Hans Doorewaard

Six of One and Half a Dozen of the Other: The Gender Subtext of Taylorism and Team‐based Work

This article analyses gendering processes in two distinct models of work organization. It is a widespread belief that, compared to hierarchical (Tayloristic) organizations, team-based work offers opportunities for a high quality of working life to a broader range of employees, both men and women. Our research, however, suggests that gender inequality is (re)produced in both settings and results from the so-called gender subtext. The gender subtext is the set of often concealed power-based processes (re)producing gender distinction in social practices through organizational and individual arrangements. We draw a comparison between the gender subtext of Tayloristic and team-based work organizations through a theoretical analysis, illustrated by empirical data concerning the functioning of the gender subtext in organizations in the Dutch banking sector. Taylorism and team-based work differ in their conceptualization of organization and job design, but, when it comes to the gender subtext, it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. We argue that in both approaches a gender subtext contributes to the emergence of different but gendered notions of the ‘disembodied worker’. In both cases the notion of the abstract worker is implicitly loaded with masculine connotations. This gender bias is supported by two factors influencing the gendering of jobs: the gender connotations of care responsibilities and of qualification profiles. These implicit connotations produce and reinforce unequal opportunities for men and women to get highly qualified or management jobs. Our research, therefore, questions the self-evidence of stating that team-based work will offer opportunities for a higher quality of working life for women.

Representations of work—life balance support

This article explores how employers portray themselves as supporters of work—life balance (WLB) in texts found on 24 websites of 10 different companies. With a theoretical framework based on a critical reflection on strategic HRM, feminist studies of organizational culture and hegemonic power processes, we examine implicit and explicit messages of work, life, and WLB support. We study the cultural norms that can be distilled from these articulations, including the concepts of the ideal worker and the ideal parent and discuss the possible (unintended) effects of the implicit and explicit messages. Our analysis shows the ambiguity of the different messages conveyed on WLB support. In contrast to the explicit supportive messages, implicit messages present WLB-arrangements as a privilege. The majority of websites reproduce traditional cultural norms regarding ideal workers and parents and the power of hegemony is not broken. Apparently, WLB support does not always signify support.

Work Orientations of Female Returners

Hakim’s Preference Theory on the heterogeneity of the work-life preferences of women, and in particular its implicit assumption that a woman’s preference to work or to stay at home is based on her personal choices, has frequently been criticized. Other researchers emphasize the constraining influence that a woman’s personal, financial and family situation can have on her preferences. Our article aims at contributing to this debate by analysing the work orientations of female returners, in themselves a particular job-seeking category which differs noticeably from other categories in regard to their central motivation when considering whether or not to re-enter a paid job. Our research indicates that older female returners are more job and people oriented than younger ones. Female returners with a lower level of education and female returners with financial problems are money oriented, whereas higher educated female returners and female returners who are financially well off show more of a job orientation. Surprisingly, the presence of young children in the household does not significantly influence the work orientations of female returners.

Team responsibility structure and team performance

Анализируется влияние типа ответственности, принятого в коллективе, на результаты его работы. Основу исследования составил анализ результатов деятельности 36 фирм в Нидерландах, проведенный в 1997 г. В практической деятельности обследуемых фирм преобладали два типа групповой ответственности. Первый относится к командам, построенным по иерархическому принципу, когда основные решения принимает лидер. Второй - к командам, в которых ответственность разделена, когда решения принимаются каждым членом команды самостоятельно. Авторы убедительно показывают, что команды с разделенной ответственностью оказались более жизнеспособными по сравнению с командами, построенными по иерархическому принципу. Подчеркивается, что члены команды, являющиеся профессионалами в своих областях, вносят существенный вклад в результат работы предприятия. Интересно, что уже само проведение исследования помогло улучшить понимание связи между управлением человеческими ресурсами и эффективностью работы организации.

