Women in Management Review 22:6 Gender and Management: Lessons from Recent Research 9781846635830, 9781846635823

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10/08/2007

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ISSN 0964-9425

Volume 22 Number 6 2007

Women in Management Review Gender and Management: lessons from recent research Guest Editor: Adelina Broadbridge

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Women in Management Review

ISSN 0964-9425 Volume 22 Number 6 2007

Gender and Management: lessons from recent research Guest Editor Adelina Broadbridge

Access this journal online _________________________

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Editorial advisory board __________________________

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Guest editorial ___________________________________

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The absence of women’s voices in Hofstede’s Cultural Consequences: a postcolonial reading Agneta Moulettes ______________________________________________

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Entrepreneurial identity in the care sector: navigating the contradictions Sara Nadin ___________________________________________________

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British army leadership: is it gendered? Michael Dunn _________________________________________________

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Twenty years later: explaining the persistence of the glass ceiling for women leaders Birgit Weyer __________________________________________________

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CONTENTS

CONTENTS

“That’s not how I see it”: female and male perspectives on the academic role

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Sue Shaw and Catherine Cassell __________________________________

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Bookshelf ________________________________________

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News ____________________________________________

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Announcement ___________________________________

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EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Professor Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe Professor of Leadership Studies, University of Leeds and Chief Executive of Real World Group, Leeds, UK

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Dr Ariane Berthoin Antal Program Director, Organizational Learning, Science Center Berlin (WZB) Germany Dr Mary Barrett Deputy Director, Graduate School of Management, Griffith University, Australia Dr Adelina Broadbridge Senior Lecturer, Institute for Retail Studies, University of Stirling, UK Professor Ronald J. Burke Schulich School of Business, York University, Ontario, Canada Professor Norma Carr-Ruffino Professor of Management, Department of Management, San Francisco State University, USA Professor Cary L. Cooper, CBE Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University, UK Professor Marilyn Davidson Professor of Managerial Psychology, Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, UK Dr Andrew Gale Senior Lecturer in Project Management, Department of Civil & Construction Engineering, The University of Manchester, UK Val Hammond Non-Executive Chair of Board of Trustees, Roffey Park Institute, UK Dr Hilary Harris Director of CReME, Cranfield University, UK Dr Wendy Hirsh Associate Fellow, Institute of Employment Studies, UK Dr Viki Holton Ashridge Business School, UK Dr Charles Jackson Visiting Professor, Kingston Business School, UK Professor Elin Kvande Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

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Professor Suzan Lewis Professor of Organisational Psychology, Middlesex University Business School, London, UK Dr Sonia Liff Senior Lecturer, Warwick Business School, The University of Warwick, UK Professor Carol McKeen School of Business, Queens University, Canada Su Maddock Director, North West Change Centre, Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, UK Professor Judi Marshall Professor in Organizational Behaviour, School of Management, University of Bath, UK Dr Mark Neal Head of Department and Associate Professor, Department of Management, College of Commerce and Economics, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman Professor Jeannette Oppedisano Department of Management, Southern Connecticut State University, USA Professor Cristina Reis Professor Auxiliar Convidado, FEUC/Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal Professor Virginia Schein Professor of Management, Department of Management, Gettysburg College, USA Professor Leonie V. Still Professorial Fellow, Graduate School of Management, University of Western Australia, Australia Dr Cheryl J. Travers Lecturer in Organization Behaviour and Human Resource Management, The Business School, Loughborough University, UK Professor Tricia Vilkinas Foundation Professor of Management: Director, Strategic Partnerships, University of South Australia, Australia Professor Susan Vinnicombe, OBE Professor of Organisational Behaviour & Diversity Management, Cranfield School of Management, UK Professor Fiona Wilson Professor of Organisational Behaviour, University of Glasgow Business School, UK

Guest editorial About the Guest Editor Adelina Broadbridge is a Senior Lecturer, Department of Marketing, University of Stirling, Scotland. Her research has concentrated on HRM issues in retailing, and she has a particular interest in the gender issues therein. This work has examined the career development of retail managers, stress in retailing and the professionalisation of charity retailing and its resultant affects on managers. Current research projects, she is working on include the examination of the social and human capital of women executives’ directors in the retail sector, and the employment experiences, career perceptions and expectations of Generation Y. She is an Associate Member of the Centre for Diversity and Work Psychology at MBS, on the editorial board of Women in Management Review, and “Retail Insights” editor of the International Journal of Retail, Distribution Management. Adelina founded the Gender in Management Special Interest Group (www.gimsig.ac.uk), which was set up to act as a dedicated network for academics to

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keep up to date with current issues in the area of Gender and Management. E-mail: am. [email protected] Gender and Management: lessons from recent research This issue of Women in Management Review is dedicated to a selection of papers that were presented at the “Gender and Management” track at the British Academy of Management Conference (BAM), held at the Waterfront Hall, Belfast in association with Queens University Belfast and the University of Ulster, 12-14 September 2006, (http://bam.ac.uk/conference2006/). As always we welcomed a diverse range of scholars from those firmly established in their careers and known worldwide for their research and other scholarly activities, to those beginning their academic careers. Of the 22 tracks hosted at the conference, the Gender and Management track was the seventh largest in number of papers presented and this stands testament to the growing interest from researchers investigating this important area. The call for papers attracted 27 submissions and each paper was subject to a double blind review process. A word of thanks is given to all the anonymous reviewers who gave up their time generously and responded in a timely manner so as to create a successful track at the conference. This resulted in 19 papers being presented at the conference along with a symposium. The speakers were from an international audience including Australia, Finland, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, USA and the UK. Papers covered a wide variety of topics and popular themes were career progression, leadership, management development and management of emotions. The sessions were very well attended throughout the duration of the conference and as always any debate and discussion was conducted within a supportive and constructive environment. We started off the track with a symposium this year and this was jointly organised by three academics who provided a thought provoking session on the problematics of doing cross-cultural research on Gender and Management in international organisations. The symposium highlighted the need for contemporary international organisations to balance the requirements for global standardisation with local differentiation, and it considered how gender relations are played out therein. So, for example, although there is a need to manage diversity worldwide we learned that in practice that this must be tailored to local and national circumstances. Thanks to Beverly Metcalfe (University of Hull, UK), Rebecca Piekkari (Helsinki School of Economics, Finland) and Janne Tienari

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(Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland) for their work in putting this session together. What followed were a range of papers covering various areas of Gender and Management: . Oya Culpan, Pennsylvania State University “Globalization: boom or bust for Turkish women in banking”. . Michael Dunn, Cranfield University: “Front line or clothes line? – Research issues on the role of women officers in the British Army”. . Norma Heaton, University of Ulster: “Getting into HR: different experiences for men and women?”. . Carianne Hunt, University of Manchester: “Sexual harassment: a review of the literature”. . Maria Jarlstrom, University of Vaasa, Finland: “Preferred career anchors, career strategies and values of female and male careerists”. . Patricia Lewis, Brunel University: “Emotion management and emotion space in a special care baby unit”. . Sharon Mavin, Newcastle Business School: “Queen bees, wannabees and afraid to bees: women and women in management”. . Karen Miller, Glasgow Caledonian University: “Revisiting Rapoport, White and Hakim: organisational context to female career progression”. . Agneta Moulettes, University of Lund: “The absence of women’s voices in Hofstede’s cultural consequences: a postcolonial reading”. . Sara Nadin, University of Bradford: “What a performance!’: the research interview as a site for the ‘doing’ of gender by female entrepreneurs”. . Elizabeth Parsons, University of Keele and Adelina Broadbridge, University of Stirling: “Gender and identity at work: the case of charity shop managers”. . Anne Ross-Smith, M Kornberger, A Anandakumar and Colleen Chesterman: “Women executives: managing emotions at the top”. . Susan Shaw, Manchester Metropolitan University and Cathy Cassell, Manchester Business School, “That’s not how I see it”. . Val Singh, Deidre Anderson and Susan Vinnicombe, Cranfield University: “Stepping out from gendered cultures: fond farewells from successful women”. . Emily Thomson and Duncan McTavish, Glasgow Caledonian University: “Gender and Management in the academy: case study of Scottish University”. . Huiping Xian, Manchester Metropolitan University: “How women manage careers in the IT industry in China”. . Birgit Weyer, Weyer und Hansen, GbR, Training and Consulting: “Twenty years later: explaining the persistence of the glass ceiling for women leaders”. . Helen Woolnough *, Lyn Davidson *, Pauline Brandwood * *, and Ken Hahlo * *. Manchester Business School; * * Bolton University: “Study of the barriers to women’s promotion to positions in middle and senior management in retail”.

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Alison Wyse and Tricia Vilkinas, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia: “Public sector executive leadership roles and associated skills: an Australian case study”.

As is custom, BAM presented a number of prizes for the best papers of various tracks. Women in Management Review (WIMR) kindly sponsored the prize for the “Gender and Management” track. Selection was based on the anonymous reviewers’ comments and the prize was awarded to Dr Patricia Lewis, Brunel University for her paper entitled “Emotion management and emotion space in a special care baby unit.” Patricia gave an excellent presentation on the issues, difficulties and ways that nurses manage their emotions working in such a working environment. This paper will be published in the British Journal of Management in March 2008. Plate 1 shows Patricia (left) with Paula Fernandez, Publisher of the Journal. During the conference, the track hosted a Gender in Management Special Interest Group (GIM SIG annual general meeting. In addition to presenting the award for best paper, there a followed a discussion on ideas for the future development of the special interest group. We heard that the GIM SIG is one of the most active SIGs run by BAM and hosts its own web site (www.gimsig.ac.uk). We talked about various topics for future GIM SIG seminars including “managing diversity in organisations” “writing for publication” and “personal and professional career development opportunities”. Other general discussions ensued regarding the hosting of a joint symposium between the gender in management and Research Methods Special Interest Groups. I am pleased to announce that such a session will be hosted at the 2007 BAM conference in Warwick entitled “Gender Issues in Research Methods” and will be convened by myself and Dr Bill Lee (University of Sheffield). Speakers include Professor Fiona Wilson (University of Glasgow), Professor Catherine Cassell (Manchester Business School), Dr Kathryn Haynes (University of York), Dr Christina Reis (University of Aveiro,

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Plate 1. Patricia Lewis and Paula Fernandez

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Plate 2. “Gender and Management” academics at work!

Portugal) and Dr Carol Woodhams (University of Plymouth). The discussants will be Dr Craig Shepherd (Leeds University Business School) and Professor Susan Vinnicombe OBE (Cranfield School of Management). Plate 2 shows the Gender and Management academics at work. Following the success of previous years there followed a GIM SIG dinner at The Oxford Exchange where around 30 members of the special interest group relaxed, socialised and enjoyed good company and conversation. A superb BAM conference dinner was held at Belfast City Hall where conversations and friendships continued to develop, helped along with good food and drink. Dancing, however, we were to learn was prohibited – and participants (led by several members of the Gender and Management track) (Plate 3) were reprimanded for attempting to burn off the calories by dancing to the jazz band! For this special issue, five papers that reflect the central concerns of WIMR have been selected for inclusion. This was done in consultation with the Journal Editor, Dr Sandra Fielden, and then subjected to further review and revision. It is coincidental, but also worth mentioning that the five papers have been drawn from the authors’ research for their PhDs. Although the topics of these five papers are diverse, some recurrent themes are evident and there are areas of overlap. For example, we might argue that a common thread of the papers relates back to the expected role of women and men in society and traditional definitions of the characteristics of being male or female, and how these perpetuate the traditional thinking, the way things are done and our notions of our expectations of women and men in society.

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Plate 3. “Gender and Management” academics at play!

So, we see that the absence of women from Hofstede’s research results in a biased perspective that helps to replicate the notion of white, middle class men within a management context. Given the continued influence of Hofstede’s research in contemporary writings, Agneta Moulettes provides a refreshing insight to understanding this work and raises some very pertinent and critical issues regarding his methodological approach. She draws on a postcolonial position and highlights the silencing of women’s voices in Hofstede’s research despite his construction of a masculine/feminine dimension from his work. She argues for a relocation of research on culture and gender from logocentrism and dichotomies to a discourse that that take local variations and multiplicity into consideration. Sara Nadin’s paper explores the notion of identity in the care work sector, a sector that traditionally has connotations with the employment of women. Her research consisted of two owners of small businesses in the care sector, one an owner of an old people’s care home; the other the owner of a children’s nursery. The findings revealed how these women distanced themselves from what they considered to be negative stereotypes about small business owners and the morally dubious position of making a profit from caring. Therefore, she found that there was a silencing of the respondents’ entrepreneurial identity and an embracing of their female identity in their attempts to gain some sense of legitimacy and integrity from their employees. In so doing these women minimised various entrepreneurial roles such as the importance of making money and their role as “boss”. Rather they liked, and enacted in their day to day work environment, the idea of being regarded as “one of them” and a friend or confidant. Their femininity was also preserved through their roles as wife and mother and the relative relationship their entrepreneurial roles played vis-a-vis their husbands.

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While Sara’s paper examined women’s work in a traditional sector of employment for women, by contrast, Michael Dunn’s paper examines a largely non-traditional role for women, that of women officers in the British army. He found that the women respondents experienced a lack of congeniality in the work place. The main focus of his paper, however, was to examine whether women army officers lead in different ways to men, and he undertook this by conducting 24 semi structured interviews with army officers (12 men and 12 women). He found that there were differences in the way men and women lead in the army, and as a result he puts forward a conceptual model of military leadership that differs from the transactional/transformational leadership model. It also disconfirms contemporary leadership theory that conflates leadership and change management. Brigit Weyer’s paper follows on the theme of leadership. Her conceptual paper provides a theoretical explanation for the persistence of the glass ceiling (which Dunn refers to an “armoured” glass ceiling) which keeps women from assuming leadership positions. She compares and contrasts social role theory and expectation states theory (which are related but different) as theoretical underpinnings to explain the persistence of the glass ceiling for women leaders. She argues that both theories are grounded in the belief that inequalities between women and men are caused by the greater social significance and general competence attributed to men over women, and that gender bias in evaluation is a primary cause for the glass ceiling – hence the paucity of women in top leadership positions. She concludes that what is needed is for a change in social structures where the differences between status and power, between the sexes are reduced, and women are assigned greater social significance and general competence. The final paper in this collection of papers is by Sue Shaw and Catherine Cassell and it deals with a subject area close to many an academic researcher’s heart, that of how men and women perceive the academic role. Their research, which was conducted with 20 staff, the Dean of School and Head of Human Resources in each of two business schools within two UK universities, drew on life history interviews and repertory grid methodology. They found that while at a general level one might argue that women and men academics view performance in a similar way, gender differences nonetheless existed in the way the women and men defined their academic role and in what they considered to be important from a personal and institutional perspective. Their work lends support to previous research in the area and the masculine culture of the academy was regarded as potentially hostile. They also concluded that women’s traditional roles in caring and nurturing functions predispose them to student focused roles. This, in turn, might create tensions in relation to them being research led and concentrating their attention on publications and other research activities. However, the authors were careful to state that the sector is not homogenous and neither are the experiences of women and men within it. They question to what extent women’s position is exacerbated or improved in today’s higher education that is characterised by a new managerialism. Finally, my thanks go to Dr Sandra Fielden, the General Editor of WIMR, for giving me the opportunity to publish this collection of the papers from the conference track. We hope this special issue will bring some new perspectives and assist in understanding some of the contemporary research themes being undertaken in gender spheres today. Adelina Broadbridge Guest Editor

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0964-9425.htm

The absence of women’s voices in Hofstede’s Cultural Consequences A postcolonial reading

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Agneta Moulettes Lund University, Lund, Sweden Abstract Purpose – Embedded in Western scientific rationality, Hofstede’s model on national culture is constructed on a quantitative method, which among other things is characterized by its carefully selected sample consisting of a group of well educated white “men” from the middle classes working for the same company and sharing identical or similar occupations. The appointment of well educated men from the middle classes as the norm for national culture might mislead one to believe that Hofstede perceives of culture as equally distributed among men and women and that there are no differences in regard to the possession of power. However, considering that he has dedicated one of his five dimensions to gender and constructed his model on a bipolar distinction between masculinity and femininity this is clearly not the case. The purpose of the paper is to show that Hofstede’s masculine/feminine dimension unveils a distinct perception of gender differences, even though women’s voices were kept silent in his survey. Design/methodology/approach – The paper approaches Hofstede’s masculine/feminine dimension from a postcolonial angle, and focuses on how he discursively makes use of a gender dichotomy in his construction of national culture. Findings – The analysis supports the argument that Hofstede’s masculine/feminine dimension contributes to reproducing a collective and prejudiced understanding of both culture and gender. Originality/value – The value of the paper is in its attempt to urge for a relocation of research on culture and gender from logocentrism and dichotomies to a discourse that take local variations and multiplicity into consideration. Keywords Critical management, Cross-cultural studies, Gender, Women Paper type Research paper

Along with the increased interest devoted to globalization that we have experienced over the past decades, cross-culture management research has establish itself as an important research field, with much of its inspiration coming from colonialism and Western rational thinking. The legacy of colonialism and Western rationality is apparent in its engagement in research practices involving the essentialising, exoticing and appropriation of the other (Said, 1995; Prasad, 2003; Westwood, 2001) with the underlying assumption that cultural models could serve as competitive devices in the conquest of the global market. It is the contention of this paper that current cross-cultural management studies, with Hofstede (1980, 2001) as one of its front figures, is founded on a colonial discourse that gives prominence to the universal at the sacrifice of alternative conceptualizations of social life. Hence, embedded in Western scientific rationality, Hofstede’s model is constructed on a quantitative method which among other things is characterized by its carefully selected sample consisting of a group of well educated white “men” from the middle classes working for the same

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company and sharing identical or similar occupations. The appointment of well-educated men from the middle classes as the norm for national culture might mislead one to believe that Hofstede perceives of culture as equally-distributed among men and women and that there are no differences in regard to the possession of power. However, considering that he has dedicated one of his five dimensions to gender and constructed his model on a bipolar distinction between masculinity and femininity this is clearly not the case. On the contrary his masculinity/femininity dimension (MAS) shows that he has a very clear and distinct understanding of the differences between masculinity and femininity which he takes advantage of for his construction of national cultures. For example, Hofstede argues that statistically men as a rule will be more achievement-oriented while women as a rule will be more care-oriented. Hofstede’s assumption raises several questions; for example, for what reason(s) were women excluded from his survey and his construction of culture? Are women excluded because they are supposed to adjust to the Western rationality once formulated by colonialism and patriarchy? What consequences does Hofstede’s model have for women managers in a globalized economy? Fully aware that these questions do not lend themselves to easy answers the aim of my paper is rather to show that Hofstede’s model on national culture unveils a distinct perception of gender differences even though women’s voices were kept silent in his survey. The paper uses the lens of postcolonialism to argue that the cross-cultural management discourse is constructed on a mind-set based on colonialism and patriarchy. This choice was grounded on the understanding that postcolonialism and feminism are closely related in the sense that they share a mutual goal of challenging forms of exclusion and oppression (McLeod, 2000; Prasad, 2003; Said, 1995), irrespective of whether the point of reference is situated in a third world country or in a Western organization. The paper begins by providing a brief presentation of Hofstede’s cultural model and some of the criticism that it has received over the years. This will follow by a brief introduction of postcolonialism and some suggestions how a postcolonial perspective can be relevant for exploring women’s voices in Hofstede’s (1980, 2001) Cultural Consequences. It then proceeds to an analysis of Hofstede’s text and will do so with focus set on his MAS dimension. Suggesting that Hofstede’s cultural model contributes to reproducing a collective and prejudiced understanding of both culture and gender, the paper will conclude with a discussion on some of the consequences that this silencing of women’s own voices may have for our understanding of both national culture and for women in the global economy. Hofstede’s cultural model In this paper focus will be on Hofstede’s (1980, 2001) cultural model in his seminal study, Culture’s Consequence. In brief, this model is composed of four (later five) cultural dimensions: “Power distance” “Uncertainty avoidance” “Individualism” and “Masculinity” (and later) “Long-term orientation”. The first dimension, Power distance, is claimed to describe the extent to which the less powerful members of society, organizations and institutions expect and accept power to be unequally distributed. The second dimension, Uncertainty avoidance, is supposed to describe the extent to which people tolerate uncertainty and ambiguity, while the third dimension, Individualism, reflects the extent to which people are integrated into groups. The forth dimension, Masculinity refers to male assertiveness and competitiveness on the one

hand, and female nurturance and modesty on the other. Finally, the fifth dimension Long-term orientation, with its origin in Bond et al.’s (1985) and Bond and Hwang (1986) dimension Confucian work dynamism, opposes persistence and thrift to personal stability and respect for traditions. Notwithstanding its significant impact on cross-cultural management scholars, Hofstede’s cultural model has received severe criticism over the years. For example, his work has been criticized for being vague and contradictory and for being based on a too narrow and time-worn secondary-data collected between 1968 and 1972 in only one multinational organization (McSweeney, 2002; Smith, 2002). It has been criticized for its lack of underlying theory and its functionalist ambition of measuring largely unquantifiable phenomena (Cray and Mallory, 1998, p. 57). Severe criticism has been raised also towards the essentialistic conception of national culture, which instead of recognizing nations as “imagined communities” (Anderson, 1983) depicts them as historically determined, homogeneous and static entities (Bock, 1999; Cray and Mallory, 1998; Tayeb, 2001; Holden, 2002; Kwek, 2003). What seems to characterize the criticism towards Hofstede’s study is that most of it is concerned with the validity of his model from a Western “scientific” viewpoint (Fouge`re and Moulettes, 2005). Among Hofstede’s five dimensions it is undoubtedly his MAS that has provoked most criticism over the years. For example, the MAS dimension has been criticised for being vague and contradictory, for including several types of femininities and because it is incorrect in his categorization of certain countries (Hamada, 1996; Smith, 2002). Some scholars even question the relevance of the MAS dimension altogether, arguing that there are more accurate ways of describing differences between countries (Adler, 1997; Fouge`re and Johansson, 2000). Regretting that the MAS dimension has been the most disputed and overlooked of his four original dimensions, Hofstede therefore explains in his 2001 edition of Culture’s Consequences, that: Researchers only recognize the issues considered relevant in their own society and therefore miss the cultural essential issues. For example, some replicating researchers have left out the mas/fem questions because they judged these questions to be politically incorrect for themselves or for their respondents (Hofstede, 2001, p. 464).

In this later edition he consequently responds to the critic by emphasizing that the number and scope of validations of the dimension have increased over the years. To his defence he further argues that many writers have confused femininity and collectivism and explains that femininity is represented as concern for relationship while collectivism has to do with “we” rather than “I”. However, this paper will not enter into the discussion about validity, but will focus on how he discursively approaches gender, that is, how women are represented in his model and the very words he uses to legitimise the MAS dimension. It will approach Hofstede’s masculinity dimension from a gender perspective by presenting the three following shortcomings in his model: (1) the choice of samples; (2) the essentialistic construction of masculine and feminine values; and (3) the idea of social gender roles and how this is supposed to correspond to the dominant values in society as being “masculine” or “feminine”.

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Exploring women’s voices in Hofstede’s Cultural Consequences through the lens of postcolonialism The growing critic of the colonial rule instigated by writers and freedom fighters like Ce´saire (1972), Fanon (1986, 2001), Gandhi (1938), and Memmi (1967), along with the growth of the studies of Commonwealth literature were two important antecedent of the emergence of postcolonial theory (Prasad, 2005; McLeod, 2000). The spread of postcolonialism since the 1950s is illustrated, for example, in Ashcroft et al.’s (2004) The Postcolonial Studies Reader, in which they have collected extracts from 50 different authors. This book offers an insight to the variety of subjects being dealt with in postcolonial theory and its significance to contemporary life. However, it was not until Said’s (1995) pathbreaking study Orientalism that postcolonial theory began to spread to other disciplines and include scholars from the field of history (Chakrabarty, 2000; MacKenzie, 1995), anthropology (Appandurai, 1996, 2000; Clifford, 1988; Thomas, 1994), cultural studies (Hannerz, 1987; Gilroy, 1987), and feminism (Mills, 1992; Mohanty, 1984). In the last few years it has spread to organization and management studies where it, besides its continuous focus on the encounter between West and non-West, takes an interest in various issues also within the West (Cook, 2003; Jack and Lorbiecki, 2003; Kwek, 2003; Mir et al., 2003; Prasad, 1997, 2003). From its early days when literature scholars were mainly concerned with the relationship between literature and the nation (McLeod, 2000) postcolonialism is now focused on investigating the effects of the colonial and neo-colonial encounters and its current influences on the economic, political, ideological and cultural spheres (Ashcroft et al., 2004; Mills, 1997; Prasad, 2003; Young, 2001). There is thus a common understanding among postcolonial scholars that colonialism was one of the most profound and significant experiences that shaped the Western world’s perception of non-Western people – as well as the non-Western people’s perceptions of themselves (Banerjee, 2003; Bhabha, 1995; Prasad, 2003; Said, 1995). The concern with the way representation influences the constitution of subjectivities is also one of the reasons why feminism is of crucial interest to the postcolonial discourse (Mohanty, 1984; Prasad and Prasad, 2002; Spivak, 1988, 1999). For example, while the cultural (colonial) discourse distinguishes the world in mainly two parts, the West and the non-West, gender has traditionally been distinguished in two distinct social categories; the feminine and the masculine. The dichotomy masculinity/femininity was also present in the colonizers mindset, where the Occident represented male characteristics such as rational thinking, activeness, and a spirit of invention and science, while the Orient represented female characteristics such as passivity, backwardness and superstition. The legacy of colonialism is still obvious and is perhaps most apparent in Westerners negative feelings about “others” manifested in expressions such as “I do not like them because of the way they treat women” (often referring to Arabs or Muslims). Besides, this relationship between gender and postcolonialism there are some other striking resemblances between the cultural (colonial) discourse, upon which Hofstede’s model is built, and the traditional gender discourse[1] included in his model. Similar to the cultural discourse the traditional gender discourse is perceived as essentialistic (Collison and Hearn, 1996), and constituted as homogeneous group identities on the bases of social and anthological universals (Mohanty, 2004). Just as inhabitants in a country are assumed to be bound together by the notion of shared culture, men and women, respectively, are assumed to be bound together by a

sociological notion of “sameness”. This taken for granted notion that people share the same culture with their fellow-countrymen even though they do not know each other and even though they have never met (Anderson, 1983) is found also in the traditional gender discourse. Furthermore, as pointed out by Petersen and Rutherford (1986) there is a resemblance between colonialism and patriarchy (upon which the traditional gender discourse is founded) in the sense that women are subject to representation in both of them. The primary reason why the author is particularly inspired by ideas from postcolonial studies is because cross-cultural management in general and Hofstede’s hierarchically ordered cultural dimensions in particular are subsumed under the colonial discourse (Fouge`re and Moulettes, 2005), and also because gender is included as one of the dimension in his cultural model although women’s voices seem to have been excluded when he constructed his model. The exclusion of women’s voices in Hofstede’s Cultural Consequences When Hofstede constructed his theory on national culture he made a point of choosing a matched sample. In his vigorous account of his research method and choice of a suitable sample for his quantitative study of culture Hofstede explains, among other things, that: Within these nations, certain components of the mental software of people are specific to groups or categories – shared by people of, for example, the same educational level, socioeconomic status, occupation, gender, or age groups. When we compare cultural aspects of nations we should try to match for such categories; it is obviously not very meaningful to compare Spanish nurses with Swedish policemen (Hofstede, 2001, p. 23).

