Gender And The Organization

Discussions of feminism and gender in organizations and management studies, have, with some notable exceptions, become stuck in something of a time-warp. This lies in stark contrast to the developments in the fields of feminism and gender theory more generally. Management and organization studies needs new applied topical gender theories that challenge the limits on what can be said about working lives in organizations. Gender and the Organization: Women at Work in the 21st Century looks to update management organizational studies with the recent developments in gender theory, including theories of embodiment, affect, materiality, identity, subjectification, recognition, and the intertwining of political, social and the psyche. As well as looking backwards at existing feminist and gender theory, this exciting book also looks forward, developing an organizational feminist theory for the twenty-first century. Exploring what feminist ethics of an organization would look like, this volume shows what a revivified feminist organization studies could offer to gender theorists more generally. This book will be of interest not only to management and organization theorists, but also more generally to feminist and gender theorists working across the social sciences, arts and humanities. It will appeal to postgraduate and research students and also to established organization and management scholars working in business schools across the world.

This text provides perspectives on the way in which gender plays a role in leadership dynamics and ethics within organizations. It seeks to offer new theoretical models for thinking about leadership and organizational influence. Most studies of women’s leadership draw on an ethics of care as characteristic of the way women lead, but as such, it tends towards essentialist gender stereotypes and does little to explain the complex systemic variables that influence the functioning of women within organizations. This book moves beyond the canon in exploring alternative paradigms for thinking about leadership and gender in organizations. The authors draw on the literature available in systems thinking, systemic leadership, and gender theory to offer alternative perspectives for thinking about the ways women lead. The book offers invaluable theoretical perspectives and insightful narratives to graduate students and researchers who are interested in women’s leadership, gender and organization. It will be of interest to all women in leadership positions, but specifically to those interested in understanding the systemic nature of leadership and their role within it.

This work of reference represents a remarkably complete, detailed and extensive review of the field of gender, work and organization in the second decade of the 21st century. Its authors represent eight countries and many disciplines including management, sociology, political science, and gender studies. The chapters, by top scholars in their areas of expertise, offer both reviews and empirical findings, and insights and challenges for further work. The chapters are organized in five sections: Histories and Philosophies; Organizing Work and the Gendered Organization; Embodiment; Globalization; and Diversity. Theoretical and conceptual developments at the cutting edge of the field are explicated and illustrated by the handbook’s authors. Methods for conducting research into gender, work and organization are reviewed and assessed as well as illustrated in the work of several chapters. Efforts to produce greater gender equality in the workplace are covered in nearly every chapter, in terms of past successes and failures. Military organizations are presented as one of the difficult to change in regards to gender (with the result that women are marginalized in practice even when official policies and goals require their full inclusion). The role of the body/embodiment is emphasized in several chapters, with attention both to how organizations discipline bodies and how organizational members use their bodies to gain advantage. Particular attention is paid to sexuality in/and organizations, including sexual harassment, policies to alleviate bias, and the likelihood that future work will pay more attention to the body’s presence and role in work and organizations. Many chapters also address “change efforts” that have been employed by individuals, groups, and organizations, including transnational ones such as the European Union, the United Nations, and so on. In addition to its value for teachers and students within this field, it also offers insights that would be of value to policy makers and practitioners who need to reflect on the latest thinking relating to gender at work and in organizations.

`An unusually comprehensive and sophisticated analysis of how organizations and the men and women who work within them are affected by gendered processes and relations. Alvesson and Billing′s contribution is unique in its sensitivity to the wide range of processes affected by gender paired with its sensitivity to the pitfalls of inappropriately applying a gender lens. This book is a must-read for organizational researchers and gender scholars′ - Debra Meyerson, Stanford University `Students and scholars alike will find this at once a useful overview and a thought-provoking take on the complexity of gender-in-organizations and gendered organizations′ - Robin J. Ely, Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School In the decade since the first edition of this critical and provocative text, many aspects of gender have changed, and many have stayed the same. While the gendered study of organizations is a growing field in its own right, in many real-life organizations gaps in gendered job roles and pay are as entrenched as they were. This Second Edition is a long-awaited update to an essential text in this dynamic and expanding field of inquiry, incorporating new, international perspectives that incorporate recent theory and debate, and a new chapter on gender and identity.

