Summary scientific articles Gender & Diversity
Bachelor Sociologie – Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
Table of contents
Week 1....................................................................................................................................................2
Inequality Regimes; Gender, Class and Race in Organizations – Joan Acker.......................................2
The organizational reproduction of inequality – Amis, Mair and Munir 2020....................................5
Week 2....................................................................................................................................................9
Diversity in organizations – Mensi-klarbach & Hanappi-Egger H8......................................................9
Cultural change: an integration of three different views – Meyerson and Martin 1987...................11
Week 3..................................................................................................................................................14
Theories of difference, diversity and intersectionality: what do they bring to diversity
management? - Hearn & Louvrier 2016...........................................................................................14
Reconciling competing discourses of diversity? Between social justice and the business case –
Tomlinson & Schawbenland 2010.....................................................................................................17
Week 4..................................................................................................................................................19
Quotas for men: reframing gender quotas as a means of improving representation for all – Murray
2012..................................................................................................................................................19
The shackled runner: time to rethink positive discrimination? – Noon, 2010..................................20
Week 5..................................................................................................................................................22
Paradoxes of inclusion: understanding and managing the tensions of diversity and multiculturalism
– Fredman 2017................................................................................................................................22
Resistance in gender training and mainstreaming processes – Lambardo & Mergaert 2016...........26
Inclusive workplaces: a review and model. Shore et al 2018............................................................28
Week 6..................................................................................................................................................29
Post-heroic leadership, tempered radicalism and senior leaders as change agents for gender
equality – Kelan & Wratil 2018.........................................................................................................29
Understanding diversity managers’ role in organizational change: towards a conceptual framework
– Tatli & Ozbilgin 2009......................................................................................................................31
Week 7..................................................................................................................................................35
‘You end up doing the document rather than doing the doing’: diversity, race equality and the
politics of documentation – Ahmed 2007.........................................................................................35
Diversity change and resistance – Beauregard H10..........................................................................36
,Week 1
Inequality Regimes; Gender, Class and Race in Organizations – Joan Acker
Most studies of the production of class, gender, and racial inequalities in organizations have focused
on one or another of these categories, rarely attempting to study them as complex, mutually
reinforcing or contradicting processes. Theory and research on inequality, dominance, and oppression
must pay attention to the intersections of, at least, race/ethnicity, gender, and class.
All organizations have inequality regimes, defined as loosely interrelated practices, processes,
actions, and meanings that result in and maintain class, gender, and racial inequalities within particular
organizations. Inequality= systematic disparities between participants in power and control over
goals, resources, and outcomes; workplace decisions such as how to organize work; opportunities for
promotion and interesting work; security in employment and benefits; pay and other monetary
rewards; respect; and pleasures in work and work relations. Inequality regimes are highly various in
other ways; they also tend to be fluid and changing. These regimes are linked to inequality in the
surrounding society, its politics, history, and culture.
The bases of inequality: The bases for inequality in organizations vary, although class, gender, and
race processes are usually present. “Class,” refers to enduring and systematic differences in access to
and control over resources for provisioning and survival. Gender, as socially constructed differences
between men and women and the beliefs and identities that support difference and inequality, is also
present in all organizations. Gender and class are no longer so perfectly integrated, but gendered and
sexualized assumptions still shape the class situations of women and men in different ways. “Race”
refers to socially defined differences based on physical characteristics, culture, and historical
domination and oppression, justified by entrenched beliefs. Ethnicity may accompany race, or stand
alone, as a basis for inequality. Other differences are sometimes bases for inequality in organizations.
The most important is sexuality. Homosexuality is disruptive of organizing processes because it flouts
the assumptions of heterosexuality. It still carries a stigma that produces disadvantages for lesbians
and gays. Other bases of inequality are religion, age, and physical disability.
Shape and degree of inequality: Hierarchies are usually gendered and racialized, especially at the top.
