Leadership,Gender and Sense‐making

This article examines the nature of sense‐making processes in teams and considers the extent to which leadership as a sense‐making process is impacted by gender. We conducted an in‐depth inquiry into the decision‐making behaviour of two single‐gender teams and a third, mixed gender team, as they worked together to produce gender‐specific leadership schema in an experimental setting. Our research question was, ‘To what extent is leadership as a sense‐making process impacted by gender?’ The article reports on the design, conduct and outcomes of this research project. We found that using a meeting as part of the research method created a specific instance of a gendered organizational context exerting a dominant and directive influence on individual and collective behaviour. The current trend toward team‐based leadership is likely to involve more meetings with increasing numbers of women in senior positions. This suggests to us that men and women need to be alert to the possibility that the gendered nature of meetings may be acting as a barrier to the expression of feminine forms of leadership.     

Occupational Segregation and the Gender Gap in Workplace Authority: National Versus Local Labor Markets

Previous research linking occupational gender segregation to the workplace authority gap assumes that the effect of gender composition is invariant across occupations, ignoring the important distinction of whether an occupation's relevant labor market is local or national. We offer a new method for defining occupational labor markets and hypothesize that the effect of occupation gender composition on the authority gap will be strongest in national labor market occupations. Both sexes' odds of possessing work authority decline with the representation of women; this effect is strongest in the more desirable, national labor market occupations. Assuming occupations are part of one labor market results in understating the gender composition penalty for national labor market occupations.     

The Political Gender Gap in Afghanistan

Women’s empowerment has become a salient issue in nation building in recent times. The need to secure basic human rights may well be at the core of the attention, but development experts appear to have recognized the core role of women in family and community well-being in developing countries and are beginning to tout the importance of women’s empowerment in all the aspects of development policies as reflected in the European Union’s Millennium Development Goals. This study explores political gender differences in Afghanistan, a Muslim country of extensive gender differentiation. The gender disparities we observe are not what one might have expected. Men outperform women only in those specific areas where the prohibitive structural and social limitations placed on women by the larger Afghan society would predict. We contend that these gaps would attenuate as Afghanistan’s nascent democracy deepens and extends more freedoms to Afghan women.     

Gender Mainstreaming: The Answer to the Gender Pay Gap?

This article examines the argument that gender mainstreaming offers the way forward for closing the gender pay gap. It juxtaposes research on the process of gender mainstreaming with our account of the processes involved in Australian state government Inquiries into the gender pay gap since the late 1990s. We indicate that the continuous process of analysis and response that gender mainstreaming can offer demands political will, intensive links between research and action, and adequate resources — which means that gender mainstreaming is seldom delivered in practice. We use our account of the Australian Inquiries to argue that, provided adequate political and financial resources are in place, the gender pay gap can be narrowed through the institutional mechanisms of an industrial relations system but that the regulatory approach is limited by its vulnerability to changes in industrial relations policy. The article concludes that, whatever strategy is used to narrow the gender pay gap, it must be able to show those who use and observe it that gender itself is a continuous, effortful and political process.     

Leadership Style in Relation to Organizational Change and Organizational Creativity: Perceptions from Nonprofit Organizational Members

As the environment within which organizations act continues to change and becomes increasingly competitive, maintaining an organizational climate that supports change and encourages creativity is a key objective for organizational leaders. This article examines the relationship between leadership style (transformational, transactional, laissez‐faire) and members' perceptions of the psychological climate for organizational change readiness and psychological climate for organizational creativity. Results indicate that transformational leaders have a direct positive relationship with psychological climate for organizational change readiness and organizational creativity, while laissez‐faire leaders have a negative relationship.     

Collective Bargaining and the Gender Pay Gap in the Printing Industry

This paper considers the effect of collective bargaining on the gender pay gap in the printing industry. This sector was subject to multi‐employer bargaining for around 90 years, until 2010. The article analyses gendered collective bargaining processes through the mechanism of symbolic power, that is, the power of interpretation and definition, and utilizes Walton and McKersie's seminal work on bargaining behaviour to understand the processes that have prevented the closing of the pay gap. It finds that symbolic power operates within the sub‐processes of attitudinal structuring and intra‐organizational bargaining to de‐legitimize women's role in equal pay bargaining, alongside distributive bargaining tactics that preclude equal pay bargaining, thereby creating the impression that women are irrelevant to bargaining processes and ensuring relative invisibility for issues of importance to equality bargaining.     

