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1 – 10 of 108Katherine J.C. Sang, Simy Joy, Josephine Kinge and Susan Sayce
Isla Kapasi, Katherine J.C. Sang and Rafal Sitko
Leadership theories have moved from viewing leadership as an innate trait, towards models that recognise leadership as a social construction. Alongside this theorisation, gender…
Abstract
Purpose
Leadership theories have moved from viewing leadership as an innate trait, towards models that recognise leadership as a social construction. Alongside this theorisation, gender and leadership remain of considerable interest, particularly given the under-representation of women in leadership positions. Methodological approaches to understanding leadership have begun to embrace innovative methods, such as historical analyses. This paper aims to understand how high profile women leaders construct a gendered leadership identity, with particular reference to authentic leadership.
Design/methodology/approach
Thematic analysis of autobiographies, a form of identity work, of four women leaders from business and politics: Sheryl Sandberg, Karren Brady, Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard.
Findings
Analyses reveal that these women construct gender and leadership along familiar normative lines; for example, the emphasis on personal and familial values. However, their stories differ in that the normative extends to include close examination of the body and a sense of responsibility to other women. Overall, media representations of these “authentic” leaders conform to social constructions of gender. Thus, in the case of authentic leadership, a theory presented as gender neutral, the authenticity of leadership has to some extent been crafted by the media rather than the leader.
Originality/value
The study reveals that despite attempts to “craft” and control the image of the authentic self for consumption by followers, gendered media representations of individuals and leadership remain. Thus, alternative approaches to crafting an authentic leadership self which extend beyond (mainstream) media is suggested.
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Katherine E. Brown and Victoria Syme‐Taylor
This paper aims to explore the ways in which gender and feminism are practised in professional military education (PME), which is viewed as an atypical higher education…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the ways in which gender and feminism are practised in professional military education (PME), which is viewed as an atypical higher education institution, by focusing on the practice and discourse of female academics.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses a case study approach using participant observation and semi‐structured interviews. The authors' qualitative analysis is informed by feminist research methods.
Findings
The authors identified a number of key areas around which resistance and accommodation to gender norms are produced: the visual, the vocal and collective action. Analysis of these revealed the everyday practices of academic identities, the gendering of knowledge, and feminist interventions. The authors found that the practices and debates of academic women in PME reflect the wider debates in academia.
Originality/value
PME and its relationship with gender and feminism have rarely been studied. This paper begins that task. The findings of this atypical case also add to the growing body of research on identity, gender, and feminism in academia, as well as to women working in male‐dominated institutions.
Katherine J.C. Sang, Stephen G. Ison and Andrew R.J. Dainty
There is evidence that those working within the construction industry are exposed to a number of stressors which potentially negatively impact well‐being, namely; long working…
Abstract
Purpose
There is evidence that those working within the construction industry are exposed to a number of stressors which potentially negatively impact well‐being, namely; long working hours, high workload, poor work‐life balance, low sense of professional worth and lack of job security. Additionally there is some evidence architects may also be vulnerable to an erosion of professional status, low pay and limited scope to use their creative skills. This paper aims to explore the job satisfaction of architects who are currently employed within the UK.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire is used to elicit data from 110 practising architects on their occupational well‐being and work‐life balance.
Findings
The results reveal that between 20 and 40 percent of respondents are dissatisfied with their rate of pay, practice management, promotion prospects, working hours and opportunity to use their abilities. Additionally the majority of respondents report some work‐life balance difficulties and approximately one‐third were considering leaving their current employer. The causes of poor well‐being are associated with organisational factors rather than factors intrinsic to the work of an architect. Further analysis demonstrates that those who are self employed may experience better occupational well‐being.
Research limitations/implications
The small sample size means that any generalisations to the entire architectural profession should be treated with caution. A cross‐sectional approach can only highlight the existence of relationships between variables; it cannot comment on their exact nature.
Originality/value
The implications for the profession are discussed and tentative recommendations put forward as to how the profession may address the situation.
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Katherine J. C. Sang and Steven Glasgow
This chapter explores the potential for the classroom to be a space for activism and hope within the contemporary business school. Drawing on the extant literature, a reflexive…
Abstract
This chapter explores the potential for the classroom to be a space for activism and hope within the contemporary business school. Drawing on the extant literature, a reflexive account of our own teaching and learning practice, and a small number of interviews with academics using feminist material in their teaching in business schools, we explore the challenges, opportunities and joys experienced in the feminist classroom. We suggest that engaging in feminist teaching practice and theory can offer an opportunity for academics to engage in the critical management studies practice which is often said to be lacking within management research. We begin by setting out the extant positioning of Critical Management Studies, moving to an analysis of the educational context. Interwoven through this are our own perspectives. Our own reflections do not reveal the identities of students.
Amy Klemm Verbos and Maria T. Humphries
The purpose of this paper is to bring wider‐reaching feminism to confluence with relational indigenous values for transformative responses to systemic exclusion.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to bring wider‐reaching feminism to confluence with relational indigenous values for transformative responses to systemic exclusion.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors critique the prevailing (corporate) institutional logic in higher education through their stories and experiences, weaving in diverse feminist perspectives. Liberal feminist perspectives, the most visible gender critique, may merely increase numerical equality, diversifying the biographical characteristics of privilege. Exclusion for many is systemically retained. The authors argue that relational logics underpinning indigenous worldviews hold generative potential for institutional change toward deeper inclusiveness and justice.
