Discourses of Work–Life Balance: Negotiating ‘Genderblind’ Terms in Organizations

This article examines current debates about gender equality, work‐life balance and flexible working. We contrast policymakers’ and organizational discourses of flexible working and work–life balance with managers’ and employees’ talk about these issues within their organizations. We show how, despite the increasingly gender‐neutral language of the official discourses, in the data studied participants consistently reformulate the debates around gendered explanations and assumptions. For example, a ‘generic female parent’ is constructed in relation to work–life balance and flexible working yet participants routinely maintain that gender makes no difference within their organization. We consider the effects of these accounts; specifically the effect on those who take up flexible working, and the perceived backlash against policies viewed as favouring women or parents. We argue that the location of work–life balance and flexibility debates within a gender‐neutral context can in practice result in maintaining or encouraging gendered practices within organizations. Implications of this for organizations, for policymakers and for feminist researchers are discussed.     

One step forward? Advances and setbacks on the path toward gender equality in families and work

Men and women increasingly express egalitarian preferences for organizing family life, but workplace norms and practices are still based on relatively traditional assumptions about the gender division of labor in families. In this article, we unpack this discordant feature of the cultural landscape with recent sociological research on gender, work, and family. We begin by discussing the growing body of evidence on preferences for gender–egalitarian relationships and specify how these egalitarian desires are incongruous with workplace norms and practices. Such a mismatch between desires and reality tends to produce negative personal and career outcomes, including work–family conflict, stress, and job and marital dissatisfaction. Then, we offer a critical review of the recent actions taken by some employers and policymakers to address this issue. We observe some progressive changes in both the public and private sector in regard to family leave policies, flexible work arrangements, childcare support, and fertility benefits, but these policy initiatives still fall short of supporting gender–egalitarian arrangements for working families. We conclude with a discussion of how researchers could better evaluate and increase the effectiveness of workplace initiatives.     

Producing and Reducing Gender Inequality in A Worker‐Recovered Cooperative

Decades of feminist scholarship documents the persistence of gender inequality in work organizations. Yet few studies explicitly examine gender inequality in collectivist organizations like worker cooperatives. This article draws on the “theory of gendered organizations” to consider how gender operates in a worker‐recovered cooperative in contemporary Argentina. Based on ethnographic and archival research in Hotel B.A.U.E.N., this article finds that although gender remains a salient feature of the workplace, the cooperative has also adopted policies that take steps toward addressing gender inequality. It concludes by offering an updated theoretical framework for the future study of “gendered organizations.”     

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.     

Workplace support of fathers’ parental leave use in Norway

ABSTRACT

This article highlights the importance of social policy and working life contexts for employed fathers’ use of parental leave. It directs attention towards the Norwegian model, which is known for its gender equality aims and welfare-state support to families, but which is also active in the regulation of working life. Based on interviews with fathers who have used the father’s quota (a statutory, earmarked, non-transferable leave), findings run counter to work–family research where gendered assumptions in work organizations are found to prevent active fathering. The interviewed fathers report positive attitudes and supportive practices among employers. Fathers’ stories show that their use of the leave is subject to cooperation and compromising processes at the workplace level that research on fatherhood and organizations have hardly addressed.     

Why the paradigm of work–family conflict is no longer sustainable: Towards more empowering social imaginaries to understand women's identities

The paradigm of work–family conflict is challenged by the fluid realities of the actual world. Through an innovative phenomenographic study of women's understanding of their lives, we show that the social imaginary of work–family conflict assumes that vulnerability is a constitutive reality for women. Consequently, with respect to the perspectives through which women are invited to make sense of their lives, the metaphor of conflict enforces a worldview based on traditional gender roles. Organizational policies that rely heavily on a social imaginary of work–family conflict may prove ineffective. On the one hand, they ignore the diversity of morphologies and vocabularies used by women today to understand themselves in relation to their family and workplace. On the other, work–family conflict arises as a product of policy measures and bureaucratic practices rather than as an experiential reality. Policy statements on work–family conflict have a performative character: they communicate a message about women's social status and identity. Therefore, effective organizational policies should integrate vocabularies and assumptions that make women aware of themselves in a confident manner by relying on social imaginaries that encourage agency and empowered participation in the world.     

How organizational characteristics shape gender difference and inequality at work

Why should students and scholars who are interested in gender difference and inequality study organizations? In recent years, as research on organizations has migrated to business schools and become less connected to other subfields of the discipline, the value of organizational sociology has become less evident to many. Yet characteristics of organizations contribute in important ways to producing different experiences and outcomes for women and men, by constraining certain individual actions and enabling or bringing about others. In this essay, we trace the consequences of four categories of organizational characteristics—the formal structure of work, employment practices, informal structure and culture, and organizational networks and fields—for gender inequality in three areas: workplace experiences, work–family conflict, and career outcomes. We close with some brief reflections on future directions for research linking organizations and gender.     

