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.     

‘Now,We Have the Same Rights as Men to Keep Our Jobs’: Gendered Perceptions of Opportunity and Obstacles in a Mexican Workplace

Drawing on extensive qualitative data at a Mexican‐owned multinational corporation, this case study investigates professional employees’ perceptions of changes to a prohibitive work policy requiring women to quit working upon marriage and having children. Employees believed the policy change meant working women were valued employees, but how this translated into opportunity highlighted distinct views of the types of positions professional women could occupy at the company, reinforcing sex‐segregated job allocation. Whereas women's narratives pointed to cultural resistance, men's narratives attributed the dearth of women in higher level positions to their lack of professionalism and commitment to work. The work policy change only guaranteed the right for women to work as the company modernized to fit the neoliberal demands of the global marketplace. Now women faced the challenge of turning that right into career advancement in a traditionally masculine‐defined company. I argue that even with the policy change, gendered discourses on women in professional occupations constructed and maintained gender inequities in the workplace. This study contributes to the scholarly discussion on gendered discourses within the context of global restructuring by showing how mechanisms at work maintain gender inequity in the workplace.     

From Organizational Sexuality to Queer Organizations: Research on Homosexuality and the Workplace

Organization scholars historically ignored the crucial importance of sexuality in the workplace. But in the last 20 years, scholars influenced by the ‘sexuality in organizations’ perspective have documented the ways that the management and deployment of workers’ sexuality are key elements in organizational life. While most of these studies have documented persistent privileging of heterosexuality in work organizations, a recent trend is to investigate a new organizational form: the gay‐friendly workplace. We review legal and policy changes in US workplaces that have made them more accepting of gay and lesbian employees. Then we examine ethnographic studies of gay‐friendly organizations. Although they are certainly an advance over previous homophobic workplaces, the literature suggests that they may reproduce inequalities of race, class, and gender. Few studies have investigated ‘queer organizations’, which we identify as a rich area for future scholarship.     

‘You care for your work; I'll care for your family’: perceptions of paternalistic managerial actions and employee commitment in Mexico

This study focuses on paternalism as a managerial strategy to foster employee commitment. Using in-depth, qualitative interviews during extended fieldwork at a Mexican multinational company, I examine employee perceptions of managerial actions within the context of workplace transformation. Employees perceived management as caring toward them and their families and characterized the workplace as a considerate and respectful environment. Employees interpreted managerial actions positively because a company cooperative provided family-supportive policies and cultivated a family-supportive culture, even after workplace transformation. Rather than disrupt the paternalistic practices, management combined them with the new strategic management practices. In exchange, employees were committed to the organization as evidenced by expressions of loyalty, pride, and appreciation. With its focus on how a specific family-supportive setting matters in the global south, this study extends the research on managerial strategies to promote employee commitment.     

Paying the toll: a feminist post‐structural critique of the discourse bridging work and family

On the surface, the modern workplace and home life appear to stand in sharp contrast to one another. The workplace seems to epitomize the modern concern with bounded time and the necessity of effective ‘use time’ (e.g., efficiency, effort, organizational commitment, speed‐up). Home life, on the other hand, is characterized by idealized images of emotionality and relief from the pressures of work. Yet numerous reported experiences of working people seem to belie this supposed duality. For many, home life is experienced as an appendage of the workplace, with its demands on time‐effort balance. Nonetheless, we continue to act as if there are two separate spheres of life that can ultimately be balanced and reconciled. This has been reinforced over the years by a growing discourse of work‐family conflict. Deconstruction of the discourse suggests that far from unraveling the ‘problem’ its characterization as a ‘work‐family’ conflict serves to privilege the dominant themes of use‐time and speed.     

