Managerial Listening and Career Development in the Hospitality Industry

Recent research confirms that communication skills are essential to effective management practice. Less is known, however, about the specific communication activities associated with different levels of management and how these competencies affect career development. This paper reports findings from two related studies of hospitality managers. One reports the differences between middle and upper level managers' perceptions of the frequency and difficulty of specific communication activities. The second study examines upper level managers' perceptions of the communication skills most essential to their career development.

Findings suggest that listening is perceived to be more critical to managerial effectiveness as individuals move into senior level positions, and that listening is perceived by general managers as the most essential communication skill for their career development. The results of this research have implications for educators, practitioners, and consultants as they work to improve managers' communication competence.     

Structuring Commitments in Interrupted Careers: Career Breaks,Commitment and the Life Cycle in Teaching

Recent interest in work commitment has been within a unitary paradigm in both the sociological literature on women's commitment to work and in the human resource management literature on the need to generate commitment to work. The paper argues that the ‘commitment concept’ is a social construction with a multiplicity of meanings and that its usage is subjective, contradictory, temporal and frequently gendered. Debates focusing on the ‘masculine’ job model of commitment tend to provide only partial insights by an emphasis on the continuous, linear career and thereby neglect, or negate, the work commitment of women who take a career break. Drawing on a large study of professional teachers, the paper enables a comparison of commitment indicators between stages within a life history and between ‘returners’ and other respondents. The findings demonstrate how commitments change over time and indicate that the commitments of returners are the outcome of the interplay between ‘choices’ and the different structural conditions they encounter during their life cycle which may lead to ‘career curtailment’ or, in times of labour shortages, career opportunities.     

The ‘Feminization’ of Management? Issues of ‘Sameness’ and ‘Difference’ in the Roles and Experiences of Female and Male Retail Managers

Explanations of women’s poor representation in senior management usually emphasize differences between women and men managers’ experiences, circumstances and aspirations, and the gendered character of organizational structures and processes. Whilst these may all disadvantage women, some writers have suggested recently that women managers may differ in style and orientation in ways particularly appropriate for today’s developing organizations. This paper explores issues of ‘sameness’ and ‘difference’ between women and men managers in retailing. Whilst both male and female store managers wanted to downplay gender differences and adopt a ‘gender neutral’ approach, they also associated a number of advantages and disadvantages with being a woman manager in certain contexts. Rapid sectoral change had caused companies to reassess the desired attributes and competences of managers; associated both with an enhanced valuing of ‘feminine’ qualities and with a more ‘objective’ and ‘clinical’ approach to assessment. Despite their equal numbers at entry points women remained poorly represented at senior levels, suggesting that subjective and informal processes were important determinants of women and men’s progress. Given management is inherently a process enacted by individual managers within a social context the extent to which it can be conceived in gender neutral terms is questioned since individuals are inevitably discussed and identified in terms of their gender.     

The Politics of Gender in the NHS: Impression Management and ‘Getting Things Done’

This article is concerned with gendered differences in managerial repertoires in the National Health Service. Interviews carried out with senior NHS managers across several geographical areas suggest that, from an impression management perspective, where they are able to occupy senior management positions, a different management style begins to emerge amongst women, with a separation between their ‘front‐stage, ‘backstage’ and ‘outside’ stage activities. Women managers appeared to acknowledge that they could not behave front stage in the same way with doctors as they often did in their outside stage encounters with them, but that the additional strategies they utilized whilst outside stage were key elements to their repertoire for getting things done. This view of management is contrasted with a very different one exhibited by male managers. The implications of the analysis are explored in the article's conclusion.     

