Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Being both visible and invisible: how women engineers manage this paradox and what it means for their careers Women engineers (and others in ultra masculine sectors) have a visibility problem. While they are often excessively visible in... more
Being both visible and invisible: how women engineers manage this paradox and what it means for their careers Women engineers (and others in ultra masculine sectors) have a visibility problem. While they are often excessively visible in terms of their gender and sex appeal, when it comes to their technical expertise, they have to win their space in the limelight. This paradox gets in the way of forming relationships at work and hurts their advancement. We wanted to know how women deal with this. In 2014 we interviewed 50 women engineers in three leading FTSE 100 organizations in the UK. (See sidebar for more on our sample.) All three organizations said they were committed to diversity and attempting to hire, retain, and promote more women engineers. However, numbers remained persistently low, and in all three organizations, attrition was high, especially among junior women. But the women we spoke to had remained in their companies, and several had advanced to senior positions. We as...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This article investigates differences between statistics on gender equality in Mexico, the UK and Sweden, and similarities in women professors’ career experiences in these countries. We use Acker’s inequality regime framework, focusing on... more
This article investigates differences between statistics on gender equality in Mexico, the UK and Sweden, and similarities in women professors’ career experiences in these countries. We use Acker’s inequality regime framework, focusing on gender, to explore our data, and argue that similarities in women professors’ lived experiences are related to an image of the ideal academic. This ideal type is produced in the interplay of the university gender regime and other gender regimes, and reproduced through the process of structuration: signification, domination and legitimation. We suggest that the struggle over legitimation can also be a trigger for change.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
These are uncertain times for professionals. There is an emerging consensus that professional work in advanced capitalist societies is undergoing significant restructuring (Reed 2000), while the assumptions previously held about the... more
These are uncertain times for professionals. There is an emerging consensus that professional work in advanced capitalist societies is undergoing significant restructuring (Reed 2000), while the assumptions previously held about the professions and professional work have been ...
Research Interests:
There has been an increasing concern with the complexity created by the presence of multiple institutional logics (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999) within organizations. Multiple ...
Research Interests:
This paper aims at gaining a better understanding of the new phenomenon of ‘customer-based evaluations’, that is, the system through which suppliers of a good or service are constantly and openly judged by those who buy this good or... more
This paper aims at gaining a better understanding of the new phenomenon of ‘customer-based evaluations’, that is, the system through which suppliers of a good or service are constantly and openly judged by those who buy this good or service and monitored by the actor who designed the system. Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted at eBay, we investigate how ‘business sellers’ react to the continuous flow of evaluations and power relationships that the evaluation system implies. We find that customer-based evaluations tend to damage sellers’ capacity to act and trigger discrepancies between their identity at work and the image of themselves that evaluations convey. We show that sellers engage in sensemaking processes (making sense of evaluations and power relationships) which enable them to pursue their activity, and in building a sense of coherence with their identity at work through identity work. Our findings highlight the diversity of reactions that enable individuals to continue their activity and d...
Research Interests: Business and Sensemaking
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT Provides an in-depth examination of women's careers over time • Introduces a new concept: the career imagination, which underpins increasingly popular concepts of career script and career capital • Uses a narrative... more
ABSTRACT Provides an in-depth examination of women's careers over time • Introduces a new concept: the career imagination, which underpins increasingly popular concepts of career script and career capital • Uses a narrative approach and critically examines its value in career research • Broad appeal across the social sciences -in particular, organizational studies, sociology and gender studies This book is about women's careers, how they think about and enact their working lives, and how these patterns change, or stay the same, over time. It focuses on seventeen women, based in the same northern English city, working in a variety of occupations, who left their organizational positions to set up their own businesses. Claim your 30% discount when you order online today* 30% ONLINE DISCOUNT * ONLINE www.oup.com/uk/business BY TELEPHONE +44 (0) 1536 452640 POSTAGE & DELIVERY Website Orders: FREE postage on orders of £20 or more (delivery in the UK only). Please allow 7 working days for delivery in the UK. For more information about postage charges and delivery times visit www.oup.com/uk/help/despatch/. *only when you order directly via www.oup.com/uk, adding promotion code AAFLY6 to your shopping basket. Discount valid until 31/12/2014. Limit 10 copies per transaction. This offer is only available to individual (non-trade) customers . This offer is exclusive and cannot be redeemed in conjunction with any other promotional discounts. The specifications in this leaflet, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, were as accurate as possible at the time it went to press.
