican Company

Mexican workplaces have changed significantly in response to the global marketplace by restructuring, downsizing, and implementing new production and administrative processes. This case study analyzes organizational commitment at a Mexican‐owned multinational corporation within the context of workplace transformation. Based on in‐depth interviews with 83 women and men, I identify two sources of commitment—family‐friendly and career‐friendly employment practices. Using the framework of the gendered life course, I show commitment fluctuated given the employees' stage in the life course. This study builds on the gender and work research by exploring how individual attributes of gender and parental status contribute to organizational commitment, but are underscored by the complexity of workplace context.     

‘Family Friendly’ Employment Policies: A Route to Changing Organizational Culture or Playing About at the Margins?

Formal ‘family friendly’ policies, including flexible or reduced hours of work and periods of leave, designed to help employees to balance work and family demands have the potential to challenge traditional models of work and organizational values. However, while these policies can reduce stress for individual employees, it is argued that there is less evidence of widespread organizational culture change. This paper draws on case studies of organizations at various stages of developing ‘family friendly’ policies to identify two barriers to fundamental shifts in organizational culture; low sense of entitlement to consideration of family needs, and organizational discourses of time as representing productivity, commitment and value. Some conditions under which broader culture change may be achieved are explored.     

Rumors and gossip as tools of social undermining and social dominance in workplace bullying and mobbing practices: A closer look at perceived perpetrator motives

The impact of ‘bully bosses’ on organizations is well studied and research has established a number of antecedents, correlates, moderators and mediators of workplace bullying and mobbing as well as the impact of the practices on the targets, bystanders, perpetrators and the employing organizations. The current study focuses on rumors and gossip as ‘tools’ used by perpetrators of workplace bullying and mobbing. This study is important because while researchers have generally agreed that rumors and gossip can contribute to a better understanding of different areas of interest to organizational behaviorists and researchers; the role played by the two social processes (i.e., rumors and gossip) have not been adequately interrogated by scholars or practitioners studying organizations. To address this gap in research, the main objective of the current study was to use collaborative and analytic autoethnography (CAAE) in exploring and presenting qualitative empirical inquiry on the dynamics of workplace bullying as perpetrated by ‘bully bosses’ and as characterized by rumors and gossip. The findings and extant literature suggests that depending on: contents, functions, and the situational and motivational contexts, perpetrators of bullying and mobbing may use rumors and gossip: 1) for maintenance of oppression and social dominance; 2) as an expression of envy and social undermining; 3) as a weapon to humiliate subordinates by corporate/organizational psychopaths; and/or 4) as a psychological attempt to close or widen the power gap.     

‘I'm not proud,I'm just gay’: Lesbian and gay youths' discursive negotiation of otherness

This article outlines the shared identity construction of five gay and lesbian members of an LGBT youth group, situated in a conservative, working‐class, Northern English town. It is shown that the young people's identity work emerges in response to the homophobia and ‘othering’ they have experienced from those in their local community. Through ethnography and discourse analysis, and using theoretical frameworks from interactional sociolinguistics, the strategies that the young people employ to negotiate this othering are explored; they reject certain stereotypes of queer culture (such as Gay Pride or being ‘camp’) and aim to minimise the relevance of their sexuality to their social identity. It is argued this reflects both the influence of neoliberal, ‘homonormative’ ideology, which casts sexuality in the private rather than public domain, and the stigma their sexuality holds in their local community. These findings point to the need to understand identity construction intersectionally.     

The Social Dynamics Channelling Latina College Graduates into the Teaching Profession

Sociologists examine the persistence of occupational sex segregation in two primary ways, vertically (within occupations) and horizontally (across occupations). Feminist scholars analysing gender and race inequality within work organizations have used ‘glass escalator’ and ‘glass barriers’ to document men's experiences in occupations where women concentrate, falling under the vertical epistemology. These race and gender theories are crucial to our understanding of workplace inequities, but they only address privilege or discrimination once women have entered or try climbing the work organization. Based on interviews with 40 Latina teachers in Southern California, this paper examines the point of occupational entry, and explains why college‐educated Latinas, the daughters of working‐class Latino immigrants, are disproportionately entering the teaching profession in the United States. We suggest that Latinas are socially channelled into the teaching occupation, and show how collective family considerations inform agency and occupational decision‐making for these women, resulting in a type of glass ceiling shaped by family and social class. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of collective‐informed agency for future studies of upwardly mobile Latinas in the professions.     

Mediated business: living the organizational surroundings – introduction

ABSTRACT

This special section builds upon Deirdre Boden’s work on the constitutive nature of talk for organizations and the Culture & Organization 2004 special issue that developed her concern. Specifically, we aim to further engage with how business is managed, formed and locally accomplished by means of the organizational surroundings that the participants make themselves part of and the multimodal resources that they have at their disposal, in other words: how people live the organizational surroundings. Our hope is to shed light on future directions in the multimodal analysis of workplace interaction and studies of organization in general, and encourage a further interconnection among scholars from various disciplines.     

