Week 10 Organisational culture

and diversity

Equality/diversity and HRM

How cultures differ
Hofstedes 4 dimensions of culture
Culture,gender and power
Ref Guirdham,M(1999),Communicating across
Cultures
Ref Ledwith,S & Colgan,F(1996) Women in
Organisations
Itzin,C& Newman,C(1995) Gender,Culture and
OrganisationaChange.

Gender and organisations

Acker(1990,1992)
Argues for a systematic theory of gender and
organisations which recognises the significance of
work organisations as arenas in which widely
disseminated cultural images of gender and
individual identity are invented and reproduced
Reality in work organisations,structures,processes
and relationships are complex and riddled with
ambiguity(K.Purcell,1990)

Culture
Hofstede(1992) Culture is defined as the shaping of
the mind that distinguishes the members of one
group or category of people from those of
another.It is expressed as the collective
values,norms,traditions,myths and institutions that
characterise are characteristic among members of a
group
Trompenaars(1994) culture defines
people,context,human relationships and leadershipvirtually every aspect of business

Male power and control through forms of sexuality

Ramazangolu,1989
Sexual and racial harassment in organisations
Amos and Parmar 1984,Phizacklea,1983,
Hearn and Parkin,1987-organisational power
maintained by males
Double burden Amos &Parmar(1984) ethnic
minority women at work
Pervasiveness of male culture,macho
culture,emphasis on power and control of
resources,environments,events,domination in
powerful positions

ACKER,1990,1992
4 INTERACTING SETS OF PROCESSES ARE
IDENTIFIED WHICH ALTHOUGH
ANALYTICALLY DISTINCT,ARE IN
PRACTICE PARTS OF THE SAME REALITY
Construction of gender divisions among men and
women with men almost always in the highest
positions of organisational power
The construction of symbols and images that
explain,express,reinforce or sometimes oppose
those divisions language,dress and media image

ACKER,1990,1992
Interactions among and between women and
men
Gendered components of individual identity
and presentation of self internal mental
work of individuals-gender appropriate
behaviour and attitudes

Relationship between gender and power

within organisational setting
Kanter(1977) Men and Women of the Corporation
Expectation of integration of women into
bureaucratic power structures will alter these
structures in a significant way
Alimo-Metcalfe(1993) senior women working
within male organisations-costs and stresses
Key shift move away from formalist analysis of
bureaucracies towards a recognition of both how
they are shaped by specific struggles and how they
in turn lead to specific types of gender
configurations Witz &Savage

Vinnicombe,S & Colville,N.L(1995)

Personal power-psychological concept I-E
No consistent sex differences,managers and business
students
Interpersonal power-ability to influence others
Organisational power-mobilising resources

Organisational approaches
Cockburn(1989)
Jewson and Mason Liberal approach business case
for EO fails to challenge or attempt to change the
existing organisational power structure
Radical approach release a struggle for power and
influence challenging existing structures,attitudes
and cultures in the pursuit of change separatist
structures

Long agenda the on-going chances of all

groups due to be equalised and
sustained,democratised and opened

Transformational route to power

Preferred procedures of the liberal approach are

widely assumed to result in the outcomes preferred
by the radical school

Organisational gender politics

Ledwith and Colgan (1996)
The degree to which women will
Accept,conform or challenge gendered patterns of
occupational segregation
Consciousness of discrimination and career
barriers
Reading of organisational politics
Willingness to adopt individualistic,collectivist and
/or separatist strategies

Womens consciousness and

activism
Traditional women
Women in transition
Feminism and feminists-Women aware and
Feminists

Organisational change agents

Kirton(1991) model of adaptors and innovators
Adaptors produce ideas stretching and extending
agreed definitions of the problems and the likely
solutions
Innovators more likely to pursue change by
reconstructing the problem,separating it from the
existing accepted thought and customary viewpoint
and showing disregard for the rules
White,Cox & Cooper,1992

New Sectors-Call Centre and

Software 2002
To what extent are new sectors providing
greater equality and a different culture for
women?
Call Centres female friendly factor Belt.V
HRMJ Vol 12,No4,2002.
Computing sector egalitarian work
environment Poggio,B Economic
&Industrial Democracy, Vol 21, 2000.

Political skills
Preference for men=Preference for

power,(Kanter)
Arroba and James(1987) 2 dimensions of
political skill-Reading and carrying
Styles of behaviourwise,clever,innocent,inept

Gendering Organisational Analysis

Gender as a social division within organisations
Gender as experience
Gendered meanings and identities
Symbolic values placed on male and female work