Hans Doorewaard and Yvonne Benschop
This paper sketches the outlines of a differentiated approach towards the contribution of HRM to organizational change. While departing from a critique on the assumptions of the…
Abstract
This paper sketches the outlines of a differentiated approach towards the contribution of HRM to organizational change. While departing from a critique on the assumptions of the human resource‐based view of the firm, we develop an alternative approach which has been derived from the core elements of the relational theory of emotions. These elements, which pertain to the complexity of human beings, emphasize the processes and relational characteristics of emotions and the hegemonic power base of emotions. We argue that it is necessary to sensitize HRM to the emotional subroutines entwined in organizational change, and that an empathic and respectful approach towards people's authenticity should be cultivated.
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Yvonne Benschop and Hans Doorewaard
This paper aims to examine if the notion of gender subtext is still a useful concept to study the implicit processes of gender distinctions in organizations. It also aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine if the notion of gender subtext is still a useful concept to study the implicit processes of gender distinctions in organizations. It also aims to confront the authors' earlier elaboration of the concept of gender subtext with recently developed insights on how organizational processes produce gender at work.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reviews the literature that was used to develop the notion of gender subtext. Then it turns to the new insights, concepts and theories that should be included in the update of the notion of gender subtext. The discussion focuses on three elements in particular: the entrance of intersectionality, the disappearance of the layered processes and the prevailing persistency of power.
Findings
The paper concludes that the original concept of gender subtext as a power‐based set of arrangements that reproduce gender distinctions can benefit from the recent theorizing on gender in organizations. The new notion genderplus subtext takes the interference of multiple inequalities into account. Gender is one important part, but not the only, or even the most important, form of inequality at work. To understand the dynamic process of (re)production of these inequalities, the paper points to the interplay between structural, cultural, interaction and identity processes in organizations, and to the hybrid power processes of compliance, accommodation, resistance and counter‐resistance.
Practical implications
The authors hope that this updated version may trigger more debate about the reproduction and, more importantly, about change of gender inequalities in organizations.
Originality/value
The paper reconceptualizes gender subtext, bringing a new perspective to the understanding of the power processes that produce or alter complex inequalities in organizations.
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Hans Doorewaard, Geert Van Hootegem and Rik Huys
The purpose is to analyse the impact of team responsibility (the division of job regulation tasks between team leader and team members) on team performance. It bases an analysis…
Abstract
The purpose is to analyse the impact of team responsibility (the division of job regulation tasks between team leader and team members) on team performance. It bases an analysis on 36 case studies in The Netherlands which are known to have implemented team‐based work. The case studies were executed in 1997 by means of face‐to‐face interviews with HRM staff and line management. It concludes from the analyses that two different types of team responsibility prevail. In a “hierarchical team” team leaders take responsibility for decisions concerning work preparation, support and control, while in the “shared‐responsibility team” decisions are taken by the team members themselves. The analyses show that “shared‐responsibility teams” are thought to contribute more substantially to team performance outcomes than “hierarchical teams”. The analysis helped gain a better understanding of the relationship between HRM and organisation performance, as it is viewed in the “human resource‐based view of the firm”.
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The purpose of this editorial is to present a series of articles in this special invited issue that celebrate Joan Acker's theories of gendered organisations.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this editorial is to present a series of articles in this special invited issue that celebrate Joan Acker's theories of gendered organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
This editorial presents articles that utilise Joan Acker's notions of gendered organisations, the gender subtext in organisations, the ideal worker, and inequality regimes to help explain gender discrimination in organisation. It is a celebration of Joan's theorising in relation to this topic and also includes Joan's own thinking about the development of her ideas as theorised by the authors in different organisational and empirical contexts.
Findings
The paper reveals that the articles illustrate the value of Acker's original thinking, how the original concepts have evolved to theorise and explain the intersectionality of current discriminatory practices.
Originality/value
This paper presents a celebration of Joan Acker's work and an introduction to the special issue.
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Inge Bleijenbergh and Marloes Van Engen
Interventions to support gender equality in organisations are often unsuccessful. Stakeholders disagree about the causes and problem definition of gender equality or pay lip…
Abstract
Purpose
Interventions to support gender equality in organisations are often unsuccessful. Stakeholders disagree about the causes and problem definition of gender equality or pay lip service to the principle of gender equality, but fail to implement gender equality in practice. The purpose of this paper is to examine participatory modelling as an intervention method to support stakeholders in: reaching a shared problem definition and analysis of gender inequality; and identifying and implementing policies to tackle gender inequality.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors apply participatory modelling in case studies on impediments to women’s careers in two Dutch universities.
Findings
This study shows that participatory modelling supported stakeholders’ identification of the self-reinforcing feedback processes of masculinity of norms, visibility of women and networking of women and the interrelatedness between these processes. Causal loop diagrams visualise how the feedback processes are interrelated and can stabilise or reinforce themselves. Moreover, they allow for the identification of possible interventions.
Research limitations/implications
Further testing of the causal loop diagrams by quantifying the stocks and the flows would validate the feedback processes and the estimated effects of possible interventions.
Practical implications
The integration of the knowledge of researchers and stakeholders in a causal loop diagram supported learning about the issue of gender inequality, hereby contributing to transformative change on gender equality.
Originality/value
The originality of the paper lies in the application of participatory modelling in interventions to support gender equality.