‘Men Don't Have Families’: Equality and Motherhood in Technical Employment

Drawing upon evidence collected during a study of female technical professionals in the electronics sector, this paper argues that organizational policies and practices in respect of this group continue to be underpinned by the ‘norm’ of the typical male employee whose family commitments impinge marginally, if at all, on work responsibilities. Women, as actual or potential mothers, continue to be seen as deviants from this norm, whose family commitments are likely to adversely affect work performance or commitment. Not only do these assumptions condition the general treatment of women technical professionals, but they are embodied in those policies and practices designed to facilitate the combination of motherhood and paid work. Both the assumptions around which policies are framed and their implementation in practice reinforce as unproblematic the prevailing domestic division of labour. Such policies and practices therefore continue to function essentially as a concession to the deviant status of women in general and mothers in particular, rather than as tools of a broader equal opportunities policy.     

Family‐Supportive Organizational Culture and Fathers' Experiences of Work–family Conflict in Sweden

This study explores fathers' experiences with work–family conflict and their perceptions of how supportive the organizational culture at work is regarding fathers' work–family needs, and whether a family‐supportive organizational culture is associated with less work–family conflict. A total of 377 fathers working in private Swedish companies were surveyed. While a modest proportion of fathers experienced high levels of work‐to‐family conflict, less family‐to‐work conflict was reported. Further, fathers perceived little work–family support from top managers, supervisors, and co‐workers. Our results indicate that the cultures in the examined companies have norms that separate work and family from each other. Fathers seem likely to experience work–family conflict as long as the family‐supportive organizational culture, especially at the work group level, is not well‐developed. When fathers experience their work organizations as family‐supportive, they are likely to be better able to combine work and family and thus to help Swedes achieve a more gender‐equal society.     

Resilience for gender inclusion: Developing a model for women in male-dominated occupations

What is resilience in the context of work environments where women face barriers as significant as career discrimination and harassment? In such a context, is resilience an individual responsibility? How can organizations contribute to and support employee resilience? And where is gender in this equation? This conceptual paper explores these questions using aviation, the skilled trades (i.e., carpentry, welding, plumbing) and the military as case studies to understand how gender inclusion could be better supported by resilient organizations. The barriers for women in male-dominated industries include social exclusion, marginalization, discrimination, harassment, and other forms of social closure. How these barriers can be overcome is not well understood. We argue that individual resilience plays a part in women thriving and developing enduring careers but can only occur in combination with support from gender inclusion strategies and organizational resilience. We have developed the Resilience for Gender Inclusion (RGI) model combining gender inclusion strategies with organizational resilience strategies. The RGI model demonstrates how employee and organizational resilience intersect and may lead to the transformative potential of inclusive cultures of diversity. This will improve employee wellbeing and self-efficacy and create a much needed sense of belonging and social inclusion for women in male-dominated occupations.     

Having It All? Women in High Commitment Careers and Work–Life Balance in Norway

The question if, or how, women can 'have it all' — high commitment career, partner and children — is regularly debated in popular media internationally. Drawing on qualitative research, this article examines work–life balance (WLB) for women in high commitment careers as politicians and non‐executive directors on corporate boards in Norway. Norway is lauded as one of the most gender equal countries in the world and in theory at least it is therefore a highly enabling environment for women to combine career and family. The article considers the WLB challenges women politicians and directors encounter and what types of WLB support — national, workplace and household level — are important for them in order to mitigate the potential strain caused by work–family conflict. This article's contribution is in highlighting the competing and sometimes contradictory policies, practices and discourses at multiple levels that surround WLB and the gendered social expectations of women in Norway who apparently 'have it all'.     

Sociology and Studies of Gender,Caregiving, and Inequality

This review focuses on scholarship that illuminates the ties between gendered care and persistent gender inequality. After an overview of work on gender and care across the disciplines, it examines sociologies of care and suggests how sociology might further enrich research and theory in this area. I explore the areas of work–family intersection, state care policy, and the organization of paid care work. I argue that the sociology of caregiving needs to better understand institutional effects on care and the interactions that transmit and resist them, organizational influences on paid care work, and how care policies relate to gender equality.     

Fragmented Sisters? The Implications of Flexible Working Policies for Professional Women's Workplace Relationships

Much is being done by governments and organizations to help workers reconcile their family and employment responsibilities. One such measure has been the introduction of flexible working policies. While academic and policy debates focus on the barriers to flexible working, less consideration is paid to those who work alongside flexible workers. Through a gendered lens, this article focuses on professional women and explores the implications of UK flexible working policies for women's workplace relations in organizations that have traditionally been based on male models of working. Drawing on interviews conducted in three English organizations, it was found that the women's interests did not always coincide and that their social relationships, with respect to flexible working, involved both support and resentment. In particular, the women's interests were affected by organizational and job‐related factors and their stage in the life course. These findings illuminate the ways in which policies are negotiated at the level of daily workplace life and show that co‐workers are a pivotal part of the wider picture of flexible working.     