Further, down he continues by stressing that: Possibilities are available in international professional associations, international schools and training centres, and national organizations employing personnel of different nationalities or, as in the present book, multinational business corporations. The fact that these organizations have similarly structured subsidiaries in many countries provides matched settings in which many factors are equal except the nationality of the actors (Hofstede, 2001, p. 24).

Except for mentioning that gender is a component of “the mental software of people specific to a category” (an assumption which per se is astonishing), nothing is said about the distribution of gender and the number of women included in his survey. In his earlier edition, Hofstede (1980, p. 56) explains that one of the characteristics that the multinational company where he conducted his survey proved to have is that it only recruited employees from the middle classes and that most of them where men. His matched sample therefore came to fall on a group of white middle aged men working in the same multinational company sharing similar occupation as marketers and salesmen (McSweeney, 2002). An equal distribution of gender has evidently not been of concern when he decided on the criteria for his matched sample. So are we supposed to believe that all inhabitants, including women, in a country share a national culture? As pointed out by McSweeney (2002) it is difficult to imagine how a group of well educated white men sharing the same or similar occupation as marketers and salesmen can represent an entire country. But it is equally difficult to imagine how men can represent women, and even more surprising that Hofstede, on the one hand, confines himself in allowing men to speak for women and, on the other hand, so persistently is trying to convince the reader of the differences between men and women in his MAS dimension.

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In his construction of the MAS dimension, Hofstede proceeds from the presumption that “the duality of the sexes is a fundamental fact with which different societies cope in different ways; the issue is what implications the biological differences between the sexes should have for the emotional and social roles of the gender” (Hofstede, 2001, p. 279). The concept thus refers to the dominant sex role pattern in the vast majority of both traditional and modern societies; that of male competitiveness, decisiveness, assertiveness and aggressiveness and female intuition, modesty and nurturance. Presumably in consideration of earlier criticism of his MAS dimension Hofstede clarifies (in bold in his 2001 edition) the distinction between masculinity and femininity as follows: Masculinity stands for a society in which social gender roles are clearly distinct: Men are supposed to be assertive, tough, and focused on material success; women are supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life. Femininity stands for a society in which social gender roles overlap: Both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life (Hofstede, 2001, p. 297).

Besides, the traditional differences between gender Hofstede points out that social roles are clearly distinct in masculine societies, while a feminist society is characterized by gender overlaps. While underscoring that this does not necessarily means that men always behave in a more “masculine” way than women, and women in a more “feminine” way than men, he does however point out that statistically men as a rule will be more on the “masculine” side and women more and the “feminine” side. He amazingly declares that: Men must be more concerned with economic and other achievements and women must be more concerned with taking care of people in general and children in particular. It is not difficult to see how this role pattern fits the biological sex roles: Women first bear children and then breast-feed them, so they must stay with them . . . The common pattern of male assertiveness and female nurturance leads to male dominance at least in matters of politics and usually, of economic life; within households, whether nuclear or extended family groups, different societies show different distribution of power between the gender (Hofstede, 2001, p. 280).

According to Hofstede there is apparently a matter of course, that “men must be more concerned with economic and other achievements” and that “women must be more concerned with taking care of people”. Apparently, it “must be” so because it fits the “biological sex roles”. His conclusion that these different characteristics between men and women “leads to male dominance” in politics and economic life conveys the impression that men have been compelled to take the leading role in political and economic life because of women’s inherent role as mothers and care takers. This clearly reveals a hegemonic view of gender; men and women are born to and bounded to a specific life situation and this “order of things” evidently marginalize women in political and economic life. According to Hofstede a problem with this role orientation is that the dominating patterns in a society are also transmitted to other institutions. The goal of the organizations does for instance, affect the distribution of labour over the sexes. Business organizations have goals of achievement, he argues, which correspond to the alleged achieving role of the male. Hence, Hofstede acknowledges that there is a problem with this role orientation, but does in the next sentence conveniently accept the transmission of prejudiced gender patterns. In other words, he

appears to take for granted that business organizations should be managed by men in order to achieve their economic goals. Having clarified the distinction between gender roles, Hofstede’s proceeds by arguing that gender roles varies between nations. According to exhibit 6:13 (Hofstede, 2001, p. 312), this variation is especially obvious between Asian and Western women in the sense that the first mentioned appear to be even more persuaded that responsibility, decisiveness and ambition are for men. This allegation is indeed intriguing bearing in mind that women in nations like the Philippines, India, Indonesia and Pakistan despite this alleged distribution of power have managed to reach high political positions as presidents or prime ministers. This is also the case in other masculine cultures like Ireland, the UK, and Colombia. It becomes even more intriguing considering that Sweden, which is placed at the bottom of his binary MAS dimension as the most feminine culture of all 53 countries in his survey, and ranked as one of the most democratic and modern nations in his power distance dimension (PDI), has never had a female prime minister. Bearing this in mind it seems more favourable for women to have a professional career in a society with a masculine culture, but according to Hofstede this is not the case. Compared to masculine culture societies, we are instead supposed to find more women in management positions, a smaller wage gap between gender, lower stress and fewer burnout symptoms, more sickness absence and a preference for female bosses among women in societies with feminine culture (Hofstede, 2001, p. 318). With these characterizations of a feminine culture along with the list of selected candidates (e.g. Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands, Denmark and Finland) one gets the feeling that it is more desirable that men are assertive, decisive and aggressive, but more desirable for a society to have a feminine culture rather than a masculine culture. Because feminine culture societies are supposed to be constructed on gender overlaps and therefore considered as more human, compared to masculine culture societies (e.g. Japan, Italy, Ireland, the UK and the USA) which are supposed to be constructed on pure masculine values (and therefore apparently less attractive). This feeling is strengthened by the fact that there appears to be more opposition among scholars against the classification as a masculine society. For example, Hofstede’s categorization of Japan as a masculine culture and Japanese managers as self-assured has encountered opposition among scholars. Smith (2002), for example, asks for an explanation why Japan, the most masculine nation of all in his data, favours a modest self-presentation and has very low-rates of murder and assault. Also, Hamada (1996) objects to the description of Japan as a masculine culture claiming that Japanese, contrary to what Hofstede argues, prefer non-masculine managers. Even though Hofstede rejects Hamada’s finding arguing that there is a difference between the “ethic” measures (that he uses) and the “emic” measures (used by Hamada) his allegation seems poorly grounded not least considering that the Japanese CEO appears to be among the few who openly shows his feelings in public crying at press conferences when making the announcement about his company’s bankruptcy. In his construction of the MAS dimension, Hofstede also makes use of various surveys on consumer behaviour conducted by European market research agencies. Here, we learn that electric filter coffeemakers were used more in feminine European cultures, where coffee should be permanently available in the home as a symbol of togetherness. In feminine cultures we are more likely to find people knitting and making their own dresses and we are more likely to find smokers who roll their own

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cigarettes compared to a masculine culture. In masculine countries, on the other hand, where men apparently are supposed to be obsessed by their self-image, cars and the type of car one owns plays an important role in the “show-off” performances. Contrary to feminine cultures were people may not even know their car engine’s power this is supposed to be an important piece of information in a masculine culture. Furthermore, another important difference highlighted by Hofstede is that people in feminine cultures read more fiction while people in masculine cultures read more non fiction (Hofstede, 2001, p. 311). Well, on bases of this piece of information we are not only able to predict which nations are supposed to be feminine (Smith, 2002), but we also get the picture of women leaning back in their armchair with a piece of knitting or a fiction, waiting for their husbands to arrive home after a hard day at the office ready to make them a nice cup of coffee. At least this is the picture one has before one’s eyes when reading page 311 in his 2001 edition. Once again this reveals prejudiced and stereotypical perceptions of gender. Moreover, it is also an illustrative example of how the gender discourse is maintained and reproduced in other types of surveys and, in Hofstede’s case, taken advantage of in purpose of strengthening the validity of his culture (colonial) model. But he does not stop here. Amazingly, Hofstede also makes the reader believe that there is a causal link between the MAS dimension and climate (related to latitude) which suggests that political violence is more common in moderately warm countries compared to other places. Referring to two recent studies carried out in collaboration with other cross-cultural management scholars (Van de Vliert et al., 1999; Van de Vliert, 1998, p. 129), he argues: It makes sense that men in countries with moderately warm climates, compared to men in colder and hotter countries, expect and accept more violence. Women in these societies are socialized toward more submissive and docile behavior. Men try to bend not only women but also other men to their will. Violent actions also serve to impress women and win their sexual favors (Hofstede, 2001, p. 331).

In order to explain why their analysis did not show a linear relationship between the MAS dimension and temperature, they brought a “paternal investment theory” into play suggesting that “fathers in colder and very hot climates are obliged to invest more care in their families as a matter of survival” (Hofstede, 2001). We are thus most likely to encounter violent men and submissive women in societies with a moderately warm climate. Irrespective of which latitudes these violent men are supposed to be lurking it makes you wonder if this description makes sense to them. It makes you wonder also if it make sense to these women to be depicted as poor creatures who do just anything (including exposing themselves to violence) to please men? Has the question “Does men’s violence impress you?” ever been empirically tested among these women? What also is noteworthy in Hofstede’s rhetoric is his choice of words. Hence, men in general are supposed to favour “aggression” while men in moderately warm climates expect and accept “violence”. And while women in general are supposed to be modest and tender, women in moderately warm climates are socialized toward “submissive” behaviour. This choice of words clearly reverberates the legacy of a colonial mindset. Discussion The argument set out in this paper was that Hofstede’s (1980, 2001) model on national culture unveils a distinct perception of gender differences even though women’s voices

were kept silent in his survey. It was also argued that essentialism and binary opposition are found both in the colonial discourse and the traditional gender discourse. Moreover, when people make comparisons between national cultures they have a tendency to use gender differences as a kind of measuring instrument. It seems particularly common that people in the West express negative feelings about “others” by pointing at prejudiced characteristics such as prevailing inequalities and oppression of women (neglecting that this exists also in their own backyard). The aim of this paper was therefore to approach his text, especially the MAS dimension, from a postcolonial perspective. As pointed out in the beginning of this paper, the MAS dimension has encountered severe criticism over the years. For example, it has been criticized for its vagueness and contradictions. This is a critique shared by the author, but not only because of its confusion with collectivism (which Hofstede himself has come to recognize). It is rather the confusing use of gender, its presumed relation to national culture and its embedding in colonialism that is of concern. To begin with, if caretaking is earmarked for women, why are the majority of physicians men? Moreover, if we consider once again what Hofstede says about the differences between men and women and compare this with how he explains masculine culture and feminine culture some intriguing questions emerge. For example, if men “as a rule” are more masculine and women “as a rule” are more feminine how can he assume that it would be any different on a society level? Why would a feminine culture suddenly come to include gender overlaps? It seems that Hofstede (as a representative of the male sex) rather than defining feminine culture based on traditional female categories was looking for a compromise which gives the impression of being more modern, democratic and human without disturbing his own masculinity too much. And why would a feminine culture have gender overlaps but not a masculine culture? Masculine culture countries do obviously permit women to become presidents and CEOs to cry in public. At least, it does not seem to be a threat to the Irish or the Indians’ masculinity nor does it seem to embarrass the Japanese. All things considered, would not the existence of societies based on distinct masculine characteristics or gender overlaps be fairly unlikely? Whatever the answers to these questions might be and although the opposition between the West and the non-West is unclear – particularly since modern and economically wealthy countries like the USA, the UK and Japan happens to be on the wrong side (Fouge`re and Moulettes, 2005) – a metaphor which assumes the presence of essential gender characteristics appears to be rather inappropriate even for a construction of national cultures. Moreover, if, as Hofstede suggests, “business organizations have goals of achievement” that “correspond to the achieving role of the male” and these “dominating patterns in a society are transmitted to other institutions” is it not likely that this was also the reason why women were disregarded when he decided on his “matched sample”? Because if the average employee in a multinational company (like IBM) turns out to be a “man” there would have been little reason to include women, especially since he was particular about fulfilling the prerequisite of a quantitative study. Consequently, his cultural model contributes to reducing women to subaltern subjects which ultimately means that they only exists as shadow figures in the margin of the global economy (Spivak, 1988).

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The criticism towards Hofstede’s study has mainly focused on the validity of his model from a Western “scientific” viewpoint, while its embedding in the colonial mindset has rarely been called into question. On the contrary, the overconfidence in quantitative methods’ and the appearance of success, created upon a unified and rather naı¨ve belief that “the complex world in which we live can be understood on the basis of what is described in a book” (Said, 1995, p. 94), continues to reinforce the power of Hofstede’s discourse – a power which is sustained also by women’s participation in the reproduction of stereotypical discourses including the gender discourse. Hence, the “think manager – think male” attitude that Schein (2007) suggests is held by male, is an attitude (consciously or unconsciously) shared by too many women. The overall purpose of the paper was to bring the absence of women’s voices in Hofstede’s cultural model to the surface, and implicitly to urge for a relocation of research on culture and gender from logocentrism and dichotomies to discourses that take local variations and multiplicity into consideration. Having said this one suggestion for further research is to deconstruct more carefully the MAS. Following Derrida’s (1967, 1972, 1982) suggestion to think of a text as a play which is neither fixed nor singular, deconstruction provides a useful strategy to expose multiple ways in which a text can be interpreted. In De la Grammatologie Derrida (1967) challenged Western Philosophy and its idea of a centre that guarantees all meaning. According to him it is because of the favouring of presence over absence that every system posits a centre, and that one part within the binary system is always valued over the other. The first terms in the binary system is thus always valued as positive and more important than the second, e.g. patriarchy, masculinity, civilized, developed, and logic are positive while matriarchy, femininity, primitive, backward, and emotions are negative. By focusing on multiple interpretations deconstruction provides a means for reversing the hierarchical order and bringing out suppressed, marginalized subordinate and silent voices. For example, by focusing on questions such as; what will emerge if we reverse the hierarchy in Hofstede’s MAS? or What will emerge if we reverse the hierarchy in other texts on culture or gender?, we can destabilize and reconstruct the hierarchies operating within these texts. A suggestion for further research is thus to use deconstruction or methodological approaches which take a critical stance to objective truth and which dismantle power operating within prevailing structures. Note 1. The “traditional gender discourse” refers to feminine and masculine singularities. References Adler, N.J. (1997), International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, International Thompson Business Press, London. Anderson, B. (1983), Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalisms, Verso, London. Appandurai, A. (1996), Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN. Appandurai, A. (2000), “The grounds of the nation-state: identity, violence and territory”, in Goldmann, K., Hannerz, U. and Westin, C. (Eds), Nationalism and Internationalism in the Post-Cold War Era, Routledge, London.

Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G. and Tiffin, H. (2004), The Post-colonial Studies Reader, Routledge, London. Banerjee, B. (2003), “Who sustains whose development? Sustainable development and the reinvention of nature”, Organization Studies, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 143-80. Bhabha, H.K. (1995), The Location of Culture, Routledge, London. Bock, P.K. (1999), Rethinking Psychological Anthropology, 2nd ed., Prospect Heights, Waveland, IL. Bond, M.H. and Hwang, K.K. (1986), “The social psychology and Chinese people”, in Bond, M.H. (Ed.), The Psychology of the Chinese People, Oxford University Press, Hong Kong. Bond, M.H., Kwok Leung, K-C. and Giolalone, R.A. (1985), “How are responses to verbal insult related to cultural collectivism and power distance”, Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 111-27. Ce´saire, A. (1972), Discourses on Colonialism, (1955), Monthly Review Press, New York, NY. Chakrabarty, D. (2000), Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ. Clifford, J. (1988), The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature and Art, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Cook, B. (2003), “Managing organizational culture and imperialism”, in Prasad, A. (Ed.), Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis: A Critical Engagement, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY. Collison, D.L. and Hearn, J. (1996), “Breaking the silence: on men, masculinities and management”, in Collison, D.L. and Hearn, J. (Eds), Men as Managers, Managers as Men, Critical Perspectives on Men, Masculinities and Management, Sage, London. Cray, D. and Mallory, G.R. (1998), Making Sense of Managing Culture, International Thompson Business Press, London. Derrida, J. (1967), De La Grammatologie, Collection Critique, Les Editions de Minuit, Paris. Derrida, J. (1972), Position, Collection Critique, Les Editions de Minuit, Paris. Derrida, J. (1982), Margins of Philosophy, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. Fanon, F. (1986), Black Skin/White Masks, (1952), Pluto Press, London. Fanon, F. (2001), The Wretched of the Earth, (1961), Penguin Books, London. Fouge`re, M. and Moulettes, A. (2005), “Cross-cultural management discourse – ideas of democracy, development, modernity and progress in Hofstede’s Culture’s Consequences”, Conference Proceedings for the Critical Management Studies Conference in Cambridge, UK, Postcolonialism Track, available at: www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/ejrot/cmsconference/ 2005/proceedings/postcolonialism/proceedings_postcolonialism.asp Fouge`re, M. and Johansson, L. (2000), “Nordic vs Latin values: different femininities”, working papers, Swedish School of Economics and business Administration, Helsinki. Gandhi, M.K. (1938), Hind Swaraj: Or Indian Home Rule, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad. Gilroy, P. (1987), There ain’t no Black in the Union Jack, Hutchinson, London. Hamada, T. (1996), “Unwrapping Euro-American masculinity in a Japanese multinational corporation”, in Cheng, C. (Ed.), Masculinities in Organizations, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 160-76. Hannerz, U. (1987), “The world in creolization”, Africa, Vol. 57, pp. 546-59.

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Hofstede, G. (1980), Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values, Sage, Beverly Hills, CA. Hofstede, G. (2001), Culture’s Consequences – Second Edition: Comparing Values, Behaviors. Institutions and Organizations Across Nations, Sage, London. Holden, N.J. (2002), Cross-Cultural Management – A Knowledge Management Perspective, Prentice-Hall, London. Jack, G. and Lorbiecki, A. (2003), “Asserting possibilities of resistance in the cross-cultural teaching machine: re-viewing videos of others”, in Prasad, A. (Ed.), Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis: A Critical Engagement, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY, pp. 213-32. Kwek, D. (2003), “Decolonizing and re-presenting Culture’s Consequences: a postcolonial critique of cross-cultural studies in management”, in Prasad, A. (Ed.), Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis: A Critical Engagement, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY. McLeod, J. (2000), Beginning Postcolonialism, Manchester University Press, Manchester. McSweeney, B. (2002), “Hofstede’s model of national cultural differences and their consequences: a triumph of faith – a failure of analysis”, Human Relations, Vol. 55 No. 1, pp. 89-118. MacKenzie, J.M. (1995), Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts, Manchester University Press, Manchester. Memmi, A. (1967), The Colonizer and the Colonized, Beacon Press, Boston, MA. Mills, S. (1992), Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism, Routledge, London. Mills, S. (1997), Discours, Routledge, London. Mir, R., Mir, A. and Upadhyaya, P. (2003), “Toward a postcolonial theory of organizational control”, in Prasad, A. (Ed.), Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY, pp. 47-74. Mohanty, C.T. (1984), “Under Western eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourse”, Boundary 2, Vol. 12, pp. 333-58. Mohanty, C.T. (2004), “Under Western eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourses”, in Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G. and Tiffin, H. (Eds), The Post-Colonial Studies Reader, Routledge, London. Petersen, K. and Rutherford, A. (1986), A Double Colonization Colonial and Post Colonial Women’s Writing, Dangaroo, Sydney. Prasad, A. (1997), “The colonizing consciousness and representations of the other: a postcolonial critique of the discourse of oil”, in Prasad, P., Mills, A., Elmes, M. and Prasad, A. (Eds), Managing the Organizational Melting Pot: Dilemmas of Workplace Diversity, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 285-311. Prasad, A. (2003) in Prasad, A. (Ed.), Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis – A Critical Engagement, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY. Prasad, A. and Prasad, P. (2002), “Casting the native subject ethnogrqphic practice and the (re)production of difference”, in Czarniawska, B. and Hopfl, H. (Eds), Casting the other: The Production and Maintenance of Inequalities in Work Organizations, Routledge, London, pp. 185-204. Prasad, P. (2005), Crafting Qualitative Research, Working in the Postpositivist Traditions, M.E. Sharpe, New York, NY. Said, E. (1995), Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient, (Routledge & Kegan, P., 1978), Penguin Books, London.

Schein, E. (2007), “Women in management: reflections and projections”, Women in Management Review, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 6-18. Smith, P.B. (2002), “Culture’s Consequences: something old and something new”, Human Relations, Vol. 55 No. 1, pp. 119-35. Spivak, G.C. (1988), “Can the subaltern speak?”, in Nelson, C. and Grossberg, L. (Eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Macmillan, London. Spivak, G.C. (1999), A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, Toward a History of the Vanishing Present, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Tayeb, M. (2001), “Conducting research across cultures: overcoming drawbacks and obstacles”, International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 91-108. Thomas, N. (1994), Colonialism’s Culture: Anthropology, Travel and Government, Polity Press, Cambridge. Van de Vliert, E. (1998), “Gender role gaps, competitiveness, and masculinity”, in Hofstede, G. et al. (Eds), Masculinity and Femininity: The Taboo Dimension of National Cultures, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Van de Vliert, E., Schwartz, S.H., Huissmans, S.E., Hofstede, G. and Daan, S. (1999), “Temperature, cultural masculinity and domestic political violence: a cross-national study”, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 30, pp. 291-314. Westwood, R.I. (2001), “Appropriating the other in the discourse of comparative management”, in Westwood, R.I. and Linstead, S. (Eds), The Language of Organisations, Sage, London, pp. 241-62. Young, R.J.C. (2001), Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction, Blackwell, Oxford. Further reading Bhabha, H.K. (1990), Nation and Narration, Routledge, London. Foucault, M. (1971), “Order of discourse: inaugural lecture delivered at the Colle`ge de France”, Social Science Information, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 7-30. Westwood, R.I. (2004), “Towards a postcolonial research paradigm in international business and comparative management”, in Marschan-Piekkari, R. and Welch, C. (Eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research – Methods for International Business, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 56-83. About the author Agneta Moulettes is pursuing a PhD in organizational studies at Lund University in Sweden. Her research explores the rhetorical uses of national cultures and how it is mediated in various organizational settings. She takes a critical stance towards traditional models in cross-culture management and is particularly interested in post colonial theory and its implication on international management research, the power of language in relation to globalization, and gender-related issues. She has extensive teaching experiences in business administration, law and social science. Agneta Moulettes can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Sara Nadin University of Bradford School of Management, Bradford, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how the business and research context influences how female entrepreneurs construct their identities. Design/methodology/approach – Focussing specifically on the care work sector, the analysis of interview transcripts explores how participants struggle to establish a positive identity through reconciling the contradictory subject positions produced at the intersection of entrepreneurialism and caring. Findings – The accounts reveal a silencing of the participants entrepreneurial identity and an embracing of their female identity, reflected in the mobilisation of a number of highly gendered “selves”. This is explained in terms of the participants’ desire for legitimacy and integrity, principally in the eyes of their employees, something which is itself prompted by the precariousness of their position as female business owners in this sector. Research limitations/implications – The identity work is theorised at a structural level, reinforcing the need for future accounts of identity work to consider how this is always embedded in broader material conditions. Practical implications – Presents an alternative way of enacting entrepreneurship and thus broadens normative notions of what it is to be an entrepreneur. Originality/value – The paper complements existing post-structuralist accounts of entrepreneurship and also illustrates the role of both broader structural and local contextual factors which both constrain and enable the identity work enacted. Keywords Entrepreneurialism, Work identity, Social care, Women, Individual psychology Paper type Research paper

Introduction Traditional research into entrepreneurship has tended to utilise a functionalist paradigm, presenting as neutral and fixed a masculinised normative model of the entrepreneur (Mirchandani, 1999; Ogbor, 2000; Bruni et al., 2004a). This is problematic for a number of reasons. At a theoretical level, the relevance of such research is undermined as it fails to capture and explain alternative forms of entrepreneurship practised by both women and men. At a practical level, the marginalised position of female entrepreneurs is overlooked and the impacts of wider structural arrangements upon their experiences are ignored. This serves, ultimately, to sustain the status quo and its associated patriarchal biases, with gender differences then seen as reflecting the natural order of things. Women in Management Review Vol. 22 No. 6, 2007 pp. 456-467 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0964-9425 DOI 10.1108/09649420710778691

The author would like to thank both Dr Penny Dick for her insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper as well as the anonymous reviewer at BAM who provided useful feedback. The author also thanks Adelina Broadbridge for encouraging him to progress the paper to final publication.

More recent approaches, informed by a post-structuralist epistemology, have shown how gender can be more fruitfully explored if it is understood as both a social structure and a set of discursive resources that act to both constrain and enable the ways in which men and women negotiate their entrepreneurial identities in different social contexts (Bruni et al., 2004b). What is less considered in this literature is how the relationship between gender and other social structures and discourses impact on how gender identities are negotiated. The aim of this paper is to argue that the specific occupational sector occupied by entrepreneurs, strongly influences how gender identity is negotiated in contexts where this presents contradictions between the subject positions on offer. In doing so, the paper contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by: . documenting an alternative way of practising entrepreneurship; . demonstrating the influence and importance of broader structural arrangements in accounting for such practices; and . considering the influence of the research situation on the identity work enacted. The paper is structured as follows. An outline of post-structuralist critiques of the entrepreneurship literature is presented which is followed by a review of research exploring masculinities in highly gendered occupations. The aims of this study are outlined and contextual information pertaining to the sector and the firms involved is presented. The methodology is then outlined which is followed by the findings and discussion. The paper concludes with a consideration of the contributions made. Post-structuralist approaches to entrepreneurship Post-structuralist accounts of entrepreneurship and management studies generally, whilst drawing upon a variety of influences, share in common the anti-essentialist belief that gender (and other categories such as entrepreneur, race and class), are social constructions or, more specifically, situated social practices, concerned more with what people “do” than what they “are”. Much of the current research on “doing gender” has its roots in the ideas of West and Zimmerman (1987, p. 126) who argue that gender enactment is tied to broader social structures of which it is an expression: . . . we conceive of gender as an emergent feature of social situations: both as an outcome of and a rationale for various social arrangements and as a means of legitimating one of the most fundamental divisions of society.

