Men Managers and Women Workers: Women Employees as an Under-used Resource

In response to current demographic changes many organizations are focusing on the recruitment and retention of women employees and issues such as nurseries, flexible working and retainer schemes are being discussed. If the objective of such initiatives is to increase the opportunity for women to participate more fully at all levels within organizations rather than just to increase the total number of women working, then the issues which need to be addressed are much wider. This paper is based upon two studies carried out within the Building Society sector. This research, when compared with earlier studies, shows that there has been little change in the pattern of women's employment, with relatively few women reaching management. The main barriers to women's progress are identified and the research shows how many of the policies, processes and practices found within organizations were indirectly discriminatory. Underlying these organizational features were management attitudes to, and expectations of, women employees. What is required is management education which incorporates gender awareness training and an analysis of organizational processes, to obtain an understanding of how gender strategies are incorporated into management strategies. Only then will women be able to take full advantage of the opportunities which are emerging, and only then will organizations gain a real advantage by realizing the full potential of their women employees.     

Entrepreneurship among the Displaced and Dispossessed: Exploring the Limits of Emancipatory Entrepreneuring

This paper explores the links between entrepreneurship, emancipation and gender within the international development arena. Through a longitudinal analysis of a micro‐enterprise development project in which intermediary organizations contract traditional handicrafts from female home‐based producers, we focus on the impact of contracting policies on the ability of the desperately poor to improve their disadvantaged position. Our critical analysis reveals how intermediaries who impose exclusive contracting conditions, supposedly to protect the women's interests, actually constrain the emancipatory potential of the women's entrepreneurial activities. However, such contractual limitations generate collaborative networks enabling the women to challenge these constraints in an effort to assert control over their activities. Accordingly, this paper contributes to contemporary debates concerning the emancipatory potential of entrepreneurship within the context of development. We advance this analysis through a gendered evaluation of the role of intermediary organizations on entrepreneurial emancipation and related empowerment.     

Variability in Cross‐Domain Risk Perception among Smallholder Farmers in Mali by Gender and Other Demographic and Attitudinal Characteristics

Previous research has shown that men and women, on average, have different risk attitudes and may therefore see different value propositions in response to new opportunities. We use data from smallholder farm households in Mali to test whether risk perceptions differ by gender and across domains. We model this potential association across six risks (work injury, extreme weather, community relationships, debt, lack of buyers, and conflict) while controlling for demographic and attitudinal characteristics. Factor analysis highlights extreme weather and conflict as eliciting the most distinct patterns of participant response. Regression analysis for Mali as a whole reveals an association between gender and risk perception, with women expressing more concern except in the extreme weather domain; however, the association with gender is largely absent when models control for geographic region. We also find lower risk perception associated with an individualistic and/or fatalistic worldview, a risk‐tolerant outlook, and optimism about the future, while education, better health, a social orientation, self‐efficacy, and access to information are generally associated with more frequent worry—with some inconsistency. Income, wealth, and time poverty exhibit complex associations with perception of risk. Understanding whether and how men's and women's risk preferences differ, and identifying other dominant predictors such as geographic region and worldview, could help development organizations to shape risk mitigation interventions to increase the likelihood of adoption, and to avoid inadvertently making certain subpopulations worse off by increasing the potential for negative outcomes.     

Ethnic Minority Women in the Scottish Labour Market: Employers' Perceptions

This paper contributes to an under‐researched area through investigating employers' perceptions of ethnic minority women in the Scottish labour market. Adopting a social constructionist approach which acknowledges agency and structure and incorporates insights relating to organizational and social group culture, the study highlights the influence of individual (micro), organizational (meso) and contextual (macro) factors on ethnic minority women's participation in the labour market. The paper is based on qualitative research involving Scottish employers in the public and private sectors to examine perceptions and practices related to the employment of ethnic minority women. Institutional commitment to equality issues is questioned, although individual instances of engagement with key equality issues were sometimes evident. Proactive recruitment strategies and career support for ethnic minority women and men were not in evidence, and there was low awareness of the unique position of ethnic minority women in employment and society. We argue that these findings call for a multi‐level approach to advancing human resources management policy, practice and research within a wider socio‐political environment in which the responsibilities and duties of public sector organizations are clarified and more support is provided for organizational promotion of equal opportunities.     