Understanding how language works is central to an understanding of how organizations work. This argument is well rehearsed in the organizational literature, and is implicit in many of the modules taught in management education. Yet... more
Understanding how language works is central to an understanding of how organizations work. This argument is well rehearsed in the organizational literature, and is implicit in many of the modules taught in management education. Yet students of management are rarely given a theoretical base or the tools and skills required for analysing language and other sign systems used in organizations. Using examples from current literature and the authors’ own research, this article argues that this omission should be rectified so that students of management can gain an understanding of how language functions to create particular meanings and serve particular purposes. The article describes the authors’ attempts to provide a theoretical base and relevant tools and skills to management students within their own institution.
Research Interests:
This paper outlines the origins of this special issue: a UK Economic and Social Research Council supported seminar series on ‘Careers and Migration’. The series elucidated a number of salient (though under-researched) issues: migration as... more
This paper outlines the origins of this special issue: a UK Economic and Social Research Council supported seminar series on ‘Careers and Migration’. The series elucidated a number of salient (though under-researched) issues: migration as a diverse and complex process; the loss, recovery and reconstruction of career capital as central in the migration experience; insecurity, security and their dynamic interplay;
Research Interests:
Small businesses are regarded as playing a vital role in regenerating the economy. Many new enterprises are founded, owned and/or managed by women; indeed women owner/managers have become a significant economic force. This paper takes as... more
Small businesses are regarded as playing a vital role in regenerating the economy. Many new enterprises are founded, owned and/or managed by women; indeed women owner/managers have become a significant economic force. This paper takes as its starting point the androcentricity of existing approaches to entrepreneurship, and explores possible ways forward. Following a review of the literature generally, it considers
Research Interests:
... Management in/as Comic Relief: Queer Theory and Gender Performativity in The Office. Melissa Tyler 1 * and Laurie Cohen 1 The Business School, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire. Correspondence ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This paper reflects on the potential value of art photography as a means of critically interrogating the relationship between organisation and abjection. Inspired by Adorno's (1997) understanding of art as a... more
This paper reflects on the potential value of art photography as a means of critically interrogating the relationship between organisation and abjection. Inspired by Adorno's (1997) understanding of art as a non‐conceptual mode of communication and Kristeva's (1982) concept of the abject, we consider the work of several contemporary photographic artists, who have specifically chosen the subject of work organisations in their images. We do so in an attempt to illustrate our argument that art photography shares a capacity with ...
Research Interests:
This essay considers how the traditional concept of career retains its power in an age of contingency, short-termism and gig work. To answer this question, it introduces and explicates the concept of the ‘career imagination’. This concept... more
This essay considers how the traditional concept of career retains its power in an age of contingency, short-termism and gig work. To answer this question, it introduces and explicates the concept of the ‘career imagination’. This concept has three key dimensions: perceptions of enablement and constraint, time and identity. Situated in the nexus of structure and agency, it is through our career imagination that we envisage and evaluate the progress of our working lives. Encapsulating continuity and change, our career imagination helps us to understand the enduring legitimacy of the traditional career as a yardstick by which to measure success, and the emergence of new possibilities.
Research Interests:
Women engineers have a visibility problem. Like women in other ultra-masculine sectors, they are often excessively visible as women, but overlooked when it comes to their technical expertise.
Research Interests:
While women have made substantial inroads into the world of work and organisational hierarchies, many science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) related fields such as engineering, still appear stubbornly resistant to gender... more
While women have made substantial inroads into the world of work and organisational hierarchies, many science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) related fields such as engineering, still appear stubbornly resistant to gender diversity. Even from the perspective of many of the women who actually work in these industries.
