Kathleen Riach

Don't Screw the Crew: Exploring the Rules of Engagement in Organizational Romance

Thirty years ago sociological research began to discover what workplace romance might mean for the participants. Since then management research has tended to adopt a functionalist approach, using survey methods, or third-party approaches to ask about company policy and negative consequences of workplace romance, warning of the dangers and consequences of romance and offering solutions for managers on how to deal with this potential problem. Drawing on the sexuality of organization and critical literature, and adopting a position of constructivist structuralism with a qualitative research method, this research looks at how the concept of workplace romance is defined and negotiated within a public-house setting. It examines the ‘rules of engagement’, the personal experiences and views of both managers and workers, as well as first-hand stories of workplace romance. Romance was conceptualized as ‘natural’ and something that could not be legislated for, where unwritten rules were defined but often ignored. However, the ‘rules of engagement’ emerged as favouring particular groups depending on gender, position in the hierarchy and sexual identity. Subjective value judgements are made, often resting on gendered assumptions of male and female behaviour.

Embracing ethical fields: constructing consumption in the margins

Purpose – Literature examining resistant consumer behaviour from an ethical consumption stance has increased over recent years. This paper aims to argue that the conflation between ethical consumer behaviour and “anti‐consumption” practices results in a nihilistic reading and fails to uncover the tensions of those who seek to position themselves as ethical while still participating in the general market.Design/methodology/approach – The study adopts an exploratory approach through semi‐structured in‐depth interviews with a purposive sample of seven ethical consumers.Findings – The analysis reveals the process through which ethical consumption is constructed and defined in relation to the subject position of the “ethical consumer” and their interactions with the dominant market of consumption.Research limitations/implications – This research is limited to a single country and location and focused on a specific consumer group. Expansion of the research to a wider group would be valuable.Practical implicatio...

Un/doing Chrononormativity: Negotiating Ageing, Gender and Sexuality in Organizational Life

This paper is based on a series of ‘anti-narrative’ interviews designed to explore the ways in which lived experiences of age, gender and sexuality are negotiated and narrated within organizations in later life. It draws on Judith Butler’s performative ontology of gender, particularly her account of the ways in which the desire for recognition is shaped by heteronormativity, considering its implications for how we study ageing and organizations. In doing so, the paper develops a critique of the impact of heteronormative life course expectations on the negotiation of viable subjectivity within organizational settings. Focusing on the ways in which ‘chrononormativity’ shapes the lived experiences of ageing within organizations, at the same time as constituting an organizing process in itself, the paper draws on Butler’s concept of ‘un/doing’ in its analysis of the simultaneously affirming and negating organizational experiences of older self-identifying LGBT people. The paper concludes by emphasizing the theoretical potential of a performative ontology of ageing, gender and sexuality for organization studies, as well as the methodological insights to be derived from an ‘anti-narrative’ approach to organizational research, arguing for the need to develop a more inclusive politics of ageing within both organizational practice and research.

Smell organization: Bodies and corporeal porosity in office work

This article contributes to a sensory equilibrium in studies of workplace life through a qualitative study of everyday smells in UK offices. Drawing on Csordas’ (2008) phenomenology of intercorporeality, we develop the concept of corporeal porosity as a way of articulating the negotiation of bodily integrity in organizational experience. We explore the corporeal porosity of workplace life through smell-orientated interview and diary-based methods and our findings highlight the interdependence of shared, personal, local and cultural elementals when experiencing smell in office-based work. Our analysis explores three elements of bodily integrity: ‘cultural permeability’; ‘locating smell in-between’; and ‘sensual signifiers’. This suggests that while the senses are part of the ephemeral, affective ‘glue’ that floats between and around working bodies, they also foreground the constantly active character of relationality in organizational life. Corporeal porosity, therefore, captures the entanglement of embodied traces and fragments – corporeal seeping and secretion that has hitherto taken a backseat in organizational studies of the body at work.

The need for fresh blood: understanding organizational age inequality through a vampiric lens

This article argues that older age inequality within and across working life is the result of vampiric forms and structures constitutive of contemporary organizing. Rather than assuming ageism occurs against a backdrop of neutral organizational processes and practices, the article denaturalizes (and in the process super-naturalizes) organizational orientations of ageing through three vampiric aspects: (un)dying, regeneration and neophilia. These dimensions are used to illustrate how workplace narratives and logics normalize and perpetuate the systematic denigration of the ageing organizational subject. Through our analysis it is argued that older workers are positioned as inevitable ‘sacrificial objects’ of the all-consuming immortal organization. To challenge this, the article explicitly draws on the vampire and the vampiric in literature and popular culture to consider the possibility of subverting existing notions of the ‘older worker’ in order to confront and challenge the subtle and persistent monstrous discourses that shape organizational life.

