Gender underpins contemporary organizational structure and practice, but is often relegated to the margins of mainstream organization theory. This volume provides a comprehensive, gendered perspective on organizational life. MatsAlvesson and Yvonne Due Billing demonstrate that a gendered perspective provides important insights into the actions of men and women in organizations and, as a result, the characteristics of organizations as a whole. Considering the complex and contradictory nature of gender relations, Alvesson and Billing argue for an organizational analysis that is sensitive to conflicts, ambiguity and local diversity.

`An unusually comprehensive and sophisticated analysis of how organizations and the men and women who work within them are affected by gendered processes and relations. Alvesson and Billing′s contribution is unique in its sensitivity to the wide range of processes affected by gender paired with its sensitivity to the pitfalls of inappropriately applying a gender lens. This book is a must-read for organizational researchers and gender scholars′ - Debra Meyerson, Stanford University `Students and scholars alike will find this at once a useful overview and a thought-provoking take on the complexity of gender-in-organizations and gendered organizations′ - Robin J. Ely, Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School In the decade since the first edition of this critical and provocative text, many aspects of gender have changed, and many have stayed the same. While the gendered study of organizations is a growing field in its own right, in many real-life organizations gaps in gendered job roles and pay are as entrenched as they were. This Second Edition is a long-awaited update to an essential text in this dynamic and expanding field of inquiry, incorporating new, international perspectives that incorporate recent theory and debate, and a new chapter on gender and identity.

'Understanding Gender and Organizations' provides an accessible, yet comprehensive and broadly critical overview of gender in organizations, and presents the complex and contradictory nature of gender patterns.

This work of reference represents a remarkably complete, detailed and extensive review of the field of gender, work and organization in the second decade of the 21st century. Its authors represent eight countries and many disciplines including management, sociology, political science, and gender studies. The chapters, by top scholars in their areas of expertise, offer both reviews and empirical findings, and insights and challenges for further work. The chapters are organized in five sections: Histories and Philosophies; Organizing Work and the Gendered Organization; Embodiment; Globalization; and Diversity. Theoretical and conceptual developments at the cutting edge of the field are explicated and illustrated by the handbook’s authors. Methods for conducting research into gender, work and organization are reviewed and assessed as well as illustrated in the work of several chapters. Efforts to produce greater gender equality in the workplace are covered in nearly every chapter, in terms of past successes and failures. Military organizations are presented as one of the difficult to change in regards to gender (with the result that women are marginalized in practice even when official policies and goals require their full inclusion). The role of the body/embodiment is emphasized in several chapters, with attention both to how organizations discipline bodies and how organizational members use their bodies to gain advantage. Particular attention is paid to sexuality in/and organizations, including sexual harassment, policies to alleviate bias, and the likelihood that future work will pay more attention to the body’s presence and role in work and organizations. Many chapters also address “change efforts” that have been employed by individuals, groups, and organizations, including transnational ones such as the European Union, the United Nations, and so on. In addition to its value for teachers and students within this field, it also offers insights that would be of value to policy makers and practitioners who need to reflect on the latest thinking relating to gender at work and in organizations.

An understanding of identity is fundamental to a complete understanding of organizational life. While conventional management textbooks nod to in-groups, cohesion and discrimination, this text offers instead a deeper, more nuanced understanding of why people, groups and organizations behave the way they do. With conceptions of identity perhaps less stable than they have ever been, the authors make complex theoretical issues accessible to the reader through the use of lively examples from popular culture. The authors present an overview of the key issues, as well as an examination of cutting-edge research and topical forces currently re-defining identity, such as globalisation, the fair trade movement and online identities. This text is a succinct, relevant and exciting overview of the field of identity studies as it relates to business and management and applied social sciences, an is an invaluable resource to undergraduate and postgraduate students of management on any course that has an identity component.

The issue of gender in organizations has attracted much attention and debate over a number of years. The focus of examination is inequality of opportunity between the genders and the impact this has on organizations, individual men and women, and society as a whole. It is undoubtedly the case that progress has been made with women participating in organizational life in greater numbers and at more senior levels than has been historically the case, challenging notions that senior and/or influential organizational and political roles remain a masculine domain. The Oxford Handbook of Gender in Organizations is a comprehensive analysis of thinking and research on gender in organizations with original contributions from key international scholars in the field. The Handbook comprises four sections. The first looks at the theoretical roots and potential for theoretical development in respect of the topic of gender in organizations. The second section focuses on leadership and management and the gender issues arising in this field; contributors review the extensive literature and reflect on progress made as well as commenting on hurdles yet to be overcome. The third section considers the gendered nature of careers. Here the focus is on querying traditional approaches to career, surfacing embedded assumptions within traditional approaches, and assessing potential for alternative patterns to evolve, taking into account the nature of women's lives and the changing nature of organizations. In its final section the Handbook examines masculinity in organizations to assess the diversity of masculinities evident within organizations and the challenges posed to those outside the norm. In bringing together a broad range of research and thinking on gender in organizations across a number of disciplines, sub-disciplines, and conceptual perspectives, the Handbook provides a comprehensive view of both contemporary thinking and future research directions.