Learning and development experiences of self-initiated expatriate women in the United Arab Emirates

The article explores self-initiated expatriate women's experiences of working and learning in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Adler's (Adler, N. 1987. Pacific basin managers: A Gaijin, not a woman. Human Resource Management 26, no. 2: 169–91) seminal study and Tung's (Tung, R.L. 2004. Female expatriates: The model of the global manager. Organizational Dynamics 33: 243–53) research suggest that expatriate women operating in a foreign host culture are categorized as a ‘Third Gender’: host nationals would perceive them as ‘foreign’ first and ‘women’ second, consequently according them different privileged treatment inworkplaces than host national women colleagues. This qualitative study of self-initiated expatriate women highlights how the women's constructions of themselves as ‘foreign’ and ‘female’ in the UAE provide a lens through which they reflect upon their own experiences of learning and development. In the absence of support from their own organizations and/or driven by their own aspirations, the women embarked upon their professional development initiatives; networking, coaching and formal qualifications. Key themes of vulnerability in being a foreigner, gendered workplaces, informal learning and women's agency in their own learning and development emerge from the analysis. The women's experiences suggest that their ‘Third Gender’ identity frames both constraints and opportunities within their social and work environment. The research focus on self-initiated expatriate women developing their professional practice, without the organizational Human Resource Development (HRD) support normally provided for assigned expatriates, is a key contribution to HRD, expatriate and international management literature where gender has tended to be ignored.     

Exploring the Dynamics of Incongruent Beliefs about Women and Leaders

People tend to have similar beliefs about leaders and men but dissimilar beliefs about leaders and women. A decrease in this perceived incongruity between beliefs about women and leaders might follow from perceived changes in either or both of these stereotypes. In two experiments we investigated the dynamics of this stereotype incongruity by examining cross‐temporal perceptions of change in women's roles and leadership demands. In Experiment 1 , participants judged a target group (leaders, men, or women) in a specified year in the past, the present and the future with regard to gender‐stereotypic traits. In Experiment 2 , participants evaluated the same target groups in a future society in which the role distribution between the sexes was described as traditional, same‐as‐today, or equal. Altogether our findings indicate that the perceived incongruity between the leader stereotype and the female stereotype is a dynamic phenomenon. Participants' beliefs indicated erosion of the perceived incongruity between leaders and women because of a perceived change in women's roles. We discuss the implications of these beliefs for future social change.     

Culture and leadership: women in nonprofit and for-profit leadership positions within the European Union

Research has shown that women commonly hold positions of leadership within nonprofit organizations, while men typically hold the leadership positions within for-profit organizations. However, little research on women's leadership roles has been conducted within European Union countries. The purpose of this article is to examine women's leadership positions within nonprofit and for-profit organizations within the European Union and, using Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory, to further investigate a potential correlation between national culture and female leadership. Fifty-one companies were examined based on type, country characteristics and gender dominance. A significant difference was found between organization type (nonprofit/for-profit) and organizational dominance (masculine/feminine). The findings suggest that the European Union has patterns of gendered leadership positions similar to patterns found previously in the USA. However, countries that were characterized as feminine had more than expected nonprofit organizations, while masculine countries had more for-profit organizations.     

Leading via the heart and mind: The roles of leader and follower emotions,attributions and interdependence

How do followers react to their leaders' emotional expressions, and how do these reactions influence followers' perceptions of their leaders' effectiveness? This research examines cognitive and emotional reactions to leaders' expressions of positive and negative emotions, and demonstrates how these reactions affect perceptions of leadership effectiveness. We show that follower interdependence (dispositional or manipulated) plays an important moderating role in understanding reactions to leaders' emotions. Results of three studies demonstrate that followers not only share their leaders' emotions, but also make attributions about the sincerity of their leaders' intentions, and these attributions affect their perceptions of their leader's effectiveness. Results also demonstrate that interdependent followers are sensitive to leader emotional valence and react more positively to leader positivity; non-interdependent followers do not differentiate positive from negative emotions in their leader. We discuss the implications of our research for the literature on leadership.     

The role of leadership self-efficacy and stereotype activation on cardiovascular,behavioral and self-report responses in the leadership domain

This research examines female leaders' responses to the gender–leader stereotype and the role of leadership self-efficacy in these responses. Using the biopsychosocial model of threat and challenge, this laboratory experiment examined women's cardiovascular, behavioral (i.e., performance), and self-report responses to the negative female leader stereotype as a function of leadership efficacy. Female participants, selected on leadership efficacy scores, served as leaders of ostensible three-person groups within an immersive virtual environment. Half were explicitly primed with the negative stereotype. As predicted, women with high, as opposed to low, percepts of leadership self-efficacy exhibited cardiovascular patterns of threat when performing the leadership task, and they performed better in the explicit stereotype activation condition compared to those not explicitly primed. Additionally, this threat was consistent with positive reactance responses on behavioral and self-report measures. Low efficacy leaders were not threatened, but they did show stereotype priming effects by assimilating to the negative stereotype on the self-report and behavioral measures. This research provides greater insight into stereotype reactance effects and highlights the role of self-efficacy in moderating stereotype threat and stereotype priming effects.     