‘Belonging’ and ‘Otherness’: Sex Equality in Banking in Turkey and Britain

The struggle for sex equality at work has largely been achieved in the developed world, it is claimed. The number of well‐qualified young women entering white‐collar employment and achieving promotion to first‐line and middle management positions now matches or exceeds their male peers. Many young women have high career aspirations and argue that sex discrimination no longer exists. However, this perception is over‐optimistic. Major sex inequalities persist at senior management level in the salaries and benefits offered to female and male staff and in access to certain favoured occupations and sectors of employment. Questionnaires, interviews and documentary evidence from three Turkish and six British banks and high street financial organizations showed that their claimed commitment to equal opportunities by sex was not matched by their practices. Members of managerial elites (who were almost exclusively male) held firm views about the characteristics of ‘the ideal worker’, which informed organizational ideologies, including human resource policies and practices concerning recruitment and promotion. They also permeated organizational cultures, which affected employees’ working practices and experiences. The outcome of these internal negotiation processes was to differentiate between a favoured group of staff seen as fully committed to the companies’ values, who were promoted and rewarded, and an ‘out’ group, whose members were denied these privileges. This distinction between ‘belonging’ and ‘otherness’ is gendered not only along the traditional lines of class, age, sexual orientation, religion and physical ability, but also along the new dimensions of marriage, networking, safety, mobility and space. Despite local and cross‐cultural differences in the significance of these factors, the cumulative disadvantage suffered by women staff seeking career development in the industry was remarkably similar.     

‘Street-level bureaucracy,management and the corrupted world of service’

Lipsky's analysis of the implementation gap in welfare policy in ‘Street-level Bureaucracy’ focuses on the problem of front-line discretion but ‘brackets off’ the discretion of senior managers. In this paper I draw on a qualitative study to argue that senior managers can also exercise significant discretion and that their discretion can contribute to the conditions of policy confusion and contradiction, and resource inadequacy that characterise ‘the corrupted world of service’ of front-line discretion. In this context front-line discretion may be used by front-line staff to bridge the policy implementation gap created by senior managers.     

Validation of a Multivariate Career and Educational Counseling Intervention Model Using Long‐Term Follow‐Up

In this study, the author sought to validate the effectiveness of a multivariate career and educational counseling intervention model through long‐term follow‐up of clients seen in private practice. Effectiveness was measured by clients' commitment to and enjoyment of their chosen career paths and the relationship of these factors to adherence to program recommendations. Findings indicated that 65% of clients adhered to program recommendations. Those who adhered to program recommendations were significantly more committed to their careers; however, no significant difference was found in clients' enjoyment of their careers. Additionally, 85% of clients reported that the program met their needs, and 95% would recommend the program.     

Cohabitation and commitment: partnership plans of young men and women

Popular commentators on marriage and the family often interpret the increase in heterosexual couples living together without marrying as reduced willingness to create and honour life‐long partnerships. Survey and in‐depth interviews with samples of 20–29 year olds living in an urban area of Scotland finds little support for the postulated link between growing cohabitation and a weakened sense of commitment to long‐term arrangements. Most of the cohabiting couples strongly stressed their ‘commitment’. Socially acceptable vocabularies of motive undoubtedly influenced answers but interviews helped to explore deeper meanings. Many respondents’ views were consistent with previous research predictions of a weakening sense of any added value of marriage. At the same time, some respondents continued to stress the social significance of the distinction between marriage and cohabitation, consistent with research interpreting cohabitation as a ‘try and see’ strategy part‐way to the perceived full commitment of marriage. The notion that ‘marriage is better for children’ continued to have support among respondents. While, on average, cohabiting couples had lower incomes and poorer employment situations than married couples, only very extreme adverse circumstances were presented as making marriage ‘too risky’. Pregnancy‐provoked cohabitation was not always in this category. Cohabitation was maintained because marriage would ‘make no difference’ or because they ‘had not yet got round to’ marriage. Most respondents were more wary of attempting to schedule or plan in their personal life than in other domains and cohabitees’ attitudes to partnership, including their generally ‘committed’ approach, do not explain the known greater vulnerability of this group to dissolution.     

