5th Critical Management Studies Conference, Manchester, UK, 11-13 July 2007
Reconnecting diversity to critical organization and gender studies
Call for abstracts
Stream convenors:
Yvonne Benschop (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, the Netherlands)
Maddy Janssens (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium)
Patrizia Zanoni (Universiteit van Tilburg, the Netherlands)
Organizations have never been so demographically diverse as today (Johnston & Packer, 1987; OECD, 2005a; OECD, 2005b; Offerman & Gowing, 1990). People migrate, companies become multinational, more women and disabled people are employed in the formal economy, the young and the elderly are more likely to work together, individuals with different professional backgrounds are more often asked to jointly find solutions to complex business problems. At the same time, today's employees increasingly expect to be accepted and valued in the workplace for who they are as individuals, and refuse to put up a modal professional persona, or to carefully hide their unconventional sexual orientation, religious affiliation or family background. Organizations are therefore urged to develop policies, practices and cultures not only to attract increasingly diverse employees (Cappelli, 2000; Cox & Blake, 1991; Thomas, 2004) but also to become more inclusive, so that they receive opportunities to fully deploy their talents and competences.
Diversity research has emerged in the last twenty years with the main goal of understanding how such diversity affects organizations. Most diversity studies attempt to unravel the relationship between one or more socio-demographic traits −for instance, sex, ethnicity/race, age, tenure, and professional background− and organizational processes and outcomes such as conflict, problem-solving, creativity, and innovation (Harrison, Price, & Bell, 1998; Kilduff, Funck, & Mehra, 2000; Pelled, Eisenhardt, & Xin, 1999). A second, smaller group of studies deals with minority employees' careers. Concerned with equal opportunities and/or the optimal allocation and development of an organization's human capital, they investigate how formal and informal practices, such as mentoring (Kram & Lynn, 1985; Ragins & Cotton, 1991; Ragins & Scandura, 1994) and networks (Cox & Nkomo, 1990; Ibarra, 1992, 1995; James, 2000; Mehra et al., 1998) exclude minority members leading to horizontal and vertical segregation and wage differentials (Blandford, 2003; James, 2000). Finally, a third, more critically oriented strand of diversity research challenges the dominant conceptualization of diversity as given, measurable phenomena fixed in time (Zanoni & Janssens, 2004; Litvin, 1997). These studies re-conceptualize diversity as a dominant discourse which contributes to maintaining unequal power relations between individuals and groups.
While diversity research is flourishing, most studies have to date drawn from a rather limited array of theories. Mainstream studies mainly rely on social identity theories such as social identification/categorization theory (Tajfel, 1981; Turner, 1987), the similarity attraction paradigm (Byrne, 1971), and distinctiveness theory (McGuire, 1984), while critical studies generally use discourse analysis to portray how minorities are constructed in ways functional to their subjugation. The relative uniformity within mainstream and critical approaches has led to a theoretical and empirical impasse in the domain, as manifested in lasting inconsistent empirical results (Milliken & Martins, 1996; Williams & O'Reilly, 1998) and in Nkomo and Cox's (1996) plea for a more theoretically founded re-conceptualization of diversity. Diversity research has undoubtedly come to a stage when new, alternative perspectives are needed to gain further insights. Broadening our approaches is necessary to better understand what diversity is, what its effects are on organizations, and how organizations should change to make the best out of it.
We believe that diversity research would particularly benefit from drawing from theories and practices originating in critical organization studies and gender studies. Both bodies of literature have in fact a much more consolidated tradition in critically conceptualizing difference and investigating practices that create, sustain or challenge that difference. Yet, due to its roots in practitioners' world, diversity research has developed relatively loose from both bodies of literature.
This call invites papers that interpret diversity in novel ways by drawing from critically informed organization theory and practices. We are interested in studies that re-connect diversity with organizational theories and practices such as identity regulation, organizational culture, work processes, emotional labour, to name just a few. What do these perspectives tell us about diversity in organizations? How can they help better understand the relationship between diversity and concepts such as control, resistance, and inclusion? How are diversity practices related to established organizational practices, perpetuating power inequalities? How can we develop diversity practices that counter such inequalities?
We further invite innovative papers that address diversity drawing from feminist theories of organization and gender organizational practices. While gender studies are currently attempting to integrate other types of diversity within its analyses (Lorber, 2005), diversity research has hardly been informed by gender studies. We are interested in studies that re-connect these two literatures theoretically and empirically addressing questions such as the following: How can feminist theories help us better conceptualize diversity? To what extent and how is gender similar or different from other key identities in organizations? In what ways are various identities interlocked with unequal power relations? To what extent can they reproduce or challenge such unequal power relations? As gender equality policies preceded diversity policies in many organizations we are also interested in the relation between them. How do diversity practices resemble or differ from the experiences gained in emancipation policies, affirmative action, feminist interventions and practices of gender mainstreaming? Is there something to be learned from the long experiences with gender equality policies as practices that enhance minorities' position in organization?
We welcome empirical and theoretical studies that investigate one or more socio-demographic differences (gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, language, religion, disability, etc.) in organizations by linking them in an innovative way to concepts from critical organizational studies and gender studies, such as (but certainly not solely):
· work processes,
· organizational culture,
· professional identity,
· customer relations,
· emotional labour,
· business ethics
· corporate social responsibility,
· employee resistance,
· embodiment,
· negotiation theory,
· game theory,
· inter-cultural management,
· organizational change,
· organizational learning,
· idiosyncratic deals,
· post-colonial theory,
· ...
We foresee a special issue on the topic of this stream in a leading organization studies journal. Contributors might subsequently want to submit their work, although acceptation to the conference stream does not guarantee publication. For the special issue, submitted papers will follow the usual review process.
Details of the Convenors
Yvonne Benschop
Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
Y.Benschop@fm.ru.nl
Maddy Janssens
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Maddy.Janssens@econ.kuleuven.be
Patrizia Zanoni
Universiteit van Tilburg
Patrizia.Zanoni@econ.kuleuven.be
Timeline for paper submission
Abstracts to Convenors (email) - 6 November 2006
Decisions on acceptance/rejection communicated to authors - 14 February 2007
Full papers to Convenors (email) - 28 April 2007
Abstracts format
Abstracts must contain the following information:
Authors (including affiliation and contact details, with lead author clearly indicated)
Stream to which the abstract is submitted
Title
Body text
Maximum 300 words
All abstracts must be single-spaced, prepared using at least an 11-point Ariel font, with a left margin at least 1 inch for binding and be formatted for A4 paper (21cm * 29.7 cm).
Prof. Dr. Yvonne Benschop
Professor Organizational Behavior
Radboud University Nijmegen
Nijmegen School of Management
PO Box 9108
6500 HK Nijmegen
The Netherlands
tel: 31 24 3613007
fax: 31 24 3611933
email: Y.Benschop@fm.ru.nl
website: www.ru.nl/partner