Management Work and Society People, Management and Business - Essay Example

? Management and managing are characteristically gendered in many respects Management, Work and Society Work 15 February Contents Contents 2 1 Introduction 3 2 Discussion & Review of Literature 4 2.1 Occupational Mobility 4 2.2 Gender and Ethnicity 4 2.3 Gender and Pay Differentials 5 2.4 Gender and Educational Differential 6 2.5 Arguments for and Against a Gendered Policy 6 3 Conclusions 8 References 9 1 Introduction This research paper discusses many of the issues which women face in organizational environments, especially within the UK labor market. One of the key determinants of the women labor market is the fact that gender discrimination exists, which is not recognized or understood by managers. Another important gender issue is the work-life balance, and the way in which women are disadvantaged in the work place. This paper also discusses issues of segregation within the organization and the ways in which culture impacts the gendered nature of the organization. The paper also discusses in detail cases of gender issues from around the world, so that these can be used as points of reference to the UK environment. The structure of this paper is as follows. In the next section, the main arguments on the gendered nature of the organization are presented. This section is further divided into a number of subsections. The first subsection discusses the ways in which occupational mobility is important for women, and how it influences the organizations. Issues of the way in which lack of mobility can lead to gender pay differences are also discussed. In the next subsection, the aspects of gender and ethnic makeup of the senior management are discussed. It is noted that the type of senior management present in an organization will influence the kind of people who are hired. The third subsection discusses the ways in which pay differential is a key determinant in the gendering of the organizational environment. The next subsection discusses the implications of education on the nature of the organization. It is established that the organization is highly influenced the type of education which is available to the employees, and that women are generally less educated which decreases their chances at getting to the higher levels of management in the organization. The final subsection takes all these issues into account, and is a philosophical discussion on the ways in which a gendered policy is suitable for an organization working in a competitive market environment. This paper concludes that although there is some evidence that the gendered nature of organization is changing, however significant further progress needs to be made before organizations can call them self gender neutral. 2 Discussion & Review of Literature A great deal has been written about the organizational careers and the ways in which gender influences it (Barry et al., 2006, Belfield, 2005, Charles and Harris, 2007, Deem, 2003). Many of the studies on gender and women in management have established that satisfaction level of women working in organizations in UK and elsewhere is lower (Smith, 2009) because of job discrimination, difficulties in work-life balance (Charles and Harris, 2007), and poor attitude of management (MarTins and Parsons, 2007). The issues of gender in women, especially within the UK context has been debated in the literature for a long time, and has been a subject of controversy and debate (McDowell, 2005, Metcalfe, 2008). 2.1 Occupational Mobility One of the key issues facing women working in professional environment is occupational mobility. The circumstances under which women can choose or refuse promotions, new work environments and other key changes in the nature of the job are the key turning points in the career of women (Berg and Einspruch, 2007, Guillaume and Pochic, 2009, Tomlinson, 2006). A number of authors are of the view that careers of women are conceived as a set of adjustments to their family lives, which negatively affects their working relationships (Charles and Harris, 2007, McDowell, 2005, Warren et al., 2010). There is clear evidence in the literature that women are paid lower than their male counterparts as they are seen by employers as short term employees, who will leave an organization when they marry or bear children (Guillaume and Pochic, 2009, McDowell, 2005). The ability of women to move from one job to another is also hindered by the occupational tagging of women as being good at certain types of jobs. These job stereotypes, such as women being good teachers, nurses or care givers, means that women themselves are sometimes led to believe that they would not fit properly into certain job roles (Alvesson and Billing, 2009). This also in some cases means that women are reluctant to change jobs, as they are not willing to try new career options, or are afraid of career change. 2.2 Gender and Ethnicity Another key concern within UK companies especially has been the link between gender and ethnicity. A detailed research of a large sample of UK PLC companies shows that gender diversity in senior management of these organizations was very limited. Although women are present in some sectors such as retail, media and banking, however in other sectors this is not present. (Brammer et al., 2007, Morrison and Vonglinow, 1990). Research also indicates that the composition of the types of customers a company deals with also affects the type of people who are hired by an organization, which also influences the gender makeup and ethnicity of senior management structures (Brammer et al., 2007). The external environment of the organization also directly influences the diversity of the board of directors of an organization (Brammer et al., 2007). In another research, the authors established that the diversity of board membership can improve the performance of an organization (Singh et al., 2001). In this research, the lack of female representation in UK FTSE 100 companies was analyzed, and the authors discovered that only 58 percent companies had at least one female member on their board of directors (Singh et al., 2001). However, those companies which had more female members on their boards were those companies which has the highest turnover and profit, however the relationship between the two is unclear (Singh et al., 2001). 