Research into "corporate masculinity" suggests that executive men position their difference, status and power through discourses which involve the strategies of "identification with some men and differentiation from others, including women". While these processes apparently place women in an antithetical relationship to power, women are increasingly achieving executive leadership. This paper examines the career representations of 30 senior women executives. Drawing on a social constructionist approach to gender and identity, examines women's positioning of self within the discourse and discusses how they deal with the apparent paradoxes or contradictions of female identity within a world dominated by corporate masculinity. Our findings suggest that women engage in processes of identification and differentiation comparable to those of men. Perhaps unexpectedly, these processes often involve an assertion and celebration of female difference that includes distinctions between "the wo-men and the boys". They also involve a more tentative process of differentiation from corporate masculinity through the construction of an emerging new culture, the culture of women in business.
Suggests that interaction between managers and consultants may be a way for learning organisations to continue learning and developing. Looks at a study into the relationship between professional consultants and their clients to identify two leading factors in influencing whether organisational learning occurs. These imply that the consultant is central for the achievement of organisational development and success. Examines two specific cases and concludes that within this context, there are a number of factors that influence whether organisational learning can be achieved, including role assignment and linking individual development to organisational development.
Executive leadership is constituted as a predominantly male domain, placing women in an antithetical position to executive power. In theorising this situation, a social constructionist model of gender suggests that in the corporate world, as elsewhere, perceptions of the behaviour of men and women are “automatically filtered through a gendered lens” and reconstituted within a more general discourse on gender difference, tapping into subconscious images of leadership to reinforce a masculinist construction of executive power. Yet today women are increasingly in executive roles. This study explores the relationship between a social constructionist model of gender and executive discourse by drawing on interviews with ten male and ten female New Zealand executives. Given that these executives hold comparable organisational status and power, the study examines whether or not a gendered lens still operates in their representations of one another, and if there are indications of gender and social change in the discourse.
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