A core feature of West and Zimmerman’s conceptualisation of gender is that it is performed during routine interactions. Thus, performances change according to the audience and the impression the individual aims to create, often with the objective of enhancing credibility and legitimacy (Burr, 1995; Alvesson, 1998), these objectives can be difficult to “bring off” in situations where multiple and contradictory subject positions are occupied. In an attempt to understand these complexities, researchers have focussed attention on those sites where different and often contradictory subject positions intersect. One obvious example is where women enter occupations traditionally dominated by men, such as police work (Dick, 2005), or engineering (Yancey Martin, 2003). For example, in an ethnographic study of two small firms, Bruni et al. (2004b) reveal the complex and intensive identity work engaged in by female and homosexual male

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entrepreneurs as they attempt to legitimately occupy the potentially contradictory positions of woman/homosexual male and of entrepreneur, the latter of which, in both lay and (traditional) academic thinking, is essentialised as masculine. Their findings highlight alternative ways of doing gender and entrepreneurship which are at odds with those prescribed in the normative models of entrepreneurship. The two women in their study (sisters who owned a welding company), described how they would often pretend to be the secretary in order to buy their “real” selves (i.e. owners of the business), more time. They also resisted being labelled as entrepreneurs in order to avoid associated expectations, which was motivated partly by their commitment to family responsibilities. In contrast, Lewis (2006) demonstrates that when being evaluated against the normative model of entrepreneurship, one response by female entrepreneurs is to become “gender blind”. Their status/identity as women are denied as they strive to present themselves as “serious business owners” a response which somewhat ironically affirms rather than challenges the normative model. What these studies reveal is the many and varied experiences of female entrepreneurs, not only calling into question normative assumptions of what it is to be an entrepreneur but, more specifically, illustrating how this normativity is ruptured by the take-up of positions in other discourses (e.g. of class or ethnicity). What is missing is a deep exploration of how specific socio-cultural contexts influence which discourses are used in identity work. As West and Zimmerman (1987, p. 127) point out, whilst studies of gender display are informative in revealing the reproduction of gender in the micro-processes of everyday activities, a focus solely on gender as display risks relegating it to the periphery of interaction. Identity work must be located structurally in order to fully understand both the conditions giving rise to its production as well as its transformatory potential. It is these broader structural/power relations which impact upon the availability and legitimacy of different subject positions, and are crucial to understanding how and why different identities are constituted, negotiated, reproduced and resisted (Kondo, 1990). Research which explores how men negotiate their masculinity when working in female dominated occupations is informative in this respect. Murray (1996) explored the position of men working in the childcare sector. Her analysis revealed the complex and often contradictory positioning men faced and how this was negotiated. On the one hand, in comparison to their female counterparts, their presence was highly valued rather than taken for granted, resulting in the men receiving an inordinate amount of positive feedback, being singled out and “stroked”. However, their roles were also restricted excluding them from tasks requiring physical contact with the children, revealing that men who work in child care are subject to a different set of rules than women, and that their motives for pursuing such careers are often regarded as highly suspect (i.e. because they are gay or child abusers). This itself is a product of the dominant patriarchal ideology in which heterosexuality is a core value, as is the notion that child care is women’s work. Henson and Rogers (2001) argue that male temporary clerical workers were assessed in terms of two questions which reveal the gendered assumptions about this kind of work: why did not they have a real job? And, were they gay? In response, the men adopted a number of strategies in an attempt to assert their masculinity. These included reframing and renaming the work; distancing themselves from the work with a cover story; as well as the more risky strategy of resisting demands for deference.

As Henson and Rogers (2001, p. 236) conclude, “men do gender is such a way that they reassert the feminine identification of the job while rejecting its application to them”. Similar strategies were noted by Simpson (2004) in her study of men in a variety of female dominated occupations. What these studies reveal is that the performance of gendered identity is particularly marked when individuals transgress norms and expectations concerning who should do what types of work. Consideration of the context specific nature of identity work also extends to an understanding of the local conditions giving rise to its production, that is, the research situation and its attendant power relationships. Illuminating accounts of this are provided by Dick (2005) and Kondo (1990) who explore how their status as researcher/woman/westerner may affect the positioning participants negotiate for them-selves and shape the impressions they attempt to craft. This reminds us of the performative aspects of identity work and that it is done to achieve a specific objective at a specific point in time within a specific set of micro- and macro-relationships and constraints (Alvesson and Karreman, 2000). The current study The aim of this study is to explore the identity work of female entrepreneurs who own small businesses in the care sector. It attempts to understand how they navigate the contradictory positions which emerge at the intersection of entrepreneur and woman, when the former position is itself embedded within a broader framework of feminine values reproduced through the ideology of caring. As women seeking to make a profit through the care of vulnerable others, they occupy a morally dubious and potentially precarious position. Through a detailed analysis of interview transcripts, this study explores how two women – one who owns a nursery, the other a residential care home – attempt to negotiate their identities in ways which affirm their legitimacy and leave them morally intact. Contextual information The care sector The private care sector has, over the last ten years, experienced rapid expansion, principally due to a number of demographic changes. Our ageing population, coupled with the geographical dispersion of families, has prompted an increasing demand for residential care for the elderly. At the same time, the numbers of women returning to work after having children has increased, resulting in an increase in demand for childcare. Whether caring for children or caring for the elderly, the sector as a whole is characterized by extreme gender segregation with the majority of employees (98 per cent), being women. Women employed as carers typically have low levels of educational qualifications, and their work is low paid and of low status (Low Pay Commission Report, 2005). Options for training and career development are limited, especially in the private sector where care providers are predominantly independent small businesses. The main problem faced by the care sector as a whole is recruitment and retention with the demand for carers outstripping the supply. This is due in part to the increasing numbers of carers required, but also to the alternative employment opportunities in the non-care service sector for women with lower levels of qualifications, such as supermarkets (Social Services Inspectorate, 2000, p. 7).

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The sample The care home and the nursery owned by the interviewees can be regarded as fairly typical of the sector. In both firms, all employees were female. The nursery employed 13 staff, and the care home employed 10. Wages were low, with the nursery employees receiving the minimum wage, whilst at the care home, in the interests of employee retention, they were paid a little above this rate. There were few opportunities for career advancement within the firms due to their small size. Recruitment of staff was recognised as a problem by both employers, with the nursery experiencing high rates of staff turnover. The care home tended to employ more mature staff who often had families of their own, whilst the nursery relied more on younger staff/trainees provided through local colleges. Methodology Semi-structured interviews were conducted loosely framed around key themes (e.g. reasons for setting up the business; their role in the business; their involvement with their employees). Both participants talked freely and openly, and the discussions were allowed to develop spontaneously at the participants will. Each interview lasted approximately two hours. They were tape-recorded with the consent of the participants and later transcribed verbatim by the author. For the purposes of reporting, the participants are referred to as the owner of the care home or the owner of the nursery except where names are used rhetorically in the transcripts, where the following pseudonyms have been adopted: Debbie is the owner of the nursery; Ann is a nursery nurse; Fran is the nursery manager. The interview transcripts were analysed using discourse analysis. Whilst not following a prescriptive method, the approach adopted was consistent with that outlined by Burr (1995) (and influenced by Potter et al. (Burr, 1995, pp.176-7)), in which the aim of the analysis is to identify the interpretive repertoires in a piece of text. A fundamental premise here is that texts are active constructions, representing a contextualised performance, and a key objective is to look for linguistic devices by which people manage to account for themselves (e.g. to justify their actions or apportion blame). It is these linguistic resources which represent the interpretative repertoires available to speakers in constructions of their accounts. As such, subject positions, with their attendant value systems, provide an important resource in the speakers linguistic “tool kit” for the achievement of accountability and legitimacy. The line of enquiry developed in this paper was prompted retrospectively when the author was struck by the similarities in the accounts given by the two interviewees. Both appeared to be using the interview situation in similar ways, which prompted the question: what were they doing and why? The analysis commenced with a thorough reading of each transcript and progressed iteratively from there. The initial reading of the transcripts revealed the interviewees’ strong concerns in relation to how they were perceived by others and their attempts to deliberately manage the impressions created, highlighting the salience of identity work. This resulted in the identification of a number of sensitising concepts which then provided a lens for the identification and interpretation for other associated parts of the transcript. For example, one sensitising concept identified was “profiting from caring” which, once made explicit, necessitated going through each transcript and noting every reference to the issue of making a monetary profit from the business.

Other manifestations of identity work ranged in subtlety and, in practice, three main types of cues were used: (1) explicit expressions of role occupancy/subject position; (2) references to attributes/behaviours which signify a specific role (e.g. child care indicates role of mother); and (3) references to others (i.e. employees or “the girls”) which denotes their role in relation to them. This is not to suggest that the transcripts could be deconstructed and coded into neat separate categories. In order to understand the purpose of these varying forms of expression, it was necessary to look at both the immediate linguistic context (e.g. the wider paragraph in which a “cue” was embedded), and the transcript as a whole to get a feel for how this contributed to the whole story being told. In this way, it was possible to see how the varying linguistic devices combined to serve a specific function, regardless of whether this was to emphasise a contrast or reinforce a similarity. Findings Distancing themselves from the profit motive Both participants, albeit in different ways, minimised the importance of making money. They made explicit the need to dispel this assumption, especially in relation to their employees. The owner of the nursery states outright: . . . whereas some people think you’re in it because it’s good money, I’m in it because I get satisfaction for those children and for my staff, we’re a team” (Nursery).

In what reflects a distancing from the image of the rational, ruthless, business owner she goes on: I feel that even though I’m in business I’m not ruthless, I’m very genuine and I would do anything for anybody, its not about the money, all I like in life, I like a nice house and I like a nice car, but I also like to give, I love to do everything for my mum and my nana (Nursery).

The owner of the care home almost apologetically admits that money is a factor (normalising this with reference to “everybody”), but quickly implies that the business is not actually that profitable and that her husband is the main breadwinner: I think money has got to come into it. . . Erm, I think everybody is in business for money, but I think you’ve got to look at that long-term, you can’t just look at it each month and say I’ve only made a hundred quid this month. . . I mean, I’m lucky in that my husband has a well paid job so we don’t have to rely on it but I think a successful business is for me to be happy, for my staff to be happy and for us to be offering the best service we possibly can (Care Home).

Both employers expressed concerns that they were perceived as “yuppies” by their employees who were in it for the “fast buck” explaining how they “overcame” these misperceptions by being “hands-on” in the workplace, thus demonstrating to their employees that they were really “one of them”. . . . my problem as a business owner, is that a lot of people think, “she”s only young, she drives a nice car, she looks nice, who does she think she is’ so once you’ve overcome that and you’ve got that relationship (with employees). . . (Nursery).

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I think you know when we first got it, [the care home], we’re both quite young and I think they thought “oh yeah, bloody yuppies, just come along and bought this to make a quick buck” and I think over the years they’ve realised that that isn’t the case....because I was physically here and did exactly the same work as the carers (Care Home).

What these comments reveal is a denial of the profit motive and a strong concern to dispel such notions, particularly in the eyes of employees. They explain how they do this through the deliberate employment of a number of identity enhancing strategies which serve to narrow the gap in status between employee and employer. The desire to position themselves as closer to their employees is revealed in further manifestations of their identity work, in which a range of different subject positions are made explicit. Boss or friend? Consistent with the desire to be perceived as “one of them” the participants minimised their role as “boss” nurturing close personal relationships, and preferring to regard (and be regarded by) their employees as friends. This is reflected in the following comment from the owner of the care home where she contrasts her management style with that of the previous owner: . . . they were the workers, she was the queen bee and there was very little between them. . . but we’re much closer than that now. . . so if they have problems at home and they’ve got kids they can bring them in and things like that (Care Home).

The desirability of close personal relationships is also emphasised by the owner of the nursery: . . . relationships are very important to me because a happy ship is a good ship and we’re all.. it’s a team (Nursery). I think at first they think I’m some Ogre and when they go out and get drunk and tell you how nice you are to work for its nice to get that feedback (Nursery).

Other comments reveal how the role of “boss” was presented as the opposite of friend and how they shifted between the two positions. The way they each navigated between the two positions was expressed slightly differently. For the care home owner, the boundary between socialising and work was paralleled by the boundary between friend and boss. . . . and we all go out together, we do have you know, social functions, where I am not the boss, in fact when we go out there is an unwritten rule that they don’t tell anybody I’m their boss and I don’t tell anybody I’m their boss. I am one of them and I have a good time with them but when we go back to work I am the boss (Care Home).

Here, the potential tension and conflict between the positions of boss and friend is reconciled by locating each in its appropriate space and place. Boss is a position occupied at work and friend, in the social arena. The boundary between these two sites was further emphasised by another unwritten rule of the care home owner: that there was to be no gossip in work if she got drunk and made a fool of herself on these social outings. Similar manoeuvres are revealed in her account of employee misconduct. One positive outcome of a distressing theft incident by an employee was that she asserted her authority by dealing with it “properly” quashing any notions her remaining staff may have had about her being a “soft touch”. Thus, for the care home owner, establishing who

was boss was done in situations which posed a potential threat to her authority and led her to overtly express the power differential between herself and her employees. For the owner of the nursery however, the position of boss was overtly denied and actively resisted. I treat all those girls as my friends, I don’t treat them as if I’m their boss and I would never do that”(Nursery). . . . socialising is very important because I know that I can go into that baby-room now and Ann [nursery nurse] can say “Debbie,[boss] I’ve just got to nip to the loo, can you just change this nappy” she doesn’t feel she’s asking the boss to change a nappy (Nursery).

The sincerity of this positioning however is somewhat undermined when she exploits the ambiguity of her status precisely to assert her authority as boss, as revealed in the following extract: . . . if Fran [the manager] has interviewed them and I’ve not seen them let’s say, I’ll go in and I’ll say “right, well what are you doing today” and they’ll start chatting or they’ll give you a dirty look and think who’s she, but again its nice when I say “oh, I’m Debbie the owner” and they’ll say “oh God, I didn’t realise” (Nursery).

From this and other comments, it is clear that whilst claiming to regard her employees as friends, she does desire her status as boss to be both recognised and acknowledged. Thus, although both women negotiated the distinction between boss and friend in their own way, the position of boss was one they both claimed to be reluctant to occupy. For the owner of the care home, this dualism symbolised the clear contrast in the power relationships pertaining to the social arena and the arena of work. For the owner of the nursery, distinctions were rather more blurred, an ambiguity which appeared to be deliberately exploited in order to rupture the notion of boss as an authoritarian figure. From confidant to matriarch Linked to the position of friend was that of confidant. Both participants expected employees to come to them with personal problems and said they would be upset if they believed their employees felt unable to approach them: . . . obviously when you take on staff you take on their personal problems, you know, marital problems, and I would be very upset if I thought any one of them couldn’t talk to me about something (Care Home).

However, this confidant role did not extend to work-based inter-personal problems between staff. In such instances, the owners shifted from confidant to matriarch where “the girls” were clearly expected to sort out their squabbles amongst themselves without it getting in the way of work. The employers themselves would not get involved and expected a degree of maturity from their staff in dealing with such issues. Both employers accepted that these kinds of problems were inevitable in an all-female environment. . . . but when you work with a load of women you’re going to get that (Care Home)

As a wife and mother Other subject positions invoked were that of wife and mother. Both employers were married and had children of school age for whom they had primary responsibility in

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terms of child-care provision. The owner of the care home quite subtly mobilises the position of wife by highlighting the contrast between her and her husband. It is her husband who is the main bread winner not her, and it is he who is authoritarian whilst she is “soft”. . . . my husband thinks I’m too soft as an employer. He’s in the army and he’s used to going in and sort of saying “right, you will do this” and there’s no questions and he knows they’ll do it (Care Home).

Thus, whilst acknowledging that she makes money and that she is a boss, this is simultaneously denied with reference to her husband who does both better (i.e. making money and bossing people about). In this way, her femininity is preserved through enhancement of her husband’s masculinity. The owner of the nursery mobilises her position as a mother extensively in her account of why she set up the nursery and the advantages this position gives her in terms of being able to empathise with other mothers. She tells a rather heroic tale of how she overcame gender discrimination by her employers which ultimately resulted in her leaving work and setting up her own business. This is worth quoting in its entirety: I was a legal secretary and when I was pregnant and looking at nurseries I wanted something more professional, more structured. . . I was horrified at what I saw, the size of rooms with children of all ages, there was just no structure to the day. . . my cousin works for social services and she said, and Chris, my husband, “well let’s open a nursery, if you want the best childcare you have the best childcare and do it yourself” so I knew that I would always be working with my children, providing the best for my children. . . and then erm. . . when I should have been going back to work, I was sacked for being pregnant and lost my job, because they tried to demote me because they said I was no longer reliable because I had a child, . . . so I took them to an industrial tribunal, and, this is one of the biggest legal firms in Manchester, I won out of court. . . so I did it really again for working mums. . . and that’s where I have a better relationship with the mums, so that if a mum says to me “look Debbie they’ve only got a cold” or whatever, then I can understand that they can’t just have a day off because then they’d be considered unreliable so you know, its nice that I can empathise with them and empathise with the fact as well you know that their child might be off sick so we try and swop days or we try and fit them in you know (Nursery).

Revealed in this story are a number of themes, many of which recur throughout the interview. These include her commitment to high-quality childcare and her conviction that she can provide the best, especially as it has to be good enough for her own children. She also positions herself as an ambassador, who has a unique insight into the problems faced by working mothers, with whom she can empathise, and to whom she can provide support. It is a story with a strong moral content and one of good (i.e. the lone mother) overcoming evil (i.e. the large corporation), for the benefit of woman-kind (note reference to “mothers” rather than parents or fathers). In this respect, it is a story of hero(ine-)ism which is consistent with the masculinised model of the ideal entrepreneur – however, it is heroism of a morally feminine order and one which is defined by and confined to the world view and experiences of women. It is worth adding that the start-up story of the care home owner, whilst not of such mythical proportions, was one of the success of the underdog. Having worked for years as a nurse and then as manager in a care home, she explained how she decided she should do it for herself – then she could reap the benefits of all her hard work.

Whilst being more open in terms of acknowledging the desire to make money, in both accounts, the position of entrepreneur is almost an incidental by-product of their journey, a journey which is rooted in their marginalised and inferior position in the workplace, a position they have each actively resisted with a “do-it-yourself” response. Discussion and conclusions The analysis above reveals how the participants seek to distance themselves from what they perceive to be negative stereotypes and assumptions surrounding women in their position as owners of small business (i.e. ruthless business owners who are in it just for the money). Revealed in the analysis is the extent of their identity work with each seeking to position themselves in a number of different roles in relation to their employees (e.g. friend, boss, mother figure, colleague and fellow parent). The plurality of this positioning, and the potential contradictions (e.g. between “boss” and “friend”), is reconciled by constantly sliding between the different identities, which can be regarded as symbolic spaces through the occupation of which they seek legitimacy and acceptance. Throughout their accounts of themselves, the masculinised/rational/hero/risk-taking/profit-seeking entrepreneur is kept largely invisible. Even the identity of “boss” was one which they sought to minimise, preferring to be regarded as friends, except in situations which threatened to undermine their authority. This identity work is prompted not only by a number of tensions which arise from a clash in values in the ideology of caring and that of entrepreneurialism, but also by related-structural features of the care sector. As women seeking to make a profit through caring, they occupy a morally dubious position which can be crudely articulated as the commodification of the caring needs of vulnerable others for their own personal gain. They thus risk betraying their own gender for who caring is constructed as natural and willingly given. This position is rendered all the more precarious by at least two important factors which characterise the reality of care work. One is that it is low paid (usually, the minimum wage), and the other, is that workers are in short supply. Through embracing their multiple feminine selves they are able to pass themselves off as being in it for the “right” reasons. Whilst preserving their moral integrity, this also symbolically reduces the gap between themselves and their employees, detracting attention away from the stark material disparities characterising their relationship (i.e. between making a profit themselves and paying their employees little more than the minimum wage). Establishing close relationships with employees also serves to nurture loyalty and commitment making employees less likely to leave, a view expressed by both employers in this study. Before going on to consider the influence of broader structural factors in identity work, the local context and role of the researcher will be addressed. As a fellow woman and mother of a similar age, their accounts may also have represented an attempt to convince the researcher of their integrity and legitimacy. Whilst it can only be hypothesised that different accounts may have been elicited had the researcher been a male professor in his 50s, the extent to which the interview was a performance for the interviewers benefit should not be ignored. This does not question the authenticity of the accounts produced but serves to highlight their highly situated nature and the performative aspects of the interview situation. This is consistent with the point that identity work cannot be divorced from the broader structural arena in which it is embedded and the repertoire of practices this

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makes available (Dick and Hyde, 2006; Yancey Martin, 2003, West and Zimmerman, 1987). As well as enabling identity work, these very same forces also constrain it by rendering certain identities difficult to pull off and effectively unavailable (such as female entrepreneur). Whether the consequence is the denial of entrepreneur, as in this study, or, the denial of gender, as in Lewis’ (2006) study, the effect is the same – the reproduction of dominant assumptions concerning the gendered division of labour. In this case, it is the ideology and institutionalisation of caring as women’s work which renders available certain highly gendered identities. In addition, the marginalised position of female entrepreneurs is reproduced, perpetuating the restriction of women’s business activities to “entrepreneurial ghettos” (Bowen and Hisrich, 1986), concentrated as they are in areas of work which are an extension of their activities in the home. As such, the way in which women (including those in this study) “do” entrepreneurship is unlikely to challenge the dominant normative models of how it is done, and are thus unlikely to have much influence on concomitant policies and practices (e.g. training and advice; access to finance). What these accounts do challenge, however, is the dominant norm of what it means to act like an entrepreneur. In attempting to reconcile the contradictory discourses which characterise caring and entrepreneurialism, alternative forms of entrepreneurship emerge. It is at sites of struggle such as these that alternative ways of being are practised, making possible the gradual transformation of established and accepted ways of doing things. References Alvesson, M. (1998), “Gender relations and identity at work: a case study of masculinities and femininities in an advertising agency”, Human Relations, Vol. 51 No. 8, pp. 969-1005. Alvesson, M. and Karreman, D. (2000), “Taking the linguistic turn in organizational research”, Journal of Applied Behavioural Science, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 136-58. Bowen, D.D. and Hisrich, R.D. (1986), “The female entrepreneur: a career development perspective”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 11, pp. 393-407. Bruni, A., Gherardi, S. and Poggio, B. (2004a), “Entrepreneur-mentality, gender and the study of women entrepreneurs”, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 256-68. Bruni, A., Gherardi, S. and Poggio, B. (2004b), “Doing gender, doing entrepreneurship: an etnographic account of intertwined practices”, Gender, Work and Organization, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 406-29. Burr, V. (1995), An Introduction to Social Constructionism, Routledge, London. Dick, P. (2005), “Dirty work designations: how police officers account for their coercive use of force”, Human Relations, Vol. 58 No. 11, pp. 1363-90. Dick, P. and Hyde, R. (2006), “Consent as resistance, resistance as consent: re-reading part-time professionals’ acceptance of their marginal positions”, Gender, Work and Organization, Vol. 13 No. 6, pp. 543-64. Henson, K.D. and Rogers, J.K. (2001), “Why Marcia You’ve Changed!. Male clerical temporary workers doing masculinity in a feminized occupation”, Gender & Society, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 218-38. Kondo, D.K. (1990), Crafting Selves: Power, Gender and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.

Lewis, P. (2006), “The quest for invisibility: female entrepreneurs and the masculine norm of entrepreneurship”, Gender, Work and Organization, Vol. 13 No. 5, pp. 453-69. Low Pay Commission Report (2005), National Minimum Wage, Cm 6475. Crown Copyright, HMSO Licensing Division, London. Mirchandani, K. (1999), “Feminist insight on gendered work: new directions in research on women and entrepreneurship”, Gender, Work and Organization, Vol. 6 No. 4, pp. 224-35. Murray, S. (1996), “We all love Charles men in child care and the social construction of gender”, Gender & Society, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 368-85. Ogbor, J.O. (2000), “Mythicizing and reification in entrepreneurial discourse: ideology-critique of entrepreneurial studies”, Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 37 No. 5, pp. 605-35. Simpson, R. (2004), “Masculinity at work: the experiences of men in female dominated occupations”, Work, Employment & Society, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 349-68. Social Services Inspectorate (2000) 9th Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Social Services, DoH, London. West, C. and Zimmerman, D.H. (1987), “Doing gender”, Gender & Society, Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 125-51. Yancey Martin, P. (2003), “Said and done versus saying and doing: gendering practices, practicing gender at work”, Gender & Society, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 342-66. About the author Sara Nadin is a Lecturer in HRM/Organisational Behaviour at the University of Bradford, School of Management. She obtained her PhD from Sheffield University Management School in 2004 and was awarded an ESRC post-doctoral fellowship. She has published in the areas of qualitative research methods, gender, the psychological contract and small businesses. Sara Nadin can be contacted at: [email protected]

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British army leadership: is it gendered? Michael Dunn

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Department of Defence Management and Security Analysis, Cranfield University, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, Shrivenham, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the female British Army officer, to determine whether female Army officers lead in different ways to male Army officers. Design/methodology/approach – The conceptual framework was transformational and transactional leadership theory. Data were gathered in semi structured interviews with 24 Army officers, split 50:50 between men and women using repertory grid, and critical incident methods. Findings – Women and men Army officers interviewed do lead in different ways with women demonstrating a gender management aspect to their leadership. The research also identified that women officers experience an “armoured glass” ceiling in terms of career progression, the research developed a conceptual model of military leadership that differs from the transformational/transactional leadership model. It also disconfirms contemporary leadership theory that conflates leadership and change management. Research limitations/implications – The paper makes no claims for generalisability because of the unrepresentative sample. Further, research is needed on a representative sample basis. Practical implications – The paper may inform policy on the management and development of female Army officers. It may also have utility in improving leadership development in the British Army and other UK Armed Services. Originality/value – The paper makes a contribution in two areas; it adds to the growing body of research that indicates men and women lead in different ways and assessing the implications that flow from this. It is also a research-based contribution to conceptualising leadership in the British Army officer cadre below 1 star level. Keywords Leadership, Gender, Armed forces, Transformational leadership, United Kingdom Paper type Research paper

Women in Management Review Vol. 22 No. 6, 2007 pp. 468-481 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0964-9425 DOI 10.1108/09649420710778709

Introduction This paper examines the role of the female British army officer to determine whether female Army officers lead in different ways to male Army officers. In seeking to answer that question, the paper examines the situation in which female Army officers operate and the level of congeniality they enjoy. This is because the leadership situation has been identified by writers such as Fiedler (1967) and Hersey et al. (2001) as a key variable in leadership outcomes. On congeniality, Eagly and Carli (1995) concluded in a meta analysis on research, conducted into similarities between male and female leaders, that gender congeniality was a variable in whether male or female leaders were favoured. The paper will examine firstly the context for women Army officers, then move to review some current research strands on leadership and leadership and gender. The paper then describes research the author has undertaken and, finally, summarises the results and draw conclusions.

Context The British Army, excluding the Territorial Army element, had a total strength of 106,200 personnel at March 2007 (DASA, 2007a). Of these, 8,230 or 7.7 per cent, were female. Female officers numbered 1,640 out of a total officer cadre of 14,680 – or 11.2 per cent. In the most senior ranks: Brigadier and above, at January 2007 there was only one female out of a total of 240 (DASA, 2007b). This is a lower representation than industry where one in seven directors (14.4 per cent) is female (EOC, 2006). Furthermore, women are currently excluded by Ministry of Defence policy (MOD, 2002) from what are termed “close combat roles” in the Infantry and Royal Armoured Corps (RAC). Similar policies apply in the US military. Instead, women are located mainly in what is termed combat service support (CSS) working on activities such as logistics and personnel work. MOD’s stated rationale for this policy is that women are, typically, less physically strong than men and therefore unable to cope with the physical demands of close combat roles. However, the Secretary of State also acknowledged as an issue (MOD, 2002) the potential adverse response of society to the concept of women killing enemy combatants at close quarters, or being killed. In career terms, both in the UK and US military, close combat roles are rated most highly in the Army’s value system and are crucial for career advancement to the highest levels. As Field and Nagl (2001) comment they are: “traditionally the most critical routes to high command. In addition they are culturally and functionally considered to be positions of greatest significance to the defence mission”. Female army officers are therefore confronted by an “armoured glass ceiling” (Dunn, 2005). Kennedy-Pipe and Welch (2002, p. 51) comment that: Women’s partial exclusion from the military and in particular from combat roles is held to exclude them from an important sphere of value and thus to derogate them.