LAYERED MEANINGS

Recent sociological inquiry into the family has focused on the decline of the male breadwinner family and the increasing diversity of family forms. Yet the term ‘family’ remains vague and assumes different meanings. This paper discusses the meanings of the term ‘family’ as it is used by interviewees in qualitative, in-depth interviews on family and kinship networks. The interviews were conducted as part of ethnographic fieldwork in a study of family and kinship in Swansea. Three contrasting areas of Swansea were selected, an affluent, popular area, one of the most deprived council estates and an inner-city area with a relatively high proportion of minority ethnic families. In the paper we draw out differences and similarities in the meanings given to the term ‘family’ by interviewees in the three areas. Differing meanings emerge, but what is striking is the layering of meanings. People refer to varying groups of relatives when they speak about their family but ‘family’ refers to a set of norms and practices about bringing up children, staying in contact or giving support. In the interview situation, the interviewees use these varying meanings in different contexts.     

Doing Gender,Paying Low: Gender,Class and Work–Life Balance in Aged Care

This article examines how interactions between the doing of gender and class at institutional and organizational levels perpetuate inequality for aged care workers. In particular, it investigates how managers ‘do gender’ and class in relation to their care workers' work–life balance and the unintended consequences of this for aged care workers. The research data comprised interviews with female managers and aged care workers from four case studies in residential aged care in New Zealand. We argue that despite best intentions, the consequences of managers' doing gender and class results in continuing low wages, poor work–life balance and disempowerment at work for aged care workers.     

Beyond ‘Gender Differences’: A Canadian Study of Women's and Men's Careers in Engineering

This article explores the relationship between gender and career paths for a group of women and men who graduated as engineers during a period of labour market turbulence in western Canada during the 1980s. Using a model adapted from Brown (1982 ), the article uses ‘career path’ as a device to organize data drawn primarily from telephone and face‐to‐face interviews with 317 graduates. Three career paths provide the focus for the study: the ‘organizational’, characterized by stable employment with one employer; the ‘occupational’, characterized by mobility between employers; and the entrepreneurial, characterized by self‐employment. The use of the career path framework moves the study beyond global comparisons (of the dichotomized ‘gender differences’ kind) between ‘the women’ and ‘the men’. As well as allowing for comparison between the paths, it allows more refined and contextualized comparisons within each path. Such comparisons produce patterns of similarity and difference that sometimes transcend gender.     

On male femaling: a grounded theory approach to cross-dressing and sex-changing

This preliminary report is a study in grounded theory based on eleven years of qualitative sociological research with male cross-dressers and sex-changers in the United Kingdom. It reviews the cognate literature from the standpoint of grounded theory and re-conceptualises the research area in terms of the basic social process of ‘male femaling’. ‘Male femalers’ are males who wish to ‘female’ in various ways, in various contexts, at various times, with various stagings and with varying consequences. Three major modes of ‘male femaling’ are introduced: ‘body femaling’, ‘erotic femaling’ and ‘gender femaling’, and set within a phased ‘femaling’ career path. Typical features of each phase are detailed, indicating oscillations between the major facets of sex, sexuality and gender frequently confronted in each phase. Particular reference is made to the inter-relations between the three modes of ‘femaling’, to the categorisations ‘transvestite’ and ‘transsexual’, and to the constitution of ‘femaling’ self and world as being variously sexed, sexualised and gendered.     

The restructuring of career paths in large service sector organizations:'delayering', upskilling and polarisation1

Drawing on detailed case studies of four large service sector organizations this paper finds little evidence of training provision that links skills development with incremental career progression. Past policies of ‘delayering’ have opened up a ‘gap’ in the job ladder and this has both increased the organizational costs of formal training and reduced the likelihood of informal on‐the‐job training being seen as the basis for promotion to the next level. Managers are thus faced with the challenge of how to establish a new set of premises upon which to strengthen the workforce's loyalty and commitment to the organization, in the context of problems of high staff turnover and low job satisfaction. What we find is a greater emphasis on certificated training provision. However, in the absence of a transparent career path employers rely on more intensive techniques of appraisal and selection of workers for a ‘winner‐takes‐all’ career path. Given the importance of skills acquisition as an important building block of the ‘learning society’, our findings suggest that policymakers in Britain cannot rely solely upon the employer to bridge the skill gap evident in large service sector organizations.     

