Using a discourse perspective, we articulate four problematics, (a) boundaries, (b) identity, (c) rationality, and (d) voice that underlie work-family theory, research, and practice. We situate existing interdisciplinary research within each problematic, showing how such research examines outcomes and effects rather than the process of constructing such outcomes. We supplement these studies with emerging communication research to illustrate new ways of thinking about each problematic. We highlight the role of daily microlevel discourses as well as macrodiscourses of organizations and families in creating the current processes, structures, and relationships surrounding work and family. We link each problematic with an agenda for empowerment through (a) questioning boundaries, (b) integrating identity, (c) embracing practical knowledge and emotionality, (d) seeking diverse voices, and (e) developing a communal orientation.
Our standpoint analysis of 21 women in pink-collar occupations displays how these workers both adhere to and challenge maternity leave discourses by rhetorically positioning their leaves as time off and (dis) ability. They both acknowledge the advantages of and resist discourses of time and (dis)ability by constructing complicated, contradictory, and ironic knowledge that such language both secures their leaves and revokes their images as competent workers. This study illustrates how standpoint analyses can inform changes in organizational policy and workplace practices for mothers employed in pink-collar occupations based on common knowledge and differences in local-specific experiences. Beyond providing such analysis, this study also contributes to greater understandings of the "rhetorical reproduction of ideological systems and logics of contemporary culture" constituting mothering rhetorics.
Purpose This paper aims to first introduce the four contributions to the themed issue of The Learning Organization entitled “Learning Organization/Organizational Learning and Gender Issues”. Second, the commonalities among these articles function as themes that can generate further research and engaged or problem-driven scholarship and practice. Design/methodology/approach Feminist critique. Findings These articles challenge commonsense, blur boundaries between reality and imagined visions and form a multilevel matrix for understanding and change regarding gendered learning organizations. Originality/value As an introduction to a special issue, this essay summarizes and extends on the four contributions and then extends the insights to encourage discovery, learning and engagement.
This article analyzes the discourse and practices of two men from different life circumstances punctuated by race, class, education, occupation, number of children, relational history, and familial background. The authors create a new data analytic technique, the integrative case study, that juxtaposes excerpts and analyses of these fathers’ interview data in imagined conversational space through poststructuralist feminist lenses. The authors foreground identity struggles that emerge in their discussions of their home and work lives, enactments of fatherhood, and strategies for managing work—life balance. Although the authors do not claim that these men are representative of the groups for which they report membership, they note the ways in which their language and embodied identity performances influence and are influenced by their portrayals.
This study explores how 92 women disclosed their pregnancies in the workplace. Examining workplace pregnancy disclosure broadly rather than taking a dyadic approach (e.g. employee to supervisor) highlighted tensions and outcomes associated with simultaneously navigating disclosures to multiple colleagues and supervisors. Data analysis revealed four themes: (b) timing safely, (c) diffusing selectively, (d) controlling gatherings, and (e) crafting conversational tones. Findings situate workplace pregnancy disclosure as a dynamic multi-stakeholder process. Women’s accounts suggest that risk is understood as linked to potential future disclosures and the importance of emotion in crafting disclosure interactions.
Feminist organizations today must maintain their distinctive organizational identities in a competitive marketplace in which feminism has become one choice amidst many social change causes. Alignment among organizational identity, stakeholder images, and organizational culture can give feminist organizations a competitive advantage. However, feminist theory and practice have surfaced alignment challenges that can undermine organizational success. This article extends understandings of identity, image, and culture alignment by accounting for the role of ideology. In particular, this article explores how an independent media business that publishes a feminist popular culture magazine localizes feminist ideology discursively to enable alignment and satisfy diverse stakeholders. In doing so, this article fills a gap in feminist organization research by looking at how and where ideological lines are drawn by an organization trading in the economies of popular culture, image, and branding. Lessons for organizations faced with similar identity challenges are offered.
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