In addition, the military combat paradigm has developed away from the linear battlefield where Infantry, supported by the RAC, would directly engage the enemy, with CSS in the rear. Combat is now “war amongst the people” (Smith, 2005, p. 3) where there is no linear battlefield, or front line compared to the Cold War scenarios. Instead we have what is termed 3608 warfare. The current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are examples. They are also examples of where the military, rather than being “stove-piped” or operating as three separate Armed Services: Army, Royal Navy and Royal Airforce, are now required to conduct tri-service operations, usually as part of a coalition or alliance with other national forces. Again, Iraq (with US Armed Services) and Afghanistan (NATO) are examples. The Defence White Paper Delivering Security in a Changing World makes reference to the challenges in this new operating environment (MOD, 2003). These military operations, complex and relationship based with ambiguous objectives, have a close parallel with what Cascio (1995, p. 930) has termed: “today’s networked, interdependent and culturally diverse organization”. There are other factors that make the military context difficult for women. A recent survey (MOD, 2006) found extensive evidence of women in the Armed forces having faced some form of sexual harassment. The report said that some 99 per cent of servicewomen had been exposed to situations over the previous 12 months involving sexualised behaviour such as jokes, stories, language and material. Although there was a high tolerance for these behaviours, over half the respondents sometimes found them offensive. Qualitative data from men suggested there was a lack of awareness that

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women may be offended or upset by their language and behaviour. This survey was part of an Action Plan agreed between MOD and the EOC on 23 June 2005 on preventing and dealing effectively with sexual harassment in the Armed Forces. Leadership and gender literature The literature on leadership is significant. Dubrin (2001, p. 3) says that 35,000 research articles, magazine articles and books have been written about leadership. Kotter (1990) makes a strong argument to differentiate leadership from management and, in doing this, conflates the role of the leader with managing change. One leadership model has gained prominence in the leadership landscape. This is the concept of transformational and transactional leadership, which originated with the work of MacGregor Burns (1978, 2003). His text concerned itself with political leadership and he noted that politicians exhibited two broad styles. The first, which he termed transactional, motivated followers by appealing to their self interest. As examples a politician might hold out the prospect of jobs or other benefits to voters, or key opinion formers. In other words it was based on exchange theory. However, transformational leadership appealed to the moral values of followers in an attempt to raise their level of consciousness about ethical issues and get buy into reform institutions. His work has been taken up and developed to have utility in an organisational context, particularly by Bass (1985, 1998) and Bass and Avolio (1998). They have conceptualized the behaviours involved in transformational and transactional leadership as shown below: (1) Transformational behaviours: . idealised influence; . individualised considerations; . inspirational motivation; and . intellectual stimulation. (2) Transaction behaviours: . contingent reward; . active management by exception; and . Passive management by exception. (3) Laissez faire (Source: Bass and Avolio (1998)). A key component of this is individualised consideration or: “giving special attention to neglected members, treating each of their subordinates individually, and expressing consideration for work well done” (Bass, 1985). This analysis work has resulted in an instrument, called the multi-factor leadership questionnaire (MFLQ) which enables individuals to assess their pre disposition to a leadership behaviour style. Although, they view transformational and transactional leadership as distinct, Bass and Avolio consider they are not mutually exclusive processes. Transformational leadership increases follower motivation and performance more than transactional leadership, but effective leaders use a combination of both types. The importance of transformational leadership pivots on agreement that the world of work is changing. Restating Cascio (1995, p. 930), he concluded that “more often today’s networked,

interdependent, culturally diverse organisation requires transformational leadership” (author’s emphasis). It could be argued from this that contemporary military operations of the type conducted by the UK Armed Forces require a transformational leadership style to be successful. Turning now to gender and leadership, this draws from the gender difference debate, also termed the female advantage argument. Genre texts such as men are from Mars, women are from Venus have also stimulated popular debate. More seriously, Lawrence Summers, President of Harvard University was forced to resign because of statements he made in January 2005 to a closed economics conference that fewer women than men possessed the intrinsic aptitude for science and engineering professorships. Rosenor (1990) wrote her iconoclastic article “Ways Women Lead” at a time when, as she termed it: . . . a second wave of women is making its way into top management not by adopting the style and habits that have proved successful for men but by drawing on the skills and attitudes that developed from their shared experience as women.

Drawing on, albeit limited, empirical evidence in the form of an International Women’s Forum Survey and some follow up interviews, she identified that men tended to describe their leadership performance as essentially transactional whereas women respondents described themselves “in ways that characterize ‘transformational leadership’ – getting subordinates to transform their own self interest into the interest of the group through concern for a broader goal” (Rosenor, 1990, p. 120). This prompted the academic debate currently underway about whether gender has any significant relationship with leadership style. Alimo-Metcalfe and Alban-Metcalfe (2003) argue that leadership has traditionally been viewed as a gendered construct. They state: Leadership research, like most, if not all, of research in management, has been gendered. Studies from the days of “The Great Man/Trait Theories” to the emergence of the “new paradigm” charismatic and transformational models have been the studies of men, by men, and the findings have been extrapolated to humanity in general (Alimo-Metcalfe and Alban Metcalfe, 2003, p. 1).

The role of a woman as leader remains controversial and emotive. One of the issues stated bluntly by Butler (1990, p. vii) is: “To be a woman in a masculinist culture is to be a source of mystery and unmeasurability for men.” Blackmore (1999, p. 3) in an education context says “strong women are difficult and dangerous because they trouble dominant masculinities and modes of management by being different”. Eagly and Carli (1995) conducted a meta analysis on research into similarities and differences between female and male leaders. They concluded that the while female leaders and male did not differ in effectiveness, when summarised, there was evidence of what they termed gender congeniality, i.e. that some leadership roles were defined in relatively masculine terms and thus favoured males, and roles defined in female terms favoured female leaders. Of relevance to this paper, is they identified that military organisations yielded findings that significantly favoured male leaders. Several types of organisation produced weak tendencies for women to be more effective than men: business, education, and government and social services. Earlier, Eagly and Johnson (1990) reported that, where there was

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male domination in a hierarchy, then the approach of men and women managers tended to homogenise around the male style. Eagly and Carli (2003), in an updated meta analysis, argued that, although historically leadership has been positioned as a “masculine enterprise” there is a probability in a contemporary context that “stereotypically feminine qualities of cooperation, mentoring and collaboration” are important to leadership. They suggest that reduction in hierarchy and increased collaboration between leader and follower are important contributory factors. A major element of this meta analysis focused on research conducted using the MFLQ instrument. Their meta analysis revealed (Eagly and Carli, 2003, p. 817) that, although differences were small, compared with male leaders female leaders were: . more transformational; and . engaged in more contingent reward behaviour. Male leaders were high on laissez faire leadership. They confirmed that male dominated environments can be difficult for women and identified further evidence for their incongruity hypothesis that women are relatively less effective in leadership roles defined in especially masculine terms, e.g. military organisations. Eagly and Carli’s (2003, p. 825) important conclusion is that: Transformational leadership may be especially advantageous for women because it encompasses some behaviours that are consistent with the female gender role’s demand for supportive considerate behaviours. This positive, encouraging, inspiring style appears to have generalized advantages for contemporary organisations.

Bass (1998, p. 77) confirmed that, in four separate investigations between 1986 and 1992, women displayed more transformational and less transactional behaviour than men. He also posits the idea that contemporary, less hierarchical, organisations require a more feminised management style. However, there is a noticeable lack of agreement amongst academics on the impact of gender on leadership behaviour. Vecchio (2003) states, in response to Eagly and Carli’s analysis, that such claims “ignore the overlap of the sexes in terms of their behavioural repertoire and individual adaptability”. He also criticised the MFLQ instrument, particularly studies where only the leader has self-reported and also because the methodology does not concern itself with situational contingencies. He suggests that the concept of gender advantage should be replaced by “gender-in-context” advantage: to remove the adversarial nature of the debate. He concludes (Vecchio, 2003, p. 847), rather pessimistically, that “seemingly insurmountable methodological issues prohibit researchers from providing a conclusive answer to the question of sex/gender advantages”. By contrast, Carless (1998) reports both men and women regarding women leaders as exhibiting a more transformational style including interpersonally-oriented behaviours such as participative decision-making, charisma, consideration, praising and nurturing behaviours. Male managers were described as directive, task-oriented and controlling. Stelter (2002), in her review and discussion of recent literature on gender differences in leadership behaviour and effectiveness, concludes that gender differences do exist, and men and women do lead differently. She makes the additional and important point that men and women are also “followed differently”.

Authentic leadership has also been identified as a distinct phenomenon. Goffee and Jones (2006, p. 15) talk about how followers “ above all [. . .] look for leaders who are authentic” and they define this, in part, as leaders who display a consistency between words and deeds and who communicate a consistent “sense of self”. Eagly (2005) examines, the concept of authentic leadership in a gender context, She describes heightened interest in this to a post 9/11 change where people “seek leaders who can collectively achieve a better more secure world”. With this concept the key issue is “knowing oneself” and she claims it receives consistent emphasis in descriptions of authenticity. She addresses a facet of this theory in the relationships between leaders and followers. She engages with the paradox where even if leaders carry out their role in a manner that reflects their values effectively, followers’ cooperation and identification with leaders’ goals does not necessarily follow. She critiques the theorists of authentic leadership because they appear to assume that followers ordinarily accept that the values revealed and promoted by their leaders advance the interests of the group organisation nation that they lead. She points out that in many communities, values are “contested ground” and that female leaders, more than male leaders, face challenges in achieving legitimacy as spokespersons for values that advance a community’s interests. This is particularly pointed in leadership roles where women are highly unusual. In this situation, even women who convey the conventional values of a community may find they do not receive their associates’ trust and identification. Of interest to this research, is her conclusion that where the leadership role requires highly authoritative or competitive behaviour that is perceived as masculine, for example female leaders in military settings, the mere fact that a woman occupies the role can yield disapproval. Her conclusion is that achieving relational authenticity for women in such positions is challenging because the advice to “know yourself and act on your beliefs” is fraught with problems where such role incongruity exists. There is also the complex issue of how women can be authentic in a masculine environment. Herbert (1998), in a military context, talks about the stress that women suffer in trying to arrive at a middle position between appearing too feminine or too masculine. If a woman is too feminine, this may lead to accusations of not being soldier like and using her sexuality to secure favours. On the other hand an overtly masculine approach, e g. swearing or drinking heavily may lack authenticity by “trying to be one of the lads” and so cast doubts about her sexuality. Interestingly, she comments that the range of sanctions applied when women were perceived to be too “feminine” included being ostracised or disapproved of by other women (Eagly, 2005, p. 65). Sheppard (1989), in an earlier study of Canadian women managers, had identified a similar issue. She describes how women had responded by developing a “blending” strategy: The blending depends on a very careful management of being “feminine” enough (i.e. in terms of appearance, self presentation, etc.) so that conventional rules and expectations of gender behaviour can be maintained by the men in the situation while simultaneously being “business like enough” (i.e. rational, competent, instrumental’ impersonal – in other words stereo typically masculine) so that the issues of gender and sexuality are apparently minimised in the workplace (Sheppard 1989, p. 146).

From this review of current literature on gender there is emerging research that women in contemporary management situations demonstrate a transformational

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leadership style. However, in situations that lack congeniality, women feel obliged to adopt the embedded masculine approach, or consciously adopt a blending strategy that balances their sexuality with perceived operational effectiveness. Research methodology The research design takes the Defence Academy of the UK as the research population. About 24 Army officers split 50:50 between men and women and covering the full range of Army roles from combat arms, combat support and CSS were identified using convenience sampling techniques. Their ranks ranged between junior officers at Captain level and middle ranking officers from Major to Lt Colonel. Interviewees were identified partly through personal knowledge, e.g. they were current or past students and partly by referral from senior officers. The interviewees were asked to pre identify two excellent and two poor leaders of both sexes, i.e. eight leaders in all, and also a “critical incident” of excellent/poor leadership they had personally experienced. Using Repertory Grid, a series of leadership constructs from the interviewees against which they rated the elements, or leaders, on a scale of 1-5 were elicited. Data from the critical incident was then analysed and compared to the constructs as a form of triangulation. Interviewees were also asked whether they considered the situation of female British Army officers to be congenial. Using content analysis, a Military Leadership Factor model (MLF) was developed and, using the variation derived from the Repertory Grid constructs, relative importance to the factors identified was assigned. The research design enabled the construction of a dialectical analysis model as shown below in Figure 1. Findings In the context of this paper, the research findings are summarised into two areas. Firstly, interviewees’ perception of the congeniality of the British Army for women. The congeniality aspect is important because the literature reviewed earlier in this paper has identified that a perceived lack of congeniality for women can possibly mask or distort their intuitive leadership styles. Secondly, the construction of a MLF from the interview data, and an analysis on whether the composition of MLF models differed according to gender. The paper focuses for this purpose on gap 5 in the dialectical model – how women construct leadership for women as leaders, compared to how men construct leadership for men as leaders. This was considered to be the key gap in terms of the research question. On congeniality there was a clear difference between how women perceived congeniality compared to men as shown in Table I. Gap 2 Women as leaders How Women construct

Figure 1. Dialectical analysis model

Gap 5

Gap 1

Women as leaders Gap 3

Gap 6 Men as leaders

Gap 4

Men as leaders

How Men construct

As an example of responses to the question, Interviewee 11 (Female – Major) said: No – I say no because in my experience, the first regiment I went to I was the only female officer, the other girls were clerks, and so I have never experienced a situation where there has been equal men and women.

Interviewee 4 (Male – Lt Col) took a very positive view to the question and identified that attitudes were evolving in this area:

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I think the answer to that is yes. I have been in the army for 23 years and I have seen a complete scene change. I mean it was a completely male dominated environment when I entered it, there was the Women’s Royal Army Corps and Queen Alexander’s Royal Army Nursing Corps and so forth doing very specific admin type or medical things and I have seen a sea change in the time I have been in and I think it’s particularly in the last, certainly ten years, just changed beyond all recognition. [. . .] My own view, [. . .], is that I think it’s extremely congenial, because as, its like all these things, you reach a critical mass as the novelty value wore off, shall we say, of increasing numbers of female officers and soldiers, filling appointments and proving as they invariably do that they can do them extremely well and for certain things, for me anyway and I think lots of my colleagues, growing recognition that there are certain things that they are actually naturally much better at.

A conclusion from the data is that, for women, the Army does lack congeniality although there is some evidence of progressive change. However, the male perspective is that the context for women is either congenial or certainly not as hostile as the women perceive it to be. This is a dangerous perception gap that could lead to increasing frustrations and misunderstandings on the part of both women and men. On the basis of the literature, we should expect to find that, in these circumstances, women may feel obliged either to replicate the dominant masculine leadership style, or adopt the type of blending strategies that were identified by Sheppard (1989). Turning now to the second area of research findings, this will summarise the MLF developed both from the constructs elicited from the Repertory Grid and also from data generated by the Critical Incidents reported. In all six factors were identified from Repertory Grid. These factors were also supported by the data produced from the Critical Incident section of the interviews. These factors, together with some typical key words elicited from the Rep Grid constructs, are given below together with a commentary. Professional competence: experienced, depth of knowledge, hard working, confident, consistent, decisive, robust This factor appears at odds with the literature. In industry, and key public sector organisations like the NHS, competence would be assumed as a given. However, its

Women’s view on congeniality of army for women (n ¼ 12)

Men’s view on congeniality of army for women (n ¼ 12)

8 2 2

4 5 3

Non congenial Congenial Dependent on circumstances Note: n ¼ number of interviewees

Table I. Comparison of female and male views on congeniality of the army for women

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importance here is explained by the nature of the military task. Knowing what to do, how to apply military doctrine, in one off operational or training situations is vital to the success of the enterprise. In addition, the lives and health of subordinates are at risk from incompetence.

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Relationship management: self aware, involves and respects others, calm and considered This does have a resonance with theory. Indeed, as Goffee and Jones (2006, p. 10) commented leadership must always be viewed as “a relationship between the leader and the led”. However, it surfaces here for different reasons. The military officer has of course, discretionary power to consult with subordinates. However, in the military culture, this can be perceived as a sign of weakness; a balance must be struck because, if the leader does not consult, poor decisions that put the team at risk, or expose officers to ridicule from their subordinates, are almost inevitable. Authenticity: moral courage, trustworthy, earns respect, no personal agenda, displays real self What is of particular interest is the subtle issue of altruism where respondents resented individuals who were perceived to have a private agenda and did not put organisational interests first. Again the importance of this lies in the nature of the military enterprise. Success follows from a joined up approach; weak leaders or underperforming leaders can compromise operations and place individuals in positions of danger or stress. A specific phrase moral courage was often used by respondents. It has a particular connotation in the Army being described as: . . . taking decisions which, though known to be right will probably prove unpopular [. . .] every time we turn a blind eye to action, or behaviour we know to be wrong, [. . .] we are in fact showing a lack of moral courage (RMAS, 2006).

Career profile: ambitious and successful, avoids “change for change sake” on new appointment Respondents valued individuals with a successful career path. The explanation for this lies in the nature of the organisation. The military concept of tours of duty, a new posting every few years, would not be appropriate in industry. However, in the military, an incoming commander can have a number of effects. If he or she is “career flatlining” then there may be no impetus to change if the unit has problems. This will lead to a lessening of the reputation of that unit. Reputation is important in the military. Alternatively an officer on a successful career path can invigorate and improve the standing of a unit to everyone’s advantage. However, because a new commander has only limited time to make an impact, there is a danger that he or she will implement local change in a coercive fashion, and motivated by self-aggrandizement. This has echoes of Machiavelli’s leadership philosophy – inflict pain or damage initially so that people take you seriously. Unfortunately, this can have devastating effects on a unit’s morale. Another, gendered issue, identified was the willingness, or not, of women to go on operational tours. This was seen as an acid test of commitment and some women officers were criticized in this area because they avoided postings in favour of looking to work where they lived.

Gender management: uses appropriate personal gender strategy to avoid adverse consequences both for self and operations This factor supports closely Sheppard (1989) and Herbert’s (1998) work Sheppard (1989) that identified how women managers, and females in the military had to develop a strategy for managing their gender in the workplace. Some of the sample constructs elicited were comparisons of being “laddish” compared to “ladylike” and “new woman” with “girly girl”. The overall finding is that women have to negotiate a tightrope. On the one hand, being too feminine risks losing respect. However, being too masculine undermines their credibility. Physical fitness: personal pride in own level of physical fitness This would be an unusual factor to figure in leadership studies but again its inclusion here is rooted in the nature of the military task. Physical prowess is important in the military operation. Each year, officers and other ranks have to complete a basic fitness test. A high capacity for physical endurance is important to success in certain military operations. The classic example is the British Army “yomping” across the hostile Falklands terrain to defeat the Argentineans. It is encouraged by a focus on sports and adventure. Also important is the issue of leading by example; the leader cannot expect troops to maintain interest in and a level of fitness if they themselves are not doing the same. The significance of these factors lies as much in what they exclude, as to what they include. The level of correlation with the Bass transformational leadership model is low. A further difference with contemporary theory is the exclusion of reference to change management, a factor closely associated with Kotter’s (1990) leadership model. The conundrum here is that MOD considers that it is experiencing transformational change (MOD, 2003). The explanation may lie in the structural nature of the Armed Forces and their high degree of interdependency. In effect it is a “system of systems”. Thus, change programmes are pan Army or pan Armed Forces, and driven by the centre either directly or facilitated by a change agent such as McKinseys. By their nature then they will be conceived at top level and be relatively long-term. Officers at the ranks interviewed will have limited amounts of autonomy in major change processes. However, there is an important issue of change deriving from local change initiated by newly appointed commanders. This is captured in the MLF model under the career profile factor. The data in Table II below summarise the gap (Gap 5) between how women construct female leadership and how men construct male leadership. The percentage of variation is obtained by the relative importance placed by interviewees on the constructs elicited by Repertory Grid. The table shows that there is a broad level of consistency apart from the issue of gender management, which was a significant issue for women but is non existent for men. This supports the work of Herbert (1998) and Sheppard (1989). There is also a slightly higher emphasis for women on relationship management than for men that may be indicative of a more transformational style. This is important, given the earlier argument that contemporary military operations require a transformational leadership style to be successful. In this sense it is claimed that men and women, in the sample interviewed, do lead in different ways. The findings also support the work of Eagly and Johnson (1990) and their view that, in a masculine environment, women will favour

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the prevailing leadership style. This raises an important issue: whether the androcentric nature of the Army context and its lack of congeniality is a constraint that suppresses an intuitive transformational leadership style in female Army officers. Several of the female interviewees did reveal an aspect of individualised consideration in their leadership style, as the example below demonstrates: Interviewer: I’m interested in this idea about taking an interest in people as individuals, you say that this is unusual for officers to do that? Interviewee (Lt Col – Female) Yes, absolutely, I mean I had a couple of soldiers who had some quite major family problems and one of them who had two autistic children had said that in his whole career, nobody had shown any compassion about his family situation and actually, all it meant was that he was marked down in his reports that he had a welfare problem, and he said that coming to the unit and actually having somebody who appreciated him for who he was and what work he did as opposed to his family commitments made all the difference to him and [. . .] a whole burden had been lifted, and he had been treated for depression everything else, he said that all that had gone because somebody had taken the time to find out about various things [. . .]

This is an important piece of primary data because it reveals something of the masculine culture of the Army but also the beneficial effects for the organisation that can flow from such transformational behaviour type interventions. Summary In summary, the research has demonstrated that the men and women Army officers interviewed do lead in different ways. It has also revealed an underlying tension amongst those women interviewed on the lack of congeniality that they experience in the work place. This lack of congeniality may, in turn, be masking or suppressing a more transformational leadership style, particularly in the area of individualised consideration. This unrealised transformational leadership potential could make a positive contribution to the Army’s military capability. This is because the contemporary military paradigm has some correlation with the complex nature of contemporary business models, which are deemed to require transformational leadership. It is ironic therefore that the research also identified that women officers experience an “armoured glass” ceiling in terms of career progression, because key appointments in the combat arms are denied to them by current MOD policy. The research has also developed a conceptual model of military leadership, the MLF that

Table II. Comparison of relative importance of MLF factors by women reporting on female leaders compared to men reporting on male leaders

Professional competence Relationship management Career orientation Authenticity Gender management Physical fitness

Women: women (n ¼ 27) Percentage of variation

Men: men (n ¼ 44) Parentage of variation

22 35 2 25 12 4

30 33 3 32 0 2

Notes: n ¼ the number of leaders analysed in the Repertory Grid; because of the relatively low number of women officers, some interviewees had difficulty in identifying the quota called for

differs from the transformational leadership model articulated by Bass and Avolio (1998). It also disconfirms contemporary leadership theory that conflates leadership and change management. The MLF model may, subject to more research, have considerable utility in terms of leadership development processes in the British Army and the other Armed Services.

British army leadership

479 References Alimo-Metcalfe, B. and Alban-Metcalfe, J. (2003), “Leadership: a masculine past but a feminine future?”, paper presented at BPS Occupational Psychology Conference, Bournemouth, 8-10 January. Bass, B.M. (1985), Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations, Free Press, New York, NY. Bass, B.M. (1998), Transformational Leadership Industrial, Military and Educational Impact, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, Hillsdale, NJ. Bass, B.M. and Avolio, B.J. (1998), Full Range Leadership Development Manual for the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, Mind Garden Inc., Redwood, CA. Blackmore, J. (1999), Troubling Women – Feminism, Leadership and Educational Change, OU Press, Buckingham. Butler, J. (1990), Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Routledge, London. Carless, S.A. (1998), “Gender differences in transformational leadership: an examination of supervisor, leader, and subordinate perspectives sex roles”, Journal of Research, Vol. 39, pp. 11-12. Cascio, W.F. (1995), “Whither industrial and organisational psychology in a changing world of work”, American Psychologist, Vol. 50, pp. 928-34. DASA (2007a), Table TSP 01 Strength Intake and Outflow of UK Regular Forces, Defence Agency for Statistical Analysis, Bath. DASA (2007b), Table TSP 09 Rank Structure of UK Regular Forces, Defence Agency for Statistical Analysis, Bath. Dubrin, A.J. (2001), Leadership Research Findings, Practice and Skills, 3rd ed., Houghton Mifflin, New York, NY. Dunn, M.D. (2005), “The armoured glass ceiling”, paper presented at 4th International Annual Conference on Leadership Research, University of Lancaster, 12-13 December. Eagly, A.H. (2005), “Achieving relational authenticity in leadership: does gender matter?”, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 16, pp. 459-74. Eagly, A.H. and Carli, L.L. (1995), “Gender and the effectiveness of leaders: a meta analysis”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 117 No. 1, pp. 125-45. Eagly, A.H. and Carli, L.L. (2003), “The female leadership advantage: an evaluation of the evidence”, Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 14, pp. 807-34. Eagly, A.H. and Johnson, B.T. (1990), “Gender and leadership style a meta analysis”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 108, pp. 233-56. EOC (2006), “Sex and power. Who runs Britain?”, Equal Opportunities Commission Report. Fiedler, F.E. (1967), A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Field, K. and Nagl, J. (2001), “Combat roles for women; a modest proposal”, Parameters, US Army War College, Quarterly, Summer, pp. 74-88.

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Goffee, R. and Jones, G. (2006), Why Should Anyone be Led by You? What it Takes to be an Authentic Leader, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA. Herbert, M.S. (1998), Camouflage isn’t Only for Combat, New York University Press, New York, NY. Hersey, P., Blanchard, K.H. and Johnson, D.E. (2001), Management of Organisational Behaviour, 8th ed., Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Kennedy-Pipe, C. and Welch, S. (2002), “Women in the military: future prospects and ways ahead”, in Alexandrou, A., Bartle, R. and Holmes, R. (Eds), New People Strategies for the British Armed Forces, Cass, London. Kotter, J. (1990), “What leaders really do”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 68 No. 1833, pp. 103-11. MacGregor Burns, J. (1978), Leadership, Harper & Row, New York, NY. MacGregor Burns, J. (2003), Transforming Leadership, Atlantic Press, London. MOD (2002), Women in the Armed Forces – A report by the Employment of Women in the Armed Forces Steering Group, May. MOD (2003), “Delivering security in a changing world”, Defence White Paper, Cm 60421-I. MOD (2006), MOD/Equal Opportunities Commission: Agreement on preventing and dealing effectively with sexual harassment. Dr Sarah Rutherford, Robin Schneider, Alexis Walmsley, 22 March. RMAS (2006), The Queen’s Commission A Junior Officer’s Guide, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Camberley. Rosenor, J.B. (1990), “Ways women lead”, Harvard Business Review, November/December, pp. 119-25. Sheppard, D.L. (1989), “The image and self image of women managers”, in Hearn, J. et al. (Eds), The Sexuality of Organization, Sage, London. Smith, R. General Sir (2005), The Utility of Force – The Art of War in the Modern World, Penguin Allen, London. Stelter, N.Z. (2002), “Gender differences in leadership: current social issues and future organisational implications”, Journal of Leadership and Organisational Studies, Flint, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 88, 12. Vecchio, R.P. (2003), “In search of gender advantage”, Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 14, pp. 835-50.

Further reading Bogdan, R. and Biklen, S. (1998), Qualitative Research for Education, Alleyn & Bacon, Boston, MA. Goffman, E. (1961), “The characteristics of total institutions”, in Etzioni, A. (Ed.), A Sociology and Reader on Complex Organisations, Holt Rinehart and Winston, Orlando, FL. March, J.G. and Olsen, P. (1984), “The new institutionalism organizational factors”, Political Life American Political Science Review, Vol. 78, pp. 738-49. March, J.G. and Olsen, P. (1996), Democratic Governance, Free Press, New York, NY. Rosenthal, R. (1966), Experimenter Effects in Behavioural Research, Appleton – Century-Crofts, New York, NY.