Theorizing theory: Invitation to a broader conversation about ‘theory’ in sociology

‘Theory’ is a seminal term in sociology. Sociologists tend to ask that articles, chapters and monographs are ‘theoretical’, ‘develop theory’ or ‘make a theoretical contribution’. Yet, as demonstrated in Gabriel Abend’s 2008 article ‘The Meaning of ‘Theory’, it is generally unclear what sociologists mean when they talk about theory. Abend distinguishes seven different meanings sociologists tend to impute to ‘theory’ and argues that no single definition can usefully capture these substantively different meanings. Counter to Abend, we propose and defend a minimal and versatile theory of theory, which does capture the important common denominators in sociologists' various uses of the term theory. The major strengths of our proposal are that it enables informed and synthetic discussion and fosters reflexivity about differences and similarities between different types of theory. Our minimal theory of theory thus serves as an invitation to a broader conversation about theory in sociology.     

Preferences,constraints or schemas of devotion? Exploring Norwegian mothers' withdrawals from high‐commitment careers1

Despite decades of focus on gender equality and work–family balance, parenthood still affects mothers' and fathers' careers differently. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with Norwegian mothers who are relinquishing high‐commitment careers of law and consultancy, this paper questions the adequacy of established explanations emphasizing constraints vs. individual preferences. Our sample of female professionals living in a well‐developed welfare state is particularly apt to explore the processes and mechanisms upholding the statistically gendered pattern of women reducing their work commitment after childbirth. These doubly privileged mothers might be considered to have the best odds for combining career and work commitment with motherhood. Thus, we argue that the approach emphasizing practical constraints does not sufficiently account for the withdrawal from high‐commitment careers among these female professionals. Nevertheless, we are not content with the claim of Preference Theory that this shift in commitment is merely a matter of ‘not‐so‐dedicated’ women discovering their ‘genuine’ preferences. Rather, in order to understand why and how this shift occurs, we explore the culturally constructed rationalities and schemas of both work and family devotions. We specifically examine the circumstances, mechanisms and steps in a seemingly individual process of making the shift in commitment from a promising career to a family‐friendly job. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates how generous parental leave arrangements designed to enhance gender equality and work–family balance by simply reducing practical constraints may have limited – or even counterproductive – impact within high‐commitment occupations where the ‘irreplaceability’ of workers is taken for granted. Our findings indicate that unless the culturally (re)produced discourses, demands and expectations of both work and family are exposed and challenged, even intentionally gender neutral work–family policies will continue to facilitate mothers' career withdrawals, expressed as modified individual preferences.     

Work Orientations and Women's Work: A Critique of Hakim's Theory of the Heterogeneity of Women

This paper is a critique of Hakim's theory of the gendered character of work with its key idea of the ‘heterogeneity of women’ centring on the distinction between those who are ‘family oriented’ and those who are ‘career oriented’. Such patterns of work commitment are claimed to be developed by early adulthood and to steer women in one direction or the other. Our critique is based on interviews with two groups of young adult women generating rich data on their attitudes to employment, families and the relationship between the two. The first group (‘single workers’) when first interviewed were single, childless and employed full-time. The second (‘early mothers’) were partnered mothers with at most part-time employment. The substance of the critique is threefold: 1.The single workers could not be clearly separated by ‘career’ or ‘family’ orientation. They wanted both, which then left them in Hakim's residual category as ‘drifters’, a wholly inappropriate characterization. 2.The early mothers were certainly homemakers but our data doubted that this was by choice and suggested that many were becoming more career oriented. 3.Longitudinal data from the single workers show the importance of analysing ‘orientation’ or other aspects of agency in the context of social structure rather than as a prime mover in itself.     

