Gender and Communication at Work: Bookshelf

Citation

Antonova, S. (2007), "Gender and Communication at Work: Bookshelf", Women in Management Review, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 148-151. https://doi.org/10.1108/09649420710732105

To review a book on gender and communication in organizations is to ask a fundamental question: is it about gender as a product, or as a process? To expand the question a little more, is it about identifying gender differences, or identifying the instances (discourses and practices) of creating gender differences? Then finally, is it about “educating” women on the need to adapt, or “empowering” men and women with the understanding of how gender identities are socially produced and reinforced?

The answer to these questions is in the targeted audiences. Gender and Communication at Work is designed as a handbook, a source of recommendations for managers; hence, the short concise format of the chapters and the prevalent functionalist approach to gender differences at the workplace. Yet, it provides scholars and students in Organization Studies with a panoramic view of the conceptual developments in the field in the last 30 years. Consequently, along with the essentialist interpretations of gender and organization as fixed entities, a handful of the 29 authors have made some attempts to open the field to post‐structuralist “reading” of gender issues in organizations (see Buzzanell and Meisenbach, Chapter 2; Metcalfe, Chapter 7; Ng and Byra, Chapter 9; Baxter, Chapter 11). To reach both audiences, the editors invented a format, which successfully blends a “review of literature” element with a pragmatic “recommendations” ending for each of the 20 chapters.

For any academic field, casting a glimpse back in time to acknowledge what was achieved and to recognize what was missed is a significant task, which often produces research maps. Based on the identified “blind spots” new directions are suggested and, consequently, developed. Gender and Communication at Work was conceived with that mission in mind – to provide a comprehensive view of the research advances in gender and communication in organizations field, and, in many respects, this goal is achieved.

Featuring original research along with meta‐analyses, presented in five parts, the volume examines broad range of issues – from gender and communication situations in the employment lifespan (interviewing, transfer of skills training, promotion) to leadership and expression of emotions in organizations, and to electronic discourse in the workplace.

I have to confess that my attention was immediately grasped by the title of Part V – “The future: gender and computer‐mediated communication at work”. Besides my own research interest in the internet studies area, I was curious as well to see whether, by focusing on virtual communication at work, the researchers were able to advance some of the ideas reached in the “virtual gender” and “technofeminism” investigations[1]. Virtual communication via e‐mail, mobile phones and other IP applications is itself an emerging academic field as it focuses on the dynamics of the communicative process and the peculiarities of identity building and performance.

It is encouraging to see that, although the four chapters in this part of the book take as a unit of analysis individual e‐mail messages, they are concerned with the “electronic discourse” as a performative arena of social identities, where gender effects are produced. Nevertheless, the authors still gravitate towards the “gender differences” argument as the following quote demonstrates: “It appears that although the Internet is inherently gender‐neutral, there are gender effects in how people communicate and behave online” (p. 239).

As the limited book‐review format does not allow me to do justice to each of the contributions in Gender and Communication at Work, I will simply outline the strong features of this publication and point to some of the shortcomings.

The overall significance of the book is twofold: firstly, to mobilize the research potential in organization studies when gender issues are discussed, by identifying “blind spots” emerging themes, and needed insights. Some authors state, for instance, that “research is lacking into how gender underlies the assumptions, structures and outcomes of employment interviewing process” (p. 19), or that the issue of gender and communication in international business is “uncovered ground” (p. 95). In another case it is pointed out that “[f]ewer studies … examine how gender relates to the use of communication channels and how the various communication channels … construct gender in organizations” (p. 130).

Secondly, this book is a project in “making a difference” “changing” corporate culture by suggesting ways of translating research outcomes into management policies and practices, and advancing the “management of diversity” platform. In this sense, it is a true feminist‐activist project, where diverse conceptual perspectives converge on a political platform of emancipation and equality. In fact, it is recommended in the book that researchers find “methods of translating concepts of post‐structuralist theory into practical, jargon‐free strategies for use in management development programmes” (p. 164). By presenting case studies, linguistic and discourse analyses of particular communicative situations, the authors themselves contribute to the fulfilment of this recommendation.

Yet, how to instigate the desired change is a contested issue in the book. In general, the volume is an accurate representation of the level of sophistication of the field. As already noted, most of the chapters are still reminiscent of the early years of research in managerial gender and communication, when the focus was on gender differences perceived as fixed in feminine and masculine identities. In those cases, helping managers in establishing an equal playing‐field for men and women in the workplace is the paramount concern.

