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This paper aims to review Ruth Simpson’s contribution to the field of gender and management.

This paper looks at Ruth Simpson’s body of work over her career through a conversation that took place between Pullen and Ross-Smith.

Ruth Simpson’s contribution to gender, class, work and organizations is discussed.

This piece remembers Ruth Simpson’s feminist scholarship to the field of gender and management.

This study investigates the overarching ideology of work–life balance (WLB) or conflict as predominantly being a work–family affair. Based on a Nigerian study, and using organisational justice as a theoretical lens, it explores perceived fairness in accessing family-friendly policies by managers and professionals who are single and do not have children – a workgroup conventionally ignored in research on WLB.

Relying on an interpretivist approach, the data set comprises of interviews with 24 bank managers and 20 medical doctors working in Nigeria.

The authors’ findings highlight employers' misconceptions concerning the non-work preferences and commitments of singles as well as an undervaluation by employers of their non-work time. Conceptualised as “time biases”, such time is routinely invaded by the organisation, with profound implications for perceptions of fairness. This fosters backlash behaviours with potential detrimental effects in terms of organisational effectiveness.

The study is limited to investigating the WLB of singles in high-status roles, namely banking and medical careers. Future research may examine the experiences of a more diverse range of occupations. The sample comprises heterosexual, never-married professionals, whose experiences may differ from other categories of single workers, such as childless divorced people, widows, non-heterosexual singles and partners who have no children.

In order to avoid counterproductive behaviours in the workplace, WLB policies should not only focus on those with childcare concerns. Inclusive work–life policies for other household structures, such as single-persons, are necessary for improving overall organisational well-being.

The majority of WLB studies have been undertaken in Western and Asian contexts, to the neglect of the Sub-Saharan African experience. Additionally, research tends to focus on WLB issues on the part of working parents, overlooking the difficulties faced by singles.

This paper aims to draw on Ashcraft’s (2013) metaphor of the “glass slipper” (which highlights the need for alignment between occupational identity and embodied social identities of workers) to show how merit may not adhere to individuals when social identity in the form of gender, race or class fails to fit the definition and perceived characteristics of the job.

This is a conceptual paper.

This study develops the notion of the Teflon effect to describe the way merit may go unrecognised and may therefore not “stick” to the bodies of women in management and leadership roles.

This study provides an explanation for the persistence of the glass ceiling and the barriers women face as they undertake or aspire to management and/or leadership positions in organisations.

This study introduces a more embodied notion of merit which relies on both performance and recognition to “take effect”. Professionals must see beyond “objective” measures of merit in performance reviews and/or in recruitment and promotion decisions to include reflection on the significance of merit’s subjective, “performed” dimensions.

This study adds to understandings of women’s positioning in organisations.

This study develops the notion of the Teflon effect. This highlights the significance of the recognition, performance and embodiment of merit and how merit may fail to adhere to the bodies of women in management and leadership roles.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the “gendering” of contamination in the context of COVID-19 where “gendering” is taken to include other, cross-cutting areas of disadvantage.

This paper draws on secondary sources to explore gender and COVID-19.

The authors show that contamination is rooted in structural disadvantage, reproducing classed, gendered and racial difference in terms of how it is encountered and experienced.

This “thought piece” suggests a greater awareness of how pandemics and other public health emergencies impact of structural disadvantages.

This “thought piece” applies notions of taint to a contemporary pandemic that has had far-reaching consequences for issues of equality.

Examines the impact of restructuring on the career progression of women transport and logistics managers. Research to date has indicated that restructuring can have detrimental effects on women managers, as middle management levels are reduced through delayering and as the organisation takes on a more competitive and “masculine” culture. Results from this survey on women transport and logistics managers indicate that restructuring can have positive effects. While women experience longer working hours and increased workloads, they encounter fewer career barriers and a more positive attitude to women managers in the organisation. This may point to greater opportunities for training in a changing organisation and a higher probability of new posts and positions being created, as proverbial “dead‐wood” is shaken out. Perhaps more importantly, the climate of change may help to “unfreeze” and challenge entrenched attitudes and to create a new meritocracy, in which women can compete on a more equal footing with men.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how women in senior management draw on discourses of merit and special contribution in making sense of the contradictions and tensions they experience in their working lives. It has a particular focus on how women explain possible experiences of disadvantage and the extent to which they see such experiences as gendered.

The research is based on an Australian study of women leaders in the private and tertiary sectors. Data are drawn from in‐depth interviews with 14 women.

Findings suggest that women draw on discourses of meritocracy and of “special contribution” in discussing their experiences at work. Inconsistencies between these competing discourses are mediated through notions of choice.

The research has implications for the understanding of how women at senior levels make sense of their experiences in organizations. A wider sample may give further corroboration to these results.

The paper highlights the significance of the discourse of choice in aligning discourses of “special contribution” with the reality of their lives whilst keeping intact the concepts of equality and meritocracy to which they strongly adhere.

This paper explores the impact of the numerical distribution of women at different levels of the organisation on the experiences of women managers. It aims to build on work in this area which argues that gender imbalance creates an organisational culture that is hostile or resistant to women. Findings of a research project on women managers, on the significance of gender mix for barriers experienced and on women’s sense of “organisational fit” are discussed. Gender mix was found to be an important factor determining career progress. The hierarchical level at which gender imbalances occur is also considered. When gender imbalance at the top (with men in the majority) is combined with greater sex integration further down the hierarchy, women experience greater “fit” within the organisation than when that gender imbalance permeates all management levels. At the same time, an integrated top management team in terms of gender mix is possibly the single most important factor in creating a culture in which women feel comfortable and valued

The aim of this paper is to explore how an elite group of senior women in banking represent and describe their understanding and experience of the role of meritocracy, within the context of their own career.

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 33 senior female directors from six global investment banks. Template analysis was used in the qualitative analysis of the coding.

The paper found that the women's adherence to the notion of meritocracy diminished over time, as merit appeared to be less defined by human capital (ability and experience) and more by social capital (seen as political behaviour). The paper also reveals how the concept is construed on two levels: first, on a symbolic level, demonstrating how the organization defines and rewards success; second, on a personal level, how it affects the individual's cognitions, emotions and self‐belief.

This paper contributes to the small literature on the concept of meritocracy in the management field, with an emphasis on the experiences of successful female directors in global investment banks.

Ruth Simpson is a leading scholar in management education. This paper aims to provide a succinct summary of her voluminous work on management education, with a particular focus on her work on the relevance and benefit of the Master in Business Administration (MBA) degree, which is generally considered the flagship of business and management education.

The approach taken is a review that introduces the central themes underpinning the work of Ruth Simpson on the MBA.

The paper elevates the understanding of the skills development and related outcomes from the MBA.

The works reviewed have implications on how to align the MBA curriculum to meet contemporary business requirements in a fast-changing world.

This paper highlights the key findings of Ruth Simpson’s research on the MBA and her scholarly contribution in this area. The paper also generates insights that are anticipated to stimulate management educators to further extend the field and carry it forward in the coming years.