Warriors in suits: A Bourdieusian perspective on the construction and practice of military masculinity of Korean men

Within masculinity scholarship, there is a gap about how masculinity carries over from a broad social context to an organizational context. This article explores the construction and capitalization of masculinity through a series of experiences in social fields such as the military and college, and the transfer of militaristic masculinity into the workplace. Drawing on grounded theory methods, we conducted in‐depth interviews with 20 Korean men who completed their mandatory two‐year military service and subsequently joined large corporations in Korea. We uncovered a four‐phase model that depicts how Korean men's masculinity is constructed during military service and transferred to their organizational positions characterizing them as warriors in suits. Informed by a Bourdieusian perspective, this study shows how masculinities are constructed, reinforced and legitimatized by the structural influences of society, and how masculinity becomes the desired image of men at work, which perpetuates the gender and power gaps among organizational members.     

Management gender composition and the gender pay gap: Evidence from British panel data

Women continue to earn less than their male counterparts globally. Scholars and feminist activists have suggested a partial explanation for this gender gap in earnings could be women's limited access to power structures at the workplace. Using the linked employer–employee data of the Workplace Employment Relations Study 2004–2011, this article asks what happens to the gender gap in earnings among non‐managerial employees when the share of women in management at the workplace increases. The findings, based on workplace‐fixed time‐fixed effects regression models, suggest that workplace‐level increases in the share of women in management are associated with decreases of the non‐managerial gender gap in earnings. This effect appears to be largely unrelated to changes in equality and diversity policies, family‐friendly arrangements and support for carers at the workplace.     

Do Workplace Gender Transitions Make Gender Trouble?

This article examines what happens when an employee makes the transition from one recognized gender category to another and remains in the same job. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with transmen and transwomen in Texas and California, we illustrate how a new social gender identity is interactionally achieved in these open workplace transitions. While transgender people often are represented as purposefully adopting hyper‐feminine or masculine gender identities post‐transition, we find that our respondents strive to craft alternative femininities and masculinities. However, regardless of their personal gender ideologies, their men and women co‐workers often enlist their transitioning colleague into gender rituals designed to repatriate them into a rigid gender binary. This enlistment limits the political possibilities of making gender trouble in the workplace, as transgender people have little leeway for resistance if they wish to maintain job security and friendly workplace relationships.     

Job Satisfaction in Higher Education: Examining Gender in Professional Work Settings

The concept of job satisfaction has been central to the study of occupations. However, the impact of gender on job satisfaction in professional settings is still under-represented as an area of inquiry. We use the notion of job satisfaction to introduce our organizational heterogenesis approach to understanding workplace satisfaction. Central to this approach is a concern with constructs of organizational interaction which combine the individualistic and structuralist approaches to understanding organizational life. Our analysis of 180 faculty at a large, urban university shows that gender affects the features of the workplace that affect job satisfaction. Our organizational heterogenesis approach frames these findings as an example of how dispositions are "made" important in the organization rather than locating dispositions as individual characteristics alone. We conclude by discussing the organizational heterogenesis approach as a viable theory that combines individualistic and structuralist approaches to organizational life.     

Motivating Russian workers: analysis of age and gender differences

What motivates Russians to work? Two hypotheses govern this analysis. First, worker motivation is positively correlated with organizational commitment, where organizational commitment is captured by a series of statements related to the employee’s perception of their workplace and the satisfaction expressed about the workplace and job. Second, worker motivation is positively correlated to the expectation that a desired reward will be received in exchange for doing the job well. Using survey data collected in May/June 2000 from 1200 employees in three regions of Russia, this paper: (1) documents the nature and scope of organizational commitment among Russian workers as the transition process draws to a close; (2) identifies the relative importance of select job motivators, as well as the expectation that these motivators will be received in exchange for a job well done; and (3) analyzes the extent of gender and generational differences in organizational commitment and worker motivation. The results can be used not only to begin filling a gap in the motivation literature by extending previous analyses based on US workers, but also to inform Russian and foreign managers about monetary and non-monetary factors to include in designing an effective reward structure. The results also are suitable for use in management training programs in Russia and elsewhere which focus on developing ways to construct more effective teamwork at the workplace.     

