What Would You Sacrifice? Access to Top Management and the Work–life Balance

This article is based on a current research, combining quantitative (human resources figures and statistics) and qualitative data (60 interviews with career managers, top managers and high potential talents, both men and women), conducted in a major French utility company on the subject of diversity and more specifically on the issue of women's access to top management positions. The main purpose of this research is to understand the difficulties women may encounter in the course of their occupational career linked to organizational aspects, including the ‘glass ceiling’ processes, informal norms related to management positions (such as time and mobility constraints) and social and cultural representations attached to leadership. The other perspective of this research focuses on the different strategies women and men build either to conform to the organizational norms or bypass them. The issue of work–life balance are therefore addressed both from a corporate/organizational standpoint and an individual and family perspective.     

Organizational Restructuring and the Achievement of an Equal Opportunity Culture

The Opportunity 2000 Campaign has recognized that equal opportunity policy change has to be accompanied by a process of culture change in organizations. However, sustaining commitment to an equal opportunity culture may be a difficult task in times of rapid and varied organizational change. In particular, the volume and scope of ‘restructuring’ that follow mergers, acquisitions, divestment, the introduction of internal markets, and other changes in business strategy often lead to ‘downsizing’, ‘delayering’, and outsourcing of business functions. This can have very variable outcomes for the careers of women managers. For them the experience of organizational restructuring is akin to participation in a lottery in which they are occasionally winners, but usually losers. This is the main finding from in-depth case studies of three large organizations in the public sector, pharmaceuticals, and financial services, which have all experienced some form of ‘restructuring’ over the last five years. The main conclusion of this research is that unless restructuring involves an expansion of managerial positions it is likely to disadvantage women managers. The reasons for this are that it leads to job losses in functions where women are concentrated; highlights the disadvantages of poor line manager support; reinforces exclusion from the valuable informal organizational networks that provide access to career development opportunities; and renders formal equal opportunity policy monitoring ineffective. These findings have considerable implications for organizational and national policy initiatives to achieve an equal opportunity business culture.     

Gendered Meanings of Commitment from High Technology Engineering Managers in the United Kingdom and Sweden

This article considers why women managers are often perceived to be ‘less committed’ at work than men, through an exploration of male and female managers' meanings of ‘commitment’, to see whether their meanings are shared. Despite a large body of literature on the concept of commitment, managers' own meanings of commitment have not been reported. In general, engineers reported that they used the term ‘committed’ without defining what it meant. Their meanings were a broad composite of organizational and career commitment, focused on very strong affective commitment with almost no emphasis on continuance commitment, in contrast to the traditional (1979) definitions of commitment (Mowday et al. 1979). Results from this interview study of engineering managers and senior technologists (20 males, 17 females, 17 British, and 20 Swedish graduate engineers, from vice‐president to senior technologist) show that there are differences in male and female engineers' unprompted meanings of commitment at work, as well as differences in meaning between the three levels of management sampled. Females responded more often with less visible ‘commitment’ meanings such as involvement, being people‐concerned, and availability. More males (and top managers) used the term commitment to mean task delivery, being proactive, being innovative, adding value, and being ready for challenge. The gender differences identified in reported meanings could impact on the assessment of women's commitment, when evaluated for promotion, career development and professional chartered status by the mostly male engineering managers.     

The Structure and Functions of Employee Assistance Programs in Higher Education

Abstract

Workplace stress can be defined as the change in one's physical or mental state in response to workplaces that pose an appraised challenge or threat to that employee. Research has shown that there are a number of factors that contribute to workplace stress. These factors include a toxic work environment, negative workload, isolation, types of hours worked, role conflict, role ambiguity, lack of autonomy, career development barriers, difficult relationships with administrators and/ or coworkers, managerial bullying, harassment, and organizational climate. Should the stressors continue, the employee is at significant risk of developing physiological and psychological disorders that can lead to increased absenteeism, organizational dysfunction, and decreased work productivity. Intervention strategies are discussed to help managers provide support and intervention to employees coping with workplace stress.     

Markets,contingency and preferences: contemporary managers’ narrative identities1

We explore work identity amongst managers, a key group in the ‘new’ capitalism. Some existing accounts of such workplace identities emphasize new ‘cultures of control’, others focus on new requirements and possibilities of individual autonomy through reflective identity formation, while others identify a crisis in workplace identity formation. Focusing on these issues, we analyse the career narratives of 136 managers and show that our empirical data do not neatly fit any existing models. Managers’ career stories were dominated by a ‘market’ narrative, in which they placed themselves as strategic actors making choices in a social world constituted by market‐like interactions. We show that the market narrative frames how managers understand risks to their careers arising from the contingent actions of firms, and how it provides a space for managers to reflectively identify their preferences and pleasures. We consider the consequences of this analysis for contemporary understandings of work and identity.     

