Gender and Organisational Culture

Feminists have chronicled the deep stirrings felt by women excluded from choices and marginalised from power in organisations. This book explores the experiences of marginality for women who work in organisations and its associations to occupational stress and career success. Stress is viewed as a mis-fit between an individual's personal values and the 'environmental' supplies available to fulfil those values. This is a shift away from models that focus on appraisals of demand versus capacity. Tenets of marginality theory and gender schema theory are key points of reference. These theories support the notion that individuals who experience greater congruence between their own gender identity and that of their organisational culture will experience less occupational stress and higher quality work outcomes. The book describes two studies that firstly explore the nature of marginality, and then its causes and effects. Findings suggest that many women find themselves with less freedom than expected to move at the 'contact zone' between masculine and feminine behaviours in the workplace. The importance of nurturance in organisational cultures is offered to address this imbalance.