Tuija Koivunen

Practicing Power and Gender in the Field: Learning from Interview Refusals

This article considers the ways in which power and gender are practiced in the interactional situations of interview refusals in organizational research. The research draws on two episodes of male telemarketers’ refusals in the context of call centers. Utilizing an ethnographic approach together with nonparticipant observations enabled the analysis of the interview refusals while providing valid and informative data. By arguing that gender is filtered into the interaction particularly through power negotiations and actualized for the most part in conflict between the female researcher and the male participants, the article offers an example of how gender can shape and influence the data collection process.

Female knowledge workers and the illusion of working-time autonomy

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to ask: what are the temporal realities of female knowledge workers? It especially focusses on women’s possibilities of using working-time autonomy, and the work and non-work practices that shape their possibility to use work-hour autonomy. In knowledge work, working-time autonomy is usually high, but exercising autonomy is not always possible. The study was carried out in Finland, where full-time work is common also among women, even if they have small children. Design/methodology/approach The data include 19 semi-structured interviews of women who have knowledge-intensive work. The method of analysis is problem-driven content analysis. Findings Female knowledge workers intertwine several temporal realities. The utilisation of working-time autonomy is restricted by unpredictability, continuous interruptions, hurriedness and ineffective work practices. The temporal realities of family life, such as taking children to the daycare or school, other everyday routines and a spouse’s working-time autonomy have an effect on women’s possibilities to use working-time autonomy. The line between work and non-work blurs. Originality/value This study sheds light on working-time autonomy among female knowledge workers. It adds an understanding to the temporal realities of work and outside work that influence the use of work-hour autonomy. This information is needed to understand time demands arising from work, which play a role in work-family research in particular.

Separated by common methods? Researchers and journalists doing expertise

In this article, we address emerging tensions between researchers and journalists in our research project on formations of new divisions among young adults in Finland. We focus on interviewing as a method of data gathering, and on framing as a method of presenting research results. Writing from the point of view of academic researchers, our analysis shows that journalists’ and researchers’ ways of doing expertise, such as techniques for asking questions, reflections on interview sensitivities, anticipated end products or the conceptual framing of the collected data, differ from each other. At the conclusion of our analysis, we reflect on the affectivity of expert work and cooperation, and on the role of affects in bringing the moral orders of different forms of expertise to the surface.