Marijuana,Gender, and Health-Related Harms: Disentangling Marijuana's Contribution to Risk in a College “Party” Context

Sociological studies suggest that there is social change occurring in the acceptance of lesbians and gay men in the workplace. Compared to prior decades, there are more businesses that welcome, value, and even privilege nonheterosexual sexual identities and relationships. Few studies have analyzed workers' experiences in these types of work contexts. In this article, we explore the experiences of “out” LGB women and men who work for organizations that they consider “gay-friendly.” In-depth interviews demonstrated that, although gay and lesbian workers feel that they are accepted in “gay-friendly” organizations, they nevertheless described differential treatment because of their sexual identity. We discuss evidence of stereotyping, sexual harassment, and gender discrimination in their work experiences. Although the movement toward greater acceptance of gays and lesbians in the workplace has made significant progress, the transformation is so far incomplete. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this research for the study of equality in organizations.     

Metamorphosis: From ‘Nice Girls’ to ‘Nice Bitches’: Resisting Patriarchal Articulations of Professional Identity

This article explores the random strategies women adopt in resisting patriarchal articulations of their professional identity and the kind of organizational discourses women’s resistance brings about. The focus is on describing the context, dynamics of contradictory tensions and ambivalence inherent in situations of resisting. The article draws upon the authors’ own experiences in academia. In addition to participatory observation, the authors are using themselves as research instruments that enable them to highlight the emotions and ambivalent dynamics in the construction of gendered identities and power relations in organizations. The study indicates that there are several sets of rules in motion in one and the same social situation, such as the rules of organizational behaviour, rules of friendship and the rules of gender relations in public places. By describing two overtly sexualized discourses that women’s resistance brought about, the article highlights that organizational sexuality does not necessarily differ in kind or in degree from ‘street sexuality’ or sexuality in semi‐public places. The study’s findings argue that it is important to extend research to both informal and semi‐formal organizational gatherings. These liminal spaces are important sites of communicative struggles over organizational meanings and identities.     

Firm friends: exploring the supportive components in gay men's workplace friendships

Research shows that friendships are among the most important sources of support for gay men. Despite insights into how friends can be significant providers of emotional, practical and affirmational support, particularly when gay men 'come out' or experience discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, scholars have rarely considered the role of work friends in supporting gay men in the workplace. This is remarkable given that work organisations remain challenging arenas for sexual minority employees to fashion a meaningful sense of self. Drawing on in-depth interview data with twenty-eight gay men employed in the UK, this article argues that gay men can rely on work friends for different forms of support in helping them to negotiate and sustain a viable sense of self. The findings show how the gender and sexuality of organisation influences which men and women are available as work friends, and the types of support they might give. Also, the affirmational support received from work friends is important not only for validating participants' sexual identities, but also identities of class and parenthood. The study aims to complicate stereotypes of men's workplace friendships as sources of support used largely for advancing careers and personal gain.     

Gendered,Invisible Work in Non‐profit Social Service Organizations: Implications for Worker Health and Safety

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) play an important role in the provision of health and social services. In Canada the nonprofit sector includes 7.5 million volunteers and employs over 1.6 million paid workers. The sector is overwhelmingly female‐dominated — women make up over 80 per cent of workers in these nonprofit services. Work performed by women has traditionally been undervalued and invisible. It has often been considered safe by researchers, employers, policymakers and sometimes even workers themselves. Although there is some indication that jobs in the restructuring social services sector can be characterized by constant demand, high stress and violence, research into the working conditions and health hazards of these types of jobs has not been a priority. Using data from a qualitative study examining work in NPOs, we trace the ways that work performed in these workplaces is both gendered and invisible. We identify three types of invisible labour. ‘Background work’ facilitates and supports more visible and recognized organizational activities. Certain organizational language obscures the full spectrum of work that takes place in the organizations and the risks it may involve. ‘Empathy work’ includes the relationship building, counselling and crisis intervention that comprise key components of social service delivery. ‘Emotional labour’ involves the management of client emotions and workers' own emotions in the process of working with clients and delivering care under conditions of scarcity and contraction. The invisibility of these activities means that much of the day‐to‐day work done in the organizations, while particularly important in the context of social service restructuring, is taken‐for‐granted and undervalued by organizational outsiders. As a result, many of the hazards present in the jobs are hidden from view and workers' health may be compromised. We argue that the invisibility and taken‐for‐grantedness of certain types of work in NPOs is reflected in, and constitutive of, particular exclusions and shortcomings of current occupational health and safety systems designed to protect the health of workers.     