Family ties: migrant businesswomen doing identity work on the public-private divide

This article contributes to the literature on identity work and small business studies, by identifying various forms of identity work of female business owners of Turkish and Moroccan descent in the Netherlands, in relation to two sets of identity regulations stemming from their families, regarding the norms of ‘being a good woman’ and ‘dealing with family support’. Identity work refers to the way subjects form, maintain, strengthen or revise constructions of self in relation to the claims and demands issued on them. Our analysis, which is based on McAdams’s life-narrative approach, demonstrates in detail how social actors perform identity work in continuous interplay with their family environment when powerful, multiple, and even contradictory normative demands are made on those identities. We have demonstrated how these migrant female business owners use various cultural repertoires to negotiate and manipulate the family norms and values in order to seek and hold their position in the public domain effectively. Our research has revealed a variety of identity work manifestations, all strategically maneuvering between conflict and compliance.

Assessing Cross-National Invariance of the Three-Component Model of Organizational Commitment: A Six-Country Study of European University Faculty

This study examined cross-national invariance of Meyer and Allen’s three-component model of organizational commitment using samples of university faculty from six European countries. The analysis revealed strict factorial measurement invariance of affective, continuance, and normative organizational commitment constructs (AC, CC, and NC, respectively). While the samples failed to differ in AC and CC, substantial cross-national differences were found for NC. Results showed an invariant zero correlation between AC and CC, and NC associated positively with affective and continuance components. Procedural justice predicted AC and less strongly NC, but it had no effect on CC. A positive link with job performance was found for AC, a negative one for CC, and no association for NC. Results by and large support the generalizability of the tripartite organizational commitment model to the European context.

Promotion of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing in Europe

This article presents the major findings of a research project for the European Union on the development of promotion of employee ownership and profit sharing, known as PEPPER schemes, and the diffusion of these schemes throughout Europe. Since the first PEPPER report in 1991, the general situation of government policy on financial participation schemes in EU countries has improved slightly. Official government positions in individual EU countries still range from strongly in favour to undefined. The different government positions relate to distinct industrial relations systems in individual EU countries. This is demonstrated by the very particular developments with respect to the issue of financial participation in France, Germany and the UK.

Explaining career motivation among female doctors in the Netherlands: The effects of children, views on motherhood and work-home cultures

The gender imbalance in senior medical positions is often attributed to an alleged lack of motivation on the part of female doctors, especially those with young children. Some researchers argue that an unsupportive work-home culture in the medical workplace also plays a role. This study investigates whether having children (and the age of the youngest child) affects female doctors’ career motivation and whether this relationship is mediated by views on motherhood and the supportiveness of the work-home culture. Cross-sectional data collected on 1070 Dutch female doctors in 2008 indicates that neither having children nor the age of the youngest child significantly affects the career motivation of female doctors. However, views on motherhood and a supportive work-home culture do affect female doctors’ career motivation. Governmental and organizational policies aimed at maternal employment and improving the work-life balance are discussed in terms of their effectiveness in supporting highly educated working women.

Discourses of ambition, gender and part-time work

The aim of this article is to unravel the gendered practices in ambition and challenge the hegemonic masculinity within it. Our findings are based on a qualitative study using focus groups in which Dutch men and women, full-timers and part-timers, constructed different meanings of ambition. The men and women in our study used three manifest discourses of ambition in the workplace, regarding individual development, mastery of the task, and upward career mobility. A critical analysis of these three discourses indicates how cultural and organizational norms on gender and working hours affect these constructions of ambition. We argue that a fourth discourse, ‘ambition as a resource’, is a major driving force of inequality. ‘Ambition as a resource’ is the dominant hegemonic discourse in organizations, and its power effects mitigate the impact of other discourses on ambition, revealing the potential for change when different discourses of ambition are valued.

Hegemonic Power Processes in Team‐based Work

The purpose of this paper is to portray how implicit “hegemonic power processes” channel the way in which self-managing teams deal with organisational dilemmas. Hegemonic power processes in team-based work are, to a great extent concealed, processes of meaning and identity formation. These processes induce the team members to consent to the dominant organisational views. They also impel the team members to accept their insertion into organisational practices, despite the possible disadvantages these practices might pose for the team. During processes of meaning and identity formation, certain conceptions of reality and particular employee attitudes are “organised in”, while alternative conceptions and attitudes are “organised out” (Mumby & Stohl, 1991). We illustrate our elaboration of these processes by analysing a decision making process, which a nursing team in a local hospital has employed, when dealing with problems of understaffing.