Laurie Cohen and Joanne Duberley describe their use of an unconventional data source—a radio programme—to study celebrity careers. This source also includes music, which evokes memories, and elicits emotions not readily captured in... more
Laurie Cohen and Joanne Duberley describe their use of an unconventional data source—a radio programme—to study celebrity careers. This source also includes music, which evokes memories, and elicits emotions not readily captured in conventional interviews. They used the archives of the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs to study the careers of well-known research scientists. The programme’s format has been consistent over its 70-year history; ‘castaways’ from all walks of life are interviewed about their careers and are asked to select eight pieces of music, which reveal many other aspects of their lives. This research focused on the relationships between work and life course, the notion of career as performance, and the role of emotion in the narration of career. Desert Island Discs is part of an extensive archive. As time and funding for research are tight, rapid no-cost access to such data is valuable.
Research Interests:
Drawing on interviews with 77 high-performing eBay business sellers in France and Belgium, this article investigates the power asymmetries generated by customers’ evaluations in online work settings. Sellers revealed a high degree of... more
Drawing on interviews with 77 high-performing eBay business sellers in France and Belgium, this article investigates the power asymmetries generated by customers’ evaluations in online work settings. Sellers revealed a high degree of sensitivity to negative reviews, which, while infrequent, triggered feelings of anxiety and vulnerability. Their accounts exposed power asymmetries at two levels: the transactional level between sellers and customers and the governance level between sellers and eBay. Our findings highlight three main mechanisms underlying power asymmetries in this context. First, online customer evaluations have created a new form of employee monitoring in which power is exercised through the construction of visibility gaps between buyers and sellers and through an implicit coalition between buyers and the platform owner, who join together in the evaluation procedures. Second, by mediating and objectifying relations, algorithms reproduce power asymmetries among the diff...
Research Interests:
This symposium will provide a forum for the exploration of methodology in careers research, critically evaluating current practice and debating future trajectories. It is over 20 years since Richar...
Research Interests:
Introduction Spinning Webs of Meaning Language and Social Reality A Semiological Approach to Meaning Making Understanding Organizations through Metaphor Understanding Organizations through Stories and Narratives Understanding... more
Introduction Spinning Webs of Meaning Language and Social Reality A Semiological Approach to Meaning Making Understanding Organizations through Metaphor Understanding Organizations through Stories and Narratives Understanding Organizations through Discourse Language, Culture, Meaning Gender and Language Leadership and Language Meaning-Making in the Electronic Age
Research Interests:
Endocrine complications are frequently observed in childhood cancer survivors (CCS). One of two CCS will experience at least one endocrine complication during the course of his/her lifespan, most commonly as a late-effect of cancer... more
Endocrine complications are frequently observed in childhood cancer survivors (CCS). One of two CCS will experience at least one endocrine complication during the course of his/her lifespan, most commonly as a late-effect of cancer treatments, especially radiotherapy and alkylating agent chemotherapy. Endocrine late-effects include impairments of the hypothalamus/pituitary, thyroid and gonads, as well as decreased bone mineral density and metabolic derangements leading to obesity and/or diabetes mellitus. A systematic approach where CCS are screened for endocrine late-effects based on their cancer history and treatment exposures may improve health outcomes by allowing the early diagnosis and treatment of these complications.
Research Interests:
... As Gabriel explains: Many of the stories that I collected in different organizations are highly charged narratives, not merely recounting "events," but interpreting them, enriching them, ...... more
... As Gabriel explains: Many of the stories that I collected in different organizations are highly charged narratives, not merely recounting "events," but interpreting them, enriching them, ... emotion,subjectivity, and meaning that career facts are translated into career sto-...