Gender Differences in Perceived Disciplinary Fairness

This exploratory study coded and analysed 120 behaviours on videotaped data of 111 male and 30 female managers engaged in disciplinary discussions with one of their unionized employees. Four categories of behaviour were coded: non‐verbal communication, speech characteristics, leadership and interactional justice. A factor analysis of the results generated 14 factors, ten of which were correlated with experts’ ratings of disciplinary fairness. Female managers exhibited significantly higher levels of seven of the ten behavioural factors. Female managers also made more supportive interruptions than male managers and took more time for the disciplinary discussion, both of which were positively correlated with disciplinary fairness. The results suggest that leadership and communication styles commonly found in females may lead them to be better equipped than male managers to manage employee discipline situations.     

The Gender Wage Gap in Belarus

A new release of the Belarusian Household Survey on Incomes and Expenditures provides the unique opportunity for an in-depth study of the gender pay gap in Belarus. The econometric analysis involves estimates of augmented earnings equations, also corrected for sample selection bias, as well as for least absolute deviations estimates at different quantiles of the wage distribution. The results suggest that the gender wage gap is smaller than in other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States and Central and Eastern European countries, as one would expect considering the slow transition process, and is reduced after controlling for unobservable characteristics. Moreover, the gap increases as one moves from the 10th to the 90th quantile. This means that having jobs providing generally higher levels of wages for a woman, it is more and more difficult to get the same wage as that of a man.     

Un/doing Gender and the Aesthetics of Organizational Performance

In the age of the so‐called ‘expressive organization’ and the ‘aesthetic economy’, for an organization to compete in the global marketplace it would appear that it must perform. This does not refer simply to economic performance, but rather to the idea of performance as a means of affecting both people's impressions and definitions of reality. In this article we argue that such performativity is achieved, in part, through the power of symbolism and aesthetics, as well as the capacity to bring oneself into being in an environment in which successful management of the aesthetic has increasingly become a prerequisite for the conferment of recognition. Central to this process are the ways in which the aesthetics of gender are mobilized and indeed simultaneously ‘done’ and ‘undone’ in order to affirm particular, but often unstable, regimes of managerially desired meaning. Drawing on the work of Judith Butler, and informed by a critical or hermeneutic structuralism, we are concerned here to think through the relationship between performativity and the gendered organization of the desire for recognition as it is materialized in, and mediated by, the landscaping of corporate artefacts and organizationally compelled ways of un/doing gender. With this in mind, we consider a series of images taken from a sample of recruitment documents that, as cultural configurations that organize and compel particular versions of gender, we argue, are concerned with the production of organizationally legible and therefore viable gendered subjects.     

The Gender Gap in Attitudes About Childlessness in the United States

Acceptance of childlessness has increased since the 1970s, with women reporting greater acceptance than men. Using the National Survey of Families and Households (1987 – 1988; N = 10,648) and the General Social Survey (1994; N =1,395), we examined this gender gap as it relates to both structural and sociocultural factors, including religion, gender attitudes, and other attitudes about gender and family. Women were more likely than men to hold positive attitudes about childlessness, and women’s less traditional attitudes about marriage, gender equality, and women’s employment only partially explained this difference. In the childbearing ages, positive attitudes were strongly related to intentions to remain childless and showed a greater gender gap at higher education levels. The findings highlight important differences in men’s and women’s experiences of family, work, and gender issues.     

