The Handbook of Gender and Work

Citation

Olsson, S. (2001), "The Handbook of Gender and Work", Women in Management Review, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 146-148. https://doi.org/10.1108/wimr.2001.16.3.146.1

As the title suggests, The Handbook of Gender and Work reviews theory and research on a wide range of topics relating to the intersection of gender and work. The predominantly American contributors provide a total of 24 articles grouped in five sections: gender and other identities; economic and societal context; organisational, group and interpersonal process including sexual harassment and workplace romances; organisational initiatives of affirmative action and diversity programmes; and methodological issues for gender in organisations research. While it is not possible to deal in any depth with all the material, this review attempts to provide an overview together with a focus on some key themes and articles.

At the outset, Karen Korabik pinpoints the need to distinguish between biological sex categorisations and the cognitive and social construction of gender. She traces the evolution of twentieth‐century models of gender from bipolar, unidimensional models, to bidimensional models initiated by the work of Bem and others, to multidimensional models such as Deaux and Major’s (1987) interpersonal interaction model, which focuses on gender as “enacted within the context of socially constructed interpersonal interactions” (p. 13). Korabik points to the confusing assortment of theories and terms within the field, and suggests that researchers need to specify whether sex, gender, or situational context is the casual mechanism that is being postulated. Unfortunately, as soon emerges in the subsequent articles, some terms such as sex‐role and sex segregation are now so entrenched in the research literature that it seems impossible to sustain the sex/gender distinction.

To add to this problem, Bernardo Ferdman convincingly argues that race (a biologically‐based categorization) and ethnicity (involving the acquisition and maintenance of cultural characteristics) constitute key variables in the study of gender in organisations. The recognition that both gender and ethnicity are cultural constructs gives rise to Ferdman’s insight that “ethnicity gives memory and reality to gender” (p. 29). The persuasive force of his arguments reinforces the need to distinguish between race and ethnicity in research into cross‐cultural gender issues.

A major theme in the discussion of economic and societal influences on gender and work is women’s disadvantage. This section contains a mine of statistical information, theoretical explanation and reviews of research. Cary Cooper and Suzan Lewis’ analysis of the changing nature of workplaces is complemented by Barbara Gutek, Bennett Cherry and Marcus Groth’s discussion of the post‐industrial service industry with 70 percent of the US labour force now in service jobs. In turn, segregation and sex‐role spill over in the service industry links to Patricia Roos and Mary Lizabeth Gatta’s account of the gender gap in earnings. This article assembles data on women’s earning ratio relative to men in a range of countries from the 71 percent US ratio and the 61.2 percent UK ratio to figures nearer 80 percent for countries such as Denmark, Egypt, Australia, France and New Zealand. These figures are followed by a valuable summary of theories on the earning gap, which range from individualist theories such as status attainment theory to institutionalist theories including labour market segregation theory. Focusing on the sex segregation of occupations, Jerry Jacobs contends that after two decades of slow progress women appear to be making few inroads into male‐dominated fields in recent years. He predicts that gender integration of the professions and management positions will be slow.

A “challenging” article in this section is Mark Maier’s “On the gendered substructure of organization: Dimensions and dilemmas of corporate masculinity”. Maier approaches gender as a socially‐constructed process and while he acknowledges many masculinities, he focuses on “corporate masculinity” to posit an opposition of masculinist and feminine/feminist processes. From this basis he tabulates the intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions of gendered organisational subcultures and the implications for images of leadership and organisation. While Maier points to the differing value systems from which some men and some women may act, he verges on a type of essentialism as process, and goes on to posit “a feminist organizational epistemology”. Thus he does not fully escape the trap he describes for others who see “female” leadership as a source of strength. Although he may not exactly “reify existing gender stereotypes” (p. 87), he nevertheless implicitly reinforces them, instead of making clear that these so‐called differences form a continuum of processes with men and women more likely to cluster to one or other end of that continuum (Stubbe et al., 2000). Similarly, in a later section of the book, Nancy Adler’s discussion of global leadership develops a picture of women global leaders’ alternative approaches that may inform and lead to success in the twenty‐first century. However appealing Adler’s arguments, her emphasis on gender differences may sustain gender inequities in the workplace.

