Susan Meriläinen

Management Consultant Talk: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Normalizing Discourse and Resistance

In this article, we explore the discursive possibilities available to men and women when they construct their professional self as ‘knowledge workers’ in multinational management consultancies. We argue that this professional identity construction is embedded in a normalizing, gendered discourse of what it means to be an ‘ideal’ consultant. However, representations of an alternative discourse, which constructs different spheres in an individual’s life, can also be traced in the consultants’ talk. Through a comparison of British and Finnish consultants’ talk, we show the relevance of placing micro-discourses in context. In the UK, discourse on ‘work/life balance’ may be understood as a form of resistance at the level of subjectivity. In Finland, discourse on the ‘balanced individual’ can be seen to be an articulation of a societally bound normalizing discourse. The cultural context can thus be said to have an effect on forms of resistance in knowledge work.

A Serious Researcher or Just Another Nice Girl?: Doing Gender in a Male-Dominated Scientific Community

This paper explores how we as female researchers are constructing our professional identities in a male-dominated scientific world. In particular, we focus on the extent to which patriarchal articulations of professional identities influence female academics self-concept and consciousness of their own abilities. We believe that the business school in which we work reproduces certain inequalities systematically, if unintentionally. We are especially interested in the way in which we, as part of the scientific community, are ourselves discursively producing and reproducing the gender division based on differences of sex. In other words, how we ‘do gender’ in a particular organizational setting and when assuming a particular organizational role. n n n nThe argument of this paper rests on the belief that the social construction of gender identities is not taking place only in the interaction of persons but also in the discourses within which those interactions occur. Identity and the meaning it implies are located here especially in language use. Discourses not only constitute meanings for terms and practices, but they also engender personal identities. Identity is not seen as fixed but rather as actively negotiated and transformed in discourse.

Metamorphosis: From ‘Nice Girls’ to ‘Nice Bitches’: Resisting Patriarchal Articulations of Professional Identity

This article explores the random strategies women adopt in resisting patriarchal articulations of their professional identity and the kind of organizational discourses women’s resistance brings about. The focus is on describing the context, dynamics of contradictory tensions and ambivalence inherent in situations of resisting. The article draws upon the authors’ own experiences in academia. In addition to participatory observation, the authors are using themselves as research instruments that enable them to highlight the emotions and ambivalent dynamics in the construction of gendered identities and power relations in organizations. n n n nThe study indicates that there are several sets of rules in motion in one and the same social situation, such as the rules of organizational behaviour, rules of friendship and the rules of gender relations in public places. By describing two overtly sexualized discourses that women’s resistance brought about, the article highlights that organizational sexuality does not necessarily differ in kind or in degree from ‘street sexuality’ or sexuality in semi-public places. The study’s findings argue that it is important to extend research to both informal and semi-formal organizational gatherings. These liminal spaces are important sites of communicative struggles over organizational meanings and identities.

The masculine mindset of environmental management and green marketing

Environmental management systems and green marketing programmes have gained increasing popularity in western market economies. They are viewed as cost-efficient, effective and just means of tackling problems associated with the impact of economic activity on the environment. It is argued in this article, however, that these optimistic views are based on a number of ideas, images and metaphors that retain many androcentric and inadequate assumptions about self, society and nature that may be incompatible with long-term environmental protection goals. Copyright

Autonomous renewal of gendered practices : interventions and their pre-conditions at an academic workplace

In this chapter we will discuss the autonomous renewal of gendered practices at an academic workplace in Finland.1 Thereby we will provide readers with a case to consider the possibilities and limits of local, incremental, and autonomous strategies in dealing with unjust gendering practices. Our story suggests that local initiatives at workplaces can in certain circumstances produce favourable outcomes. The questions are what these conditions could be and and how to go about with the initiatives.

Introduction : making inclusion work in academia

This book is for inclusion and multiplicity in academia. To this end, it is against standardization. As academics in Western countries, we are being organized to conform to rigid standards of teaching and research. This book shows how we can meaningfully challenge such standardization through inclusive practices in our everyday work. We – the authors in this edited volume – present inclusive ideas and ways of interacting that have worked in different university contexts around the world. We share our personal experiences on working for inclusion, account for the relative success of our efforts and provide insights that may prove helpful for others, too. We care passionately about inclusion in academic work. For us, inclusion means bringing in new voices, themes and methods in teaching and research. Most often, inclusion refers in this book to incorporating considerations of gender and ethnicity in the ways in which curricula, courses and research projects are developed and run. By questioning established power relations, privileged knowledge and locally held truths regarding good and proper academic standards and practice, we have each in our own way sought to challenge the status quo. We have sought to make alternative understandings and practices visible. We are aware of current criticism of ‘positive scholarship’ (Fineman, 2006). We distance ourselves from this notion. As feminist organization and management scholars we have learned not to be naive. We are aware of unequal power relations and structures of domination that our work is embedded in. These relations and structures are woven into the fabric of our academic lives, even if we sometimes refer to particular experiences as positive. Also, our stories relate to relative success in changing everyday academic practices, not to great breakthroughs or unselfish service to community. In this way, we also distance ourselves from the notion of ‘engaged scholarship’, which has in recent years become a popular concept to describe meaningful academic work. Engaged scholarship can refer to admirable efforts to incorporate key stakeholders’ perspectives in the study of complex social problems