Abstract Within organizational research, stories are increasingly recognized as a powerful research tool. In this article we argue that stories can likewise be a valuable research instrument in analyzing “career.” In particular, they... more
Abstract Within organizational research, stories are increasingly recognized as a powerful research tool. In this article we argue that stories can likewise be a valuable research instrument in analyzing “career.” In particular, they illuminate the ways in which individuals make sense of their careers as they unfold through time and space, attending to both the holistic nature of career as well as to specific career transitions. Further, stories as discursive constructs provide insights into individual sense-making. Through such insights, the story-based researcher can build a rich, complex, multifaceted, and integrated picture from the perspective of situated individuals.
Research Interests:
Women comprise over half of the higher education student population in most economically developed European countries. However they make up only a small proportion in engineering and technology. Sc...
Research Interests:
This paper examines the impact of context on careers. It is based on a study of senior managers in an English Local Authority. It offers two important contributions: first, an empirical contribution examining how context matters to... more
This paper examines the impact of context on careers. It is based on a study of senior managers in an English Local Authority. It offers two important contributions: first, an empirical contribution examining how context matters to individuals in their career-making in the setting of the UK public sector. Our findings point to three aspects or faces of context: proximal events, ideology and enduring structural features. The first, context as ideology, attends to meaning-making that is collective in nature, and that incorporates concepts of power, domination, subordination and resistance. Our second refers to the enduring structural features. These are on-going trends and developments, predictable and traceable over the medium to long-term which offer rules and resources, thus structuring opportunity and constraint. Finally, the third face, context as proximal events, refers to (often unexpected) contingencies that arise at particular moments. Although bounded both spatially and temporally, they can significantly impact on career decision making. The second contribution of the paper builds upon this empirical base to develop theoretical and conceptual understanding of the link between career and context, illustrating the interconnectedness of the various faces of context and the dynamic ways in which these influence career-making over time.
Research Interests:
This chapter examines individuals’ career-making in professional service firms. Using Kanter’s (1989) typology of bureaucratic, professional, and entrepreneurial career forms, it argues that within PSFs are elements of all three,... more
This chapter examines individuals’ career-making in professional service firms. Using Kanter’s (1989) typology of bureaucratic, professional, and entrepreneurial career forms, it argues that within PSFs are elements of all three, sometimes working in parallel and sometimes in competition. After a broad overview of Kanter’s ideal types as manifest within the PSF, the chapter considers how these are institutionalized through particular career practices. It highlights the importance of the client in professional career-making, working either as a mechanism of social closure, or of transformation. The chapter then turns to career enactment: the ways in which individuals engage with professional, bureaucratic, and entrepreneurial practices on a daily basis and over time. Central to this analysis is the tension between the professional career as a vehicle for the exercise of personal agency, or as a disciplinary mechanism of management control. The concluding discussion proposes some frui...
Research Interests:
... It is ironic that in a world of increasing diversity and multiplicity, organizational learning in ... of core competencies (such as establishing a structure facilitating a dialogue for understanding ... and what was seen as a... more
... It is ironic that in a world of increasing diversity and multiplicity, organizational learning in ... of core competencies (such as establishing a structure facilitating a dialogue for understanding ... and what was seen as a bureaucratic and inefficient means of managing the measurement ...
... Stream 4 The Dynamics and Challenges of Ideological Control New Control Mechanisms, Fear and Communities of Coping Ofelia A. Palermo Nottingham Business School Nottingham Trent University, UK ofelia.palermo@ntu.ac.uk ...
... sin (Devika, 46) Five other women similarly emphasised that they did not confront their elders under any circumstances, since they did not want to accumulate 'sins'. Significantly women also talked... more
... sin (Devika, 46) Five other women similarly emphasised that they did not confront their elders under any circumstances, since they did not want to accumulate 'sins'. Significantly women also talked about their all-important and central roles in sustaining Buddhist practices in Sri ...
Diana Bilimoria is KeyBank Professor and Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. Her research focuses on gender and diversity in leadership and governance. She is a co-author of Gender Equity in Science and Engineering: Advan...more
An evaluation of the contribution of support services in facilitating the transition from employment to self-employment by women entrepreneurs