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In recent years, we have witnessed a surge in academic interest towards migrants and their entrepreneurial endeavours. This has resulted in valuable insights about immigrant…
Abstract
In recent years, we have witnessed a surge in academic interest towards migrants and their entrepreneurial endeavours. This has resulted in valuable insights about immigrant, transnational, ethnic and diaspora entrepreneurship. By reviewing 158 articles published in the fields of migrant entrepreneurship, transnational entrepreneurship, ethnic and diaspora entrepreneurship over the last decade, the author maps the migrant entrepreneurship field according to the level of analysis and suggests potential avenues for the development of the field. Blurred boundaries between different streams of literature can potentially lead to duplication of efforts and harm cumulativity of knowledge. Therefore, the author summarises the key findings at each level of analysis, identifies the gaps and most pressing research questions. The author concluded that the field would benefit from (1) more specific definitions and assessment of whether observed findings stem from immigrant-, transnational-, ethnic- or diaspora-related factors; (2) appreciating the multilevel nature of the phenomenon; and (3) clarifying the boundary conditions. This review contributes to the accumulation of knowledge in two ways. First, it synthesises the findings in the fields of transnational, immigrant, ethnic and diaspora entrepreneurship under the framework of migrant entrepreneurship. Second, it suggests potential research directions across three levels of analysis and in-between those levels.
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Allison N. Gorga and Nicole Bouxsein Oehmen
Purpose: This chapter illuminates the ways in which the coherent arrangements of prisons contribute to variation in implementation, functioning, and consequences of a purportedly…
Abstract
Purpose: This chapter illuminates the ways in which the coherent arrangements of prisons contribute to variation in implementation, functioning, and consequences of a purportedly gender neutral policy, the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), between women’s and men’s prisons.
Methodology/Approach: Guided by grounded theory, two waves of qualitative interviews with inmates, staff, and volunteers at two Midwest women’s prisons were conducted for a total of 61 interviews. Interviews were supplemented with archival data obtained from state historical archives, news outlets, and the Iowa Department of Corrections, as well as participant observation of prisoner advocacy group meetings and the Iowa Board of Corrections’ meetings, and a content analysis of an online discussion forum for correctional officers.
Findings: We find that the gender subtext of prisons shapes the way the PREA is perceived and implemented. Overall, we argue that due to founding logics that differentially shaped the coherent arrangements of men’s and women’s prisons, blanket policies operate differently in these institutions. The gender subtext of prisons, specifically the structural arrangements and cultural processes within women’s and men’s prisons form different landscapes in which the PREA is perceived, enforced, and responded to.
Practical Implications: Given these findings, we call for gender-informed policy that takes gender subtext into account but that also avoids the trap of statistical discrimination present in some gender responsive policies.
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Marta B. Calás, Han Ou and Linda Smircich
–The paper originated in challenges trying to theorize and research practices and processes of actors engaged in transnational activities for business and everyday life. Key…
Abstract
Purpose
–The paper originated in challenges trying to theorize and research practices and processes of actors engaged in transnational activities for business and everyday life. Key concern was the assumption that actors’ identities remain the same regardless of time/space. While intersectional analysis once seemed a reasonable analytical approach the authors wondered about starting from identity-based categorical schemes in a world where mobility may be ever more the ontological status of everyday experiences and social structuring. Thus, the paper addresses limitations of intersectional analysis in such situations and advances its recasting via mobile conceptualizations, redressing its analytical purchase for contemporary subject formation.
Design/methodology/approach
Discusses emergence of intersectionality at a particular point in time, its success and proliferation, and more recent critiques of these ideas. Develops alternative conceptualization – mobile subjectivities – via literatures on mobilities in the context of globalization. Illustrates the value of these arguments with ethnographic examples from a multi-sited ethnographic project and analyses. Concludes by examining implications for new feminist theorizations under neoliberalism and globalization.
Findings
Observing the constitution of a “mobile selfhood” in actual transnational business activities is a step toward making sense of complex processes in contemporary subject formation under globalized market neoliberalism.
Research limitations/implications
“Mobile subjectivities” suggest that analyses of oppression and subordination must be ongoing, no matter which “new subjectivities” may appear under “the latest regime.”
Originality/value
Theoretical and empirical analyses facilitated a reconceptualization of intersectionality as a mobile, precarious, and transitory accomplishment of selfhood temporarily fixed by the neoliberal rhetoric of “choice” and “self-empowerment.” This is of particular value for understanding transnational practices and processes of contemporary organizational actors.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide a platform to improve leadership practices through variety engineering in terms of amplifying and attenuating variety.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a platform to improve leadership practices through variety engineering in terms of amplifying and attenuating variety.
Design/methodology/approach
Chemers's functional integration of image management, relation development and resource deployment as the building blocks of leadership is mapped onto Espejo et al.'s variety engineering individual‐task loop, consisting of cognitive, interactive and task venues.
Findings
It is found that traditional leadership can be usefully mapped onto the language of variety engineering.
Originality/value
Management is distinguished from leadership. The paper is an early attempt to translate a leadership model into the language of cybernetics.
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Examines the deep structure of the discourse on the organization of work and shows that the most successful texts share a common structure: they construct an ideal model in which…
Abstract
Examines the deep structure of the discourse on the organization of work and shows that the most successful texts share a common structure: they construct an ideal model in which performance and quality go hand‐in‐hand. Provides explanations for the self‐constructed gap between the model and reality, and recipes for change. This type of discourse has widespread appeal, but there are shortcomings attached to it: an inevitable neglect of the employment relation (and accordingly inadequate analysis of resistance to organizational change), and undue optimism about the quality of working life (thereby de‐legitimizing efforts, such as in Scandinavian and Dutch working conditions legislation, to establish the quality of working life as a value in its own right). Critical and empirical evaluative alternative approaches seem unable to capture substantial mind share.