Considering the above, it is not surprising that the concept of power is rarely mentioned, and just once employed in the volume (see Chapter 5, where the notion of “legitimate” and “expert” power is discussed). On the other hand, the workplace is a highly power‐structured social environment[2] due to its corporate culture of efficiency and effectiveness. Power is retained in hierarchical structures, along with mechanisms for constant surveillance and performance evaluation. Why then is, the concept of power not mobilized in the volume?

The answer is in the above‐outlined ideological and conceptual preferences of the contributing scholars. Belonging to linguistic and organization/management studies, most of them persist in analysing gender as a product, as a fixed identity, which is somehow in the possession of the individual. This analytical preference is strongly reflected in the recommendations, which, in general, suggest devising “communication strategies” for women to break through the glass ceiling of the corporate formations.

The book, in addition, is exclusively representative of the Western gender and communication research (12 of the 29 authors are US scholars, and eight more are UK citizens). In only few occasions is globalization mentioned in relation to its effect on the way race, ethnicity and gender influence how transnational organizations are managed (gender and cross‐cultural business communication are discussed only in Ch. 7). The lack of attention to the correlation between gender and other significant identity variables makes some of the recommendations (especially those directed towards managers) limited in terms of practicality as they are not rooted in the complex of corporate practices.

In view of the exclusive focus of the volume on communication at work, it is surprising that little attention is paid to the contemporary reinventing of “organization” along the non‐hierarchical network model (“networking”) in corporate practice and as a constitutive social principle, in the theoretical field. Instead, in most of the chapters, “organization” emerges as a hostile – foreign to women – social environment, which needs to be studied and analyzed if women want to develop winning strategies for survival and career advancement.

Thus, in a typical liberal feminist stance, it is stated that, if women “learn” the proper style of communication, the barriers to leadership positions will be removed (pp. 190‐91): “women need to learn ‘leadership speak’”; “women should also became versatile in the linguistic styles of as many managerial roles as possible … By doing so, they will gain greater acceptance for leadership positions when the opportunity arises” (p. 189). As a pragmatic suggestion, this one, in fact, reinforces stereotypes, the existing power structure, and constructs women as inferior employees who are in need of “improving” themselves. The overall effect of such an approach is the essentialization of the “corporate organization” as a fixed environment.

Contrarily, networking is considered by some authors as a paradigmatic shift in corporate governance, which could hold the key for the construction of new gender identities in the workplace (Wajcman, 1999). When this organizational alternative is considered (see Chapter 4, where the “new wave management model for the 21st century” is discussed), suddenly empowering strategies for women emerge, which do not require that they adapt to the dominant corporate culture. Instead, they are advised “to translate [their own] experience‐based skills into learned skills through processes such as formal training or education programs” (p. 63).

In a recently published seminal book The SAGE Handbook of Gender and Communication, Mumby (2006), a Professor in Organizational Communication, observes that, in the past ten years, “research has moved away from the incipient essentialism of earlier, variable analyses and toward the study of how multiple forms of femininity and masculinity are negotiated and performed as constitutive features of daily organizing”. As a result, the gender and communication in organizations area of study “has shifted from a focus on gender/women in organizations to exploring the complexities and contradictions of the gendered organizing process” (p. 94).

When a book aims at mapping an academic field, I would suggest, the contemporary dynamics and tendencies that guide the research in that field should constitute a significant part of the project. Observations as the above‐cited one, provide a compass to the creators of new book projects when they decide on the composition and analytical depth of the manuscript. As for Gender and Communication at Work, it was envisioned as a handbook for managers, and as such does not claim to represent the state‐of‐the‐art research in the field. What it does represent is a particular tradition in treating gender issues in organizations, which is, in itself, an honourable goal.

Notes

For instance, that gender is inscribed and reproduced by and through information and communication technologies (Green and Adam, 2001; O'Farrell and Vallone, 1999; Wajcman, 2004; Huws, 2003; Scott‐Dixon, 2004).

Let's not forget that “at work” means “in the public sphere” and gender has been seen by liberal feminist scholars as an identity defined either by the public or the private sphere. Although a well‐developed thesis in the liberal political writings on gender, it is not even mentioned in the volume, which implies that, for the authors, gender is defined mainly in interpersonal communication in both spheres, and this is governed by identical rules and dynamics.