Lecture 1: Organizations as Key Sites of In-/Equality
Case study = 60% grade
Exam (open question) = 40% grade
Introduction
Why focus on diversity policies and practices? We try to understand what is happening in
organizations that is causing inequality and to discover what is shaping the organization. Therefore,
you analyze the organization on an organizational level. It’s a sensitive topic and political charged
because it touched upon fairness, social inequalities, and discrimination. There is a very strong
managerial discourse, it’s a possible source of advantage on multiple topics (see slide).
Diversity
If we look at diversity, we look at different social categories and identities. In this course in the
context of an organization. We bring our social categories into the organization, to the workplace,
university, etc. It’s always there.
There are many ways of looking at diversity, this is one way:
- Surface level diversity / visible differences: visible features like gender (expression, not
biological sex), age and race
- Deep level / invisible differences: less visible or underlying attributes like religion, education,
sexuality, personality. character
What does it mean in organizations? These diversities?
Diversity is always related to a unit a single person cannot be diverse. It’s always relational, you
need to relate yourself to another to see differences. Diversity in itself does not necessarily lead to
inequality. Inequality happens when differences are nested in a structure. When meaning is attached
to differences, inequality exists.
Inequality in organizations
Inequality regimes (Acker): “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 pleasure in work and work relations”. These regimes bring about inequality.
Inequality in organizations can be very broad, there are many different aspects where you can
experience inequality.
Organizations can have different inequality regimes, what they look like differs. Not every inequality
regime looks the same, they’re context dependent (Avent-Holt et al.). You can look at inequality in
the labor market in different ways (Benschop et al.). We’re now discussing quantitative indicators
with the example of gender, but it’s possible to apply these to other social categories:
- Horizontal segregation
o Some occupations are more likely to be occupied by men.
- Vertical segregation
o Where in the hierarchy are men and women positioned?
- Time segregation
o Educational level is connected to the amount of time people work during the week.
For women: the higher the education, the more hours they work. For men it doesn’t
matter: their educational level is not influencing their workhours
- Contract segregation
o Pay/bonuses
o Type of contract (permanent/fixed)
o Pregnancy discrimination
,Production of inequalities in organizations
We talked about quantitative factors, but how do they come about? Where does inequality come
from?
- Micro (individual)
o Human capital theory: inequality have to do with the human capital of the person
(skills, education, experience, etc.). puts the burden on the individual
o Cognitive bias:
Explicit interethnic attitudes: things that we’re conscious about.
Implicit interethnic attitudes: things we don’t know about happening in our
brains, we don’t have control over but do affect us.
When we think about inequality, these cognitive biases are often used to explain this.
- Meso (organizational)
o Token Theory
o Inequality regimes (Acker)
o Relation Inequality Theory (Avent-Holt et al.)
- Macro: (societal/political): what happens in organizations is not happening in an ‘empty
room’, the organizations themselves are positioned in a bigger context that can impact the
organization.
o EU/Governmental policies, laws & regulations (political sciences)
o Societal discourses (sociology)
o Patriarchy (feminist theory)
o Colonialism (postcolonial theory/transnational feminist theory)
o Role of capitalism (Marxist theory)
,Where does the responsibility of the organization stop? If an organization want s to do something
about inequality, where do they have to stop? Do you involve the suppliers? In what extend can you
influence the world around the organization?
Understanding inequality in organizations
Rosabeth Moss Kanter was one of the first people
who investigated the meso-level in relation to
inequality. Her work was very important. She saw
happening inequality between women/men, but
said it has to do with numbers. She came up with
this distribution. Here you can see how this line
divided the group. She came up with different
subgroups. She put up different social groups
within an organization. She describes the
experiences of women as tokens, and there three
things are important:
- High visibility: because they’re a small
group their visibility is high, and this leads to higher pressure “everybody is watching you”
- Isolation: this works of likeminded people, and if you’re different its difficult to get into these
networks. Gatekeepers decide if you’re allowed and getting past the gatekeeper as different
person Is hard
- Boundary heightening: you associate certain gender stereotypes with the group
It doesn’t work for everyone; the experiences are not exactly the same. In more women-occupied
occupations there we see something happening like a glass escalator: even though men are in the
minority position based on numbers, they’re still promoted to higher positions more quickly. White
men tokens experiences are very different form women tokens experiences.
Gendered organization
Acker comes with four aspects if we want to understand this. These four aspects can be used as a
tool to describe inequality in organizations.