2.3 Gender and Pay Differentials In another recent study of a UK university, the author discovered the gender pay gap in the different pay grades is complicated, however it does exist (Smith, 2009). In this research, the authors established that women were not just satisfied by higher pay rewards, rather other factors such as emotional reward, staff grade and other factors (Charles and Harris, 2007) should be taken into account when analyzing the needs of the gender (Smith, 2009). Similarly, workforce motivation was also analyzed in a such of Japanese labor force and their attitudes towards gender (Worthley et al., 2009). One of the key findings of this research was that women rate extrinsic factors higher than males as motivators for their job satisfaction (Worthley et al., 2009). The research also discovered that in many cases the managers are unable to clearly understand the ways in which women employees can be motivated, which leads to inefficiencies in the organization, leading to stereotypes of women as slower workers (Worthley et al., 2009). Similarly, the link between the worker’s gender and workforce pay has also been established. Some research indicates that there is a strong negative association between the proportion of female workers in an organization and the median workforce salary (Belfield, 2005). However, there is some evidence that the performance of employees in the workplace is positively associated with a higher ratio of female workers in the workplace (Belfield, 2005). Similar research also indicated that gender discrimination is clearly evident, as within-rank gender pay gap is clearly visible in UK labor market (Blackaby et al., 2005). One of the driving factors maybe because men get more ‘outside’ offers for work as compared to women, which creates a perception that this correlates with the individual earning of each gender (Blackaby et al., 2005). In other research from UK and Germany, it was found that the subjects chosen by a particular gender also determined the wages of the employees (Machin and Puhani, 2003). The type of subject which is chosen by a particular gender influences their pay packet by around 2%, while anecdotal evidence suggests that a gender gap increases this gap further (Machin and Puhani, 2003). The difference of pays between the genders is also clearly visible in other large organizations such as World Health Organization (WHO). WHO is a global organization, which claims to have integrated gender issues into its policy framework and budget (Brannstrom, 2004). However, quantitative content analysis research shows that men have a distinct advantage at prominent positions at WHO. Men also hold an advantage when it comes to promotions, as they are generally promoted to the upgraded chairs of the Executive Boards (Brannstrom, 2004) 2.4 Gender and Educational Differential The evidence of research from those women who have spent time as senior management suggest that women can use their gender power to excel in some cases (Ross-Smith and Huppatz, 2010). This is clearly visible within many Australian organizations, where women have used their cultural narratives to sustain careers in senior management in large organizations (Ross-Smith and Huppatz, 2010). Similar evidence from South Korea suggests that there are a number of internal and external obstacles which affect the progress of women to top management levels (Lee and Cheon, 2009, Alvesson and Billing, 2009). This study examined both personal as well as organizational factors which hinder the performance of women, and established that educational qualifications was one of the most important predictor of the performance and proportions of women (Lee and Cheon, 2009). However, the level of education that they can achieve is also affected by their personal and family circumstances, which further hinders their performance. Another major factor affecting their organizational performance is the way in which organizations deal with work-life balance. In most cases, it is seen that this aspect of performance also negatively hinders the performance of the women (Lee and Cheon, 2009), which can lead to less chances of promotion. Other research has suggested that the uptake of women of graduate and executive education has been one of the key determinants enabling women to enter the upper management levels in large organizations (Ibeh et al., 2008). This research suggests that many of the top level business schools enable the women to enter higher management levels. The research also established that although 30% of the students in top business schools were women, only 10% of the schools had established specialist centers for developing women business leaders. Moreover, only a third of the schools offered women-focused programmes with options such as flexi-time. One of the underlying conclusions of this research was that college and university administration, which is dominated by men, fails in some cases to take into account the needs of women, and should do more for gendered training for improved organizational effectiveness of women (Ibeh et al., 2008). In some cases, social class is also an important factor which influences the promotion of women at a higher level (Bonney, 2007), and would influence their choices of education. 