This paper focuses on gender and technology in the organization. It considers some of the difficulties experienced by women building careers as professional engineers in a high…
Abstract
This paper focuses on gender and technology in the organization. It considers some of the difficulties experienced by women building careers as professional engineers in a high technology industrial organization in England. Using career history data from 15 women engineers, the paper examines the experience of gender in the organization and the attempts by the women to manage gender relations. The paper argues that the difficulties were not associated with the culture of engineering work itself: the women could manage the technology. The problems lay rather in the organization itself. The gendered expectations and processes within the organization constituted the real dilemma for women’s careers.
Details
Keywords
Brendan Fitzgerald and Frances Savage
This article explores the impact on public libraries in Victoria, Australia, as they become increasingly reliant upon information communications technology (ICT) to manage, access…
Abstract
This article explores the impact on public libraries in Victoria, Australia, as they become increasingly reliant upon information communications technology (ICT) to manage, access and deliver information services. Libraries Online and Rural Libraries Online have, since 1998, been developing Internet access in Victorian public libraries. Funded by State (Multimedia Victoria) and Australian Federal (Networking The Nation) and delivered by VICNET, a division of the State Library of Victoria, these projects have provided a library approach to e‐services which includes provision of bandwidth, infrastructure, ICT skills, and content. The specific projects such as satellite delivery of bandwidth, rural points of presence (POPs), Victoria’s Virtual Library, the Gulliver Consortium and the SWIFT Initiative are discussed. Aligned critically to the actual ICT models and implementations is the capacity of the 44 individual public library services to understand and meet the ongoing issues.
Details
Keywords
Considers how organizational change and the restructuring of management in the organization are affecting the career opportunities of women professional engineers. Using a case…
Abstract
Considers how organizational change and the restructuring of management in the organization are affecting the career opportunities of women professional engineers. Using a case study industrial organization, considers how management itself is changing and being changed. Suggests, therefore, that optimistic statements about increasing numbers of women in managerial posts in organizations need closer examination. The concept of management itself must be rendered problematic and changes in managerial systems need to be analysed. Only then will it be possible to explore how gender, career, management and organization interact and produce new as well as old forms of occupational segregation.
Details
Keywords
Jorid Hovden, Elin Kvande and Bente Rasmussen
The paper criticizes current directions in research on women and management. The purpose of this paper is to propose new directions for such research.
Abstract
Purpose
The paper criticizes current directions in research on women and management. The purpose of this paper is to propose new directions for such research.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is conceptual and is based on a review of recent literature on elites and the gendering of elite positions internationally and in the Nordic countries. This literature is discussed using studies of changing power dynamics and the development of welfare state services in a context of globalization.
Findings
The paper argues that one needs to move away from the focus on individual traits and “female management” to study the processes and practices that (re)produce power differences between men and women in the organisations where they take place. Two contextual factors make new directions in research necessary. The first is the knowledge economy changing organisations from bureaucratic towards democratic forms at the level of production and the financialization of the economy centralizing power at corporate level. The second is the challenging of Nordic welfare states by globalization of the economy. The welfare state results in a “democratization of motherhood” that increases women's participation in the economy, but may limit their opportunity to obtain elite positions.
Originality/value
To understand women's exclusion of elite positions, new research should combine multidimensional analyses of gender and power to explore the symbolic connections between masculinity and “big money”.
Details
Keywords
This chapter is an exercise in speaking, letting individuals speak for themselves insofar as possible. As Marx famously put it, “they cannot represent themselves, they must be…
Abstract
This chapter is an exercise in speaking, letting individuals speak for themselves insofar as possible. As Marx famously put it, “they cannot represent themselves, they must be represented.” The “they” were peasants, potato farmers in 1840s France, and by extension peasants, workers, and other lower class groups, not to mention women and minorities who rarely made it into the historical record, and even more rarely in their own words. To give “voice to the voiceless,” as the now old new social historians of the 1960s and 1970s put it, I consciously include here numerous speakers, arranged in two sets of different voices: quotes in the text and endnotes to further document and amplify points. With this plethora of voices, the aim is not to complicate but to speak clearly, listen carefully, and engage respectfully. To multiply the speakers speaking is the single best way to make two primary points concerning what is most important about the Chief Illiniwek mascot controversy: that the sheer number of individuals speaking out is in itself significant, and that this community colloquy all comes down to identity – who we are, individual identity, communal identity.