About the author Michael Dunn is based at Cranfield University’s campus at the Defence Academy of the UK at Shrivenham. He lectures on and researches into: Strategy, Leadership and Change Management and holds an MBA from the University of the West of England and a Doctorate in Education from Bristol University. He had a career in the telecoms industry, and was a senior manager at BT, before moving to Cranfield University to bring a management perspective to the study of the UK’s defence operations. His specific research interests are the impact of New Public Management on the defence sector, and the linked issue of leadership and gender in defence. He is currently Academic Leader for the Cranfield MSc in Defence Leadership Studies, and is Visiting Lecturer to the Baltic Defence College at Tarttu, Estonia. Michael Dunn can be contacted at: [email protected]

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Birgit Weyer Weyer und Hansen, GbR, Lindau, Germany Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this conceptual paper is to provide a theoretical explanation for the persistence of the glass ceiling keeping women from assuming leadership positions. Design/methodology/approach – The methodological approach of this paper is to compare and contrast social role theory and expectation states theory as theoretical underpinnings to explain the persistence of a glass ceiling for women leaders. Findings – Both social role theory and expectation states theory belong to the structural/cultural models describing differences between the genders. Social role theory and expectation states theory explicate diverse reasons for the emergence of these differences. However, both theories propose that gender differences will result in evaluation bias against women. Practical implications – As a result of evaluation bias against women, the glass ceiling phenomenon keeping women from assuming top leadership positions continues to occur. Originality/value – This paper is being written on the 20 year anniversary of the term glass ceiling being coined. It adds to the body of literature by closely examining two structural/cultural theories as possible causes to an invisible barrier which keeps women leaders from entering top level management positions. Keywords Women, Leadership, Glass ceilings, Social roles, Sexual discrimination, Gender Paper type Conceptual paper

Women in Management Review Vol. 22 No. 6, 2007 pp. 482-496 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0964-9425 DOI 10.1108/09649420710778718

Introduction Traditionally, the vast majority of top leadership positions in both the USA and throughout the world have been held by males rather than females (Stelter, 2002). Even though there is an increasing number of women who enter the workforce and an increasing number of managerial positions, women’s access to leadership positions remains limited (Black and Rothman, 1998; Eagly et al., 2003; Oakley, 2000; Ridgeway, 2001; Stelter, 2002). For example, of the Fortune 1000 companies documented in 2003, only 17 are led by women CEOs (Catalyst, 2003a). This corresponds to less than 2 percent of women serving as CEOs. Women Board Directors hold only 13.6 percent of Fortune 500 board seats (Catalyst, 2003b). As stated by the president of Catalyst (2003b), an organization for the advancement of women in business, this number does not adequately reflect the influence of women in managerial and leadership positions. Explanations for this phenomenon are varying. Among them is the assumption that women lack appropriate education and work experience (Carli and Eagly, 2001). However, numbers provided by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2004) show that of the executive, administrative, and managerial positions held in 2002, female leaders held approximately 46 percent. Thus, there is a strong indication that women have in fact the opportunity to collect the necessary general management/line experience

thought to be lacking. How then, can the lack of women in top leadership positions be explained? The glass ceiling An alternate explanation was introduced 20 years ago in 1986, when writers of the Wall Street Journal described the glass ceiling metaphor. The glass ceiling constitutes an invisible barrier for women and minority groups, preventing them from moving up the corporate ladder (Carli and Eagly, 2001; Ridgeway, 2001; Townsend, 1997). Oakley (2000) argued that these three categories explain the barriers that result in a glass ceiling: (1) corporate practices such as recruitment, retention, and promotion; (2) behavioral and cultural causes such as stereotyping and preferred leadership style; and (3) structural and cultural explanations rooted in feminist theory. Researchers of a study surveying over 1,200 women in Fortune 1000 companies came to the conclusion that “obstacles to women’s advancement are not intentional” (Townsend, 1997, p. 6). Yet, as demonstrated in the labor market statistics described above, gender appears to be affecting the advancement of women in a detrimental fashion. Theories and models accounting for the emergence of gender-related behaviors in organizations, and thus the creation of a glass ceiling, fall into three categories: (1) biological explanations; (2) socialization explanations; and (3) structural/cultural explanations (Lueptow et al., 2001). Biological models argue that there are biological differences between men and women. These differences are thought to be a result of an “evolutionary model postulating constant gendered differences based on genetic patterns evolved from adaptation to differing reproductive challenges of early males and females” (Lueptow et al., p. 1). From a psychological perspective, biologically based models explain stable biological differences between genders as a result of psychological dispositions. These different psychological profiles of the sexes have evolved over time (Wood and Eagly, 2002). Today, biological models and evolutionary models usually are not employed in the context of leadership differences between men and women leaders (Lueptow et al.). Instead, socialization and structural/cultural explanations have received much more attention than biological models (Bartol et al., 2003) and have been called “the most accepted explanation for gender differences” (Lueptow et al., 2001, p. 1). Both models are social constructionist accounts of differences between genders. Social constructionist theories have argued that biological differences do not have a fixed meaning across cultures-rather, it is societal expectations that produce and maintain inequality between genders (Wood and Eagly, 2002). More specifically, authors of socialization theories argued, “gender identity and differences are acquired through various developmental processes associated with life stages, such as schooling and work life” (Bartol et al., p. 9), and therefore are based on individuals’ socialization.

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In contrast to biological models, structural/cultural models proposed that “social structures, systems, and arrangements that channel and define gender differences due to discrepancies in status and power” (Bartol et al., 2003, p. 9) are the cause for differences in leadership attributed to gender. According to the distribution of different social roles between men and women, relatively stable patterns of behavior are displayed (Deaux and Major, 1987; Lueptow et al., 2001).

484 Social role theory Within the structural/cultural explanations, two theories – social role theory (Eagly, 1987) and expectation states theory (Berger et al., 1980) – are prominent. At the core of both of these theories is the concept that men and women are allocated different roles in society due to their gender. In particular, the family and occupational setting contribute to the allocation of roles defined solely on the basis of gender. Men and women are assumed to possess qualities that ideally predispose them for the different roles they typically occupy (Eagly and Karau, 1991). Connected to social roles, there are specific expectations that are held toward individuals occupying a particular position or membership of a specific social category (Eagly et al., 2003). In the organizational setting, leaders occupy roles that are defined in terms of hierarchy. At the same time, however, the organizational leader is bound by roles related to gender. These roles are developed from consensual beliefs within society about the attributes of women and men and are based solely on gender. Social role theory argues that women and men leaders behave somewhat differently because gender roles exert some influence on leadership roles in terms of the expectations they and others hold (Eagly, 1987). In addition, social role theory argues that there is bias in the evaluation of women leaders, caused by the gap between the raters’ stereotypes about women and the raters’ implicit constructs of leadership (Forsyth et al., 1997). Expectation states theory According to Ridgeway (2001), expectation states theory predicts similar effects of behavior and evaluation as social role theory. However, expectation states theory expands upon social role theory and implies that “it is the status element of gender stereotypes that cause such stereotypes to act as distinctively powerful barriers to women’s achievement of positions of authority, leadership, and power” (p. 638). Whereas social role theory proposes that bias in evaluations is based upon the incongruence of roles held by women, expectation states theory proposes that the lower status of women causes bias in evaluations. Ridgeway posited that simple structural conditions are the cause for gender to acquire an independent status value in our society. Status value is created when “consensual cultural beliefs indicate that persons who have one state of the characteristic (e.g. whites or males) are more worthy in the society than those with another state of the characteristic (blacks or females)” (p. 368). Such status characteristics include, but are not limited to, age, gender, race, ethnicity, education, occupation, and physical attractiveness. Expectation states theory distinguishes between: . nominal characteristics such as gender or race, where individuals are perceived in a categorical way; and

.

ordinal characteristics such as wealth or education, where individuals are perceived on a continuum of, for example, low education to high education.

Within society, there are general beliefs about the overall competence and capacity of individuals with a specific characteristic. According to expectation states theory, each status characteristic has its own independent status value and carries a distinctive set of stereotypical traits shared in society through status beliefs (Berger et al., 1980). In addition, expectation states theory proposes status characteristics that range from specific to diffuse. Specific status characteristics are associated with performance expectations in a limited area, whereas diffuse status characteristics are associated with performance in a wide area of tasks (Foschi, 2000). Berger et al. (1980, p. 479) argued that “observable inequalities in face-to-face social interaction” are used to construct status characteristics. For example, when members in a problem-solving group interact outside their specific tasks, stable interrelated inequalities arise, such as the number of times an individual speaks up. In turn, these inequalities lead to expectations for future performance. Paired with prior beliefs and evaluations of the individual’s characteristics, and with the interaction that depends on them, stable inequalities perpetuate themselves. As mentioned earlier, there are a number of different status characteristics; among them is gender (Berger et al., 1980). Evidence that gender is a salient status characteristic leading to inequalities is indicated by: . the congruence of the traits that differentiate between genders; . men being evaluated more positively; and . more favorable traits associated with men than women (Berger et al., 1980). While these status inequalities arise at the individual or micro level of interaction, they influence impact at the group or macro level of society. In this way “gender status beliefs create a network of constraining expectations and interpersonal reactions that is a major cause of the ‘glass ceiling’” (Ridgeway, 2001, p. 637). Contrast and comparison Gender-role stereotypes The literature on both social role theory and expectation states theory distinguishes between achievement-oriented or agentic, and social-service-oriented or communal attributes. Agentic characteristics and behaviors have been documented as assertiveness, ambition, competing for attention, and making problem-focused suggestions. Communal behaviors have been described as speaking tentatively, supporting and soothing others, and being helpful and sympathetic. Generally, agentic traits are ascribed to men and communal behaviors are ascribed to women (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001; Moskowitz et al., 1994). According to their biological identity, each gender is assigned a certain way it is expected to behave. The roles assigned by society according to an individual’s gender are termed gender-roles (Jolly, 2000). The female gender-role is distinctly communal in content and the male gender-role is distinctly agentic in content (Eagly and Karau, 1991). Thus, gender-roles are stereotypical in nature (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001;

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Eagly and Karau, 1991; Ridgeway, 2001) and are biased. From this bias, discrimination toward either of the sexes may arise. Gender-role stereotypes are consensual beliefs about character traits that describe men and women (Berger et al., 1980; Deaux and Major, 1987). They are a reflection of the public perception of differences in personality traits and behaviors related to a person’s gender (Lueptow et al., 2001; Moskowitz et al., 1994). Activation of gender-related constructs is dependent on the perceiver, the target, and the situation. Thus, gender-related constructs are highly complex and interrelated. However, as Deaux and Major stated, “Gender attribution is a universal process, taking precedence over many other forms of categorization” (p. 376). While social change over the past 50 years has been widespread, research has shown that it has not been followed by a change in gender stereotyping. In their meta-analysis of research on leadership and gender, Lueptow et al. (2001, p. 1) found that: . . . there has been stability in sex typing of women and men from at least the 1950s to the late 1990s, and even an increase in sex typing, especially regarding the stereotypes and self concepts focusing upon the personality traits of women.

Similar to status beliefs, it is assumed that gender-role stereotypes, which appear pervasive and innate, are produced through interaction. Along with social and gender-roles, expectations are held as to how an individual of a specific gender is to behave (Karakowsky and Siegel, 1999). Social role theory argues, “sex differences in social behavior are in part caused by the tendency of people to behave consistently with their gender-roles” (Eagly and Karau, 1991, p. 685). Living up to these expectations, women tend to specialize in behaviors that are more social service oriented in nature, while men tend to exhibit more achievement-oriented behaviors, consistent with the communal and agentic behaviors assigned to them (Eagly and Karau). According to the findings of Eagly and Karau (2002), differences in the expectations toward gender-based roles may lead to prejudice toward female leaders and potential female leaders. However, bias related to gender-role stereotyping may also have detrimental effects on male leaders who do not behave according to social and gender-roles. With regard to gender stereotypes, expectation states theory stresses in particular the role of status beliefs that “link greater social significance and general competence, as well as specific positive and negative skills, with one category of a social distinction (e.g. men) compared to another (e.g. women)” (Ridgeway, 2001, p. 638). Once established, status beliefs and the resulting social hierarchies are shared by both the dominant and the subordinate group of individuals. This holds particularly true when group members have frequent opportunity to interact as part of daily life, as is the case with men and women in the USA (Berger et al., 1980). Owing to this frequent interaction and interdependence, members of both the dominant and subordinate groups share society’s respective beliefs about the higher or lower status of each group (Ridgeway). For example, women perceive women as a group to be lower in status than men as a group (Berger et al.). Congruence of gender-roles and leadership roles Social role theory research has indicated, “gender-roles spill over to organizational roles” (Eagly and Johnson, 1990, p. 233) and may thus influence organizational-role expectations. However, social role theory also argues that:

. . . leadership roles should be of primary importance in organizational settings because these roles lend their occupants legitimate authority and are usually regulated by relatively clear rules about appropriate behavior (p. 570).

In addition, social role theory proposes that the influence of gender-roles can be lessened through the existence of other roles an individual holds (Eagly et al., 2003). In contrast, expectation states theory argues that gender and the related gender-roles are considered an implicit background identity (Ridgeway, 2001). Therefore, according to expectation states theory, gender-roles exert tremendous influence in the workplace. As described earlier, related to the group members’ assumption that status beliefs are widely held, members of the subordinate groups tend to behave in accordance with expectations they believe are held toward their specific status. This holds particularly true in public places such as the work place (Ridgeway). For example, research by Moskowitz et al. (1994) argues that in organizational settings women tend to behave more communally, especially in interactions with men. Therefore, consistent with expectation states theory, researchers assume that organizational roles, such as the leadership role, are not strong enough for gender-roles to be abandoned. Similar to gender-roles, leadership has been associated with specific traits. Throughout the ages, the leadership-role has been viewed as distinctively male in nature (Alimo-Metcalfe, 1998). This results in possible disadvantages for women caused by either descriptive or prescriptive norms of gender-roles (Ridgeway, 2001). Social role theory argues that in the former case, the leadership potential of women is evaluated more negatively than men because leadership ability is regarded as more typically male. Descriptive beliefs about women’s behavior and characteristics are seen as different from those behaviors expected in a leader. Prescriptive beliefs lead to a less favorable evaluation of women’s actual leadership behavior because a more agentic type of leadership behavior is not expected from a woman (Eagly and Karau, 2002). Through descriptive and prescriptive beliefs, a no-win situation may be created for women leaders (Putnam, 1983): Conforming to their gender-role can produce a failure to meet requirements of their leader role, and conforming to their leader role can produce a failure to meet the requirements of their gender-role (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001, p. 786).

In particular, leadership roles that are male-dominated or generally regarded as necessitating male qualities will result in increased prejudice against female leaders (Eagly and Karau, 2002). For example, a meta-analysis on studies investigating the emergence of leadership found that in natural settings, men tend to emerge as leaders of groups (Eagly and Karau, 1991). However, the same study also identified moderator variables that influence the likelihood of men to emerge as leaders. These moderators include, but are not limited to, social complexity of the task, gender-role stereotyping of the task, and amount of interaction between group members. Eagly and Karau (1991, p. 692) concluded: The tendency for men to be chosen as leaders should not be interpreted as a blind tendency to choose men over women, despite behavioral equivalence of the sexes. Rather, the tendency to choose men may instead reflect a tendency to define leadership in terms of task-oriented contributions.

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In other words, it is not that leaders are mostly men because men are preferred as leaders. Rather, most leaders are men because leadership is described as a task that requires behaviors deemed masculine. Thus, if women become leaders, they are likely to behave in a manner that is not expected of their gender based on gender-role stereotypes, and they therefore may have to fear negative consequences. As discussed earlier, task-orientation has been related to male gender stereotypes in leadership. Task-related behaviors include such cues as tone of voice, assertive gestures, participation, and task suggestions (Ridgeway, 2001). Both social role theory and expectation states theory predict that the nature of the task and its gender-role stereotyping will affect the emergence of leadership. Therefore, when a task is more stereotypically female, women tend to be more assertive and influential than men (Wagner and Berger, 1997). From a status expectation point of view, there exists a psychological need for individuals to make sense of what they experience and the interests of the dominant group to account for the prescriptive norms of gender-roles (Berger et al., 1980). In this way, an individual interprets what is perceived as reality and what the content is of their expectations. In the context of leadership, the dominant group has an interest in maintaining a status advantage over the subordinate group; therefore, those elements of the stereotype that represent the greatest distinction between groups are likely to be enforced. According to this reasoning, Ridgeway (2001, p. 642) argues; . . . the enforcement of behavioral expectations created by the status elements of stereotypes creates a legitimacy process that affects the ability of women leaders to exercise directive power and achieve compliance.

Expectation states theory contends, “Leadership is based on both the assertive, task-related behavior of the would-be leader and the shared, socially constructed evaluation of that behavior in the situations” (p. 642). Gender and self-expectation As outlined, individuals hold expectations for what is deemed appropriate leadership behavior. Leaders toward their own performance also hold these expectations. Specifically, expectation states theory argues that when individuals, such as leaders and followers, interact, they look for indications of how to behave. Institutional roles, such as those inherent in the workplace, are general indicators but leave much room for variation. Therefore, the individual will resort to making a judgment about the value of his or her contribution toward the task and then decide on appropriate behavior. Expectation states theory argues that gender and the corresponding gender-role stereotypes will almost instantly be a deciding factor in the evaluation process (Ridgeway, 2001). Furthermore, authors of social role theory contend “female leaders have internalized gender-stereotypic reservations about their capability for leadership” (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001, p. 790). In a landmark study, Eagly and Johnson (1990) found leaders’ self-ratings of their task and interpersonal styles to reflect many more stereotypes than the ratings given by the leaders’ subordinates. In a related study, Carless (1998) found evidence that female managers rate themselves as more transformational than males, specifically at the behavioral level related to interpersonal-orientation. However, evaluation of female and male leaders by their subordinates showed equal ratings. One of the possible explanations for these findings offered by the researcher is that female managers occupying a typical male

role may see a particular need to “see themselves as using traditional feminine behaviors when managing their staff” (p. 894). Similarly, Lewis and Fagenson-Eland (1998, p. 491) found that “leaders’ perceptions of their own leadership behaviors were more gender-role stereotypic than those of their supervisors”. These findings were explained by the suggestion that leaders in organizational settings seem to hold gender-role stereotypes that may result in gender-centered models of the self. According to Cross and Madson (1997), this is further evidence to assume that differences between men and women are differences related to differing cognitive constructs of the self resulting from social roles. In summary, both social role theory and expectation states theory argue that gender-roles have an influence on organizational behavior because individuals react to leaders with gendered expectancies regarding leadership behavior. In return, leaders respond because of their internalized gender-role. According to their gender, they create different expectations for their own behavior in the organizational setting. This results in a tendency for competition between the demands of the male and female gender-role and the leadership-role. Therefore, these expectations may influence differences in leadership style and leadership behavior in men and women leaders (Eagly et al., 2003) as described in more detail below. Leadership style and behavior Whether women and men really are equal when it comes to exhibiting leadership style and behavior has received persistent attention as a topic of research during the past three decades (Alimo-Metcalfe, 1998; Bartol et al., 2003; Burke and Collins, 2001; Maher, 1997). As stated by Eagly and Johnson (1990, p. 233), it is a “topic of considerable complexity”. However, because it is assumed that a “leader’s own behavior is a major determinant of their effectiveness and chances for advancement” (Eagly et al., 2003, p. 570), it is an important issue to clarify. In principle, the attempts to clarify the issue can be divided into two separate schools of thought as outlined in the following: (1) researchers who propose a minimization of differences; and (2) investigators who endorse stable differences between the genders (Deaux and Major, 1987; Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). Both approaches hold potential pitfalls. On the one hand, it is feared that a minimization of differences may lead to a lack of acknowledgement of the potentially superior performance of women leaders. On the other hand, accentuation of differences in leadership style and behavior may lead to a discrimination of females from leadership positions (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt). Possibly, this difference in approaches leads to quite different reports of findings related to the study of differences in leadership styles of men and women. For example, some researchers report that female and male leaders do not differ, and other researchers minimize the importance of any differences reported (Eagly et al., 2003). Alimo-Metcalfe (1998, p. 38) reports, “up until the early 1990s most studies investigating whether there are significant differences between the sexes in leadership style concluded that there were no major sex differences.” Usually these studies investigated differences between the task-oriented style of leadership and the interpersonally-oriented leadership style (Alimo-Metcalfe). Some other studies also

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examined differences between leaders who behave more democratically and those that act in an autocratic fashion (Eagly et al., 2003). However, Rosener (1990) published a study that significantly added to the findings relating to male and female differences in leadership style (Alimo-Metcalfe, 1998). Employing the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), which incorporates transactional and transformational leadership scales, as well as managementby-exception measures, significant differences between the sexes in leadership style emerged (Alimo-Metcalfe). Specifically, Rosener found that male leaders tend to use rewards and punishment to influence performance, a behavior generally more associated with transactional leadership styles. On the other hand, women leaders tend to employ a leadership style built upon interpersonal relationships and the sharing of power and information, usually associated with transformational leadership. Eagly et al. (2003) argue that women might favor the transformational leadership style as it comes closer to the communal behavior expected of the leader in her gender role. As outlined earlier, transformational leadership behaviors are associated with feminine connotations. Therefore, women may readily accept communal norms related to transformational leadership style as their own. A comprehensive research project by Eagly and Johnson (1990) included 162 studies conducted between 1961 and 1987. All of the studies investigated gender and leadership style along the dimensions of democratic, autocratic, task-orientation, and interpersonal orientation. In this meta-analysis, Eagly and Johnson separated laboratory experiments and assessment studies, which were defined as research assessing the styles of individuals in non-leadership positions, from organizational studies in which leadership styles of leaders were examined. The researchers found that in the experimental setting, women tended to manifest relatively interpersonally-oriented and democratic styles, while men tended to manifest relatively task-oriented and autocratic styles. However, in studies conducted in organizational settings, women’s leadership styles were only slightly more democratic or participative and less autocratic and directive than the leadership style of men (Eagly and Johnson, 1990). As a consequence, it is argued that leadership style findings that result from an experimental study design tend to be more gender stereotypic in nature than studies conducted in a natural setting. Like earlier studies, findings indicate few differences in leadership style between men and women in organizational settings. Adding most recent data, a further meta-analysis of leadership studies conducted between 1987 and 2000 has shown similar findings (Eagly et al., 2003). Other studies investigating differences in leadership style between men and women have supported these findings of small differences in leadership styles between genders (Bass and Avolio, 1993; Bass et al., 1996; Carless, 1998; Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). However, there are also a number of studies that have found differences between the leadership style of men and women to be notably absent (Bass and Avolio, 1993; Lewis and Fagenson-Eland, 1998; Maher, 1997). To come to a final conclusion on whether there are any differences in leadership style between men and women, further research is necessary. From the perspective of social role theory, similarities in the leadership behavior observed in men and women are due to leadership roles that provide norms to guide the performance of many tasks. Moskowitz et al. (1994) found support for this

hypothesis when tested with regard to agentic behavior at work. However, “gender role, not social role was found to influence communal behaviors” (p. 758). Because most routine tasks to be accomplished by a leader leave little room for freedom of choice. Therefore, male and female leaders use similar behaviors to fulfill their leadership tasks (Moskowitz et al.). It is those tasks where leaders have the possibility to display personal preferences, such as visioning of future goals, where men and women tend to exhibit more differences in leadership style. As argued earlier, women leaders tend to encounter particular problems caused by status. Specifically, when women exert authority over men, are highly competent, or use dominant styles of communication, they may face resistance (Carli and Eagly, 2001). Using transformational leadership behaviors in combination with contingent reward behaviors, women leaders may be able to offset some of the discrimination they face in leadership roles (Eagly et al., 2003). Most recently, this hypothesis has been tested via a meta-analysis of studies, comparing the general tendencies of men and women to adopt transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles (Eagly et al., 2003). Many of the studies included in the meta-analysis used the MLQ or similar instruments to identify the three leadership styles. MLQ has been called the most widely used measure of transformational and transactional leadership style. Transformational leadership is measured through five subscales which are: (1) idealized influence; (2) charisma; (3) inspirational motivation; (4) intellectual stimulation; and (5) individualized consideration. Transactional leadership is measured through three subscales: (1) contingent reward; (2) management by exception (active); and (3) management by exception (passive). The laissez-faire leadership style is measured through one subscale called performance and maintenance orientation. Each subscale contains four items (Aviolo et al., 1999). Results of the meta-analysis demonstrate that female leaders tend to use more transformational leadership styles than men (Eagly et al., 2003). Overall, a female advantage is demonstrated on the transformational subscales of charisma, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Furthermore, Eagly et al. (2003) reported that female leaders have higher ratings on the contingent reward subscale measuring transactional leadership. Consequently, the researchers contend that, consistent with social role theory, both gender-roles and leadership roles influence leadership styles. Because individuals tend to behave according to the gender-roles and leadership roles assigned through the individual’s gender, significant differences between genders emerge regarding leadership styles. According to Eagly et al. (2003, p. 577), “these data attest to the

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ability of women to perform very well in leadership roles in contemporary organizations.” However, predictions according to social role theory and expectation states theory argue that the evaluation of women in leadership positions does not adequately reflect the performance of women as transformational leaders. Gender bias and evaluation As stated, social role theory posits that individuals have expectations about appropriate behavior for women and men. However, social role theory also argues that in an organizational setting, individuals develop expectations for the appropriate behavior associated with leadership. While expectations toward gender-role behavior are more general in nature, expectations toward leadership behavior are task-specific. It is because of these task-specific expectations that leadership roles might be predicted as more important determinants of performance than gender roles. At the same time, the theory argues, “leaders are perceived simultaneously in terms of their sex and their organizational role” (Eagly et al., 1992, p. 127). Consequently, social role theory argues that when female leaders are evaluated, they may be perceived somewhat less favorably than male leaders because their assigned gender role and the leadership role do not match. Predictions derived from expectation states theory are similar. Related to status, the genders hold different performance expectations for one another and themselves. As a result, there is bias in self-evaluation and the evaluations of others. However, expectation states theory also stresses the importance of task relevance for evaluation. That is, when a task is specifically associated with men, as leadership often is, women’s performance tends to be less positively evaluated (Ridgeway, 2001). Based on expectation states theory, Foschi (2000, p. 21) argues, “most social interactions involve comparisons across participants, their attributes and their actions.” Usually, the comparison includes evaluation against some implicit or explicit standard. Depending on whether the standards against which an individual is compared are high or low, further expectations are formed. Individuals who are of a lower social status (e.g. women) “will have their successful performances scrutinized since these are inconsistent with status and then assessed by a stricter standard than similar performances by higher status actors” (Foschi, p. 25). Therefore, according to both social role theory and expectation states theory, it is posited that gender influences the way individuals are perceived by others, perceive others, and perceive themselves (Korabik, 1997). As such, gender is a particularly salient stimulus that has an effect on feedback and evaluations (Becker et al., 2002) and the expectations raters hold toward the ratee. As argued by Heilman (2001, p. 657), “gender bias in evaluation is a primary cause” for the lack of women at the top level of organizations. There is some empirical research to support this assumption. For example, Eagly et al. (1992) conducted a meta-analysis of 61 studies that investigated gender and the evaluation of leaders. For a study to be included in the meta-analysis, it had to fulfill several criteria. First, gender of the leader had to be an independent variable. Second, characteristics of the leader other than gender were held constant throughout the study. Third, there was an element of evaluation included in the study. The results of this meta-analysis indicate that female leaders were evaluated in a less positive way than male leaders. More than half of the comparisons between the

evaluations of male and female leaders showed bias related to the gender of the leader. Several factors influenced how the female and male leaders were rated. For example, measures that were evaluative of the leader’s competence resulted in evidence for stronger devaluation of women than those measures that investigated perceptions of leadership style. Furthermore, the portrayal of leadership style against which a leader was evaluated as either masculine or feminine was found to influence findings significantly. As might be expected, the portrayal of a masculine leadership style produced a larger difference in favor of male leaders (Eagly et al., 1992). This finding is consistent with Heilman et al. (1989), who report a higher congruence between the ratings of men and successful managers than between the ratings of women and successful managers. Expanding on the Heilman et al. study, Brenner et al. (1989) found in a similar research project that men associated successful management more with men than with women. Women, however, related successful management comparably with men and women. Similarly, Chung (2001) found evidence for male and female rater bias against successful female managers, providing support for the argument that raters apply different cognitive constructs or constructs of leadership when providing male or female leaders with feedback. Foschi (2000) provided support for the concept of double standards caused by differences in status in an experimental research review. While some of the studies included in this meta-analysis defined ethnicity or age as the independent variable, most studies chose gender of the ratee as the independent variable. Overall, the meta-analysis indicated that “experimental research provides clear evidence of stricter standards for women than for men when both perform at the same level and performance evaluations are objective” (p. 39). In a further study investigating bias in appraisal of women leaders, Forsyth et al. (1997) examined group members’ implicit leadership constructs, coupled with their stereotypes about men and women. The results indicated that overall “attitudes toward women, and not biological gender, accounted for appraisals” (p. 100). The study also showed that bias toward women was not restricted to men, but also was observed in women raters. This finding mirrors predictions made by structural-based models of the glass ceiling. According to social role theory and expectation states theory, the reasons for the difference in ratings of individuals who hold identical leadership roles but hold different gender roles can be found in the expectancies of the rater toward the feedback recipient (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001). These expectancies are based on the ratee’s social role and/or status allocated in society, and may well lead to bias in evaluation or double standards in honoring successful performance. Summary and conclusion Social role theory and expectation states theory are very much related and yet different. Social role theory stresses that any differences in leadership behavior result from both genders behaving according to the perceptions related to their assigned gender roles (Eagly, 1987). Expectation states theory argues that differences in leadership behavior are related to performance expectations of the leader toward themselves and others as they are created through a difference in status and power between male and female leaders (Ridgeway, 2001). Both theories suggest that elements of the social structure are causes for the continued existence of the glass ceiling that keeps women from advancing to top-level