Career concerns and personnel investment in the Major League Baseball player draft

This study examines the relationship between career concerns of organizational decision-makers and their investments by analyzing data from Major League Baseball's (MLB) annual player draft. Career concerns for MLB general managers (GMs) can create incentives to prioritize near-term success and thus spend fewer draft resources on high school players (who, being younger than college players, are less likely to provide near-term benefit to an MLB team). Findings are consistent with this: underperforming expectations in the prior season leads teams to spend significantly smaller proportions of signing bonus dollars on high school players, an effect driven by GMs with relatively short tenures.     

Female Part‐Time Managers: Careers,Mentors and Role Models

This paper explores the careers of 27 women employed as part‐time managers in a range of UK public, private and not‐for‐profit sector organizations. Drawing upon semi‐structured interviews, the article briefly summarizes the career trajectories of these women, prior to and after a transition to part‐time working, before exploring whether and how career progression is linked to the support of role models and mentors. The part‐time managers in this sample held varied careers while working full‐time, but careers often stalled following a transition to part‐time work. Given research has identified role models and mentors as having a positive impact upon career progression, this paper explores the existence of role models and mentors within the sample of female part‐time managers. While the majority of interviewees identified role models, just over half identified these as negative role models who did little to champion part‐time working. Drawing upon Gibson's ‘positive/negative’ role model dimensions, we argue the likelihood of identifying positive and negative role models alters when an analysis takes account of gender and working hours. Few interviewees identified mentors: just four women spoke of being mentored currently, though ten others identified being mentored in the past. We argue this lack of mentors and the identification of negative role models, the majority of whom were women, exacerbates the already precarious position of these female part‐time managers. The paper concludes by commenting on the lack of support for female part‐time managers, and the paucity of influential people working part‐time in organizations, despite the rapid growth of part‐time work in the UK over the past four decades.     

Situational leadership and persons with disabilities

Does situational leadership style impact workers with disabilities? Situational leadership as a model and style of organizational management is defined. With a concentration on workers with disabilities, employer and employee perceptions of the workplace environment are analyzed as a contributing factor to the choice of leadership styles. Leadership style and its potential impact on workers with disabilities are included. Advantages of situational leadership style as an organizational model for managers that matches the intricate needs of workers with disabilities are argued. Methods for increasing awareness of the needs of persons with disabilities in the workplace and improving leadership models are discussed. Implications and potential outcomes for workers with disabilities based on the use of situational leadership by managers are discussed.     

Child Welfare Workers’ Perspectives on Contributing Factors to Retention and Turnover: Recommendations for Improvement

Rates of turnover are high in child welfare settings, impacting the organization, remaining workers and the children and families under their care. A number of demographic, psychological, social and organizational features have been associated with increased staff turnover, although we have limited understanding about how and why these factors are important; differences in influence at varying levels of seniority and career duration; and workers’ perspectives on how to address workplace issues. This qualitative study assessed how factors impact employee retention and turnover in focus groups with 25 employees at different stages of employment: resigned case managers, case managers employed for less than one year and more than three years, and supervisors. Results suggested few differences in themes identified by groups. Two broad themes emerged for retention: supportive environment (including themes relating to children/parents, co-workers, and the organization) and opportunities within the agency (including new positions, experience and knowledge and job security). Two broad themes emerged for turnover: organizational issues (including themes about low compensation, challenging work demands, and system issues) and stress. Workers’ perspectives and recommendations on how to address workplace problems were reported. Results are consistent with the existing literature, although a number of unique issues were identified, including workers’ desire for clear communication flow through hierarchies, increased collaboration, and revisions to the way data is used/integrated. Workers expressed a strong desire to be heard by management, and this study reflects an important effort to provide feedback. These findings are relevant for informing organizational policy in child welfare agencies.     

In search of the glass ceiling: gender and recruitment to management in Norway's state bureaucracy1

There are still fewer female than male managers in Norway's state bureaucracy. This article asks if there are organizational barriers which prevent women from entering these positions. Is there really a glass ceiling, or must one look outside the organizational environment to find an explanation? Is it rather the case that the scarcity of female managers is caused by women's own preferences or their life situations outside work? Or do both contribute to the situation? The study shows that female managers are treated just as well as male managers in central parts of the state bureaucracy. Employers give equal shares of respect and attention to both genders. Female managers are encouraged to apply for the same number of jobs as men and are offered an equal number of jobs as men when they apply; in fact, women are offered more jobs than men, when one controls for the number of job applications. This indicates that organizational barriers are not the problem. The study also shows that there are no differences in work orientation between male and female managers. Female managers are just as ambitious as male managers. Nor do female managers find it more difficult than male managers to combine work and family life. So, how can one explain the low number of female managers? The study shows that one reason can be that female managers apply for management jobs less often than their male colleagues. The cause of this seems to be anticipated discrimination rather than lack of ambition or self‐confidence. However, this slows down women's movement into higher management positions in the state bureaucracy.     