This is particularly true in large and influential organizations. Some research shows that flat team
structures provide professional women more equality and opportunity than hierarchical bureaucracies,
but only if the women function like men. the power of higher managerial levels is usually not changed:
Class inequalities are only slightly reduced. The degree and pattern of segregation by race and gender
is another aspect of inequality that varies considerably between organizations. Gender and race
segregation of jobs is complex because segregation is hierarchical across jobs at different class levels
of an organization, across jobs at the same level, and within jobs. Occupations should be distinguished
from jobs: There is less gender segregation than 30 years ago. Desegregation has not progressed so far
in other occupations. Jobs and occupations may be internally segregated by both gender and race:
What appears to be a reduction in segregation may only be its reconfiguration. Reconfiguration and
differentiation have occurred as women have entered previously male-dominated occupations. For
example, women doctors are likely to specialize in pediatrics, not surgery, which is still largely a male
domain. The size of wage differences in organizations also varies. Wage differences often vary with
the height of the hierarchy. White men tend to earn more than any other gender/race category. Gender
and race are important in determining power differences within organizational class levels. For
example, managers are not always equal. In some organizations, women managers work quietly to do
the organizational housekeeping, to keep things running, while men managers rise to heroic heights to
solve spectacular problems
Organizing processes that produce inequality. Organizations vary in the practices and processes that
are used to achieve their goals; these practices and processes also produce class, gender, and racial
inequalities.
,- The general requirements of work in organizations vary among organizations and among
organizational levels. In general, work is organized on the image of a white man who is totally
dedicated to the work and who has no responsibilities for children or family demands other
than earning a living. Eight hours of continuous work away from the living space, arrival on
time, total attention to the work, and long hours. Because women have more obligations
outside of work than do men, this gendered organization of work is important in maintaining
gender inequality in organizations and, thus, the unequal distribution of women and men in
organizational class hierarchies. Thus, gender, race, and class inequalities are simultaneously
created in the fundamental construction of the working day and of work obligations.
- Organizing class hierarchies. Techniques also vary for organizing class hierarchies inside
work organizations. Bureaucratic, textual techniques for ordering positions and people are
constructed to reproduce existing class, gender, and racial inequalities. Job classification
systems describe job tasks and responsibilities and rank jobs hierarchically. Jobs are then
assigned to wage categories with jobs of similar rank in the same wage category.
- In the past 30 years, many organizations have removed some layers of middle management
and relocated some decision making to lower organizational levels. The frontline employees
were still on the bottom; they had more responsibility, but not higher salaries. And they had no
increased control over their job security. In both cases, the workers liked the changes in the
content of their jobs, but the hierarchy was still inviolate. In sum, class hierarchies in
organizations, with their embedded gender and racial patterns, are constantly created and
renewed through organizing practices
- Recruitment and hiring. Recruitment and hiring is a process of finding the worker most suited
for a particular position. Images of appropriate gendered and racialized bodies influence
perceptions and hiring. White bodies are often preferred. Hiring through social networks is
one of the ways in which gender and racial inequalities are maintained in organizations.
Affirmative action programs altered hiring practices in many organizations, requiring open
advertising for positions and selection based on gender- and race-neutral criteria of
competence, rather than selection based on an old boy (white) network.
- Wage setting and supervisory practices. These class practices determine the division of
surplus between workers and management and control the work process and workers. Gender
and race affect assumptions about skill, responsibility, and a fair wage for jobs and workers,
helping to produce wage differences. Supervisory relations may be affected by the gender and
race of both supervisor and subordinate, in some cases preserving or reproducing gender or
race inequalities.
o Two implications: first, that individualized wage-setting produces inequality, and
second, that to understand wage inequality it is necessary to delve into the details of
wage-setting systems.