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leadership positions. Social role theory and expectation states theory are both grounded in the belief that inequalities between men and women are caused by the greater social significance and general competence attributed to men over women (Carli and Eagly, 2001; Karakowsky, and Siegel, 1999; Ridgeway, 2001). Rooted in social role theory and expectation states theory, it is therefore assumed that “gender bias in evaluation is a primary cause” (Heilman, 2001, p. 657) for the glass ceiling and thus the scarce number of women in top leadership positions. In order for the glass ceiling to be shattered, it is necessary for social structures to change. In particular, women have to be assigned greater social significance and general competence. The difference in status and power between male and female employees and leaders has to be reduced, if more women are to take on top leadership positions in corporations and the public sector. What can be done at the societal, organizational, and individual level in order to further expedite change of social structures which impede the development of more women into top leadership positions is the subject of further research. References Alimo-Metcalfe, B. (1998), “360 degree feedback and leadership development”, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 35-44. Aviolo, B.J., Bass, B.M. and Jung, D.I. (1999), “Re-examining the components of transformational and transactional leadership using the mulitfactor leadership questionnaire”, Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, Vol. 72 No. 4, pp. 441-62. Bartol, K.M., Martin, D.C. and Kromkowski, J.A. (2003), “Leadership and the glass ceiling: gender and ethnic group influences on leader behaviors at middle and executive managerial levels”, Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 8-20. Bass, B.M. and Avolio, B.J. (1993), “Transformational leadership and organizational culture”, Public Administration Quarterly, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 112-9. Bass, B.M., Aviolo, B.J. and Atwater, L. (1996), “The transformational and transactional leadership of men and women”, Applied Psychology: An International Review, Vol. 45 No. 1, pp. 5-34. Becker, J., Ayman, R. and Korabik, K. (2002), “Discrepancies in self/subordinates’ perceptions of leadership behavior: leader’s gender, organizational context, leader’s self-monitoring”, Group & Organization Management, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 226-45. Berger, J., Rosenholtz, S.J. and Zelditch, M. Jr (1980), “Status organizing processes”, Sociology, Vol. 6, pp. 479-508. Black, A.E. and Rothman, S. (1998), “Have you really come a long way? Women’s access to power in the United States”, Gender Issues, Vol. 16 Nos 1/2, pp. 107-34. Brenner, O.C., Tomkiewicz, J. and Schein, V.E. (1989), “The relationship between sex-role stereotypes and requisite management characteristics revisited”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 662-9. Burke, S. and Collins, M. (2001), “Gender differences in leadership styles and management skills”, Women in Management Review, Vol. 16 Nos 5/6, pp. 244-57. Carless, S.A. (1998), “Gender differences in transformational leadership: an examination of superior, leader, and subordinate perspectives”, Sex-roles: A Journal of Research, Vol. 39 Nos 11/12, pp. 887-98. Carli, L.L. and Eagly, A.H. (2001), “Sex, hierarchy, and leadership: an introduction”, Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 57 No. 4, pp. 629-36.

Catalyst (2003a), “Fact sheet: women CEOs”, October, available at: http://catalystwomen.org/ press_room/factsheets/factwicl.htm (accessed January 4, 2004). Catalyst (2003b), “Despite women’s gains in business, their representation on America’s corporate boards barely improves”, press release, December 4, available at: http:// catalystwomen.org/press_room/pressreleases.htm (accessed January 4, 2004). Chung, J. (2001), “The effects of rater sex and ratee sex on managerial performance evaluation”, Australian Journal of Management, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 147-63. Cross, S.E. and Madson, L. (1997), “Models of the self: self-construals and gender”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 122 No. 1, pp. 5-37. Deaux, K. and Major, B. (1987), “Putting gender into context: an interactive model of gender-related behavior”, Psychological Review, Vol. 94 No. 3, pp. 369-89. Eagly, A.H. (1987), Sex Differences in Social Behavior: A Social-role Interpretation, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ. Eagly, A.H. and Johannesen-Schmidt, M.C. (2001), “The leadership styles of women and men”, Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 57 No. 4, pp. 781-97. Eagly, A.H. and Johnson, B.T. (1990), “Gender and leadership style: a meta-analysis”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 108 No. 2, pp. 233-56. Eagly, A.H. and Karau, S.J. (1991), “Gender and the emergence of leaders: a meta-analysis”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 69 No. 5, pp. 685-710. Eagly, A.H. and Karau, S.J. (2002), “Congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders”, Psychological Review, Vol. 109 No. 3, pp. 573-98. Eagly, A.H., Johannesen-Schmidt, M.C. and van Engen, M.L. (2003), “Transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles: a meta-analysis comparing women and men”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 129 No. 4, pp. 569-91. Eagly, A.H., Makhijani, M.G. and Klonsky, B.C. (1992), “Gender and the evaluation of leaders: a meta-analysis”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 111 No. 1, pp. 2-22. Forsyth, D.R., Heiney, M.M. and Wright, S.S. (1997), “Biases in appraisals of women leaders”, Group Dynamics, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 98-103. Foschi, M. (2000), “Double standards for competence: theory and research”, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 26, pp. 21-42. Heilman, M.E. (2001), “Description and prescription: how gender stereotypes prevent women’s ascent up the organizational ladder”, Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 57 No. 4, pp. 657-74. Heilman, M.E., Block, C.J., Martell, R.F. and Simon, M.C. (1989), “Current characteristics of men, women, and managers”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 74 No. 6, pp. 935-42. Jolly, S. (2000), “‘Queering’ development: exploring the links between same-sex sexualities, gender, and development”, Gender and Development, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 78-88. Karakowsky, L. and Siegel, J.P. (1999), “The effects of proportional representation and gender orientation of the task on emergent leadership behavior in mixed-gender work groups”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 84 No. 4, pp. 620-31. Korabik, K. (1997), “Applied gender issues”, in Sadava, S.W. and McCreary, D.R. (Eds), Applied Social Psychology, Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, pp. 145-78. Lewis, A.E. and Fagenson-Eland, E.A. (1998), “The influence of gender and organization level on perceptions of leadership behaviors: A self and supervisor comparison”, Sex-roles: A Journal of Research, Vol. 39 Nos 5/6, pp. 479-503. Lueptow, L.B., Garovich-Szabo, L. and Lueptow, M.B. (2001), “Social change and the persistence of sex typing: 1974-1997”, Social Forces, Vol. 80 No. 1, pp. 1-32. .

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Maher, K. (1997), “Gender-related stereotypes of transformational and transactional leadership”, Sex-Roles, Vol. 37 Nos 3/4, pp. 209-25. Moskowitz, D.S., Suh, E.J. and Desaulniers, J. (1994), “Situational influences on gender differences in agency and communion”, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 66 No. 4, pp. 753-61. Oakley, J.G. (2000), “Gender-based barriers to senior management positions: understanding the scarcity of female CEOs”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 321-35. Putnam, L.L. (1983), “Lady you’re trapped: breaking out of conflict cycles”, in Pilotta, J. (Ed.), Women in Organizations: Barriers and Breakthroughs, Waveland, Prospect Heights, NY, pp. 39-53. Ridgeway, C.L. (2001), “Sex, status, and leadership”, Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 57 No. 4, pp. 637-55. Rosener, J.B. (1990), “Ways women lead”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 68 No. 6, pp. 119-26. Stelter, N.Z. (2002), “Gender differences in leadership: current social issues and future organizational implications”, Journal of Leadership Studies, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 88-100. Townsend, B. (1997), “Breaking through: the glass ceiling revisited”, Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 16 No. 5, pp. 4-14. US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2004), “Annual average tables from the January 2003 issue of Employment and Earnings (Table 11. Employed persons by detailed occupation, sex, race, and Hispanic origin)”, available at: www.bls.gov/cps (accessed January 4). Wagner, D.G. and Berger, J. (1997), “Gender and interpersonal task behaviors: status expectation accounts”, Sociological Perspectives, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 1-32. Wood, W. and Eagly, A.H. (2002), “A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: implications for the origins of sex differences”, Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 128 No. 5, pp. 699-727. Further reading Bass, B.M. (Ed.) (1990), Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Managerial Applications, 3rd ed., The Free Press, New York, NY. Parry, K. (2000), “Leadership that inspires people to higher levels”, Independent Newspapers, May 18, pp. 17-18. Penny, J. (2001), “Differential item functioning in an international 360-degree assessment: evidence of sex stereotype, environmental complexity, and organizational contingency”, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 245-71. About the author Birgit Weyer has received her Doctorate of Management in Organizational Leadership from the University of Phoenix, Arizona in 2005. Her research interests emphasize leadership, women in management, and networked learning. She has gained extensive experience in human resource management while working in the pharmaceutical industry. Currently, she is Managing Partner of Weyer und Hansen GbR a German-based international training and consulting company. Her area of specialization is leadership development and communication. Birgit Weyer can be contacted at: [email protected]

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“That’s not how I see it”: female and male perspectives on the academic role Sue Shaw

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Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, Manchester, UK, and

Catherine Cassell Manchester Business School, Manchester, UK Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a piece of empirical work that examines gender differences in how academics make sense of performance within university business schools in the UK. Design/methodology/approach – The research reported draws on data collected using a life history and repertory grid methodology with male and female interviewees from two university business schools. Findings – The findings are discussed in relation to how academics understand what is valued about their role and what they believe the organisation rewards and values when it comes to promotion. Gender differences are shown to exist in the ways women and men define the academic role and in what they think is important both to themselves and the institution. Originality/value – The paper presents original data on gender differences within a business school context. Keywords Gender, Academic staff, Universities, Individual psychology, Performance criteria Paper type Research paper

Introduction In this paper, we consider how female and male academics within UK Business Schools perceive their roles within “the New Higher Education”. In doing so, we explore the extent to which there are gender differences in what is valued and perceived as being important to perform the academic role effectively, and consider the extent to which this might go some way to explaining women’s position within business schools and the wider academy. In the last few decades higher education in UK has undergone considerable change not only in terms of numerical expansion but also in terms of the way it is directed and controlled (Currie and Newson, 1998; Scott, 2000). These changes have impacted on the experiences of women and men working in the sector (Shelley, 2005). Women’s position within the academy continues to be an area of interest in a sector following a strong equal opportunities agenda (Knights and Richards, 2003). There are gender differences within the academic grades and women’s position within them mirrors the sexual division of labour elsewhere in employment, with sex segregation occurring both within and across academic disciplines including business schools. Consequently, women are not only disproportionately concentrated in the lower grades and more likely to be on insecure contracts, but also more likely to have lower average earnings than their male counterparts and experience higher levels of stress in their jobs (Aziz, 1990; Doyle and Hind, 1998; Knights and Richards, 2003). At the same time, the

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variation between individual institutions, for example pre and post-1992 universities, has been acknowledged (Goode and Bagihole, 1998). A study of gender and performance within university business schools is important not only because until recently, gender inequality in academia has been largely ignored both in the literature and also the wider public arena (Acker, 1992; Knights and Richards, 2003), but also because of their pivotal role in developing organisations’ management cadres (Chepyator-Thomson and King, 1996; Starkey and Tempest, 2005). Indeed, the fact that UK business schools have a relatively short history compared with other university faculties, in that they really only developed in the second half of the twentieth century (Coulson-Thomas, 1975), and at the same time reflect current patterns of gender inequality in management, make them an interesting area for investigation. The pattern of gender inequality within business schools is important because of the conscious or subconscious messages it conveys to staff and students about the roles of men and women in organisations (Mavin and Bryant, 1999). Notwithstanding these arguments and renewed interest, studies which compare the perspectives of male and female women academics, within the new performance driven context and particularly in business schools are rare. Using data gathered through a life history and repertory grid methodology within this paper we explore how female and male academics perceive and experience their role. In particular, we focus on what academics value and perceive to be important in terms of being effective and doing a good job and what they believe the organisation rewards and values when it comes to promotion. We also compare the experiences of men and women in two university business schools, one a pre 1992 civic university and the other a post 1992 metropolitan university. We begin with an exploration of the nature of individual performance, gender and performance, and the higher education context in which the study is undertaken. We then outline the methodology used and provide details of the research participants and a background to each of the case studies. The data are analysed around the following broad themes: nature of the academic role, academic perceptions of what constitutes effective performance of the role, job satisfaction, the impact of the institutional context and individual life patterns. We argue that gender differences exist between men and women in a number of ways. Firstly, in terms of how they define the academic role; secondly, in terms of what they value and think is important to do a good job; and thirdly, in terms of what they say their organisation values and rewards through promotion within the academy. At the same time the study identifies important differences between the two case studies thereby highlighting the importance of context in helping to understand the impact of gender on the academic role. The paper will conclude with a discussion of the implications of the findings for women’s future position within business schools. The nature of performance Whilst the nature and determinants of individual performance have been studied for decades, the concept has assumed greater importance in recent years in an environment which places increasing emphasis on organisational performance and effectiveness (Williams, 1998). A review of the literature shows that writers have presented performance as a complex and multi-dimensional process involving a range of stakeholders and going beyond the achievement of work goals or outputs (Ilgen and Schneider, 1991).

It has been represented as a “performance domain” that embraces job behaviours, work outputs and performance evaluation (Ilgen and Hollenbeck, 1991; Campbell et al., 1993). This “performance domain” in turn is influenced by person centred and contextual factors (Williams, 1998). There have been a number of attempts to depict this complexity through modelling the behavioural and situational domains (Waldman, 1994; Guzzo and Gannett, 1988; Dion et al., 1997; Campbell et al., 1993) but there are a number of problems and weaknesses in this understanding and representation of performance. Firstly, in presenting the concept as relatively unproblematic and devoid of any social construction it fails to recognize the extent to which performance is a negotiated or even contested domain. In taking an abstract or objective view of performance the position and role of the performer is underplayed and the notion of behaviour as an interdependent activity is lost. The idea that the context or environment is some kind of inanimate entity set apart from the individuals that exist within it ignores people’s role in actually producing part of the environment: . . . there is not some kind of monolithic, singular, fixed environment that exists detached from and external to . . . people . . . the people are very much a part of their own environments (Weick, 1995, p. 31).

Moreover, it is notable that some of the models and frameworks of performance are presented as gender free and it is important to acknowledge that gender may play an important part in aspects of the performance process. What is clear is that the nature of the relationship between the individual factors and the situational context is complex and not yet fully understood. Consequently, there is need to explore how different contexts might affect the performance process. The subsequent two sections explore the issue of women and performance and the higher education context in which the study is undertaken. Gender and performance A range of literatures inform the issue of women and performance and the topic can be explored from a variety of perspectives. Whilst much of the focus has been on performance evaluation and the role and impact of gender bias, a number of studies have examined the individual variables – the person factors – and the extent to which there are gender differences, and the way those differences influence behaviour. Traditionally women were seen as intellectually and physically inferior to men and early writers asserted that these perceptions have created barriers to women’s career development and led to discrimination (Betz and Fitzgerald, 1987). Sex as a subject variable is the most traditional approach to research on sex and two competing hypotheses are prevalent throughout the research into gender differences. The structural view or situational view suggests that differences are not attributable to gender per se but rather to variables which co vary with gender such as salary and level. The socialisation view suggests that observed gender differences represent real psychological differences in the motivation to work that arise out of the different socialisation processes of men and women. These differences in socialisation cause women to see work as less central. Studies have not only considered abilities but also personality and attitudinal variables as well. Much of the work was conducted in the USA in the 1970s and 1980s, in laboratory settings and the focus of the early studies was on the extent of actual

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versus socialised sex differences and the implications of differences on women’s general career development. Studies examining the impact personality and attitudinal variables have on performance and subsequent career development, perceived differences in women’s self concept and work needs and motivation are particularly important for this study. Early studies showed women’s consistent underestimation of their abilities and performance and lower expectations of success in the workplace relative to men (Betz and Fitzgerald, 1987) together with gender differences in the attribution of performance, with men attributing successful performance to their own abilities and women to luck (Weiner, 1974). The question of women’s lower career expectations is also linked to the wider issue of career success that traditionally has been objectively measured through external criteria such as hierarchical position, status and salary level in both academic and popular literature (Dann, 1995; Sturges, 1999). Women’s continued acceptance of lower levels of objective success is attributed to their different definition of success which is seen as more subjective and internally driven covering such factors as personal development, balance and interesting and challenging work (Powell and Mainiero, 1993). This is in contrast with men, where objective external criteria such as salary and rank correlate with career satisfaction (Russo et al., 1991). Today’s UK employment context and arguably women‘s position in it, is very different from that in which much of the research was undertaken in the USA in the 1970s and 1980s. To some degree this is borne out by evidence of a shift in the importance of work in women’s identity (Grant and Porter, 1994). One of the most striking features of the review of the literature is the conflicting and often ambiguous nature of the results. It seems probable that ranges of situational factors are important in mitigating sex effects (Butterfield and Grinnell, 1999), thereby reinforcing the complexity that is involved in understanding individual performance in organisations. This would be consistent with the above discussion of performance. The higher education context The changing contours of higher education The UK higher education sector has evolved and changed over centuries with the second half of the last century heralding the start of perhaps the most turbulent and fast changing period in its history. Education for the elite has been replaced by education for the masses in an environment which has seen the sector’s relative autonomy constrained by more centralised direction and control (Hartley, 1995; Parker and Jary, 1995; Scott, 1998). During the last 40 years student numbers have more than quadrupled as successive governments have strove to combine expansion with productivity gains (Shelley, 2005). Furthermore, institutions now have to adopt an externally driven agenda that is market and performance oriented and manifested in such things as university rankings and league tables, QAA teaching quality scores and RAE grades. There has been a gradual shift away from relative autonomy to centralised direction through major changes in the structure of institutional governance. At the same time there has been rising bureaucratic control concerned with increasing accountability for the use of public funds together with liability to external quality monitoring. This increased control is best exemplified through shifts in the way the sector is funded with its traditional financial autonomy being gradually eroded and brought together under a single system for funding teaching and research

(Benn and Fieldhouse, 1993). These developments have inevitable consequences for the internal structure and governance of universities. The changes have been depicted variously as new managerialism (Rothblatt, 2000; Pritchard, 2000) and McDonaldization (Hartley, 1995; Parker and Jary, 1995). The former is reflected not only in the importation of such notions as managing culture, producing mission statements and developing learning organisations committed to quality (Brown and Sommerlad, 1992) but also in the managerial discourse (Parker and Jary, 1995; Wilson, 2000). The latter is presented as a process of rationalisation, standardisation and commodification underpinned by notions of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control. The changes have also been interpreted as providing increased surveillance, the direction of which be it teaching, research or administration will depend on the particular institution (Parker and Jary, 1995). The changes in the external and internal context also have implications for the people employed within the universities, not least of all the academics, both in terms of what they do and how their performance is evaluated and leading to what Halsey (1995) calls the “decline of donnish dominion”. Arguably the working environment and academic role are both very different from their forebears, representing a shift in the locus of motivation from internal to external and an intensification of the pressures faced (Rothblatt, 2000; Parker and Jary, 1995). The intensification of the role in terms of increasing pressure to deliver on three fronts: research and publication, teaching, and course management and administration not only places increased job demands but is also a source of conflict as staff are torn by the three-way pressures (Miller, 1995). Each of these appear to provide their own tensions, with teaching and other commitments seen as the main obstacles to research (Halsey, 1995), increasing student numbers leading to the depersonalisation of student relationships (Parker and Jary, 1995) and complex, multi-level and competing administrative systems creating additional demands even on junior staff (Miller, 1995). The changes described above are seen as having an impact on academic identity and even representing the proleatarianization or deprofessionalisation of academic labour (Ainley, 1998; Wilson, 1992; Taylor, 1999). Consequently, it has been argued that individuals are learning to adapt to the new higher education either by conforming and identifying with the institution’ s corporate goals, engaging in ritualistic behaviour around grant application and short-term research projects, or retreating into early retirement (Parker and Jary, 1995). These writers use Foucault’s notion of a panoptican to explain how in the new academic order, only those activities that are scrutinised, can be measured, and are valued, might remain attractive. Writers have recognised the gendered implications of this process (Savage and Witz, 1992). Rich (1992) argues that the valorisation of academic work is based on a particular implicit (and masculine) view of what work is for, why it is important and how it is disseminated. Parker and Jary (1995, p. 330) suggest that the university in the new higher education is an extremely masculine form: . . . in which aggressive and competitive behaviours are rewarded over cooperation and pastoral care.

It is in this context that women’s position within the academy should be examined.

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Women in academia Writers have not only sought to describe where women are within the academy but also to put forward explanations for that position and the differing perspectives offered by economists, sociologists, feminists and management theorists provide numerous and potentially conflicting explanations of the gender differences in academia. Close examination of the different approaches suggests explanations are neither mutually exclusive nor necessarily competing and clearly there is a complex interaction of factors at work. The ideas of the feminist writers have been particularly influential. The liberal feminists have described the problem variously as one of: socialisation, role conflict, failure to invest in women power, and discrimination, and propose change within existing economic and political frameworks. A common argument, although one that has not gone unchallenged, is that women lack confidence, ambition and belief in their academic ability and consequently do not apply for promotion (Bagihole, 1994; Eggins, 1997; Harris et al., 1998). It has been suggested that women’s nurturing pre disposition and concern for people manifests itself in the higher education sector not only through a conflict between their work and domestic/family roles but also through their tendency to undertake the caring and pastoral roles within the academy. Writers such as Harris et al. (1998), Morley (1994), Rhodes (1994) and West and Lyon (1995) have sought explanations for this and considered what the implications are and how the activities are perceived and valued by others. Research and publication productivity are seen as two of the most critical determinants and indicators of status attainment and reputational standing within academia (Forster, 2000). Since, the 1970s writers have sought to examine and explain the relationship between gender, marriage and parenthood and status attainment and reputational standing through comparison of male and female productivity patterns. Although women have been shown to be less productive than men are, the results are not conclusive (Cole, 1979, Davis and Astin, 1990). Indeed, studies of USA and Norwegian female academics (Davis and Astin, 1990; Stiver Lie, 1990) have argued that variables such as age, marital status, children’s ages, individual motives, commitments and values, together with institutional and social factors rather than gender per se, determined women’s academic standing and productivity. A number of problems arise out of the liberal feminist perspective. Firstly, they start with a male as norm perspective. Secondly, whilst they help to explain how social arrangements work to the detriment of women in higher education, they do not explain why they work in a particular way. It is the socialist and radical feminist perspectives that provide explanations here. Traditionally, the culture of higher education has been slow to change and the picture is one of institutions steeped in male privilege, entrenched male values and masculine management structure and patterns of decision-making. Patriarchy is central to the radical feminists’ perspective and consequently supporters of this perspective have shown how issues of male dominance, manmade knowledge and sexual politics are enacted in the sector and contribute to what is described as a masculine culture (Eggins, 1997; Morley, 1994; Harris et al., 1998; Chepyator-Thomson and King, 1996). These writers have explored how male dominance and female marginality is manifested through (inside track) promotion and in the research environment of publication review bodies and grant allocation committees (Rhodes, 1994; Orser, 1992; Ledwith and Manfredi, 2000). The above review suggests that there is opportunity in future research to explore how gender impacts upon how behaviours and roles are determined and mapped including the discretionary aspects, in the workplace of today and the impact that situational factors

such as sector and organisational context have on women’s performance. At the same time, there is a need for more field based, qualitative and interpretative studies given that many of the early studies were quantitative and laboratory based. These might provide a better opportunity to more effectively explore issues relating to the role of context in mediating gender differences and understanding the complexity that is involved.

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The study The data reported here are part of a wider study into the impact of gender on the way academic performance is perceived, enacted and evaluated within UK business schools and its implications for the role and position of women within the academy.