Mairi Maclean, Charles Harvey and Gerhard Kling
Bourdieu’s construct of the field of power has received relatively little attention despite its novelty and theoretical potential. This paper explores the meaning and implications…
Abstract
Bourdieu’s construct of the field of power has received relatively little attention despite its novelty and theoretical potential. This paper explores the meaning and implications of the construct, and integrates it into a wider conception of the formation and functioning of elites at the highest level in society. Drawing on an extensive dataset profiling the careers of members of the French business elite, it compares and contrasts those who enter the field of power with those who fail to qualify for membership, exploring why some succeed as hyper-agents while others do not. The alliance of social origin and educational attainment, class and meritocracy, emerges as particularly compelling. The field of power is shown to be relatively variegated and fluid, connecting agents from different life worlds. Methodologically, this paper connects biographical data of top French directors with the field of power in France in a novel way, while presenting an operationalization of Bourdieu’s concept of the field of power as applied to the French elite.
Details
Keywords
Wilfred Ashworth, Graham Barnett, Julian Hodgson, WA Munford, Jennifer Brice and David Radmore
ADVERSE WEATHER conditions greatly reduced the number of members attending the February Council especially those resident in parts east. Everyone who had made it seemed to take a…
Abstract
ADVERSE WEATHER conditions greatly reduced the number of members attending the February Council especially those resident in parts east. Everyone who had made it seemed to take a while to warm to their task and passed the report of the Executive Co‐ordinating Committee like lambs. With mild interest they heard that the Secretary had recommended to the General Purposes Committee that the old Council Chamber should not after all, be divided into offices but instead be made into a joint members' and staff common room. ‘More modest extensions to the toilet accommodation’ (the imagination boggles!) are part of this reduced package which saves half the projected £40,000. For council meetings a platform with furniture suitable to the dignity of the association will be provided.
Research into the careers and salaries of financial controllers in the hospitality industry has shown continuing discrepancies between men and women. Analysis of the results of a…
Abstract
Research into the careers and salaries of financial controllers in the hospitality industry has shown continuing discrepancies between men and women. Analysis of the results of a survey indicates that the assumption that differentials are based purely on gender are somewhat simplistic and that it is in the nature of the work that men and women perform that the real reasons emerge. Women and men appear in general to undertake different types of job within hospitality financial management, those with higher status and hence pay being more likely to be held by men. Occupational segregation and educational level emerge as being major factors although ongoing social attitudes towards women’s employment have limited their progress. It is essential for these attitudes to change if the hospitality industry is to optimise the use of all skilled and trained financial managers to the benefit of the business.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to consider how Big Four and mid-tier accountancy firms in the UK are responding to political concerns about social mobility and Fair Access to the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider how Big Four and mid-tier accountancy firms in the UK are responding to political concerns about social mobility and Fair Access to the accountancy profession.
Design/methodology/approach
Interviews were undertaken with 18 public accountancy firms, ranked in the Top 30 by fee income, operating in the UK to identify how they are recruiting staff in the light of the Fair Access to the Professions’ agenda. Bourdieusian sociology is used to inform the findings.
Findings
The Big Four firms employ a discourse of hiring “the brightest and the best” to satisfy perceived client demand, where symbolic capital is instantiated by reputational capital, reflecting prestige and specialisation, supported by a workforce with elite credentials. For mid-tier firms, reputational capital is interpreted as the need for individuals to service a diverse client portfolio. In general, most interviewees demonstrated relatively limited awareness of the issues surrounding the Fair Access agenda.
Research limitations/implications
The interviews with accountancy firms are both exploratory and cross-sectional. Furthermore, the study was undertaken at an embryonic point (2010) in the emerging Fair Access discourse. Future work considering the accountancy profession could usefully examine if, and how, matters have progressed.
Social implications
The investigation finds that accountancy firms remain relatively socially exclusive, largely due to the requirement for high educational entry standards, and interviewees’ responses generally indicate only limited attempts at engagement with political agendas of promoting Fair Access to the profession.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to empirically evaluate how the accountancy profession is responding to the Fair Access agenda; documents changing patterns of recruitment in accountancy employment, including the hiring of non-graduates to undertake professional work; and augments the literature considering social class and accounting.