Reproducing Gendered Hierarchies in Everyday Work: Contradictions in an Employment Office

This paper is concerned with the dynamics of producing gendered hierarchies in the workplace. While the focus is on the present day, developments over the past ten years are also examined. The term ‘doing gender’ is adopted as a method of outlining these dynamics within seemingly static gendered hierarchies. Within the case study organization, a Finnish employment office, the ways of doing gender have shifted from maintaining gendered hierarchic harmony towards women? s and men's separate but invisible cultures. However, men's practices are linked in a more direct way to the textual and official goals of the organization, whereas women's working methods show some implicit opposition to the organizational logic. Throughout gendered contradictions are emphasized: between inequality and equal opportunities; informal sociability and formal rules; and the invisibility and visibility of gender.     

When work hurts: A conceptual framework explaining how organizational culture may perpetuate workplace bullying

This work was motivated by research findings, suggesting that the prevalence of workplace bullying is increasing across the world. The workplace bullying research further suggests that the basic risk determinants of bullying lie in an organization’s work environment and that prevalence of workplace bullying may vary by occupation, sector, and country. Upon reviewing the existing literature, it becomes apparent that while organizational culture can be both indirectly and directly related to workplace bullying, references to the relationship between organizational culture and workplace bullying remain scant and what is available lacks substantive conceptual foundation. To address this apparent gap in research, the main purpose of this article is to present an integrated conceptual framework proposing the relationships between specific organizational culture dimensions and workplace bullying. The article was specifically written in accordance with previous studies which highlight factors that may perpetuate workplace bullying within organizations. While highly theoretical and conceptual in nature, this article is one that may be important in explaining how some organizational cultures may motivate, facilitate, perpetuate, enable, and precipitate workplace bullying, and thus offers insights into how to prevent workplace bullying by creating less enabling environments. The article concludes by offering theoretical arguments for how organizations should monitor, manage, and eradicate changeable organizational cultural practices that may otherwise enable workplace bullying.     

Interplay of gender subtext and local culture in the organizational logic: the case of a textile factory in Turkey

This paper examines gender as a constitutive element of inequality regimes in the workplace. The organizational logic of workplace is reproduced through accepted but unequal policies and principles. The organizational dynamics of the gendered workplace are embedded in the articulation of global and local markets. The article elaborates on the nature of the organizational logic by focusing on the local dynamics of a Central Anatolian city, Çorum, based on a case study conducted in Turkey. We observe how capitalist organizational logic and gender subtext operate in and through the conservative culture specific to this locality. Through the interactions between employers and employees, the engagement between the capitalist organization and gender subtext constructs the realities of workplace. Workers’ responses to the structural, cultural, interactional and identity dynamics of the organization are to be understood within the triangle of skill, care and honour in capitalist organizational logic. Embedded in all these responses is a specific emphasis on virtuous female worker. Such an ideal worker fits both the capitalist organizational logic and patriarchal system.     

‘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.     

Doing gender,modestly: Conceptualizing workplace experiences of Pakistani women doctors

Using the theoretical framework of inequality regimes, this article offers a reconceptualization of purdah as it is practised, lived and experienced by women doctors of Pakistan. Based on an ethnographic study of Pakistani women doctors, this research indicates that practising purdah in the workplace is perceived as doing femininity within the hegemonic masculine workplace culture of Pakistan. In Pakistani organizations, individual and institutionalized practices of purdah create a gendered substructure which marginalizes women doctors by dictating the norms of conduct, international ethics, organization of physical space and work allocation. Patriarchal interpretations of religious doctrines of modesty provide legitimacy to the existence of these inequality regimes. Based on this, the article argues for a system‐level theorization of purdah that accounts for both individual and institutional norms of veil. Such conceptualization contributes to our understanding of how religion intersects with gender, class and race to create complex systemic inequities in organizational structure.     

‘It's not acceptable for the husband to stay at home': Taking a discourse analytical approach to capture the gendering of work

This article illustrates some of the ways in which the notion of (paid) work is actively being gendered, and how these gendering processes take place not only through organizational practices but also in discourses that circulate outside an organization in the private domain. Drawing on 15 in‐depth interviews with women who opted out of their own professional career in order to accompany their husbands on their overseas work assignment to Hong Kong, we demonstrate some of the benefits of using a discourse analytical approach to capturing and identifying the processes through which these women actively (although not necessarily consciously) gender the notion of work, thereby reinforcing the gender order and its male bias. We argue that identifying and making visible these gendered and gendering practices is an important component of, and a potential trigger for, change both in organizations as well as private contexts.