The ‘new industrial man’ as unhero: Doing postfeminist masculinities in an Italian pharmacological research centre

Recent work has documented the need to engage with how men construct masculinities within postfeminist discourses in the workplace. Postfeminism has sparked debates concerning the changing ideals of masculinities, highlighting the tensions between traditional forms of patriarchy and ‘new’ ways of being a man (e.g., emotional, a ‘new father’, in crisis). Men have been depicted as being in search of a new identity, opposed to the ever‐growing confidence and empowerment of women. In mobilizing postfeminism as a discourse, this article illustrates how men working in an Italian pharmacological research centre (managed by men but dominated by women) assume subject positions that contradictorily fluctuate between tradition and fluid modernity, to reveal a masculinity which we identify with the ‘new industrial man’. The postfeminist masculinities exposed in the analysis mesh pro‐ and anti‐feminist ideas by appealing to un/heroic and romanticized subjectivities. The analysis also shows how un/heroic masculinities and men's appeal to biological differences to reinforce social ones and devalue the feminine obfuscate organizational gender inequalities. The article advances masculinity theory by offering a nuanced analysis of how masculinities and men are affected by paradoxical contemporary pressures for more egalitarian gender relations and a renewed emphasis on patriarchal traditions, which continue to support the gendering of the workplace.     

Gender and Sexuality in Discourses of Managerial Control: The Case of Women Miners

Mining scholarship has focused chiefly on capital developments, labour relations, changing technology, and global markets, ignoring the equally critical aspects of gendered organizations and their role in shaping the subjectivities of workers and managers. This article probes how gender and sexuality organize a mine site through organizational design and productivity management. It looks behind the rhetoric of equal opportunity, glamour mining and human resource techniques to explore the sexual politics of employing women as miners. In particular it scrutinizes the discourses of masculinity that produce ‘the woman miner’ in a context where the barriers between work and personal life are particularly mobile and highly contested. Equally crucially, it recounts some of the ways in which women have mobilized against systemic male dominance and privilege. The workplace in question is the world’s largest gem mine of its kind, a state–of–the–art computerized operation set in the remote Australian outback.     

Beyond Neighborhoods and Crime: Expanding the Scope of Social Disorganization to Explain Occupational Deviance

This article proposes a structural explanation for the occupational deviance dimension of white collar crime. The systemic model of social disorganization theory is used as a framework for understanding organizational conditions that produce high rates of occupational deviance. The model of workplace disorganization proposed here posits parallel mechanisms can be found in communities as well as organizations. Marginalized workplaces, employee turnover, and employee heterogeneity are antecedent factors that discourage employee network formation and collective action against deviance. By refocusing on organizational factors, we offer a broader understanding of occupational deviance, one that can predict and explain the workplace conditions under which counterproductive behaviors occur.     

‘Doing Something Meaningful’: Gender and Public Service during Municipal Government Restructuring

Research on the gendered dimensions of workplace restructuring often focuses on management strategies and their structural consequences. Less attention is paid to employees’ gendered practices. In this article, we analyse material from in‐depth interviews with front‐line public‐sector employees following a major reorganization of their jobs and workplaces. Our study makes three contributions to theory and research on gender and organizational change. Firstly, it highlights the micro‐level dynamics at the heart of restructuring by showing how workers engaged with an ideal that was central to their understanding of public‐sector work — the public‐service ethic — which they believed was threatened. Secondly, it highlights the importance of gendered meanings and identities in shaping how workers engaged with the public service ethic. Thirdly, the study shows that front‐line employees did not passively accept management plans for change but struggled to resist or transform them in gendered strategies for dealing with organizational change.     

Safe Spaces: Gay‐Straight Alliances in High Schools

In activists’ circles as in sociology, the concept “safe space” has been applied to all sorts of programs, organizations, and practices. Few studies have specified clearly what safe spaces are and how they support the people who occupy them. We examine one social location typically understood to be a safe space: gay‐straight alliance groups in high schools. Using qualitative interviews with young adults in the United States and Canada who have participated in gay‐straight alliances, we unpack this complex concept to consider some of the dimensions along which safe spaces might vary. Based on interviews with participants, we derive three interrelated dimensions of safe space: social context, membership, and activity.     

Networking towards (in)equality: Women entrepreneurs in technology

Deploying a multidimensional framework focusing on individual, organizational and societal factors, we investigate gendering practices through which women entrepreneurs become disadvantaged in the technology sector. Through qualitative fieldwork, we focus on women entrepreneurs' experiences networking to access valuable entrepreneurial resources and examine the role of technology incubators and accelerators in facilitating this access. These organizations have the potential to mitigate gender inequities by adopting gender‐aware practices such as increasing access to networks and resources that might otherwise be unreachable for women technology entrepreneurs. Focusing simultaneously on the complex intersections of networking, organizational practices at incubators and accelerators, and institutionalized gender norms in society, we outline how different gendering practices work separately and in tandem to marginalize women technology entrepreneurs. We observe that these organizations engage in ‘gender neutral’ recruitment practices and promote transactional networking which result in the replication rather than eradication of gender inequality. Moreover, organizational attempts to address ‘gender issues’ as they relate to technology entrepreneurs re‐inscribe rather than disrupt societal gender norms. Our research offers new insights for understanding the interrelated individual, organizational and societal factors contributing to gender inequality in technology entrepreneurship and provokes discussion on the possibilities for social change.