- Cultural: what happens in the organization: symbols,
who is the ideal worker, keyroles of the organization,
who’s picture is hanging on the wall, names of the
rooms (are they named after famous men?)
o Construction of symbols and images that
explain, express, reinforce or sometimes
oppose those divisions. E.g. values and ideas
about the ‘ideal worker’, heroes, but also
material symbols
- Structural: constructed along gendered lines: division
of labor, hierarchy
o Construction of divisions along gender lines,
e.g. divisions of labor (tasks/jobs/positions),
conditions of employment
(temporary/permanent position), recruitment
and selection, hierarchies
- Interpersonal relationship between men/men
women/men women/women: who is expected to
bring coffee to the meeting? Can also take place in
informal interactions, like in jokes.
, o Interactions between and among women and men, women and women, men and
men, e.g. conversation style, ‘doing masculinity/feminity’, homosociality
- Individual/identity: ambition, competencies. In relation to the others
o Traditional roles, self-conceptions about suitability, ambition, competencies
They’re all related to each other and happen simultaneously. This is how gendering processes work
according to Acker. You can use the four aspects as a lens to look at the organization you’re working
with.
So:
- Organizations produce complex inequalities and differ in inequality regimes
- Inequality regimes are interlocked practices and processes that result in continuing
inequalities in work organizations
- Legitimacy and visibility of inequalities
- How does the production of multiple inequalities in organizations work out? the concept
of intersectionality
Lecture 2: The role Organizations in contemporary society
Contemporary society as organized society
Logos of different types of organizations: what kind of different organizations are there.
Organizations that produce products (apple), knowledge (university), non-profit (amnesty), start-up
organizations (fairphone). We think about what is good about organizations, what they bring. We
also need to think critically about organization: what role do they have in the society? They can have
positive and negative outcomes, like power positions. What kind of information do organizations
have about us as people? Can be harmful. So don’t think about all the positive things, but also about
the challenges.
What is an organization?
Basic definition:
- Composed of cooperative agents working together towards the achievement of common
goals
- Is characterized by division of labor: organizational structure
- Allows the effective coordination of activities towards the achievement of common goals
- Has knowledge, culture, history, capabilities and legal status distinct from any single agent:
agent: if it’s a multiple person organization usually this organization is not legally connected
to one single person. If the CEO stops working, the organization can still exist, because it’s
not bound to one specific person. Also, not all knowledge is bound to one person, it’s
divided.
- Draws boundaries between themselves and the environment, but affects and is affected by
the environment
Historical development of organizational theories
Case study = 60% grade
Exam (open question) = 40% grade
Introduction
Why focus on diversity policies and practices? We try to understand what is happening in
organizations that is causing inequality and to discover what is shaping the organization. Therefore,
you analyze the organization on an organizational level. It’s a sensitive topic and political charged
because it touched upon fairness, social inequalities, and discrimination. There is a very strong
managerial discourse, it’s a possible source of advantage on multiple topics (see slide).
Diversity
If we look at diversity, we look at different social categories and identities. In this course in the
context of an organization. We bring our social categories into the organization, to the workplace,
university, etc. It’s always there.
There are many ways of looking at diversity, this is one way:
- Surface level diversity / visible differences: visible features like gender (expression, not
biological sex), age and race
- Deep level / invisible differences: less visible or underlying attributes like religion, education,
sexuality, personality. character
What does it mean in organizations? These diversities?
Diversity is always related to a unit a single person cannot be diverse. It’s always relational, you
need to relate yourself to another to see differences. Diversity in itself does not necessarily lead to
inequality. Inequality happens when differences are nested in a structure. When meaning is attached
to differences, inequality exists.
Inequality in organizations
Inequality regimes (Acker): “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 pleasure in work and work relations”. These regimes bring about inequality.
Inequality in organizations can be very broad, there are many different aspects where you can
experience inequality.
Organizations can have different inequality regimes, what they look like differs. Not every inequality
regime looks the same, they’re context dependent (Avent-Holt et al.). You can look at inequality in
the labor market in different ways (Benschop et al.). We’re now discussing quantitative indicators
with the example of gender, but it’s possible to apply these to other social categories:
- Horizontal segregation
o Some occupations are more likely to be occupied by men.
- Vertical segregation
o Where in the hierarchy are men and women positioned?
- Time segregation
o Educational level is connected to the amount of time people work during the week.
For women: the higher the education, the more hours they work. For men it doesn’t
matter: their educational level is not influencing their workhours
- Contract segregation
o Pay/bonuses
o Type of contract (permanent/fixed)
o Pregnancy discrimination
,Production of inequalities in organizations
We talked about quantitative factors, but how do they come about? Where does inequality come
from?