Flexible Work Arrangements and Intentions of Unemployed Women in Cyprus: A Planned Behaviour Model

Drawing from the theory of planned behaviour, we use 18 focus groups with 113 unemployed women and 150 mail questionnaires to explore whether and how unemployed Cypriot women's subjective norms, attitudes, perceived behavioural control and job versus career aspirations influence their intentions to adopt employee‐ and employer‐driven flexible work arrangements. To analyse the information gathered, we used a combination of content analysis, an external panel of practitioners and academics, principal components analysis, and regressions. Results show that women's positive attitudes towards child‐caring and self‐enhancement and their subjective norms of organizational inflexibility were positively related mainly with intentions to adopt employee‐driven flexible work arrangements. Further, women who found childcare support and employer requirements limiting were more interested in telework; the latter were also more interested in temporary work. Finally, women's career aspirations were related with weekend work and telework, whilst their job aspirations were associated with temporary work. Results raise issues for employers and policy‐makers in Cyprus, and possibly other southern European countries facing similar challenges, in supporting women to become fully integrated in the labour market.     

Explaining Suicide in Organizations: Durkheim Revisited

Drawing on Durkheim's concept of anomie, we address the under‐explored phenomenon of anomic suicide in contemporary organizations and discuss the consequences of solidarity for organizations and society. The relations of social solidarity to issues of identity and insecurity are explored through the cases of France Telecom Orange and Foxconn. Remedial implications for organizing, considered as community building, are discussed. Durkheim wrote not only about anomic but also altruistic suicide. We will also analyze examples of this type of suicide. Some tentative suggestions are made for how to organize to minimize the incidence of suicidal violence in organizations.     

Perceived Support and Women's Intentions to Stay at a Sport Organization

Women remain underrepresented in upper management within sport organizations and more broadly. This research examines organizational factors that may affect women's (and men's) likelihood of remaining with their sport organization, which would presumably affect their willingness and ability to step into leadership roles. The research examines the effects of equity human resource management practices, top management support for gender equity and gender‐related barriers on organizational commitment and intent to stay with their sport organization, as well as whether changes in perceived organizational support would mediate the relationships. Results from a survey of current employees in Australian sport organizations generally support the hypotheses. Perceived top management support for gender equity is a strong and consistent predictor of outcomes, and the effect is mediated by perceived organizational support. Implications for top management's role in implementing gender equity practices are discussed.     

Those Glass Chains that Bind You: How British Muslim Women Professionals Experience Career,Faith and Family

This paper contributes to gender and diversity research through proposing a new theoretical construct: glass chains. We develop ‘glass chains’ as a metaphor to illuminate how highly educated British Pakistani Muslim women professionals in the UK negotiate a fine balance between faith, family and personal ambition. Using a qualitative approach, we highlight tensions between religious and familial guidance within Islam, and workplace practices. Drawing upon the construct of ‘glass chains’, we articulate how 37 British Pakistani Muslim career women felt bound, by invisible glass chains, to the tenets of their faith. We show how the pull of glass chains obliged these women to resist certain career‐advancing opportunities. In so doing, we borrow from French philosopher Michel Foucault ideas about self‐oriented moral codes, engaging with his arguments that individuals may prioritize, over other obligations, the ties (or glass chains) which bind them to personal value sets in order that they may become ‘ethical selves’. While previous glass metaphors highlight barriers to female progression from external and structural angles, ‘glass chains’ are, by contrast, concerned with the potential for internal and personal constraints on women's ambitions. The metaphor ‘glass chains’ may be extended to enhance understanding of career constraints among other workers.     

A pawn in someone else's game?: The cognitive,motivational, and paradigmatic barriers to women's excelling in negotiation

Women's relatively worse performance in negotiation is often cited as an explanation for gender differences in advancement and pay within organizations. We review key findings from the past twenty years of research on gender differences in negotiation. Women do underperform relative to men in negotiation, but only under limited circumstances, which means the performance gap is unlikely due to lesser skills on their part. The barriers between women and negotiation excellence are of three types: cognitive, motivational, and paradigmatic. Cognitive barriers stem from negative stereotypes about women's negotiating abilities. Motivational barriers stem from desire to prevent women negotiators from excelling in a masculine domain. Paradigmatic barriers stem from how negotiation is currently studied. We call for greater attention to motivational barriers and for changes to the negotiation paradigm. Women negotiators are not incompetent, and training them to negotiate more like men is not obviously the solution. In fact, women have greater concern for others than men do, and their cooperativeness elevates collective intelligence and enables ethical behavior. Under a new paradigm of negotiation, the value of these strengths could become more readily apparent. In particular, we advocate for greater attention to long-term relationships, subjective value, and relational capital, all of which may have important economic implications in real world negotiations.     

