Westerns,Weddings and Web‐Weavers: Reading Gender as Genre in Organizational Theory

This article focuses on the process of reading and its role in the construction of knowledge. Reading is an activity which is personal yet never singular: we bring to our reading of one text a range of knowledges, experiences and strategies derived from other texts. This ‘intertextuality’ means that ‘meaning‐making’ is a complex negotiation process between reader and text, whereby linkages are made between divergent genres. This is explored through the author's own personal experiences of reading gender/organizational theory. These readings demonstrate the way in which ‘narratives’ of other genres, such as film and fiction, spill over, infect and manipulate the construction of narratives within organizational texts. Further, the ready intertextual connections which are made help to expose some of the embedded assumptions about gender. Whilst these are, in the main, quite traditional, the consideration of the processes involved in reading helps to challenge these as ‘truths’ as well as signpost possibilities for new forms of writing gender/organizational theory.