- Micro (individual)
o Human capital theory: inequality have to do with the human capital of the person
(skills, education, experience, etc.). puts the burden on the individual
o Cognitive bias:
Explicit interethnic attitudes: things that we’re conscious about.
Implicit interethnic attitudes: things we don’t know about happening in our
brains, we don’t have control over but do affect us.
When we think about inequality, these cognitive biases are often used to explain this.
- Meso (organizational)
o Token Theory
o Inequality regimes (Acker)
o Relation Inequality Theory (Avent-Holt et al.)
- Macro: (societal/political): what happens in organizations is not happening in an ‘empty
room’, the organizations themselves are positioned in a bigger context that can impact the
organization.
o EU/Governmental policies, laws & regulations (political sciences)
o Societal discourses (sociology)
o Patriarchy (feminist theory)
o Colonialism (postcolonial theory/transnational feminist theory)
o Role of capitalism (Marxist theory)
,Where does the responsibility of the organization stop? If an organization want s to do something
about inequality, where do they have to stop? Do you involve the suppliers? In what extend can you
influence the world around the organization?
Understanding inequality in organizations
Rosabeth Moss Kanter was one of the first people
who investigated the meso-level in relation to
inequality. Her work was very important. She saw
happening inequality between women/men, but
said it has to do with numbers. She came up with
this distribution. Here you can see how this line
divided the group. She came up with different
subgroups. She put up different social groups
within an organization. She describes the
experiences of women as tokens, and there three
things are important:
- High visibility: because they’re a small
group their visibility is high, and this leads to higher pressure “everybody is watching you”
- Isolation: this works of likeminded people, and if you’re different its difficult to get into these
networks. Gatekeepers decide if you’re allowed and getting past the gatekeeper as different
person Is hard
- Boundary heightening: you associate certain gender stereotypes with the group
It doesn’t work for everyone; the experiences are not exactly the same. In more women-occupied
occupations there we see something happening like a glass escalator: even though men are in the
minority position based on numbers, they’re still promoted to higher positions more quickly. White
men tokens experiences are very different form women tokens experiences.
Gendered organization
Acker comes with four aspects if we want to understand this. These four aspects can be used as a
tool to describe inequality in organizations.
- Cultural: what happens in the organization: symbols,
who is the ideal worker, keyroles of the organization,
who’s picture is hanging on the wall, names of the
rooms (are they named after famous men?)
o Construction of symbols and images that
explain, express, reinforce or sometimes
oppose those divisions. E.g. values and ideas
about the ‘ideal worker’, heroes, but also
material symbols
- Structural: constructed along gendered lines: division
of labor, hierarchy
o Construction of divisions along gender lines,
e.g. divisions of labor (tasks/jobs/positions),
conditions of employment
(temporary/permanent position), recruitment
and selection, hierarchies
- Interpersonal relationship between men/men
women/men women/women: who is expected to
bring coffee to the meeting? Can also take place in
informal interactions, like in jokes.
, o Interactions between and among women and men, women and women, men and
men, e.g. conversation style, ‘doing masculinity/feminity’, homosociality
- Individual/identity: ambition, competencies. In relation to the others
o Traditional roles, self-conceptions about suitability, ambition, competencies
They’re all related to each other and happen simultaneously. This is how gendering processes work
according to Acker. You can use the four aspects as a lens to look at the organization you’re working
with.
So:
- Organizations produce complex inequalities and differ in inequality regimes
- Inequality regimes are interlocked practices and processes that result in continuing
inequalities in work organizations
- Legitimacy and visibility of inequalities
- How does the production of multiple inequalities in organizations work out? the concept
of intersectionality
Lecture 2: The role Organizations in contemporary society
Contemporary society as organized society
Logos of different types of organizations: what kind of different organizations are there.
Organizations that produce products (apple), knowledge (university), non-profit (amnesty), start-up
organizations (fairphone). We think about what is good about organizations, what they bring. We
also need to think critically about organization: what role do they have in the society? They can have
positive and negative outcomes, like power positions. What kind of information do organizations
have about us as people? Can be harmful. So don’t think about all the positive things, but also about
the challenges.
What is an organization?
Basic definition:
- Composed of cooperative agents working together towards the achievement of common
goals
- Is characterized by division of labor: organizational structure
- Allows the effective coordination of activities towards the achievement of common goals
- Has knowledge, culture, history, capabilities and legal status distinct from any single agent:
agent: if it’s a multiple person organization usually this organization is not legally connected
to one single person. If the CEO stops working, the organization can still exist, because it’s
not bound to one specific person. Also, not all knowledge is bound to one person, it’s
divided.
- Draws boundaries between themselves and the environment, but affects and is affected by
the environment
Historical development of organizational theories