The Subjectivity of Fairness: Managerial Discretion and Work–Life Balance

We use organizational justice theory to examine how perceptions of fairness affect the decision‐making process of line managers. In‐depth interviews were conducted with 35 Irish managers to explore how managers make organizational allocation decisions in cases where it is impractical to offer work–life balance accommodations to all employees. The findings suggest that firstly, managers construct the ‘life’ aspect of work–life balance within a heteronormative framework, where the emphasis is on caregiving and most usually parenting. Secondly, managers actively use their decision‐making powers around both formal and informal work–life balance supports to minimize injustice within their departments. By bringing together ideas about organizational justice and managerial decision‐making, we indicate how managers determine fairness through a decision‐making process narrowed by embedded gender role beliefs. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

The Gendered Implications of Corporate Value Change

Using case study evidence of a local authority and a building society this article explores the gendered implications of corporate value change programmes and how these are mediated by the types of equality agendas in place at the organizational level. The article explores the gendered impact of new corporate values by identifying how the organizations' changing approach to selection and career development has unintended gendered consequences, affecting different groups in the organization depending on the specific department they are working in and their seniority. As the two organizations follow different equality agendas the data allow us to show the ways in which specific approaches to equality in organizations both shape and are shaped by corporate value change programmes. It is argued that corporate value change programmes have uneven gendered implications, depending on the specific context in which they are introduced and in particular, the ways in which managers and employees make sense of these by both rejecting and reinforcing existing equality agendas already in place.     

Globale ökonomische Eliten? Eine Globalisierungsthese auf dem Prüfstand der Empirie

Does globalization lead to global markets for managers and international careers? The hypothesis of the globalization literature, that a transnational management is emerging out of a global “war of talents” is examinded by using data on the migration of managers from the U.S., East Asia and Germany. The data show, that no significant brain drain between these countries is taking place and “brain circulation” of insiders with short-term stays abroad is the dominant career pattern. The less likely the exchange of an installed CEO, the more career systems are used for status achievement by Clans and the stronger the influence of informal cultural rules, the higher is the rate of insiders. Thus, between the U.S., Germany and East Asia no significant global markets for managers are evolving.     

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.     

Alternative Models for Antecedents and Outcomes of Work Centrality and Job Satisfaction of High-Tech Personnel

Alternative causal models were developed,relating Work Centrality and Job Satisfaction toantecedents and outcomes. The antecedents examined weredemographics and need for achievement, and the outcomes included performance, wages, organizationalcommitment, and career planning. The models were testedusing data of Israeli high-tech personnel. Resultsindicated that organizational commitment, careerplanning, and wages were significantly affected by workcentrality, while performance was positively butnonsignificantly related to it. While all models provedto be acceptable, the best model posited JobSatisfaction as an antecedent rather than an outcome of WorkCentrality. It also revealed the importance ofdemographics for outcomes. Implications arediscussed.     

The domestic basis for the managerial career

Although there are now many studies of managers, there has been little research on how gender relations in the private sphere are lived to accommodate the managerial career. The organisation of domestic life and the household division of labour has largely been neglected. This article examines the domestic basis of the managerial career. The data are drawn from a larger study of women and men senior managers in five multinational companies. The analysis reveals that the domestic arrangements necessary to sustain the life of a senior manager are very different for men and women, giving the lie to the myth that equality has been achieved. My argument is that for all the company initiatives designed to promote equal opportunities, the managerial career is still largely dependent upon the services of a wife at home, or a housewife substitute in the form of paid domestic services.     

Karrieren nach der Rente: Karriere- und Arbeitsvorstellungen von arbeitenden Rentner*innen

The employment rate of German older workers has rapidly risen in the last 15 years. The steepest increase was found among those older than 65. The number of these working pensioners has more than doubled between 2000 and 2015. However only little gerontological and psychological research on working pensioners can be found. Companies and human resources managers seem rather unprepared, as almost no organisational career and development models exist for this group. Based on data from the survey “Transitions and Old Age Potential: Übergänge und Alternspotenziale (TOP)” the article at hand investigates older workers (age 50–65), attitudes towards potentially working in retirement. The results show that about half of the respondents consider working in addition to receiving a pension. However, they prefer part-time employment with on average 20?hours a week over full-time employment. In addition, this article discusses how the preference of this employment group fits with existing career models. We find that there is not one but several career models for working pensioners that human resource strategies should be mindful of.     

Beyond cultural competence: what child protection managers need to know and do

This article addresses issues for child protection managers, such as hiring, program design, service evaluation, and policy development. It presents three frameworks for levels of organizational change: cultural sensitivity, which modifies existing services to better meet the needs of target populations; self-reflective cultural sensitivity, which calls for managers to be aware of personal and organizational cultural values; and cultural solidarity, which acknowledges that organizational power is vested in managers, which can oppress clients.     

The Case of Jessica Chang: A Business and Industry Perspective

This discussion presents a business and industry perspective on Jessica Chang's career. Jessica's career issues are analyzed from an organizational perspective and from a career counseling perspective, with attention to salient cross-cultural counseling issues. The discussion emphasizes actions that organizations can take to anticipate similar situations, and explores how Jessica could have better managed her career development in view of the challenges she encountered.