The Formative Context of Organizational Hierarchies and Discourse: Implications for Organizational Change and Gender Relations

Society as artifact, meaning society as a thing that is made and imagined, is a central aspect of Roberto Unger's constructive social theory. This article develops Unger's social theory, specifically his notions of organizational hierarchy, discourse, and organizational change, and applies it to an understanding of gender relations at work. Constructive social theory is defined with a focus on the instrumental concept of formative context. A critical perspective of Unger's constructive social theory is also presented to illustrate its strengths, challenges and limitations. Drawing on literature from a variety of sources and perspectives, organizational hierarchy, organizational discourse, organizational change and gender relations are viewed through a formative context lens. The concept is then applied as a framework for organizational change through change in organizational discourse, specifically language. Change in organizational discourse through language is utilized as a means of improving gender relations: in particular, the advancement of women in organizations.     

The We-Lead Model for Bridging the Low-Income Community Leadership Skills-Practice Gap

There are several community leadership development programs that devote tremendous resources to help improve the vitality and wealth of individuals and communities through the development of local leadership capacities. One great challenge is that these programs fail to coordinate existing community resources to create opportunities to engage program graduates. This article interrogates the effectiveness of leadership development programs in creating opportunities for engagement. Expanding on U-Lead model, the article proposes a WE-Lead model that can bridge the skills-practice gap by emphasizing the importance of aligning community leadership development programs with community needs through building community coordinated coalitions.     

Women and Top Leadership Positions: Towards an Institutional Analysis

Women remain under‐represented in top leadership positions in work organizations, a reality that reflects a variety of barriers that create a glass ceiling effect. However, some women do attain top leadership positions, leading scholars to probe under what conditions women are promoted despite seemingly intractable and well‐documented barriers. Previous scholarship tends to posit individual‐level explanations, suggesting either that women who attain top leadership positions are exceptional or that potential women leaders lack key qualities, such as assertiveness. Much less scholarship has explored institutional‐level mechanisms that may increase women's ascension to top positions. This analysis seeks to fill this gap by testing three institutional‐level theories that may shape women's access to and tenure in top positions: the glass cliff, decision‐maker diversity, and the saviour effect. To test these theories we rely on a dataset that includes all CEO transitions in Fortune 500 companies over a 20‐year period. Contrary to the predictions of the glass cliff, we find that diversity among decision makers — not firm performance — significantly increases women's likelihood of being promoted to top leadership positions. We also find, contrary to the predictions of the saviour effect, that diversity among decision makers increases women leaders' tenure as CEOs regardless of firm performance. By identifying contextual factors that increase women's mobility, the paper makes an important contribution to the processes that shape and reproduce gender inequality in work organizations.     

Gendered Constructions of Leadership in Danish Job Advertisements

The purpose of this article is to consider the gender imbalance at top management level from a discourse analytical perspective. More specifically, it investigates the language of 39 Danish top executive job advertisements and considers which leadership identities are projected as desirable or necessary. This is done by carrying out two interlinked studies: a semantic field analysis of the sections in the job advertisements describing the leadership traits of the ideal candidate (Study 1) and a study of MBA students' responses to extracts from the advertisements as far as gender is concerned (Study 2). Semantic field analysis reveals that all the job advertisements are gender‐biased and that most traits described in the advertisements are associated with traditional or stereotypical masculine attributes. Study 2 confirms this finding, as respondents (MBA students) assign a masculine identity to the vast majority of the extracts from the job advertisements.     

Beyond the Nuclear Family? Familism and Gender Ideology in Diverse Religious Communities

Religious familism, or ideology about "the good family," has been central to the culture and practice of local religious communities in the United States. Recent research has suggested that the "Ozzie and Harriet" familism dominant among mainstream religious groups in the 1950s religious expansion has remained formative for many local religious communities in the intervening decades. This research suggests that religious familism shapes how gender is symbolized and enacted in local religious communities and leads to differences in the meaning of religious participation for contemporary men and women. However, this work has been based largely on studies of white, middle-class religious communities. In this article, we analyze the relationship between family ideology and gender in three congregations chosen to exemplify those social locations where we would expect considerable distance from the 1950s "Ozzie and Harriet" ideal—one Hispanic Catholic parish, one African-American congregation in the black Church tradition, and one white liberal Protestant congregation that has adopted an open and affirming stance toward homosexuality and same-sex unions. We find considerable innovation in family-oriented rhetoric and ministry, and a range of gendered practices that prove considerably more inclusive than those found in previous research. We also find considerable symbolic affirmation of the value of more traditional gender roles and practices, particularly in the realm of the family, than we expected to find. We explore the implications of these findings for how we understand the production of gender in local religious communities and for the capacity of local religious communities to become truly gender-inclusive spaces.     