2.5 Arguments for and Against a Gendered Policy The debate whether a gendered policy should or should not be followed is also contentious. There is no universal agreement about the cost effectiveness of a policy measure which promotes the greater equity of gender in the organization (Rudman, 1998, Deem, 2003, Worthley et al., 2009). There is no clear policy and incentive in organizations to put forward women for higher ranked positions (Brizendine, 2008). Within the neo-classical literature, the core argument goes against any form of discrimination in the labor market. This strand of literature argues that in competitive markets, it is illogical for employers to discriminate for or against women employees, as the market is self-regulating and would not require external interference (Blackaby et al., 2005, Bowlus and Grogan, 2009, Hakim, 1995, Khattab et al., 2010). In fact, it is argued in the literature that such interferences are counter productive, as they are an additional cost to the employer (Alvesson and Billing, 2009) and reduces the profits of the organizations. This strand of argument advocates that managers must not take any action to promote women in the organization, as the market mechanism and regulation chooses the fittest employees for a particular job, and this would lead to a rationalization of talent and workforce (Alvesson and Billing, 2009). However, the literature also argues to the contrary on a number of grounds. The pro-women literature points to the fact that markets are hardly ever in a perfect-competition state. The employers lack the knowledge and skills to hire the best possible employees, which leads to segregation and bias in the hiring decisions (Jacqueline Scott et al., 2010). The prejudices of the employers tend to produce discrimination which can then lead to further discrimination in the market. Another important aspect of discrimination against women is that in public sector labor market, profit maximization is never an objective, and therefore the selection of women employees is further jeopardized (Jacqueline Scott et al., 2010, Alvesson and Billing, 2009). These arguments lead to further push towards a policy intervention from organizations to solve the issues of gender in organizations in UK. One of the key arguments for policy intervention for a positive gender recruitment is based on the notion of human rights (Alston et al., 2007). It is a basic human rights law, that women should have equal rights, and that the companies should have a positive intent on hiring them. This leads to justice, fair treatment and regard for everyone is an equal manner (Alston et al., 2007). An assertion of this context would be that gender characteristics have no relevance to the job performance, and therefore should not be taken into regards (Alvesson and Billing, 2009). Another argument for policy intervention is based on the notion that the society has to bear social and political costs of gender discrimination, such as unstable families and social unrest. This also leads to advocate that a positive discrimintation attitude to hire women in organization can be helpful to the organization (Charles and Harris, 2007, Guadagno and Cialdini, 2007, McDowell, 2005, Panteli and Pen, 2010). Finally, a positive argument for bringing gender diversity into the market is based on the notion of also bringing wider perspectives and experiences which can be beneficial for the employers (Guillaume and Pochic, 2009). 3 Conclusions This paper examined the major gender issues faced by organizations in UK. The paper focused on using material from peer-reviewed high impact journals and top cited books to draw on the conclusions of other literature regarding issues of gender in organizations. One of the main conclusions is that organizations need to make more effort to consider gender issues. In some cases organizations make some half hearted attempts at integrating gender issues as part of their strategic objective, however this does not fulfill the needs of women working in organizations. Another main conclusion of this research was that managers need to understand in more detail about the nature of family life for women. There should be more consideration for the work-life balance for women, as they are also expected to raise a family while working, which adds to their burden Another conclusion of this research is that education plays an important part in increasing the gendered nature of the organizations. The level of education that is provided to women is based on the perceived needs by the male faculty, which creates a clear boundary between the genders. Another important issue for managers today is that in many large organizations, although gender policies are implemented, their results are not evaluated at regular intervals, which leads to further gender gap. Managers also need to ensure that they take into account the ways in which new technologies, social media and remote working tools can be used to benefit women who need to work from home. This challenges the traditional nature of the organizational setup, however is an issue which is distinctly missing from most of the main literature on gender and women in organizations. Managers should evaluate new technologies and systems, and use them more proactively to help women work from home, which in some cases may also increase their productivity and effectiveness. Such innovative use of technology would also solve many of the motivational issues which have been identified in the literature, as women would be more happy and content from their work-life balance and would not be worried about their family problems due to flexi-working environment available to them. References ALSTON, P., GOODMAN, R. & STEINER, J. 2007. International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals, Oxford, OUP. ALVESSON, M. & BILLING, Y. 2009. Understanding Gender and Organizations by London, Sage Publications Ltd. BARRY, J., BERG, E. & CHANDLER, J. 2006. 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