- Informal interactions while ‘’doing the work’’. Body differences provide clues to the
appropriate assumptions, followed by appropriate behaviors. What is appropriate varies, of
course, in relation to the situation, the organizational culture and history, and the standpoints
of the people judging appropriateness. gendered and racialized interactions shaped the
organizations’ class relations: Women paralegals were put in the role of supportive, mothering
aides, while men paralegals were cast as junior partners in the firms’ business. African
American employees, primarily women in secretarial positions, were acutely aware of the
ways in which they were routinely categorized and subordinated in interactions with both
paralegals and attorneys. The interaction practices that re-create gender and racial inequalities
are often subtle and unspoken, thus difficult to document. White men may devalue and
exclude white women and people of color by not listening to them in meetings, by not inviting
them to join a group going out for a drink after work.
, The visibility of Inequalities: defined as the degree of awareness of inequalities, varies in different
organizations. Lack of awareness may be intentional or unintentional. “One privilege of the privileged
is not to see their privilege.” People in dominant groups generally see inequality as existing
somewhere else, not where they are. Class also tends to be invisible. Race is usually visible, but
segregated, denied and avoided. Sexuality is almost always invisible to the majority who are
heterosexual.
The legitimacy of inequalities: also varies between organizations. Some organizations, such as
cooperatives, professional organizations, or voluntary organizations with democratic goals, may find
inequality illegitimate and try to minimize it. In other organizations, such as rigid bureaucracies,
inequalities are highly legitimate. Legitimacy of inequality also varies with political and economic
conditions. Class may be seen as legitimate because it is seen as inevitable at the present time. Gender
and race inequality are less legitimate than class. Women as more suited to child care and less suited to
demanding careers than men. Beliefs in biological differences between genders and between
racial/ethnic groups, in racial inferiority, and in the superiority of certain masculine traits all legitimate
inequality. High visibility and low legitimacy of inequalities may enhance the possibilities for change.
Control and compliance: Organizational controls are class controls, directed at maintaining the
power of managers, ensuring that employees act to further the organization’s goals, and getting
workers to accept the system of inequality. Controls are made possible by hierarchical organizational
power, but they also draw on power derived from hierarchical gender and race relations. Direct
controls include bureaucratic rules and various punishments for breaking the rules. Rewards are also
direct controls. indirect controls include control through technologies, such as monitoring telephone
calls or time spent online or restricting information flows. Internalized controls (invisible controls)
include belief in the legitimacy of bureaucratic structures and rules as well as belief in the legitimacy
of male and white privilege.
Can inequality regimes change?: Change is difficult and often fails. One reason is that owner and
managerial class interests and the power those interests can mobilize usually outweigh the class,
gender, and race interests of those who suffer inequality. Successful change projects seem to have had
a number of common characteristics. Change efforts that target a limited set of inequality-producing
mechanisms seem to be the most successful. In addition, successful efforts appear to have combined
social movement and legislative support outside the organization with active support from insiders. In
addition, successful efforts often involve coercion or threat of loss. Both affirmative action and pay
equity campaigns had these characteristics.
Globalization, restructuring and change in inequalities regimes: Organizational restructuring of the
past 30 years has contributed to increasing variation in inequality regimes. Restructuring, new
technology, and the globalization of production contribute to rising competitive pressures in private-
sector organizations and budget woes in public-sector organizations, making challenges to inequality
regimes less likely to be undertaken than during the 1960s to the 1980s. in many organizations, certain
inequalities are externalized in new segmented organizing forms as both production and services are
carried out in other, low-wage countries, often in organizations that are in a formal, legal sense
separate organizations. White working- and middle-class men, as well as white women and all people
of color, have been affected by restructuring, downsizing, and the export of jobs to low-wage
countries. The increase in contingent and temporary workers who have less participation in decisions
and less security than regular workers also increases power inequality. New technology makes it
possible to do some jobs anywhere and to be in touch with colleagues and managers at all hours of day
and night. Other workers lower in organizational hierarchies are expected to work as the employer
demands, overtime or at odd hour. But informal exclusion and unspoken denigration are still
widespread and still difficult to document and to confront. The visibility of inequality to those in
positions of power does not seem to have changed. Controls that ensure compliance with inequality
regimes have also become more effective and perhaps more various.
