Patricia Lewis

An investigation of silence and a scrutiny of transparency: Re-examining gender in organization literature through the concepts of voice and visibility

This article presents a review of the literature on gender and organizations through the twin concepts of ‘voice’ and ‘visibility’. In gender studies, as in other areas, the concepts have been used at different levels of abstraction to analyse inequality and exclusion. However, we argue that their potential richness has not been fully exploited and we accordingly produce a ‘framework’ which is based on ‘surface’ and ‘deep’ conceptualizations. These conform broadly to liberal feminist and post-structuralist interpretations respectively. With ‘voice’, we therefore distinguish between the ‘surface’ act of speaking/being heard as discussed within ‘women’s voice’ literature and, at a deeper level, the power of silence as discursive practices eliminate certain issues from arenas of speech and sound. Similarly, we can see visibility as a ‘surface’ state of exclusion and difference while, at a deeper level, conceptualizations can usefully explore the power of ‘invisibility’ and the battle for the (male) norm. Through the concepts of voice and visibility, and through exploring commonalities and tensions between and within the two conceptual levels, we help to illuminate the increasingly diverse field of gender and organizational studies.

Suppression or expression: an exploration of emotion management in a special care baby unit

Based on an interview study of neonatal nurses, this article sets out to explore the management of emotions within a work context where their suppression is a professional requirement. Drawing on Bolton’s (2000a, 2000b) identification of different types of organizational emotionality, in particular prescriptive and philanthropic emotion management, the article seeks to demonstrate the complexities involved in the performance of emotional labour. It does this by first exploring the times when a nurse chooses to perform one form of emotion management over another (e.g. prescriptive over philanthropic). Second, the article examines the relationship between these two forms of emotion management, taking into account their gendered nature and highlighting the existence of any tensions between them. Lastly, it considers how nurses create informal communities of coping (Korczynski, 2003) as a means of dealing with the consequences of having to move between these two different forms of emotion management.

Postfeminism, Femininities and Organization Studies: Exploring a New Agenda

The purpose of this article is to mobilize postfeminism as a critical concept for exploring women’s contemporary organizational experience. Specifically, it is argued that rather than interpreting women’s position in organizations solely in terms of exclusion connected to a dominant masculine norm, critically deploying the concept of postfeminism facilitates a critique of how women and a reconfigured femininity are now being included in the contemporary workplace. As the focus of the paper is the connection between postfeminism as a cultural phenomenon and the emergence of feminine organizational subjectivities, the construction of feminine subjectivities in the entrepreneurial arena (referred to as entrepreneurial femininities) is presented through a reading of the gender and entrepreneurship literature. Four entrepreneurial femininities are depicted—individualized, maternal, relational, excessive—with one key characteristic being the way in which they are all constituted through the doing of both masculinity and femininity via the integration and embodiment of conventional feminine and masculine aspirations and behaviours.

Merit, special contribution and choice: How women negotiate between sameness and difference in their organizational lives

Purpose – 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.Design/methodology/approach – 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 – 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.Research limitations/implications – 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.O...

Gendering emotions in organizations

Gender and Emotions: Introduction P.Lewis & R.Simpson Emotion Work as Human Connection: Gendered Emotion Codes in Teaching Primary Children with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties S.Bolton Women Executives: Managing Emotions at the Top A.Ross-Smith, M.Kornberger, A.Anandakumar & C.Chesterman Emotional Labour and Identity Work of Men in Caring Roles R.Simpson Emotion Work and Emotion Space in a Special Care Baby Unit P.Lewis Managing Emotional Spacetime: Gender, Emotions and Organizational Contexts G.L.Symonds HRM and Emotions: A Gender Perspective M.Hillos The Emotional Impact of Mistakes at Work: Gender Schemas and Emotion Norms P.Bryans & S.Mavin Love and Duty: Introducing Emotions into Family Firms S.Janjuha-Jivraj & L.Martin The Emotionality of Organization Violations: Gender Relations in Practice J.Hearn & W.Parkin Conclusion: Some Notes on Future Directions of Research P.Lewis & R.Simpson

Is work engagement gendered

Purpose – The way work engagement is constructed and researched in literature is assumed, at least implicitly, to be gender-neutral where women and men have equal opportunity to demonstrate their engagement in the workplace. This review paper aims to integrate gender into the notion of work engagement in order to examine whether the notion of work engagement is gendered. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a review of the literatures related to work engagement and gendered organisations. Findings – The paper proposes a conceptual framework to develop and explain the notion of gendered work engagement. It shows that work engagement is gendered concept as it is easier for men to demonstrate work engagement than for women. Originality/value – The paper investigates the gendered nature of work engagement which is an under-explored area.

