Brian Rubineau

Persistence Is Cultural: Professional Socialization and the Reproduction of Sex Segregation

Why does sex segregation in professional occupations persist? Arguing that the cultures and practices of professional socialization serve to perpetuate this segregation, the authors examine the case of engineering. Using interview and diary entry data following students from college entry to graduation, the authors show how socialization leads women to develop less confidence that they will “fit” into the culture of engineering. The authors identify three processes that produce these cultural mismatches: orientation to engineering at college entry, initiation rituals in coursework and team projects, and anticipatory socialization during internships and summer jobs. Informal interactions with peers and everyday sexism in teams and internships are particularly salient building blocks of segregation.

Does Planning Using Groupware Foster Coordinated Team Performance

There is considerable evidence from Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) research that groupware applications can change the process of cooperative planning and can help teams plan more effectively. This research seeks to improve our understanding of the relationship between pre-mission planning and the subsequent performance of command and control (C2) teams. This may foster the development of theory-motivated interventions to support improved planning and validation of human-performance measurement methods in team settings. We studied the effects of planning medium (i.e., paper map versus shared electronic whiteboard) and team organizational structure (i.e., functional versus divisional) on the ability of C2 teams to develop effective pre-mission plans and on their resulting performance using a team-in-the-loop simulation. Findings suggested that the groupware condition fostered collaborative planning behaviors. The results also indicated that teams who used the electronic whiteboard for planning enjoyed a performance advantage over those teams who planned using a paper map and markers.

Adaptive Communication Patterns in Different Organizational Structures

How do organizations cope with missions that are not well matched to their architectures, and consequently, what behaviors signal the need for structural adaptation? To explore this issue, we used model-based organizational design techniques to create mission scenarios that were either congruent (matched) or incongruent (mismatched) with two organizational structures. We focused our analyses on the role of communications by comparing the communication patterns occurring in the congruent conditions to those produced in the incongruent conditions. Results indicated that, for both functional and divisional organizations, communications increased when faced with incongruence. However, beyond volume of communications, there were differences in communication patterns. In the functional organizational structure team members changed their communication patterns (i.e., who talked about what), while in the divisional organizational structure team members did so to a much lesser degree. These data showed that strategy adaptation depends on the nature of organizations structure operating within particular mission environments.

Tipping Points: The Gender Segregating and Desegregating Effects of Network Recruitment

Current scholarship commonly posits that network recruitment contributes to job sex segregation and that the segregated nature of personal contact networks explains this effect. A variety of empirical findings inconsistent with this explanation demonstrate its inadequacy. Building on Kanter’s observation that recruitment processes often resemble “homosocial reproduction” [Kanter RM (1977) Men and Women of the Corporation (Basic Books, New York)], we develop a population dynamics model of network recruitment. The resulting formal model builds a parsimonious theory regarding the segregating effects of network recruitment, resolving the puzzles and inconsistencies revealed by recent empirical findings. This revised theory also challenges conventional understandings of how network recruitment segregates: in isolation, network recruitment—even with segregated networks—is more likely to desegregate rather than segregate. Network recruitment segregates primarily through its interactions with other supply-side (e...

“I am Not a Feminist, but. . .”: Hegemony of a Meritocratic Ideology and the Limits of Critique Among Women in Engineering

Engineering is often described as an enduring bastion of masculine culture where women experience marginality. Using diaries from undergraduate engineering students at four universities, the authors explore women’s interpretations of their status within the profession. The authors’ findings show that women recognize their marginality, providing clear and strong criticisms of their experiences. But these criticisms remain isolated and muted; they coalesce neither into broader organizational or institutional criticisms of engineering, nor into calls for change. Instead, their criticisms are interpreted through two values central to engineering culture: meritocracy and individualism. Despite their direct experiences with sexism, respondents typically embrace these values as ideological justifications of the existing distributions of status and reward in engineering and come to view engineering’s nonmeritocratic system as meritocratic. The unquestioned presumption of meritocracy and the invisibility of its muting effects on critiques resembles not hegemonic masculinity—for these women proudly celebrate their femininity—but a hegemony of meritocratic ideology. The authors conclude that engineering education successfully turns potential critics into agents of cultural reproduction. This article contributes to ongoing debates concerning diversity in STEM professions by showing how professional culture can contribute to more general patterns of token behavior—thus identifying mechanisms of cultural reproduction that thwart institutional change.