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Methodology Data are drawn from two case studies, one a pre-1992 university business school (Institution A) and the other a post-1992 university business school (Institution B). A case study strategy was adopted to facilitate the exploration and explanation of multiple realities through the collection and analysis of detailed and complex data in specific contexts (Yin, 1994; Cresswell, 1998). Institution A is a large civic university, established a century ago, with over 32,000 students and 7,500 staff. The business school has just over 90 academic staff located in six divisions. Institution B is a large Metropolitan University which received its university charter in 1992 having been first established as a polytechnic in 1969. It has over 24,000 students and approximately 2,500 staff. The business school has just over 120 academic staff located in five divisions. The two case studies were selected on the basis of being “different institutions” within the sector (Thorn and Cuthbert, 1996). About 20 business school staffs were interviewed together with the dean of school and head of human resources in each institution. The academic staffs were selected on the basis of purposeful sampling, potential for learning, practicality and gender mix. They included equal numbers of men and women within the two main lecturing grades (ten at the lower grade and six at the higher grade) and four senior academics including heads of department and professors at Institution A and associate deans at Institution B. A detailed breakdown of the sample can be found in Table I. Data were gathered in the interviews with the academics and senior academics using a mixture of life history/narrative techniques and repertory grid. These methods were chosen because the aim of the research was to understand the behavioural domain of the academic role, its determinants and the choices and dilemmas within in it and develop an understanding of how effective performance is perceived from both an individual and a gender perspective (Hatch and Wisniewski, 1995; Easterby-Smith et al., 1996; Bowen et al., 2000). Consequently, methods were required that would enable in-depth analysis of these pertinent but sensitive issues. Data were coded using a general accounting scheme modified from that suggested by Bogdan and Biklen (1992) and anlaysed using NVIVO. The data reported here are discussed around five themes within the performance domain: nature of the academic role, academic perceptions of what constitute effective performance of the role, job satisfaction, the impact of the institutional context, and the impact of individual life patterns. Research findings The nature of the academic role. The data provided evidence for what academics perceived to be their core task within the academic role and also for the behaviours

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Table I. Breakdown of sample by, gender, age, job grade and years employed

Gender Institution A F F F F F M M M M M F F F M M M F M M M Institution B F F F F F M M M M M F F F M M M F M M M

Age-range

Level of post

Years in academia

31-40 31-40 31-40 31-40 22-30 31-40 51-60 31-40 31-40 51-60 41-50 41-50 31-40 Over 60 41-50 51-60 51-60 31-40 51-60 51-60

Lecturer Teaching fellow Lecturer Lecturer Lecturer Lecturer Lecturer Lecturer Lecturer Lecturer Senior lecturer Senior lecturer Senior lecturer Reader Senior teaching fellow Senior lecturer Senior academic Senior academic Senior academic Senior academic

6-10 6-10 6-10 11-20 6-10 6-10 11-20 11-20 6-10 11-20 11-20 11-20 11-20 Over 20 6-10 Over 20 6-10 11-20 Over 20 Over 20

51-60 31-40 31-40 22-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 51-60 51-60 51-60 41-50 41-50 41-50 51-60 41-50 41-50 31-40 51-60 51-60 41-50

Senior lecturer Senior lecturer Senior lecturer Senior lecturer Senior lecturer Senior lecturer Senior lecturer Senior lecturer Senior lecturer Senior lecturer Principal lecturer Principal lecturer Principal lecturer Principal lecturer Principal lecturer Principal lecturer Senior academic Senior academic Senior academic Senior academic

1-2 11-20 6-10 3-5 11-20 11-20 11-20 Over 20 1-2 Over 20 Over 20 11-20 3-5 Over 20 11-20 11-20 6-10 Over 20 11-20 11-20

Notes: (1) Lecturer and senior lecturer grades in Institution A are broadly comparable to senior lecturer and principal lecturer grades in Institution B; (2) senior academics include professors/heads of department at Institution A and associate deans at Institution B

which underpinned it. There were differences in emphasis in what constituted the core task at each institution but in each case both male and female academics were in agreement about what the role was about within their particular institution. At Institution A it was seen to encompass teaching, research and administration whilst at

Institution B the majority of academics saw their core task as teaching and course management. Whilst there were no clear gender differences in perceptions about what constituted the core task, the narratives did reveal gender differences in the way people actually recounted what they did in practice and how they felt about what they did. Two themes emerged across both institutions. Women’s narratives frequently raised issues of heavy teaching loads particularly at Institution A. Furthermore, in both institutions it was perceived by female research participants that there were gender differences in role allocation. The tutor role was stereotyped as “women’s work”: . . . but I’m very conscious that that kind of role is often given to or suggested that female members of staff take on and I don’t know if that’s because there’s a stereotype about women being more caring and more appropriate for that . . . if you look at the number of cohort teachers there is a disproportionate number of women doing it, young women in particular (Female Lecturer, Management, Institution A).

Course leadership roles particularly at undergraduate level were seen to go to women with more prestigious roles being occupied by men: I felt quite constricted to the fluffy pink ghetto of HRM because the stronghold of DMS and MBA, etc. was all held by men (Female Associate Dean, Institution B).

A further gender difference emerged at Institution A. In contrast to the male academics, female academics talked at length about the course tutor roles they had performed and how they felt about them. The underlying discourse was the importance of undertaking these roles either because an individual was uniquely qualified to do the role or because there was a genuine belief that it helped you learn a lot about the students, the market and the school and its programmes. What constitutes effective performance. Evidence for what was seen as effective performance of that task was provided by the narratives and the Repertory Grid exercise and effective performance was constructed in both outcome and behavioural terms. Outcomes. There were no gender differences about what outcomes were perceived to be important within each particular institution, although once again there were differences between the two universities. At Institution A notwithstanding the existence of normal, presumptive and distinctive performance levels for each of the three elements defined in the progression/promotion criteria research outcomes were seen to be the only ones that mattered: . . . in academia everything is very outcome driven . . . so it doesn’t matter if you’re male or female, it matters what publications you’ve got (Female Academic Related, Finance, Institution A).

This was in sharp contrast to Institution B where the emphasis in outcomes was around teaching feedback and programme validation, management and delivery. When individuals talked about why they got a job or a promotion the reasons that were cited were predominantly programme related. Behaviours. The repertory grid exercise identified the behaviours which were seen to be important in terms of effective performance. A distinction can be made between those behaviours which are identified as part of the exercise and the subsequent ratings individuals make in terms of what is important to them doing a good job and

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Table II. Most frequently mentioned themes from the repertory grids

what they think the institution values. Table II lists the 12 most frequently mentioned themes in rank order of importance in which these behaviours sit. Eight themes were common across both institutions although with the exception of just one, workload management the themes were ranked differently in terms of number of responses in each institution. Within a number of the themes there was a balance of male and female responses. However, within others gender differences appeared and these were most apparent within each institution and generally were not mirrored across the two institutions. In Institution A constructs within the themes “concern for others” and “ambition and drive” were mentioned far more by women than men, whilst “workload management” and to a lesser extent “teaching” were more frequently mentioned by men. In Institution B constructs associated with “teaching” and “research” were frequently mentioned by women, whilst “ambition and drive” was more frequently mentioned by men. Interestingly, constructs associated with “scholarship” were identified almost exclusively by male interviewees and this held for both institutions. Behaviours that are important to individuals. The repertory grids identified the degree to which both female and male academics felt the behaviours were important to them effectively performing their role. Of the 12 key themes listed in Table III there are both gender similarities and differences in what was seen to be important to individuals. Once again there are differences between the two institutions. At Institution A both men and women felt it was important or very important to produce high-quality research outcomes as well as be supportive to work colleagues. For women it was important to be shown research leadership, to take on board other people’s ideas and perspectives and display some modesty about one’s own research and scholarship. Women academics were also more inclined to rate more highly doing their teaching well, being fully engaged in and committed to it and being prepared to invest time in developing a relationship with students. For some of them, but not all, being ambitious, achievement oriented and career focused and possessing drive were also important as was the need to be well organised and to remain single minded and focused when it came to managing workload. Male academics on the other hand at Institution A felt it was important to be research focused and pay attention to quantitative outcomes. They also felt it was very important to manage and prioritise their workload through being in control of their time and being ruthless in how their time was spent. Above all they thought it was important to demonstrate Institution A

Institution B

Research Concern for others Workload management Teaching Ambition and drive Orientation to students Academic task engagement Scholarship Administrative skills Power Relationships with others Home/work interface

Concern for others Ambition and drive Workload management Role engagement Orientation to students Organisational involvement Capacity for work Relationships with others Teaching Management roles Research Scholarship

Job role in practice Teaching workloads Course management roles Effective performance Most frequently mentioned constructs

Behaviours important to individuals

Behaviour perceived to be rewarded by organisation

Job satisfaction Freedom of the role Teaching and working with students Institutional context Impact of managerialism Work/home interface

Men

Women

Workloads not an issue

Teaching loads perceived as heavy Course tutor roles especially at undergraduate level stereotyped as women’s work

No reference to course management roles Institution A. Workload management, teaching and scholarship Institution B. Ambition and drive and scholarship Institution A. Being research focused, managing workloads, demonstrating scholarship Institution B. Demonstrating scholarship Institution A. Ambition and drive, indifference to teaching and students Institution B. Indifference to teaching and students

Institution A. Concern for others, ambition and drive Institution B. Teaching and research Institution A. Teaching and student engagement, being well organised and career focused Institution B. Teaching and research focused, being well organised and career focused Institution A. Teaching and student focus Institution B. Teaching and student focus, being well organised and working hard

Personal control Working with ideas and imparting knowledge

Time flexibility Relationships with and interaction with students

Loss of academic freedom

Loss of academic freedom not an issue Relational careers and strong work/home interface

Minimal impact of home on work activity

scholarship through having high-academic standing, and producing work which had high intellectual, original and applied value. At Institution B there was more congruence between women and men in terms of what was important. Putting others first, being supportive of, and having good working relationships with colleagues, being student focused and engaging with them, as well as behaving professionally in terms of the role, were all behaviours which were important to men and women. There were some gender differences. Women highly rated the behaviours associated with teaching particularly the classroom experience and also thought it was important to be reliable, organised and dependable. They also thought that having a focus on research and producing good quality research outcomes were important. These were not important to the male interviewees. Having a clear career focus, drive and ambition and being involved in the organisation and making a positive contribution to it were also of importance to more women than men whilst behaving politically was less important. The one distinctive characteristic for the male academics was in the area of scholarship where being intellectually and academically good was very important.

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Table III. Main gender differences between the men and women respondents

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Behaviours that the institution rewards. The repertory grids identified the degree to which male and female academics felt the institution rewarded the various behaviours. Again there were gender differences and similarities as well as differences between the two institutions. At Institution A there was unanimous acknowledgement by both men and women that the university rewarded behaviours associated with research. Whilst men and women also felt that ambition and drive was well-regarded men rated it more highly than the women did. With just one or two exceptions, there was a feeling that behaviours related to concern for work colleagues were not rewarded by the institution. What was interesting was that unlike their male colleagues, the female academics felt that the organisation rewarded behaviours associated with teaching and orientation to students. Men also had very mixed views as to whether the institution rewarded scholarly behaviours. There were some similar views expressed at Institution B as well as some differences. Both men and women felt that the institution rewarded behaviour associated with research as well as organisational involvement/engagement. At the same time with one or two exceptions they felt that concern for work colleagues was not rewarded. Men had similar negative feelings about teaching, orientation to students, scholarship and drive and ambition. This was in contrast to the women academics who like their counterparts at Institution A felt that the organisation rewarded behaviours associated with teaching and orientation to students. The women academics also felt that hard work and organisational skills were rewarded. Job satisfaction. Two themes emerged from the narratives in terms of what gave interviewees job satisfaction. The first and recurring theme in both institutions was related to time and flexibility which was seen as inherent in the academic role and which enabled them to have control over their work or be their own boss. Nevertheless, there were distinct gender differences in the way time and flexibility were perceived and this was consistent across both institutions. For the men the narratives focused upon how they used the personal control the role gave them. At Institution A this was expressed as freedom to think, to learn, to read and to write and at Institution B as freedom to do other things, be self determining or self managing and be an independent person. For women it was about flexibility to balance other roles and part of their life. The second theme centred on teaching and interaction with the students and there were subtle gender and institutional differences. A number of interviewees stated that they liked teaching and working with students. What was interesting was what they liked about it and how they described it. At Institution A for a number of individuals’ satisfaction was explained in an abstract way and in relation to knowledge and ideas. So teaching was a means of working with or applying ideas or of imparting knowledge. This was an exclusively male perspective. Other interviewees at both institutions liked the interaction and engagement with students. Relationships and contact with students was raised almost exclusively by female participants across both institutions. Related to this, was satisfaction with making a difference, adding value and watching students grow and develop and whilst this discourse was predominantly but not exclusively female at Institution A it was reflected in the narratives of both men and women at Institution B. The institutional context. Interviewees’ life histories revealed how a number of factors had impacted on what individuals did and how they performed and these factors impacted both positively and negatively. Aspects of the work process and wider academic environment in which academics were working were recurrent themes

in the narratives. The moves to mass higher education and the increase in external regulation and central direction and control outlined above had clearly impacted on the institutions in general and the business schools in particular. The importance of research, which for Institution A had intensified in the build up to RAE 2008, was a dominant theme within this wider environment of performance targets and control. The outcome was a shift away from a collegial to a more managerial approach and an intensification of work with which an individual had no option but to comply. At the heart of this was the loss of academic freedom and what one individual called a “freedom to travel a work pattern”. Interestingly, this appeared to have impacted more on male than female academics and the sense of loss of academic freedom was perceived to be greater at Institution A than Institution B. Narratives of both men and women also referred graphically to the two schools masculine culture and environment. At Institution A examples were given of women’s invisibility: . . . I was walking with a female colleague [Professor] and a male colleague came walking towards us and said, morning M . . . [respondent referring to himself] and that was it, she was our one female Professor’ (Male Professor, Finance).

And of gender stereotyping: I work with a Professor of Economics who’s probably the only female Professor here . . . and I know that sometimes if I’m with her when we’ve gone abroad people often come to me as a leader (Male Senior Lecturer, Finance).

At Institution B the narratives highlighted the existence of male dominated clubs and cliques, a macho senior management team with a harsh, directive style and the equation of promotion in the past with a kind of masculine style: I certainly think that probably what would be characterised as male characteristics have been important in people getting on rather than female characteristics as in support and understanding, that sort of thing, I think there has been an element of that and I mean I hope, we’re moving away from that (Male Associate Dean).

Individual life patterns. Non-work issues were mingled with academic life histories to some degree. These were predominantly, although not exclusively, evident in the narratives of female research interviewees. One common theme was the role location had played in decisions about job applications and career moves with female subjects in particular being restricted to a specific geographical region and/or travelling distance. At Institution B all of the five women who had children described their careers in relation to those children and at various stages of the children’s lives. They described what they were feeling and experiencing from conception “I was going through IVF which was horrific but we succeeded ‘through pregnancy’ I got sicker and sicker and sicker during that year because it was just so stressful and I was anaemic” to returning to work after maternity leave “I couldn’t cope, I was still breastfeeding, I was a mess” and subsequently being a working mother “we all need wives, does that make sense, I mean it sounds silly but that’s what you need”. They also recounted how having children had impacted on what they did at work, their career paths and how they perceived the roles. At Institution A no one mentioned care of children as a personal issue (although one individual had felt the impact of eldercare on the completion of her PhD). Another issue was the interface between home and work and

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the balance between them. Three male interviewees talked about wives providing support either for them to undertake doctoral study or to enable them to work long hours but the question of support at home did not feature in the female narratives. Discussion At a general level the study suggests that male and female academics view academic performance in much the same way and indeed there are a number of similarities. The individuals in this study have not been immune from the changes described in the literature in so far as they perceive academic performance to be increasingly target driven around a mass teaching and increasingly research focused externally driven agenda (Scott, 2000; Shelley, 2005). Closer examination of the data however has revealed a number of gender differences, some expected, and some more surprising, both across and within the two institutions. The study has revealed some gender differences across the two universities both in terms of what academics think is important to them to do a good job and what they believe their organisation values as well in terms of what gives academics job satisfaction. In the case of the former there are three gender differences which hold across both institutions but which are only partly explained by the literature. Female academics at both institutions shared the view that being able to teach well and apply oneself to teaching in a professional way was important to doing a good job and moreover that such behaviour was rewarded by the organisation. They also felt that having a focus on students was rewarded. Male academics did not share this view. Whilst earlier writers (Harris et al., 1998, West and Lyon, 1995) acknowledged women’s tendency to undertake the roles associated with students and their welfare, this study goes further in that it helps to understand why they choose to do this. The female academics also thought drive and ambition were important and rewarded by their institutions. Such a view is in contrast to earlier assertions that women’s lack of ambition partly explained their under representation in senior academic posts (Bagihole, 1994). Having high-academic standing and being valued intellectually was important for male academics although they did not feel that this was particularly valued by their institutions. Such factors have been identified as important aspects of academic identity (Henkel, 2000) although it is interesting to note in the study reported here that women in general did not mention this. Furthermore, whilst flexibility was an important means of job satisfaction for both genders, there were differences in how flexibility was perceived. For men flexibility was about freedom and personal control whereas for women it was seen in relation to other roles they had to perform in their lives. It is also interesting that it was just the women academics that saw a further area of job satisfaction in the relationships and contact with students. The data have also shown that female and male academics may experience the role differently. This is evidenced by the fact that women’s academic life histories were frequently recounted in relation to non-work issues such as their caring roles or home location whilst men if they mentioned it at all, saw it in relation to the support they received from wives or partners. Such findings confirm the continuing work/domestic role conflict of female academics which was identified by writers over a decade ago (Morley, 1994; Rhodes, 1994). It is also evidenced in the way women appear to be invisible within the academy, be excluded from cliques and clubs, be required to adopt a “masculine style” to secure promotion and be stereotyped into undertaking

certain roles. Notwithstanding the extent of change experienced by the sector, these factors provide support for the continued existence of a strong masculine culture within the academy (Eggins, 1997; Harris et al., 1998). The study has also revealed some gender differences within the two institutions both in terms of what academics think is important to them to do a good job and what they believe their organisation values as well as in terms of what gives academics job satisfaction and this reinforces Goode and Bagihole’s (1998) view on the variation within the sector. At Institution A, female academics highly rated activities such as relationships with colleagues and students whereas male academics emphasised the importance of having a strong research focus, delivering quantitative research outcomes and exercising clear workload management to achieve those and with the exception of the relationships with colleagues both men and women thought these other behaviours were rewarded by the institution. There were more gender similarities than differences in terms of what was felt to be important in Institution B although women, unlike their male colleagues, did rate reliability and dependability and hard work as things that were important to them along with having a research focus and they felt that these things were rewarded by the institution. Conclusion This study provides further evidence in support of some of the explanations already advanced for women’s disadvantaged position within the academy. There is evidence that women may still be confronted with the masculine and potentially hostile culture identified as a major barrier by the radical feminist writers a decade ago. There is also support for the liberal feminists’ view that women’s nurturing/caring pre-disposition not only leads them to undertake the student focused roles and indeed be stereotyped into taking these roles but also bring them into conflict with their home and domestic roles as well. Furthermore, women’s concern for people and relationships, in some case perhaps at the expense of research focus and output may reinforce such disadvantage in a sector where research and publication productivity continue to be seen as two of the most critical determinants of success (Forster, 2000). At the same time, what this study has shown is that the sector is far from homogenous as is women’s (and men’s) experience within it. Notwithstanding this difference the question remains as to what extent is women’s position exacerbated or improved in “the New Higher Education” which we have seen is characterised by intensification of work and increased centralisation and control. In such an environment male academics expressed desire for freedom, and academic independence may work to their advantage in that it enables them to remain focused, or it may work against them in that they may find the new environment too constraining. If it is the latter, then women’s reported high levels of drive and ambition which in themselves may be indicative of the shift in the importance of work to their identity, may act to their advantage whatever part of the sector they are in. References Acker, S. (1992), “New perspectives on an old problem: the position of women academics in British Higher Education”, Higher Education, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 57-75.

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Ainley, P. (1998), “Higher education in a right state: professionalising the proletariat or proletarianising the professions”, in Jary, D. and Parker, M. (Eds), The New Higher Education, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire University Press, Stafford, pp. 133-50. Aziz, A. (1990), “Women in UK universities: the road to casualization?”, in Stiver Lie, S. and O’Leary, V.E. (Eds), Storming the Ivory Tower, Women in the Academic World, Kogan, London, pp. 33-46. Bagihole, B. (1994), “Being different is a very difficult row to hoe: survival strategies of women academics”, in Davies, S., Lubelska, C. and Quinn, J. (Eds), Changing the Subject: Women in Higher Education, Taylor and Francis, London, pp. 15-28. Benn, R. and Fieldhouse, R. (1993), “Government policies on university expansion and wider access, 1945-51 and 1985-91 compared”, Studies in Higher Education, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 299-313. Betz, N.E. and Fitzgerald, L.F. (1987), The Career Psychology of Women, Academic Press, New York, NY. Bogdan, R. and Biklen, S.K. (1992), Qualitative Research for Education: An Introduction to Theory and Methods, 2nd ed., Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA. Bowen, C.C., Swim, J.K. and Jacobs, R.R. (2000), “Evaluating gender biases on actual job performances of real people: a meta analysis”, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 30 No. 10, pp. 2194-215. Brown, H. and Sommerlad, E. (1992), “Staff development in higher education: towards the learning organisation”, Higher Education Quarterly, Vol. 46, pp. 174-90. Butterfield, D.A. and Grinnell, J.P. (1999), “Reviewing gender, leadership and managerial behaviour: do three decades of research tell us anything?”, in Powell, G.N. (Ed.), Handbook of Gender and Work, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 223-38. Campbell, J.P., McCloy, R.A., Oppler, S.H. and Sagar, C.E. (1993), “A theory of performance”, in Schmitt, N. and Borman and Associates, W.C. (Eds), Personnel Selection in Organisations, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA. Chepyator-Thomson, J.R. and King, S.E. (1996), “Scholarship reconsidered: considerations for a more inclusive scholarship in the academy”, Quest, Vol. 48 No. 2, pp. 165-74. Cole, J.R. (1979), Fair Science: Women in the Scientific Community, The Free Press, New York, NY. Coulson-Thomas, C. (1975), Guide to Business Schools, St George Press, London. Cresswell, J.W. (1998), Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design Choosing Among Five Traditions, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Currie, J. and Newson, J. (Eds) (1998), Universities and Globalisation Critical Perspectives, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Dann, S. (1995), “Gender differences in self-perceived success”, Women in Management Review, Vol. 10 No. 8, pp. 11-18. Davis, D.E. and Astin, H.S. (1990), “Life cycle, career patterns and gender stratification in academe: breaking myths and exposing truths”, in Stiver Lie, S. and O’Leary, V.E. (Eds), Storming the Tower: Women in the Academic World, Kogan Page, London. Dion, P.A., Easterling, D. and Javalgi, R. (1997), “Women in the business-to-business salesforce: some differences in performance factors”, Industrial Marketing Management, Vol. 2, pp. 447-57. Doyle, C. and Hind, P. (1998), “Occupational stress, burnout and job status in female academics”, Gender, Work and Organization, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 67-82.

Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R. and Holman, D. (1996), “Using repertory grids in management”, Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 3-30. Eggins, H. (1997), Women as Leaders and Managers in Higher Education, Open University Press, Buckingham. Forster, N. (2000), “A case study of women academics’ views on equal opportunities, career prospects and work family conflicts in a British university”, Women in Management Review, Vol. 15 No. 7, pp. 316-30. Goode, J. and Bagihole, B. (1998), “Gendering the management of change in higher education: a case study”, Gender, Work and Organization, Vol. 5 No. 3, pp. 148-64. Grant, J. and Porter, P. (1994), “Women managers: the construction of gender in the workplace”, ANZJS, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 149-64. Guzzo, R.A. and Gannett, B.A. (1988), “The nature of facilitators and inhibitors of effective task performance”, in Schoorman, F.D. and Schneider, B. (Eds), Facilitating Work Effectiveness, Lexington Books, Lexington, MA. Halsey, A.H. (1995), Decline of Donnish Dominion, Clarendon Press, Oxford. Harris, P., Thiele, B. and Currie, J. (1998), “Success, gender and academic voices, consuming passion or selling the soul?”, Gender and Education, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 133-48. Hartley, D. (1995), “The ‘McDonaldization’ of higher education: food for thought”, Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 21 No. 4, pp. 409-23. Hatch, J.A. and Wisniewski, R. (1995), “Life history and narrative: questions, issues and exemplary works”, in Hatch, J.A. and Wisniewsk, R. (Eds), Life History and Narrative, Falmer Press, London, pp. 113-35. Henkel, M. (2000), Academic Identities and Policy Change in Higher Education, Higher Education Policy Series 46, Jessica Kingsley, London. Ilgen, D.R. and Hollenbeck, J.R. (1991), “The structure of work: job design and roles”, in Dunnette, M.D. and Hough, L.M. (Eds), Handbook of Industrial and Organisational Psychology, Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, CA. Ilgen, D.R. and Schneider, J. (1991), “Performance measurement: a multi-discipline view”, Vol. 6, pp. 71-108, in Cooper, C.J., Robertson, I.T. (Eds), International Review of Industrial and Organisational Psychology. Knights, D. and Richards, W. (2003), “Sex discrimination in UK academia”, Gender, Work and Organisation, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 213-38. Ledwith, S. and Manfredi, S. (2000), “Balancing gender in higher education, a study of the experience of senior women in a ‘New’ UK university”, The European Journal of Women’s Studies, Vol. 7, pp. 7-33. Mavin, S. and Bryant, P. (1999), “New initiatives to place gender on the agenda in business schools”, Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 18 No. 9, pp. 1-9. Miller, H. (1995), “States, economies and the changing labour processes of academics: Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom”, in Smyth, j. (Ed.), Academic Work, Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press, Buckingham, pp. 40-59. Morley, L. (1994), “Glass ceiling or iron cage: women in UK academia”, Gender, Work and Organisation, Vol. 1 No. 4, pp. 194-204. Orser, B. (1992), “Academic attainment, assimilation and feminism in Canadian schools of business”, Women in Management Review, Vol. 7 No. 3, pp. 5-16. Parker, M. and Jary, D. (1995), “The McUniversity: organization, management and academic subjectivity”, Organization, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 319-38.

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Powell, G.N. and Mainiero, L.A. (1993), “Getting ahead-in career and life”, in Powell, G. (Ed.), Women and Men in Management, 2nd ed., Sage, Newbury Park, CA. Pritchard, C. (2000), Making Managers in Universities and Colleges, Open University Press & Society for Research into Higher Education, Buckingham. Rhodes, E. (1994), “Women academics in Europe”, Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 13 Nos 3-5, pp. 67-73. Rich, A. (1992), “Toward a women-centred university”, in Humm, M. (Ed.), Feminisms: A Reader, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, pp. 391-3. Rothblatt, S. (2000), “A Connecticut Yankee?”, in Scott, P. (Ed.), Higher Education Re-formed, Falmer Press, London, pp. 3-26. Russo, N., Kelly, R-M. and Deacon, M. (1991), “Gender and success-related attribution: beyond individualistic conceptions of achievement”, Sex Roles, Vol. 25 Nos 5/6, pp. 331-50. Savage, M. and Witz, A. (Eds) (1992), Gender and Bureaucracy, Blackwell, Oxford. Scott, P. (1998), “The Dearing report: a critical analysis”, Policy and Practice in Higher Education, Perspectives, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 4-7. Scott, p. (Ed.) (2000), Higher Education Re-formed, Falmer Press, London. Shelley, S. (2005), Working in Universities: The Realities from Porter to Professor, Humming Earth, Glasgow. Starkey, K. and Tempest, S. (2005), “The future of the business school: knowledge challenges and opportunities”, Human Relations, Vol. 58 No. 1, pp. 61-82. Stiver Lie, S. (1990), “The juggling act in Norway”, in Stiver Lie, S. and O’Leary, V.E. (Eds), Storming the Tower, Women in the Academic World, Kogan Page, London, pp. 108-28. Sturges, J. (1999), “What it means to succeed: personal conceptions of career success held by male and female managers at different ages”, British Journal of Management, Vol. 10, pp. 239-52. Taylor, P.G. (1999), Making Sense of Academic Life Academics, Universities and Change, The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press, Buckingham. Thorn, M. and Cuthbert, R. (1996), “Autonomy, bureaucracy and competition: the ABC of control in higher education”, in Cuthbert, R. (Ed.), Working in Higher Education, Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press, Buckingham. Waldman, D.A. (1994), “The contributions of total quality management to a theory of work performance”, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 19 No. 3, pp. 510-36. Weick, K.E. (1995), Sensemaking in Organisations, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Weiner, B. (1974), Achievement Motivation and Attribution Theory, General Learning Press, Morristown, NJ. West, J. and Lyon, K. (1995), “The trouble with equal opportunities: the case of women academics”, Gender and Education, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 51-68. Williams, R.S. (1998), Performance Management: Perspectives on Employee Performance, International Thomson Business Press, London. Wilson, A. (2000), “Strategy and management for development”, in Scott, P. (Ed.), Higher Education Re-formed, Falmer Press, London, pp. 29-44. Wilson, T. (1992), “The proletarianisation of academic labour”, Industrial Relations Journal, Vol. 2 No. 4, pp. 250-62. Yin, R.K. (1994), Case Study Research, Design and Methods, 2nd ed., Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.