Organizing Gender? Looking at Metaphors as Frames of Meaning in Gender/Organizational Texts

This article examines the ways in which the writing of gender and organizational theory has made use of metaphors to frame understanding about gender and gender relations. Key examples of different theoretical approaches to explaining gender difference within organizations are analysed as texts, to explore the ways in which rhetorical devices play a crucial role in constructing knowledges about women, men, and organizational life. In particular, three metaphors are uncovered: those of space, time and the sexual body. These have important connections with metaphors embedded in ‘mainstream’ (masculinist) organizational theory and are thus shown to construct our understanding of gender in particular, and somewhat limited, ways. However, in the second half of the article, alternative significations of these metaphors are explored. These suggest other readings which may open up the ways in which women, men and gender relations are framed within gender/organizational theoretical texts.     

Gender,Organizational Cultures and the Practices of Manager‐Academics in UK Universities

The article explores gendered management in UK universities in the context of moves to introduce new managerialism to higher education. Qualitative data are drawn from an Economic and Social Research Council funded project (R00023 7661) in which interviews were conducted with 137 male and female manager‐academics, from Heads of Department to Vice Chancellors, in 16 universities. The career trajectories of female and male manager‐academics are analysed to see if gender power relations, expectations and discrimination have affected their careers and organizational experiences. Also examined are whether and how gender relations and cultures are perceived to be relevant to management, the practices of women and men manager‐academics and the extent to which the differential value and status attached to teaching, research and management are gender‐related. It is suggested that women's participation in management roles, their perceptions of their practices and the expectations others hold of them are still marked by gender, even though some women have benefited, through promotion, from the greater emphasis on management now evident in UK universities.     

Gender Role Ideology and the Gender Based Differences in Earnings

Much of the research on gender differences in occupational earnings still focuses on human capital and the structure of the labor market. However, these variables rarely explain even half of the gender gap in earnings. Most research has examined the impact of gender role ideology as it impacts occupational choice, which indirectly can impact earnings. Using data from the National Opinion Research Center General Social Surveys, this research focuses on the relationship between attitudes about gender roles and two variables: (a) earnings, and (b) occupational positions held by women and men. Findings show that traditional gender-role ideology contributes to lower observed earnings for both males and females, independent of the influences of human capital characteristics, occupational context, and ascribed characteristics. Results support socialization as a partial explanation for the gender-based earnings differences and suggest that, to the extent that economic rewards are used to assess the value of gender role expectations, traditional gender role attitudes might continue to change and lead to relatively equal earnings among women and men.     

Framing the Faculty Gender Gap: A View from STEM Doctoral Students

Drawing on 48 interviews with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) doctoral students at a private research university in the United States (US), we examine how students make sense of the preponderance of men at the faculty level despite increasing gender parity among students. Students' primary explanatory frame, historical bias, suggests that the gender gap will disappear when enough women attain their doctorates (PhDs). Competing frames include innate and constructed gender difference and the perceived incompatibility between a woman's body clock and an academic tenure clock. We argue that the frames that students use to explain the gender gap shed light on the cultural context of STEM, which is characterized by a tension between the belief in a meritocratic system and the acknowledgement of structural inequality. We suggest that men and women's preference for explanations that preclude bias, in light of women students' own experiences with sexism in graduate school, contributes to the reproduction of inequality by rendering invisible structural barriers to gender equality.     

Explaining the Gender Gap in Help to Parents: The Importance of Employment

Although it is well established that adult daughters spend more time giving assistance to their parents than do sons, the sources of this gender gap are not well understood. This paper asks: To what extent can this gap be explained by structural variation, especially the different rates of employment and kinds of jobs that women and men tend to hold? Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 7,350), the paper shows that both employment status and job characteristics, especially wages and self‐employment, are important factors in explaining the gender gap in the help given to parents, and that these operate similarly for women and men.