The Importance of Role Models and Demographic Context for Senior Women's Work Identity Development

The lack of senior female role models continues to be cited as a key barrier to women's career success. Yet there is little academic research into the gendered aspects of role modelling in organizations, or the utility of role models at a senior level. The paper starts with a review of papers examining the construction of role models in organizational settings. This leads to the inclusion of two related areas – organizational demographics as the contextual factor affecting the availability of role models and how they are perceived, and work identity formation as a possible key explanatory factor behind the link between the lack of senior female role models and the lack of career progression to top organizational levels. The literature looking at social theories of identity formation is then considered from a gender perspective. The key gaps identified are that while the behavioural value of role models has been well documented, a better understanding is needed of how gender and organizational demography influence the role modelling process. Importantly, the symbolic value and possibly other values of female role models in the identity construction of senior women require further in‐depth investigation. Finally, this review calls for a more integrated approach to the study of role models and work identity formation, pulling together literatures on organizational demography, the cognitive construal of role models and their importance for successful work identity formation in senior women.     

Queen Bees,Wannabees and Afraid to Bees: No More ‘Best Enemies’ for Women in Management?

There is a lack of research that problematizes solidarity behaviour and the Queen Bee label for women in management. Few studies contextualize the propensity for women to support each other to reach senior management or surface the shadow side of relationships between women in management. Underpinning assumptions of solidarity behaviour and Queen Bee focus upon individual women's behaviour. Neither questions whether women are enabled ‘natural allies’. It is assumed that women align themselves with women; in senior management women are responsible for the ‘women in management mantle’, and when they do not conform they are pejoratively labelled Queen Bees. Queen Bee ‘blames’ women for not supporting each other, constructs women as out of place in senior management and maintains a gendered status quo. This article provides a conceptual critique of solidarity behaviour and the Queen Bee as labels researchers and the popular media attach to women's behaviour in organizations. The aim is to challenge assumptions and inherent contradictions and highlight the negative impact of the sexist Queen Bee label, prompting us to reflexively question and challenge our own assumptions about solidarity behaviour and use of the Queen Bee label, to prevent unrealistic expectations of senior women and continued pejorative construction of women in management.     

Direct and Indirect Links Between Organizational Work–Home Culture and Employee Well‐being

The extent to which an organization's culture exhibits support for its employees' efforts to balance work and personal responsibilities has been shown to influence a number of work‐ and home‐related outcomes. This study tests a model with a mix of mediated and moderated relationships to investigate direct and indirect routes by which work–home culture may affect employee well‐being. Sex differences in these relationships are also explored. Data collected from public sector employees in the UK indicate that a supportive work–home culture is significantly associated with lower levels of psychosomatic strain among employees. For women, this relationship is mediated by reduced levels of work–home interference. Different types of support demonstrate different effects for men and for women: managerial support has a more beneficial impact on women's well‐being, and organizational time demands have a more detrimental impact on men's well‐being. Recommendations for managers to boost employee well‐being include shifting the focus away from presenteeism and toward work outputs in order to reduce gender stereotypes and improve attitudes toward those using flexible work practices and family‐friendly initiatives, incorporating work–home supportiveness into the managerial performance appraisal process, and compensating or otherwise recognizing employees taking on absent colleagues' workloads.     

Value of Formalization for Women Entrepreneurs in Developing Contexts: A Review and Research Agenda

Formalization is constantly being proposed as being of great benefit to business expansion and success. This claim, however, has not been previously tested through a review of the empirical evidence, especially in relation to the large number of women in the developing world that operate in the informal economy. Therefore, the aim of this review is to systematize the current empirical evidence on gender, the informal economy and formalization, using a narrative synthesis of 76 papers. The papers were analysed along three main analytical themes – identity, institutions, and constraints and preferences – highlighting their conceptualization in studies of different academic disciplines – economics, sociology, entrepreneurship and development. The review calls for more accurate accounts of formalization decisions by widening the lens through which formalization decisions are conceptualized. These should take account of the rich contextual and temporal dimensions central to these decisions, and recognize that gender alone is not a sufficient factor in explaining women's choices in the informal economy. The review also highlights limitations in relation to the limited conceptual and empirical evidence on which development priorities such as formalization are set. The authors propose a research agenda centred on the need for conceptual frameworks that are more sensitive towards the multidimensional contexts of women's choices.     

2 Untapped Potential in the Study of Negotiation and Gender Inequality in Organizations

Abstract

Negotiation is a process that creates, reinforces, and reduces gender inequality in organizations, yet the study of gender in negotiation has little connection to the study of gender in organizations. We review the literature on gender in job negotiations from psychology and organizational behavior, and propose ways in which this literature could speak more directly to gender inequality in organizations by incorporating insights from research on gender in intra‐household and collective bargaining. Taken together, these literatures illuminate how negotiations at the individual, household, and collective levels may contribute to the construction and deconstruction of gender inequality in organizations.