A recurrent theme underlying many articles is the under‐representation of women in top organisational positions. Laura Graves summarises and discusses recent research on gender bias in employment interviews at entry level into organisations. Kathryn Bartol then looks at the research on gender bias in performance evaluations, which suggests that males are favoured in many evaluation situations. Pamela Tolbert, Mary Graham and Alice Andrews review the theoretical perspectives, including social contract and social identity perspectives, which attempt to explain group gender composition and work group relations. One interesting perspective is relative deprivation theory, which suggests that women typically compare themselves to other women and so have lower expectations for work rewards than do men. The authors examine the empirical support for the theoretical perspectives reviewed to conclude that the “social identity approach provides predictions most compatible with findings from recent research” (p. 199). Similarly, Linda Carli and Alice Eagly draw on status characteristic theory and social role theory to review research on gender differences in influence and emergent leadership. They point to the dilemma that women’s high‐task oriented contributions and style are liable to be met with resistance because they violate gender role expectations.

The similarities/differences debate is at the crux of much of the research on leadership. D. Anthony Butterfield and James Grinnell review three decades of research into male and female leaders’ style, behaviour and effectiveness. The mixed results of this research from findings of “difference” to those of “no difference” epitomise the difficulties of gender research. The authors argue for the importance of context in mitigating sex effects. They also suggest that post‐modernist scholarship may provide important insights into the discursive practices that privilege some individuals while excluding others.

This section of the handbook also contains an article of sexual harassment and one on the less considered issue of romantic relationships in organisational settings.

Part four of the handbook addresses careers and the quality of life. Linda Stroh and Anne Reilly compare career patterns and issues in the USA with key gender differences in Canada, Japan and Germany. This section also looks at gender and mentoring, women entrepreneurs, and research on work, family and gender.

While the “glass ceiling” has concerned a number of writers in this collection, editor Gary Powell’s article, “Reflections on the glass ceiling” provides one of the most cogent explanations of this phenomenon. Powell suggests that women’s greater workforce participation and increased educational attainment has led to an increase in the overall proportion of women in management, particularly at the lower levels where there is a greater reliance on objective credentials in selection processes. By contrast, promotions to top management positions are relatively unstructured and unscrutinised, allowing decision makers’ biases to influence decisions. These biases include stereotypes of effective managers and cognitive processes of the decision‐makers such as gender schema. Powell goes on to enumerate the forces that will influence the proportion of women in management overall and those that will influence the proportion of women in top management.

An equally interesting article is Marilyn Davidson and Sandra Fielden’s account of the stress experienced by working women in male‐dominated work environments. They suggest that women face unique work stressors not experienced by their male counterparts. These relate not only to the greater stress from family roles and responsibilities, but also to differences in early socialisation processes that reinforce differing coping strategies, including independence in men and dependence in women. The authors find that women exhibit significantly higher stress levels than do working men.

A section on organisational initiatives covers the history, effects and attitudes to affirmative action programmes, and the impacts of diversity and work‐life initiatives in organisations.

The Handbook concludes with Elizabeth Cooper and Susan Bosco’s discussion of methodological issues in conducting research on gender in organisations. The authors draw a broad distinction between the positivist tradition and phenomenology within which they place feminist research. In effect, this distinction covers the differing approaches of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The authors track and evaluate the research approaches of articles on gender issues in organisations published in four top journals in the fields of management and psychology. Their survey reveals that qualitative methods dominate the published material. Thus they find “a strong monomethod bias both across and within this research” (p. 493). They also suggest that the paucity of qualitative analysis may reflect the time‐consuming and cost‐intensive nature of such research approaches. While providing indicators of publishing trends in their selected journals, it seems a pity that they did not include UK journals such as Gender, Work and Organisation or Women in Management Review in their consideration of published research on gender in organisations. Similarly, their discussion fails to mention the growing variety of approaches that are becoming vehicles for gender research such as post‐modernist analysis, linguistics, and narratology.

While The Handbook of Gender and Work has a strong US focus, it does include international statistics and findings. A particular strength is the consistent review of theory and research together with suggestions for future research on the variety of topics that feature in the articles. The collection provides a most useful resource for researchers in “mainstream” approaches to gender research in organisations. It is hoped that a cheaper, paperback edition will become available so it may be more accessible to post‐graduate students in the area.