Woman as Manager: A Seductive Ontology

Much of the women in management literature has, quite rightly, problematized women's relationship to dominant masculinist organizational practices and cultures, these debates being underpinned by extensive data revealing women's extreme numerical marginalization at senior management level across both public and private sectors. One such site where women have long been under‐represented is education management. Recent research, however, indicates some significant shifts in this regard, specifically in the UK further education sector where the number of women principals has increased sixfold in the past six years. In one sense then, equal opportunity as a political objective might be seen as ‘working’ in one public sector site, with education management no longer a ‘gender exclusive zone’. Drawing on poststructuralist understandings of identity, this article examines this phenomenon with respect to the seductive aspects of management and the issues of ontological security which surround women and men's investment in ‘frantic organizational cultures’. The article discusses some of the tensions, ambiguities and opportunities which might exist for many women managers as they ontologically invest in the ‘secure systems’ of a masculinist organizational culture.     

The Effect of Career Ambition and Satisfaction on Attitudes Towards Equal Opportunities and Family‐friendly Policies For Women

This study aims to uncover some of the reasons for differences in attitudes towards family‐friendly and equal opportunities (EO) policies for women between senior and junior staff and between male and female staff. This in‐depth case study of a multi‐national corporation in Hong Kong that included a survey questionnaire, interviews and participant observation suggests four categories of female employees according to their approach to EO: advocators, supporters, outsiders and rejecters. The approach adopted was dependent on the woman's level of empathy towards the situation of working women and the extent of her career ambition. Four categories of male employees can also be classified depending on their level of empathy towards women's situation (similar to women's case) and their extent of career satisfaction (in contrast to women's career ambition), namely, antagonists, outsiders, fence‐sitters and sympathizers. Women at higher levels were less supportive of EO than women at lower levels. No such clear relationship between organizational level and attitudes towards EO was observed among men. In Hong Kong, female managers had little expectation that their organization would be family‐friendly and women workers who consciously chose to balance work and family accepted that it meant fewer promotional chances. No such self‐adjusted depressed ambition was observed among men.     

Do Lets Work?

This study aims to uncover some of the reasons for differences in attitudes towards family‐friendly and equal opportunities (EO) policies for women between senior and junior staff and between male and female staff. This in‐depth case study of a multi‐national corporation in Hong Kong that included a survey questionnaire, interviews and participant observation suggests four categories of female employees according to their approach to EO: advocators, supporters, outsiders and rejecters. The approach adopted was dependent on the woman's level of empathy towards the situation of working women and the extent of her career ambition. Four categories of male employees can also be classified depending on their level of empathy towards women's situation (similar to women's case) and their extent of career satisfaction (in contrast to women's career ambition), namely, antagonists, outsiders, fence‐sitters and sympathizers. Women at higher levels were less supportive of EO than women at lower levels. No such clear relationship between organizational level and attitudes towards EO was observed among men. In Hong Kong, female managers had little expectation that their organization would be family‐friendly and women workers who consciously chose to balance work and family accepted that it meant fewer promotional chances. No such self‐adjusted depressed ambition was observed among men.     

Cultural Barriers and Familial Resources for Negotiation of Engineering Careers Among Young Women: Relational Dialectics Theory in an Asian Perspective

The study takes a critical approach to understanding how girls/women discursively navigate engineering career discourses with their families by using the lens of relational dialectics theory 2.0. In particular, the study examines 28 interviews of Asian women engineers to explore the ways in which cultural meanings of engineering careers influence families’ messages towards girls in choosing their future careers. Contrapuntal analysis shows that competing culturally circulating discourses intersect with familial material/discursive resources through which girls make sense of the support and barriers they experience from parents and other family members regarding their engineering careers. Findings have considerable implications for the role of culture in familial understanding of engineering careers and how families contribute towards sustaining young women in engineering from an Asian perspective.