Findings
Liberal feminists' two‐fold transformative aspirations for gender equality and deeper respect for currently marginalized “feminine” values leave room for deeper and wider reflection on how indigenous perspectives might contribute to institutional change.
Practical implications
This exploration may be applied to university recruiting, selection, evaluation, and promotion policies; articulating and assessing career competencies and trajectories; curriculum evaluation; organizational and management research; and pedagogical development and research.
Social implications
An indigenous critique of liberal feminism and indigenous perspectives on justice, relationality, and inclusivity may enhance social, university, corporate, community, and family life.
Originality/value
Interweaving feminist and indigenous insights into a critique of the prevailing corporate institutional logic informing organizational practice – in higher education and all sectors of society, it highlights the generative potential of indigenous contributions and encourages inclusion of diverse indigenous perspectives in organization theory and practice.
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Regine Bendl and Angelika Schmidt
In this paper the authors aim to examine the forms in which feminist activism is played out at contemporary managerial universities and pose the following question: what notions…
Abstract
Purpose
In this paper the authors aim to examine the forms in which feminist activism is played out at contemporary managerial universities and pose the following question: what notions of feminist activism and feminist theory have to be revisited in order to sustain the target of gender equality and support its move further into the centre and the mainstream of managerial universities?
Design/methodology/approach
Based on action research the authors document a workshop which they organised for different constituencies (administrators, researchers and feminist activists) working towards gender equality at an Austrian university and discuss its results in the context of feminist theory.
Findings
The five voices collected at the workshop show that feminist theories are still the underlying guiding principles for feminist activism towards gender equality at managerial universities. As this is the first time that different generations of feminist activists have been present at managerial universities and are working in a top‐down environment supported by administrators responsible for gender equality, common practices that have been successful to implement gender equality in the past have to be refined and new spaces for collaboration established.
Originality/value
This is the first paper that explores the multiple voices amongst those engaged in the process of transformation towards gender equality at contemporary managerial universities. It shows that an open discussion of complementary and conflicting ways in which the representatives can construct their selves, their strategies and their actions is required in order to start “managing the management” anew – from a higher level than the feminist grassroots activists in the 1980s and 1990s.
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Yehuda Baruch and Katherine J.C. Sang
The purpose of this paper is to develop a model to examine factors influencing the inclination of MBA graduates to donate to their alma mater.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a model to examine factors influencing the inclination of MBA graduates to donate to their alma mater.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a large data‐base of 3,677 MBA graduates to evaluate individual factors, and external evaluation of organizational level factors. The authors constructed and tested the model, finding strong support for its validity.
Findings
Satisfaction with the MBA, university prestige and salary were significant predictors of donating behavior. Engagement (operationalised volunteering) was a significant mediating factor between these factors and donating behaviour.
Originality/value
The paper adds to both theoretical implication for understanding long‐term relationships between graduates and their alma mater and to managerial implication for future financing of universities and business schools in particular.
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This paper aims to offer an account of the research process and reflects on feminist research practice. It discusses methodological issues based on the author's experience as a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer an account of the research process and reflects on feminist research practice. It discusses methodological issues based on the author's experience as a PhD student in sociology carrying out fieldwork with women in Latin America. The paper makes the research process transparent and shows how feminist epistemologies inform the research strategies the author used in the field.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a reflexive piece about the methodology and method used and the dilemmas encountered in the author's empirical work as a feminist doctoral researcher. It considers biographical issues and personal interests in relation to the research.
Findings
The article discusses methodological assumptions and feminist epistemologies. It examines the interview as a research method as well as interviewing skills. It reflects on research practice, considering power issues, feminist challenges in the field, and the topic of reflexivity and otherness.
Originality/value
The article provides an account of feminist research practice, and considers the roles and skills of the researcher when interviewing. It contributes to knowledge by providing real examples of feminist research in Latin America.
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Despite the well‐documented resistance to feminism and gender equality within universities, the profound implications for feminist academics have not received sufficient…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the well‐documented resistance to feminism and gender equality within universities, the profound implications for feminist academics have not received sufficient attention. In this paper the author aims to focus on the inauthentication of feminist academic work by powerful actors in higher education and the implications for feminist academic careers. The author illustrates through her professional experience at a UK medical school how the othering and exclusion of feminists, sustained through surveillance and power mechanisms of organisational life, can disrupt and interrupt feminist academic identity.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a reflective piece of work that attempts to illustrate the author's experiences of occupational segregation and marginalisation within a patriarchal and an emerging “entrepreneurial” academic department. The author attempts to represent her lived professional experiences as a feminist academic in a medical school, through the use of narrative and metaphors.
Findings
Drawing on notions of othering, interrupted and storied subjectivities, the author illustrates how gendered expectations and constructions of academic performance and success within patriarchal organisations can “make up” and “break up” the professional self and affect the nomadic nature of academic careers and identities.
Practical implications
This paper contributes to theory about workplace identities and practice of gender equality in academia.
Originality/value
The author illustrates how the intersections of identities (feminist, social scientist, woman) can shape personal stories, professional experiences and careers within universities. The author demonstrate how personal stories can uncover gender inequalities and challenge dominant paradigms of knowledge and research within a micro‐web of emotionality and power relations.
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