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.     

Reprogramming Femininity? The Construction of Gender Identities in the Israeli Hi‐tech Industry between Global and Local Gender Orders

Based on the study of gender identities in the Israeli hi‐tech sector, this article sets out to explore the doing of gender in a context comprised of two cultural repertoires characterized by divergent and contradictory fundamental assumptions: the new masculine transnational economy and pro‐natalist Israeli society. The article demonstrates how, by manoeuvering and moving between these global and local cultural repertoires, privileged Israeli hi‐tech women enact and construct a ‘new femininity’ that simultaneously challenges both the discourse of the ‘ideal hi‐tech worker’ and that of traditional Israeli femininity. This new femininity, I argue, is grounded in a local translation of the ‘family friendly organization’ discourse.     

Networks of capital,networks for migration: political–economic integration and the changing geography of Mexico–US migration

While economic globalization has altered the geography of international migration and introduced an array of new sources and destinations, our understanding of the specific mechanisms that link economic globalization to migration remains limited. In this article, I attempt to extend previous research by undertaking an empirical case study of Mexican migration to the USA. Using a unique dataset, I construct multivariate models to test whether, in the context of economic integration, occupations channel migration between similar sectors of the Mexican and US economies. I focus on the food‐processing sector because of its role in the geographic dispersal of Mexican immigration. The results show a strong channelling of Mexican immigration along an occupational line linking the Mexican and US food‐processing sectors. The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which ushered in a period of intensive political and economic integration, strengthened this occupational channel. By seeing the changing geography of Mexico–US migration in the context of economic globalization, this study casts light on the micro‐level foundations of the globalization–migration nexus.     

The Experience of Gender Change in Public Sector Organizations

The state has a twofold relationship to gender change in society, through its overall steering capacity and through the gendered character of its constituent agencies. It is therefore important to understand the experience of gender change in state organizations. The findings from a study of gender relations in ten public‐sector worksites in New South Wales, Australia are presented. There is a widespread consciousness of gender change linked with new labour processes, restructuring and new patterns of management. These changes are uneven and limits to change are visible. Gender is recognized as an organizational problem in specific circumstances, most visibly where men’s resistance to change appears. A number of mechanisms limit the consciousness of gender as a problem. Several trends, including the current strength of neo‐liberalism, converge to make the gender‐neutral workplace the principal goal of gender reform in the public‐sector workplace. This, however, limits the state’s steering capacity in regard to societal gender relations.     

Seeking Legitimacy: The Professionalization of Life Coaching

This article uses life coaching as a case study for understanding the attempts of one occupational group to define their work as a profession and themselves as professional people. Life coaches' efforts to legitimate their work are examined within the context of the economic downturn and exemplify an emerging employment trend in the American labor market: college‐educated workers pursuing non‐standard work as independent contractors in personalized service occupations. Using in‐depth interviews with life coaches, I focus on the collective and individual strategies workers use in their attempts to carve out new occupational jurisdictions for their services and bolster their professional status. I explore how gender shapes life coaches' experiences and professionalization tactics; further, I predict that these gendered processes will ultimately influence the trajectory of the life coaching industry more generally. My findings highlight the complexity of current employment relations and offer empirical insights into the study of work, occupations, and gender.     

Popular Culture and Workplace Gendering among Varieties of Capitalism: Working Women and their Representation in Japanese Manga

Female empowerment is a prerequisite for a just and sustainable developed society. Being the most developed non‐western country, Japan offers an instructive window onto concerns about gender worldwide. Although overall gender equality is advancing in Japan, difficulties remain, especially in achieving equality in the workplace. We draw on theories of ontological commitment and the psychology of fiction to critically analyse the role of popular culture — in this case manga — in the reproduction of gender inequality in the Japanese workplace. We present examples of four of the most popular mainstream manga aimed at working men and women in Japan and show how women are depicted. We argue that the hyper‐mediated fictional realism of representative tropes generates an ontological commitment to characters and narratives among consumers that reinforces the reproduction of a culturally exceptionalist national political economic space, one of whose essential defining characteristics is a gendered workplace. Our research suggests important implications for researching the relationship between culture, in all its forms, and spatial variation in persistent institutional biases among varieties of capitalism.     

