'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.

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.

At a time when some corporate women leaders are advocating for their aspiring sisters to ‘lean in’ for a bigger piece of the existing pie, this book puts the spotlight on the deep structures of organizational culture that hold gender inequality in place. Gender at Work: Theory and Practice for 21st Century Organizations makes a compelling case that transforming the unspoken, informal institutional norms that perpetuate gender inequality in organizations is key to achieving gender equitable outcomes for all. The book is based on the authors’ interviews with 30 leaders who broke new ground on gender equality in organizations, international case studies crafted from consultations and organizational evaluations, and lessons from nearly fifteen years of experience of Gender at Work, a learning collaborative of 30 gender equality experts. From the Dalit women’s groups in India who fought structural discrimination in the largest ‘right to work’ program in the world, to the intrepid activists who challenged the powerful members of the UN Security Council to define mass rape as a tactic of war, the trajectories and analysis in this book will inspire readers to understand and chip away at the deep structures of gender discrimination in organizational policies, practices and outcomes. Designed for practitioners, policy makers, donors, students and researchers looking at gender, development and organizational change, this book offers readers a widely tested tool of analysis – the Gender at Work Analytical Framework – to assess the often invisible structures of gender bias in organizations and to map desired strategies and change processes.

This text provides perspectives on the way in which gender plays a role in leadership dynamics and ethics within organizations. It seeks to offer new theoretical models for thinking about leadership and organizational influence. Most studies of women’s leadership draw on an ethics of care as characteristic of the way women lead, but as such, it tends towards essentialist gender stereotypes and does little to explain the complex systemic variables that influence the functioning of women within organizations. This book moves beyond the canon in exploring alternative paradigms for thinking about leadership and gender in organizations. The authors draw on the literature available in systems thinking, systemic leadership, and gender theory to offer alternative perspectives for thinking about the ways women lead. The book offers invaluable theoretical perspectives and insightful narratives to graduate students and researchers who are interested in women’s leadership, gender and organization. It will be of interest to all women in leadership positions, but specifically to those interested in understanding the systemic nature of leadership and their role within it.

Research addressing sex and gender in work will be of interest to psychologists, sociologists, managers, and economics. This book brings together the traditional management perspectives with the recent feminist perspective.

The concept of culture is a key issue within management and organization studies. Understanding Organizational Culture provides a useful and comprehensive guide to understanding organizational culture, from a range of angles, contexts and sectors. The book answers questions of definition, explores alternative perspectives, and expands on substantive issues (such as leadership and change), before discussing key issues of research and providing a new framework for this topic. Mats Alvesson synthesizes for students the advances in the field of organizational culture, drawing upon the range of relevant literature within Organization Studies. The author also uses examples to develop and illustrate ideas on how cultural