About the authors Sue Shaw is a Head of Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour Division at Manchester Metropolitan university business school. She teaches and researches in the area of HRM and prior to joining MMU worked in both manufacturing and wholesaling. Her areas of specialism are HRM in China, Gender and Performance and the HR function. She is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and in 2004 was awarded the Institute’s Distinguished Badge of Merit in recognition of her services to the profession. Sue Shaw is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected] Catherine Cassell is a Professor of Occupational Psychology and Director of Postgraduate Research Programmes at Manchester Business School. Her research interests are in the field of change and learning in the workplace, and she has a keen interest in the use of qualitative methods in management and organizational research. She is a Joint Editor (with Gillian Symon) of Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal.

To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected] Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

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Bookshelf Off-ramps and On-ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success Sylvia A. Hewlett Harvard Business School Press Boston, MA 2007 261 pp. ISBN: 978-1-4221-0102-5 Keywords Skills, Labour markets, Women, Careers Review DOI 10.1108/09649420710778736 In our current global, environment we face a severe skills shortage which compels us to develop and investigate new ways to attract and retain talented employees. In the light of this challenging business context, Sylvia Hewlett presents an insight into the alternative career pathways that women traverse over the course of their work histories. While the book is clearly set within the environs of corporate North America, there are distinct parallels with the experiences of professional women around the world. “Off-ramps and on-ramps” is a personal and engaging account, lightly interspersed with relevant, academic research results, and complemented with the use of case study analysis. Graphs and data tables are well integrated and simple to follow. This book comprises 11 Chapters spread over two parts. The first part concerns the challenge both women and their organisations face in attracting and retaining talented women as employees, and the second part introduces some successful models which are being used at the cutting edge of innovative practice. The Foreword by Carolyn Buck Luce, the Chair of the Hidden Brain Trust presents a compelling case for what she terms “second generation” of policy designed to clear the pathways for women’s success in business. Chapter 1 raises the obvious question of why we need to have this second generation of policy and whether there is any need to mess with the male competitive model in employment? By way of response, Hewlett considers what the male competitive model of employment actually is, and how (hand in hand with the predominant corporate culture) it works against women along with others in the workforce who may have taken a more scenic route towards their ultimate, or indeed merely current, career aspirations. Finally, this first chapter discusses the increasing talent void which makes the consideration of alternative work models an economic imperative. Chapter 2 then attempts to address the nature of women’s careers – if they do not fit within the male competitive model, then what do they look like? Are professional women opting out of the mainstream workforce and do they tend to take up non-standard work arrangements? Hewlett discusses the stigma associated with undertaking flexible work arrangements, talking about why women and men leave their careers, and how and why they might chose to reenter. She presents an eloquent case explaining why the current pipeline model of careers does not work for either

women or policy makers because of the losses that occur on reentry, and the penalties incurred for taking time out of careers. Her argument finishes with the suggestion that we need to reconceptualise the role of ambition, as well as the nature of motivation, as the diversity of workers means that different groups, including males compared with females, may be driven by very different factors. The third chapter expands on the examination of career breaks and changes beyond a gender focus to look at the idea of extreme jobs and the extreme demands associated with them. Hewlett discusses the effects of the extended work week, unrelenting responsibilities and the expectations of availability associated with modern technology. She also considers reasons why employees accept these unpredictable and escalating pressures, and suggests that there may be an element of honour involved in surviving such a brutal model of work engagement. Nevertheless, evidence suggests that such extreme jobs exact a huge toll on personal lives, and perhaps more so for women than for men. Whether or not such a work model is sustainable is questionable. However, for those living within traditional gender roles at home, extreme jobs are considerably more sustainable for men than for women. Part one concludes by addressing the business case for diversity – why should businesses care how women choose, or are constrained, in organising their career expectations and development? Hewlett does not venture much beyond the typical responses of impact on the bottom line, regulatory requirements and an ever-decreasing pool of skilled workers. These points however are still relevant to business leaders, and look set to become increasingly important in the foreseeable future. The second half of the book moves to concentrate on solutions. It provides positive and uplifting success stories, as well as some practical solutions that organisations can place in their own toolkits. By examining organisations such as Goldman Sachs and Ernst and Young, Hewlett argues strongly for a core package of tools to attract and enable women to manage non-linear careers. The six tools she champions are: (1) establishing flexible work arrangements; (2) creating arc-of-career flexibility (recognizing that women may off-ramp and on-ramp at different stages of their careers); (3) reimagining work life (which includes recognising that work-life balance goes beyond the nexus between children and employment); (4) redefining and refocusing what ambition is for women; (5) harnessing the altruism and alternative career drivers of women and finally; and (6) reducing stigma and stereotypes so that employees in general, and women in particular are not disadvantaged by choosing work practices that are work-life friendly. The book closes off with a well placed nod to pragmatism, discussing how the likelihood of the arrangements seen in the case studies becoming more widespread? Hewlett’s answer is that we are clearly on a journey of change, and that a big part of making the journey successfully is transforming working life for men as well. In my estimation, this element of the book was perhaps a little underplayed, as there is every reason to suggest the male competitive model may not be working well for men either. In contemporary society, where men are both expected and expecting to play a greater

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role in their families and communities, the essence of work-life balance that comes with the ability to off-ramp and on-ramp from your career is becoming increasingly important to all workers regardless of gender. Through her inclusive and personal writing style, Sylvia Hewlett has created a book which is thought provoking and charming at the same time. It was nice to see that her pragmatic and honest view of the world was tinged with optimism and some practical suggestions and examples of ways women’s careers could be better managed. One of the best features of the book was the use of quotes and personal anecdotes that drew the reader into the lived experience of some of Hewlett’s contributors. Hewlett’s tone throughout her book is reflective, and indeed the book concludes with some timely reflection on her own experiences with off-ramping and on-ramping. Overall, this book strikes the difficult balance between being engaging and readable while also having depth and making worthwhile points. Any manager facing the challenges of keeping good staff in the current war for talent, will find this book an interesting and informative read, as will any woman – or indeed parent, who has faced the challenges of balancing work and family. Beth Tootell Department of Human Resource Management, Massey University, New Zealand

News Latest count of women in Canada’s largest businesses shows marginal progress Catalyst Canada has released its 2006 Census of Women Corporate Officers and Top Earners in the FP500. While the proportion of women corporate officers continues to increase, the overall numbers of women in senior leadership roles has risen less than two sluggish percentage points across all Catalyst benchmarks since 2002. “Overall, women remain largely excluded from the key jobs that signal corporate power and influence, despite comprising nearly half of the Canadian labor force and more than one-third of all management roles,” said Deborah Gillis, Executive Director, Catalyst Canada. In releasing the latest numbers, Gillis called on corporate Canada to create a business environment where more women have the opportunity to compete for leadership positions based on their talent and merit. Among the 2006 Catalyst Canada census key findings: . about 5.4 percent of top earners are women, up from 4.5 percent in 2004, to 3.9 percent in 2002; . women hold 15.1 percent (830/5,505) of all FP500 corporate officer positions, up from 14.4 percent (770/5,347) in 2004 to 14.0 percent (752/5,361) in 2002; . about 65.6 percent of FP500 companies have at least one woman corporate officer, up from 61.4 percent in 2004 to 62.4 percent in 2002; . women hold 9.9 percent of line officer positions, up from 9.4 percent in 2004 to 9.0 percent in 2002; . women hold 7.3 percent of the highest corporate officer titles, up from 7.1 percent in 2004 to 6.7 percent in 2002; . about 39.2 percent of FP500 companies have multiple women corporate officers, up from 35.6 percent in 2004, to 33.6 percent in 2002; and . women hold 16.2 percent of positions in the “Executive Pipeline,” up from 14.8 percent in 2004, to 12.5 percent in 2002.

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For further information, please visit the web site: www.catalyst.org Business leaders highlight Six of the Best skills to address UK management crisis Six of the Best – the new book launched by the Chartered Management Institute, follows research showing the UK managers need to improve their skills and capabilities. Managers in the UK are failing to perform and lack the key skills to drive UK competitiveness. Many are also unable to demonstrate the leadership qualities that their staff want to see in the workplace and are restricted from developing their abilities due to a lack of support. According to government research, more than one-third of the UK’s organisations suggest that their own managers (36 percent) are “not proficient.” The latest DTI’s Productivity and Competitiveness Indicators also show that the UK managers are

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perceived to lag behind their colleagues in France, Germany and the USA in terms of “management quality.” And in a worrying sign for the future development of the UK managers, figures released by the Chartered Management Institute show that fewer than four in ten individuals claim to see examples of “inspirational leadership” in their workplace. The three most sought after characteristics that employees want to see are: “genuine shared vision” (79 percent), “real confidence and trust in teams” (77 percent) and “respect for employees, colleagues and customers” (73 percent). However, only 39 percent claim these characteristics are on display. A key issue appears to be the level of support individuals receive. Only 36 percent have access to advice from their seniors through “informal mentoring” opportunities and just 15 percent of line managers are responsible for implementing training and development within their teams, a figure that has halved since, 2000. Jo Causon, Director, Marketing and Corporate affairs at the Chartered Management Institute, says: “The pressure to perform at work means that managers need to master an array of skills and demonstrate all-round ability. However, if the UK is to be prevented from sliding further down global rankings in terms of ‘management quality,’ responsibility for skills development must be shared between individuals and their employers. An environment needs to be created where individuals can learn from the experiences of others to ensure the opportunity to develop skills is not lost.” In an effort to close this “leadership lag,” the Chartered Management Institute has brought six of the UK’s leading business personalities together to share their own career experiences and highlight the core skills managers need to improve. The group which includes Lord Karan Bilimoria, Sir Digby Jones and Dianne Thompson CBE, focus attention on six key areas. These are: (1) Leading people. Providing a clear sense of direction, communicating clearly and resolving conflict. (2) Managing change. Identifying opportunities for change and driving it forward. (3) Meeting customer needs. Developing customer relationships and improving levels of service. (4) Managing information. Using knowledge to support decision-making. (5) Resource management. Delivering projects on time and within budget and increasing organisational efficiency. (6) Self management. Developing effective networks and knowing your own limits. Their views have been combined in a series of informal “lessons in leadership” and collated in a soon-to-be published book. Called Six of the Best, the book is presented in an easy to read style and includes contributions from Sir John Tusa, Sir Michael Bichard, and BT Global Services CEO, Andy Green. Each chapter is designed to be relevant to individuals across the public and private sectors and gives an insight into the contributors own career experiences, with practical advice and examples to master the core management skills. Causon adds: “By bringing together six of the most successful leaders to come out of the UK in recent years, we are able to provide ambitious individuals with an entertaining and informative perspective on working life. It offers a chance to learn from proven tactics and will supplement formal learning at a variety of career stages.”

Published by the Chartered Management Institute and Hodder Education, Six of the Best, includes contributions from: . Sir Michael Bichard – based on his experiences running two local authorities, a government department and the University of the Arts London, he focuses on how to lead people and provide purpose and direction. . Sir John Tusa – based on his experiences transforming the fortunes of the Barbican Centre, he advises on managing and driving innovation and change. . Lord Karan Bilimoria – recounting the successful creation of Cobra Beer, he provides an insight into meeting customer needs. . Sir Digby Jones – using his experiences as Director General of the CBI, he outlines the value of and ways to manage information and knowledge. . Dianne Thompson CBE – making use of experience gained at Camelot Group, she identifies ways to capitalize on and manage activities and resources as they become available. . Andy Green – from his experience as Chief Executive Officer of BT Global Services, he offers advice on how individuals can achieve success by managing their time effectively. Conformity, flattery, and favors, more than competence, make for influence in world of corporate boards, study finds As the US Securities and Exchange Commission, prodded by a federal appeals court, ponders changes that would markedly increase shareholders’ role in company board elections, a new study finds much to question about the way directors attain special influence in the corporate world by gaining seats on multiple boards. According to a survey of 760 directors reported in the new issue of the Academy of Management Journal, that success has a lot more to do with boardroom conformity, flattery, and favors than with activities on behalf of shareholders, such as providing advice to company executives or actively monitoring or controlling their decision-making. In fact, board members with a penchant for monitoring and control are highly unlikely to rise to prominence in the corporate-board interlock network, the new study suggests. “The most efficient means of gaining board appointments and achieving a central position in the board interlock network is to engage in a high level of ingratiation toward fellow directors who control access to board positions (i.e. directors who serve on the nominating committee or as CEO of another firm), while avoiding involvement in decision control,” conclude the study’s authors James D. Westphal of the University of Michigan and Ithai Stern of Northwestern University. Their findings, they continue, suggest how current director-selection processes “contribute to the frequent failure of boards to adequately control management decision-making and behavior, which in turn has been implicated in a variety of adverse organizational outcomes, including ill-conceived acquisitions and alliances, the failure to initiate timely strategic change, accounting scandals, and white-collar crimes.” Adds Westphal: “A common argument against shareholder democracy is that shareholders lack sufficient information or expertise to choose who runs their company. It seems ironic, then, that board members who gain the most influence are

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not those most involved in company governance but those most adept at currying favor with fellow directors.” In addition to uncovering basic flaws in director selection, the study also brings to light continuing discrimination against board members who are women or ethnic minorities. Both groups, the study finds, are rewarded significantly less than white males “for any given level of level of advice-giving or ingratiation, and they are punished more for any given level of monitoring and control behavior.” Comments Westphal: “We hear a lot about the low representation of women and ethnic minorities on boards. What our results suggest is that discrimination continues even after they get there.” The study’s findings derive from survey responses of 760 outside directors at 300 companies randomly selected from a popular index of large and mid-sized US industrial and service firms. Survey questions focused on three categories of behavior over the previous 12 months: (1) ingratiation of each of the director’s fellow board member; (2) monitoring and control of company management; and (3) provision of advice and information to management. Questions included the following: . Ingratiation: “In speaking with [director], to what extent do you point out attitudes and opinions you have in common?” “How often have you complimented [director] regarding [his/her] contributions to the board?” “Have you done a personal favor for [director]?” . Monitoring and control behavior: “How many times did you constructively criticize a strategic proposal put forth by management?” “To what extent have you exerted control over management decision-making?” . Provision of advice and information: “In board meetings, how many times have you provided input or advice on strategic issues at the request of the CEO?” “In board meetings, how many times have you provided information about the strategic actions, policies, and/or practices of other firms?” Having obtained a profile of each director’s board activities and interactions with fellow directors, Westphal and Stern monitored over the course of the following two years which directors received appointments as an outside director at a particular board where a fellow director served on the nominating committee or as CEO. They controlled for a number of factors that can move directors to recommend peers for boards, such as friendship, management experience, elite social status, or high level of social interaction. Of the 760 survey participants, 169 received at least one appointment to be director of a company where a fellow director was CEO or served on the board’s nominating committee. Of 131 women participants, 20 received such an appointment, while 11 of 81 ethnic minorities were appointed. Findings included the following: . The more the directors engaged in monitoring or controlling management, the less their chance of a gaining a position on another board where a fellow director was CEO or on the nominating committee.

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In contrast, providing information and advice to management increased by a moderate amount the chance of gaining such a position. But considerably more pronounced was the effect of ingratiation. Westphal sums up the effect on a hypothetical director named Fred: “All it takes is a little buttering up of Fred over the course of year – a couple of compliments above the norm, an extra personal favor, one less disagreement on strategy; add them up, and the chance of a board appointment where Fred is CEO or on the nominating committee goes up more than 70 percent. Provide advice and information seven times a year instead of twice a year, and the chance of an appointment to Fred’s board goes up too, but only by about 30 percent.” Being a woman or a member of an ethnic minority substantially reduces the chance of obtaining a seat on another board where a fellow director is CEO or a member of the nominating committee. And ingratiation or advice-giving are less effective means of gaining further appointments for these groups than they are for white males. Membership on the board of a high-performance company has little or no effect on the likelihood of getting a position on a fellow director’s board, a further demonstration, the authors suggest, “that director labor markets fall short of the meritocratic ideal articulated by . . . financial economists.”

The study, entitled “Flattery will get your everywhere (especially, if you are a male Caucasian): how ingratiation, boardroom behavior, and demographic minority status affect the likelihood of gaining additional board appointments at US companies,” is in the April/May issue of the Academy of Management Journal. Catalyst releases initial report on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) inclusion in the workplace As part of its mission to advance women and promote diversity and inclusion in business, Catalyst today released the first in its landmark Making Change series on LGBT employees and the workplace. Recognizing the challenges facing the LGBT community, Catalyst hopes to help organizations foster a work environment inclusive to all women and provide the insights, language, and solutions that will help to educate workplace professionals to more deeply understand the experiences of their LGBT coworkers. This report, entitled Making Change: LGBT inclusion – understanding the challenges, outlines specific challenges faced by LGBT employees at work and identifies key components of the business case for LGBT inclusion. Uniquely developed with Catalyst’s broader perspective of inclusion in the workplace for all, the report provides information that will help organizations build stronger, more complete LGBT-inclusion programs and discusses persistent barriers facing LGBT employees as they advance to senior leadership positions. “With LGBT women facing ‘double-outsider status’ based both on gender and sexual orientation, this series represents the next step in our efforts to promote workplace cultures that are truly inclusive to all,” said Ilene H. Lang, President of Catalyst. “Catalyst’s expertise on gender and under-represented groups in business enables us to offer unique insights on barriers to LGBT inclusion which comprehensive diversity and inclusion strategies must address.”

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Making Change: LGBT inclusion – understanding the challenges notes evidence that developing an LGBT-inclusive work environment can create competitive and bottom line advantages for business: by successfully recruiting, retaining, developing, and advancing LGBT employees, organizations increase their ability to compete effectively for talent, minimize attrition costs, and gain wider access to LGBT consumer markets. LGBT-inclusive organizations can retain and build loyalty with an LGBT consumer base while also attracting new customers. According to the report, the unique barriers facing LGBT employees in the workplace may be overlooked by traditional diversity and inclusion initiatives. For example, LGBT employees may deal with the high-stakes decision of whether and/or when to disclose their LGBT identity to managers or coworkers. Additionally, they face challenges that may vary dramatically with the countries and cultures in which they work or to which they travel for business. Recognizing that LGBT inclusion is a complex issue, the report is designed to initiate dialogue and help organizations take steps to address the concerns of LGBT employees. The report suggests that organizations address LGBT inclusion by building a culture in which all employees have equal opportunities. That includes developing unambiguous policies and statements that respect and reinforce LGBT inclusion. Businesses also should promote an awareness and understanding of issues and barriers specifically faced by LGBT employees as a critical component of any successful LGBT-inclusion initiative. According to the report, organizations can take steps to support LGBT employees in their career development, including: . As employees move up the ladder to leadership positions, organizations can convey clear and consistent messages that LGBT employees and their partners are welcome at work-related events. By making sure that invitations and promotional materials welcome both spouses and partners, organizations send a strong message that LGBT inclusion is valued. . When considering employees for significant travel and relocation, both human resources professionals and managers must be sensitive to the needs of LGBT employees. With training, managers who want to be supportive will have the tools to ask the right questions and understand the importance of holding all conversations in strict confidence. Organizations can make all LGBT employees feel included by: . making LGBT inclusion an organizational priority; . creating LGBT resource groups that are accessible to all employees; . maintaining membership confidentiality for all company LGBT resource groups; . posting materials about LGBT employee benefits, programs, and activities on a public space available to everyone, such as the intranet or company-wide E-mails; . examining social activities that reinforce heteronormative values (such as exclusive husband-wife functions and children-centered activities) and hosting more inclusive activities; and . providing LGBT anti-discrimination policies and statements as well as domestic partner benefits.

Subsequent reports in the Catalyst Making Change: LGBT series will identify in-depth programs and policies that drive LGBT inclusion and how organizations can encourage and reinforce LGBT-inclusive behaviors among employees. This study was sponsored by IBM Corporation.

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American management association launches free podcast series The American Management Association (AMA) is launching a new podcast series to deliver the latest management perspectives in a mobile format that can be accessed anytime and anywhere. Produced by AMA’s New Media team, the AMA Edgewise Podcast Series will present regular 20-minute programs where listeners will hear fresh insights from recognized thought leaders across a wide range of business topics. The podcasts will be available on AMA’s web site as streaming audio as well as audio files that can be downloaded to an iPod or other MP3 players. “The AMA Edgewise Podcast Series is an innovative way for AMA to use popular technology to bring new perspectives and additional insights and information to our customers to help them achieve their individual and organizational goals,” said Pat Leonard, AMA’s Executive Vice President for US Management Education. “It’s also a creative way to supplement our classroom-based education programs with complementary training tools,” said Leonard. The AMA Edgewise Podcasts Series will cover a variety of business topics driven by AMACOM authors, AMA research and new AMA seminar programs. New episodes will be added to the AMA web site every week beginning this month. Each show will consist of a short discussion with an expert and will include additional material such as feedback from listeners. The first two programs will feature Harvard Business School Professor Bill George, author of True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership, who discusses how strong leadership principles ensure long-term success; and Chip Bell, founder of The Chip Bell Group, who discusses the critical role that leaders play in delivering extraordinary customer service. Future AMA Podcasts will feature Stephen M.R. Covey, Howard Gardner, Jaynie Smith and Kevan Hall among others. These episodes can be played right-off the desktop or can be downloaded one at a time or by subscribing to the entire AMA Edgewise Podcast Series. By subscribing to the series, all new shows will be automatically downloaded to the computer as they are published. And if the listener has an MP3 player, the next time he or she “syncs” the device with his or her computer, the audio program will be available to download for listening on the go. For further information about the AMA Edgewise Podcast Series, please visit the web site: http://podcast.amanet.org/edgewise/

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CIPD welcomes government proposals to minimize complexity for employers of transfer of maternity leave to fathers UK Government proposals for the extension of paternity leave, issued for consultation yesterday, show a welcome willingness to listen to the concerns of employers about the transfer of parental leave from mothers to fathers according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

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Mike Emmott, CIPD Employee Relations Adviser, said: “We welcome the government’s consultation on the introduction of up to six month’s additional paternity leave, and specifically the issue of transferring that leave from mothers to fathers. “More and more employers are recognising the business benefits of offering flexible and family friendly working arrangements. Additional paternity leave should be similarly positive for employers and employees alike. “However, employers do have legitimate concerns about the complexity and administrative burdens of transferring parental leave from mothers to fathers – particularly when more than one employer is involved. In this context, we welcome the government’s efforts to come up with as simple a system as possible, involving a significant degree of self-certification and responsibility on the part of the parents for completing the paperwork. “We remain of the view that it would have been simpler to confer a right to 26 weeks additional paternity leave on fathers and leave it to working families to decide whether and how to use that. But the government’s proposals show that they are listening to the concerns of employers, and we are pleased with the efforts to limit the administrative burden on employers. We will consult with employers before issuing a formal response to these \ proposals.” Recent research from a CIPD/KPMG survey of employers looking at the impact of provisions in the Work and Families Act 2006 (WFA) found that almost two-thirds (64 percent) of employers surveyed think that the paternity leave provisions of the WFA 2006 will cause them either some (48 percent) or significant (16 percent) difficulties. The research was conducted before these proposals to reduce the complexity of transferring parental leave from mothers to fathers were published. The work foundation today announces the start of a new research program into leadership “Leading for high performance” is a three-year, comprehensive study which will focus on the specific role played by leaders in creating the conditions for high performance. The study will look at how leaders’ behavior affects team and organizational performance, and, once identified, these approaches and techniques will be tested to establish how applicable they are to other organizations. The study marks a move away from the abstract assumptions about what makes effective leaders, and instead aims to develop an empirically-based theory of leadership, looking at all levels of leadership, not just CEO and senior management and to test its impact on performance. Penny Tamkin has been appointed to lead the project, joining The Work Foundation after 13 years at the Institute for Employment Studies where she held the position of Associate Director. Penny Tamkin said: “The enormous outpouring of material on leadership during the last few years has been characterised by a surfeit of hope, hunch, superstition and guesswork. Our project will be different. We plan to ground our research in the evidence and in close observation of how real leaders work in real organisations. At the end we hope to have a very clear picture of how leaders spur the performance of their companies.” Will Hutton, Chief Executive of The Work Foundation, said: “We are delighted to have someone of Penny’s calibre on board with this exciting and innovative project. Her experience will be invaluable as will the expertise of the seven leading

organisations that we are working with. I am confident that the resulting report will have tangible practical outcomes that organisations can apply to their leadership programmes, ensuring that great leadership really does lead to great results.” The sponsors of the program are: .

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EDF Energy

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Our origins and purpose The Gender in Management Special Interest Group was formed in 2003. The purpose of the SIG is to act as a dedicated network for academics to keep up to date with current issues in the area of gender and diversity management. Who are we? We currently have over 170 members covering 16 countries and a wide number of disciplines. Members include a range of people interested in the broad area of gender and diversity management, and include full professors to PhD students. The aim of the group is to be inclusive of all those interested in our activities. Our objectives Our objectives can be summarised in three key areas. Promoting gender and diversity scholarship We aim to promote high levels of gender and diversity scholarship within the academy by sustaining and raising the quality of international, interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research produced in the field. We also act as a forum for the development of an integrated body of management knowledge and serve the interests of policy makers, practitioners and scholars in the field. Our goal is to improve the future position of gender and diversity management through scholarly activity and policy recommendations. Women in Management Review Vol. 22 No. 6, 2007 pp. 528-530 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0964-9425

Collegiality and support We strive to provide a supportive environment in which both new and established academics can share and develop ideas (e.g. through mentoring, hosting dedicated

events and peer reviewing). We also provide networking opportunities for academics teaching and researching in the area and, importantly, we aim to make working in academia a more enjoyable experience! Personal and professional development We aim to provide developmental opportunities for members both in career and personal terms. This occurs via our conference and event activities and also in more general terms by acting as a forum for members to exchange ideas and information around topics related to gender and diversity management. Past and future events Below are some examples of past and future events to give you an idea of what we do. 23 January 2007 Managing Diversity in Organisations: Practitioner and Academic Perspectives Glasgow Caledonian University 28 February 2007 Research Workshop: Writing for Publication Manchester University 16-19 May 2007 EURAM Conference GIMSIG social event Paris 15 June 2007 Workshop: Taking Stock of Your Career and Your Life, and Action Planning for the Future Manchester Metropolitan University 11-13 September 2007 BAM Conference, Gender in Management track (including a joint symposium with the Research Methods SIG, full papers and developmental papers, and SIG social event) University of Warwick 22 November 2007 Research Seminar: Managing Work-Life Balance: Issues for Tomorrow London (BAM offices) Some planned events for 2008/2009 include: Research Seminar: Small Business and Entrepreneurship Research Seminar: Leadership for the Future Research Seminar: Critical Perspectives on Global Diversity Research Seminar: Managing Emotions Research Seminar: The Intersections between Gender, Identity and the Body Benefits of membership Being a member of the GIMSIG offers the following benefits: . an opportunity to foster and share interdisciplinary and cross cultural research; . the provision of an international focus for research ideas and dialogue; . networking opportunities for academics, within a supportive and positive environment; . access to the private members web pages and the membership directory;

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free (or substantially reduced) attendance at all BAM GIMSIG events (typical cost is £25); enhancement of career prospects; opportunities to collaborate on research and apply for external funding; and enhancement of prospects to publish in top quality journals.

How to join If you would like to join GIM SIG please e-mail: Adelina Broadbridge (a.m. [email protected]) for a membership form. Alternatively go to our web site at: www.gimsig.ac.uk We look forward to welcoming you!