Meritocracy, difference and choice: women's experiences of advantage and disadvantage at work

Purpose – This editorial aims to introduce the special issue on meritocracy, difference and choice.Design/methodology/approach – The first part is a commentary on key issues in the study of the notions of meritocracy, difference and choice. The second part presents the six papers in the special issue.Findings – Five of the six papers in this special issue explore the work experiences of women managers/directors in senior positions within a variety of organizations. All of these papers demonstrate that despite their economic empowerment, these women are still strongly connected to the domestic realm through their continued entanglement in the traditional roles of mother and homemaker. This has led them to interpret their work situation either through a consideration of what they understand by the notion of merit or a presentation of their situation through the lens of choice. A further paper which explores the experiences of sex workers exposes the gendered nature of agency, highlighting the limitations on...

Emotion Work and Emotion Space: Using a Spatial Perspective to Explore the Challenging of Masculine Emotion Management Practices

This paper sets out to investigate the possibility that employees may challenge management through their colonization of work space, facilitated by the transportation of private behaviours and activities into the public world of organization. It does this within the context of a broader project on the management of emotions within a special care baby unit characterized as a high risk, emergency working environment. Focusing on the experience of night nurses and drawing on the concept of differential space the article seeks to demonstrate how the dominant form of emotion work (characterized as masculine) on the unit may be contested. This is done through the creation of the unit at night as a space of empowerment, achieved through the visible enactment of a feminized form of emotion work. In this sense the analysis explores how the performance of feminine emotion work can be understood as acts of spatial resistance to the authority of the masculine emotion regime. In other words night nurses make the special care baby unit into a space which challenges the masculinist emotion management which dominates the unit. It will be suggested that our understanding of the performance of emotion management practices in particular and management practices in general may be limited if space is ignored.

Introduction to Special issue: Enterprise and Entrepreneurial Identity

Over the past 20 years the entrepreneur as an economic agent has moved centre stage in the public policy arena of most countries, being identified as the key to maintaining or achieving competitive advantage. This is representative of a significant shift in attitudes towards business and entrepreneurship. Individuals such as Jeff Bezos, Julie Meyer, Charles Dunstone, Reuben Singh and Kanya King are highly valued as entrepreneurs who represent an enterprising frame of mind. In addition, the term ‘entrepreneur’ has been applied to a multiplicity of actors such as vice chancellors of universities, local authority officers, social workers, general practitioners, small business owners, head teachers, accountants, middle managers in large businesses, etc, providing a further demonstration of the privileged position of this ethical personality. The high value attached to the entrepreneur is directly connected to the emphasis placed by government on the need to promote enterprising and entrepreneurial activities. This is described by Scott (1996, p 106) as ‘wild capitalism’, which attempts to reproduce ‘..in a controlled and regulated fashion something like the conditions of early capitalism without losing the state’s ability to regulate these processes. . .’ In understanding this phenomenon it is important that it is not simply viewed as an attempt at economic renewal. It is also a moral crusade in recognition of the fact that economic success based on enterprise is heavily dependent on individuals possessing a positive attitude and constructive orientation to the market order. In other words, institutional and organizational change cannot successfully take place independently of the people involved, with a connection being made between the self-fulfilling desires and activities of individuals and the achievement of social and political objectives (du Gay, 1996). The association between enterprise culture and the entrepreneur has been made by a number of management writers including popularist authors such as Peters and Waterman (1982) and Osborne and Gaebler (1992), and more serious academic authors such as Burchell (1996) and du Gay (1996). The connection between these two complex concepts forms the background to the papers contained in this special issue.

Introducing Dirty Work, Concepts and Identities

This edited book sets out a research agenda for the study of dirty work - generally defined as tasks, occupations and roles that are likely to be perceived as disgusting or degrading (Ashforth and Kreiner, 1999). Through the different occupational settings presented, it explores the identities, meanings, relations and spaces of dirty work and how the boundaries between ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ are negotiated and defined. As Ashforth and Kreiner (1999) have argued, dirty work has been a neglected area within Organisation Studies, with theory and research failing to reflect changes in the nature of and demand for such work. This neglect is surprising given, within the context of the UK and elsewhere, the increase in the demand for ‘dirty’ work - including paid caring (Anderson, 2000), domestic work and low-level service (Noon and Blyton, 2007) and night-time work driven by the 24-hour economy (Hobbs, 2003) - as well as for areas of work performed by migrant labour.