Built to last: ageing, class and the masculine body in a UK hedge fund

This article explores the ways in which male traders negotiate ageing in the highly competitive world of finance. It draws on a study of a UK hedge fund to show how ageing processes intersect with masculinity and class-based bodily practices to reproduce market-based ideals of the sector. Through developing the concept of body accumulation, this article provides a new framework for exploring ageing in an organizational context by demonstrating how masculinity, class and organizational values are mapped onto the traders’ bodies over time and in ways that require individuals to continually negotiate their professional value. This not only significantly advances current understanding of how one group of professionals navigate growing older at work, but also highlights the importance of understanding ageing as an accumulation process that takes into account temporal, spatial and cultural dimensions.

Menopause in the workplace: What employers should be doing

Large numbers of women transition through menopause whilst in paid employment. Symptoms associated with menopause may cause difficulties for working women, especially if untreated, yet employers are practically silent on this potentially costly issue. This review summarises existing research on the underexplored topic of menopause in the workplace, and synthesises recommendations for employers. Longstanding scholarly interest in the relationship between employment status and symptom reporting typically (but not consistently) shows that women in paid employment (and in specific occupations) report fewer and less severe symptoms than those who are unemployed. Recent studies more systematically focused on the effects of menopausal symptoms on work are typically cross-sectional self-report surveys, with a small number of qualitative studies. Though several papers established that vasomotor (and associated) symptoms have a negative impact on womens productivity, capacity to work and work experience, this is not a uniform finding. Psychological and other somatic symptoms associated with menopause can have a relatively greater negative influence. Physical (e.g., workplace temperature and design) and psychosocial (e.g., work stress, perceptions of control/autonomy) workplace factors have been found to influence the relationship between symptoms and work. Principal recommendations for employers to best support menopausal women as part of a holistic approach to employee health and well-being include risk assessments to make suitable adjustments to the physical and psychosocial work environment, provision of information and support, and training for line managers. Limitations of prior studies, and directions for future research are presented.

Towards a Butlerian methodology: Undoing organizational performativity through anti-narrative research

This article explores the methodological possibilities that Butler’s theory of performativity opens up, attempting to ‘translate’ her theoretical ideas into research practice. Specifically, it considers how research on organizational subjectivity premised upon a performative ontology might be undertaken. It asks: What form might a Butler-inspired methodology take? What methodological opportunities might it afford for developing self-reflexive research? What political and ethical problems might it pose for organizational researchers, particularly in relation to the challenges associated with power asymmetries, and the risks attached to ‘fixing’ subjects within the research process? The article outlines and evaluates a method described as anti-narrative interviewing, arguing that it constitutes a potentially valuable methodological resource for researchers interested in understanding how and why idealized organizational subjectivities are formed and sustained. It further advances the in-roads that Butler’s writing has made into organization studies, thinking through the methodological and ethical implications of her work for understanding the performative constitution of organizational subjectivities. The aim of the article is to advocate a research practice premised upon a reflexive undoing of organizational subjectivities and the normative conditions upon which they depend. It concludes by emphasizing the potential benefits and wider implications of a methodologically reflexive undoing of organizational performativity.

Bodyspace at the pub: Sexual orientations and organizational space

In this article we argue that sexuality is not only an undercurrent of service environments, but is integral to the way that these workspaces are experienced and negotiated. Through drawing on Sara Ahmed’s (2006a) ‘orientation’ thesis, we develop a concept of ‘bodyspace’ to suggest that individuals understand, shape and make meaning of work spaces through complex sexually-orientated negotiations. Presenting analysis from a study of UK pubs, we explore bodyspace in the lived experience of workplace sexuality through three elements of orientation: background; bodily dwelling; and lines of directionality. Our findings show how organizational spaces afford or mitigate possibilities for particular bodies, which simultaneously shape expectations and experiences of sexuality at work. Bodyspace therefore provides one way of exposing the connection between sexual ‘orientation’ and the lived experience of service sector work.

Making Scents of Transition Smellscapes and the Everyday in ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Urban Poland

In this article, the growing body of literature on transition within central and eastern Europe is developed by exploring how discussing the senses may illuminate the experience of change to post-socialism for urban dwellers. After situating the study within the rich ethnographic heritage on urban transition, the key tenets of ‘geographies of smell’ are outlined as a means of inquiry which emphasises the lived, sensually embodied experience of transition. The empirical study is focused upon the interrogation of the meanings created by, and attached to, olfactory experience in contemporary Poland, discussing three motifs that highlight the symbolic and transformative role of smell in relation to transition. In understanding smell as playing an active role in the creation of meaning, not only are current debates surrounding geographies of smell extended, but it is argued that addressing the relatively neglected sensual dimension of the social provides an avenue into more nuanced dimensions of urban transition.