Work–Family Balance Self‐Efficacy's Relationship With STEM Commitment: Unexpected Gender Moderation

The number of students, particularly the number of women, completing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) undergraduate degrees is insufficient to meet the U.S. demand. Thus, research investigating key predictors of STEM commitment is of high importance. Applying the Social Cognitive Model of Career Self‐Management (SCCT‐CSM; Lent & Brown, 2013 ) as a guiding framework, this study examined the relationship between work–family balance self‐efficacy (WFSE) and STEM commitment as moderated by gender. The sample included 246 STEM students (106 women, 140 men) from a southeastern university. A 3‐step hierarchical regression analysis demonstrated that WFSE accounted for incremental variance in STEM commitment beyond traditional social‐cognitive predictors, and gender moderated the relationship between WFSE and STEM commitment. Contrary to expectations, the relationship was stronger for men than for women. Findings suggest resiliency among women, showing that they are committed to STEM regardless of low WFSE. Practical implications for university and workplace contexts are discussed.     

Long Working Hours and the Corporate Gender Divide in Japan

While the workplace custom of working long hours has been known to exacerbate gender inequality, few have investigated the organizational mechanisms by which long working hours translate into and reinforce the power and status differences between men and women in the workplace. Drawing on 64 in‐depth interviews with workers at financial and cosmetics companies in Japan, this article examines three circumstances in which a culture of long working hours is disadvantageous for women workers, and the consequences of those circumstances: (a) managers in Japanese firms, reinforcing gender stereotypes, prioritize work over personal and family lives; (b) non–career‐track women experience depressed aspirations in relation to long working hours and young women express a wish to opt out due to the incompatibility of work with family life; and (c) workers who are mothers deal with extra unpaid family work, stress such as guilt from leaving work early, salary reduction and concerns over their limited chances for promotion. The article argues that the norm of working long hours not only exacerbates the structural inequality of gender but also shapes employed women's career paths into the dichotomized patterns of either emulating workplace masculinity or opting out.     

The Nature and Consequences of Organization-Employee and Union-Member Exchange: An Empirical Analysis

Drawing on a study of 423 union members in a UK Primary Care Trust, we use structural equation modeling to investigate the extent to which organizational and union commitment and citizenship behaviors are a function of economic and social exchange. Findings suggest that the organization-employee and union-member exchanges are distinct, with organizational commitment a function of organization-employee exchange and union commitment and citizenship behaviors (UCB) a function of union-member exchange. Findings also suggest that union commitment and UCB are motivated primarily by social exchange, with economic exchange playing a supporting role. In addition, for organizational commitment, social exchange also seemed to be relatively more important. There was no evidence that perceived industrial relations climate moderates these relationships. Implications for industrial relations and workplace social partnerships are considered.     

Exploring a model of servant leadership,empowerment, and commitment in nonprofit organizations

This study examined a model of servant leadership's relationship to organizational commitment through structural and psychological empowerment, focusing on leader–follower dyads in a nonprofit organization. Survey data was collected from 128 employees of a nonprofit organization in a northeastern U.S. city. After model re‐specification, a well‐fitting model emerged, indicating that structural empowerment mediates the relationship between servant leadership and organizational commitment. Moreover, the model suggests that structural empowerment's effect on organizational commitment is both direct and indirect—the latter occurring through the meaning dimension of psychological empowerment. This study provides initial support for structural empowerment being a mechanism through which servant leadership impacts organizational commitment in nonprofits. In addition, the role of meaningful work is highlighted as an antecedent to organizational commitment for nonprofit employees. Servant leaders are suggested to create structurally empowering working environments, which support employees' stronger commitment to the organization.