Work organizations are a major site of gender politics for professional women and men, and although there are more women in senior positions than ever before, these increased opportunities have not been gained without psychological consequences. Evidence-based and theoretically driven, the new edition of Gender, Power and Organization raises important questions about gender and power in the workplace, and the psychology of women’s advancement. Twenty years on from the first edition, it re-examines gender relations at work and asks why, despite many years of feminist critique and action, we are able to understand the dynamics of the workplace but fail to make them more representative. The struggles women face in professional and public life remain intense, not least because many men experience an increasing sense of threat to their long-term aspirations and professional positions. Using examples from recent research and the author's own consultancy experience, this important volume offers a fresh exploration of the psychology of gender and power at work, from the development of gender identities and roles, to explanations of bullying and sexual harassment in the organization. It offers an accessible survey of the subject for professional managers and students of leadership, psychology, management, sociology, gender, and women’s studies.

The issue of gender in organizations has attracted much attention and debate over a number of years. The focus of examination is inequality of opportunity between the genders and the impact this has on organizations, individual men and women, and society as a whole. It is undoubtedly the case that progress has been made with women participating in organizational life in greater numbers and at more senior levels than has been historically the case, challenging notions that senior and/or influential organizational and political roles remain a masculine domain. The Oxford Handbook of Gender in Organizations is a comprehensive analysis of thinking and research on gender in organizations with original contributions from key international scholars in the field. The Handbook comprises four sections. The first looks at the theoretical roots and potential for theoretical development in respect of the topic of gender in organizations. The second section focuses on leadership and management and the gender issues arising in this field; contributors review the extensive literature and reflect on progress made as well as commenting on hurdles yet to be overcome. The third section considers the gendered nature of careers. Here the focus is on querying traditional approaches to career, surfacing embedded assumptions within traditional approaches, and assessing potential for alternative patterns to evolve, taking into account the nature of women's lives and the changing nature of organizations. In its final section the Handbook examines masculinity in organizations to assess the diversity of masculinities evident within organizations and the challenges posed to those outside the norm. In bringing together a broad range of research and thinking on gender in organizations across a number of disciplines, sub-disciplines, and conceptual perspectives, the Handbook provides a comprehensive view of both contemporary thinking and future research directions.

This book examines key themes relevant to advancing women in organizations and the need for individual and organizational mechanisms to foster career agility, with a constant focus on how to bridge research to practice. Providing insights on gender inclusion, mentoring, team diversity, and female leadership, Creating Gender-Inclusive Organizations provides actual hands-on advice from experts on how to leverage human resource and organizational strategies to advance women and close the gender gap. It is a must-read for management leaders, HR professionals, and gender and diversity organizational scholars of all levels.

At a time when some corporate women leaders are advocating for their aspiring sisters to ‘lean in’ for a bigger piece of the existing pie, this book puts the spotlight on the deep structures of organizational culture that hold gender inequality in place. Gender at Work: Theory and Practice for 21st Century Organizations makes a compelling case that transforming the unspoken, informal institutional norms that perpetuate gender inequality in organizations is key to achieving gender equitable outcomes for all. The book is based on the authors’ interviews with 30 leaders who broke new ground on gender equality in organizations, international case studies crafted from consultations and organizational evaluations, and lessons from nearly fifteen years of experience of Gender at Work, a learning collaborative of 30 gender equality experts. From the Dalit women’s groups in India who fought structural discrimination in the largest ‘right to work’ program in the world, to the intrepid activists who challenged the powerful members of the UN Security Council to define mass rape as a tactic of war, the trajectories and analysis in this book will inspire readers to understand and chip away at the deep structures of gender discrimination in organizational policies, practices and outcomes. Designed for practitioners, policy makers, donors, students and researchers looking at gender, development and organizational change, this book offers readers a widely tested tool of analysis – the Gender at Work Analytical Framework – to assess the often invisible structures of gender bias in organizations and to map desired strategies and change processes.