Personnel Review
Spatially embedded inequality: Exploring structure, agency, and ethnic minority
strategies to navigate organizational opportunity structures
Lotte Holck
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Spatially embedded inequality
Exploring structure, agency, and ethnic
minority strategies to navigate organizational
opportunity structures
Lotte Holck
Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm, Sweden
Spatially
embedded
inequality
643
Received 23 August 2014
Revised 24 March 2015
Accepted 16 September 2015
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Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to apply a spatial approach to organizational inequality to
explore why unequal opportunity structures persist in an organization despite its commitment to
diversity and employing highly skilled ethnic minority employees.
Design/methodology/approach – The (re)production of inequality is explored by linking research on
organizational space with HRM diversity management. Data from an ethnographic study undertaken in
a Danish municipal center illustrates how a substructure of inequality is spatially upheld alongside a
formal diversity policy. Archer’s distinction between structure and agency informs the analysis of how
minority agency not only reproduces but also challenges organizational opportunity structures.
Findings – The analysis demonstrates how substructures of inequality stabilize in spatial routines
enacted in an ethnic zoning of the workplace and ethnification of job categories. However, the same
spatial structures allows for a variety of opposition and conciliation strategies among minority
employees, even though the latter tend to prevail in a reproduction rather than a transformation of the
organizational opportunity structures.
Research limitations/implications – The reliance on a single case study restricts the
generalizability of the findings but highlights fruitful areas for future research.
Practical implications – The study sensitizes HRM practitioners to the situated quality of workplace
diversity and to develop a broader scope of HRM practices to address the more subtle, spatially
embedded forms of inequality.
Originality/value – Theoretical and empirical connections between research on organizational space
and HRM diversity management have thus far not been systematically studied. This combination
might advance knowledge on the persistence of micro-inequality even in organizations formally
committed to diversity.
Keywords Mixed methodologies, Qualitative, Power, Action research, Critical,
Diversity management, Human resource management (HRM), Equality, Diversity, Inclusion,
Ethnographic methods
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Ethnic diversity in the Danish labor market is increasing. However, members of minorities
are often employed in positions for which they are overqualified. As a result, they are
overrepresented in low-skilled and provisionary jobs, underrepresented in management
positions, and more likely than members of the majority ethnic group to face
unemployment (e.g. Ejrnæs, 2012; Ortlieb and Sieben, 2014; Siim, 2013). These macro
trends tend to reflect the micro situation in organizations, even those organizations
committed to diversity and equality, as unequal opportunity structures and the inequality
that accompanies them often endure (Acker, 2006, 2012; Boogaard and Roggeband, 2009;
Holvino and Kamp, 2009; Risberg and Søderberg, 2008; Tomlinson et al., 2013).
Inequality and the precarious, marginalized position of ethnic minority employees in
organizations dominated by the ethnic majority’s norms and values are dominant themes
among both critical and more mainstream HRM diversity management scholars.
Personnel Review
Vol. 45 No. 4, 2016
pp. 643-662
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-08-2014-0182
PR
45,4
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644
The extant research is dominated by three perspectives. First, organizational inequality
is often analyzed in relation to minorities’ experiences with discrimination (e.g. Ahonen
et al., 2014; Ariss et al., 2012; Klarsfeld et al., 2012; Ostendorp and Steyaert, 2009;
Oswick and Noon, 2014; Siebers, 2010; Van Laer and Janssens, 2011, 2014; Verbeek and
Groeneveld, 2012). Alternatively, research in this vein centers on generalized societal
discourses on immigration with a focus on deconstructing the different elements of
those discourses (e.g. Bendick et al., 2010; Boogaard and Roggeband, 2009; Holvino
and Kamp, 2009; Muhr and Salem, 2013; Samaluk, 2014; Siim, 2013; Tomlinson and
Schwabenland, 2010). Second, diversity research predominantly investigates the
barriers that minority ethnic workers experience rather than the agency that they
deploy (for exceptions see, e.g. Ariss et al., 2012; Boogaard and Roggeband, 2009;
Ghorashi and Ponzoni, 2014; Tatli and Özbilgin, 2012; Tomlinson et al., 2013; Zanoni
and Janssens, 2007). Third, the tenacity of unequal treatment in organizations is mainly
addressed in socio-psychological terms as the effect of (majority) prejudice. This
research suggests that it must be rectified through mainstream HRM practices, such as
objective procedures, training, and mentoring/network activities (Ariss et al., 2012;
Dobbin et al., 2011; Holck et al., 2016; Janssens and Zanoni, 2014; Mamman et al., 2012;
Qin et al., 2014; Williams and Mavin, 2014). This diversity research
plays a vital role in documenting the persistence of status inequalities along ethnic
(and gender) lines in the workplace. However, this insistent focus on cognition in a
socio-psychological perspective downplays the more subtle power relations embedded
in the dynamics of organizational structure and employee agency, “leaving
organizational structures and routines which reproduce inequalities and normalize
the privileges of the dominant group (e.g. white and male employers) unchanged”
( Janssens and Zanoni, 2014, p. 2).
To address the structural embeddedness of inequality and the role of minority
agency, this study advocates a spatial approach to organizational inequality. The aim
is to demonstrate how spatial structures both enable and constrain minority employee
agency, as spatial routines simultaneously solidify in stabilized substructures of
inequality and make way for minority employee agency of micro-emancipation. I rely
on a spatial-structural approach to make three contributions to current research on
HRM and diversity. First, I theoretically and empirically demonstrate how a spatial
approach to workplace diversity might offer valuable insights into the more subtle
workings of power, privilege, and disadvantage in relation to organizational
substructures of inequality (Acker, 2012; Beyes and Steyaert, 2011; Clegg and
Kornberger, 2006; Ropo et al., 2013; Taylor and Spicer, 2007; Zhang and Spicer, 2014).
Second, I analyze how the organizational space simultaneously constrains and enables
minority agency of micro-emancipation (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992; Zanoni and
Janssens, 2007). This also helps explain how organizational substructures of inequality
solidify, as they are not only imposed on minorities – they are also actively reproduced
and bolstered through minority employee agency. Third, I discuss how to develop a
broader set of HRM practices to address the more subtle, spatially embedded forms of
inequality. This adds to the diversity literature focussed on crafting more emancipative
ways of organizing workplace diversity (e.g. Ariss et al., 2012; Ghorashi and Ponzoni,
2014; Ghorashi and Sabelis, 2013; Janssens and Zanoni, 2014; Mamman et al., 2012).
Empirically, this spatial approach on organizational inequality draws on
ethnographic fieldwork in “Agency” (an alias). Agency is a municipal center
renowned for its diversity profile in the Danish context due to its ethnically diverse and
specialized workforce, which serves locally operating international businesses.
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However, it is haunted by poor employee satisfaction, with almost 30 percent of its
employees reporting experiences of harassment and bullying from managers and
coworkers associated with issues like language, color of skin, and ethnicity (Employee
Satisfaction Report, September 2014). These experiences of harassment relate to the
existence of an informal parallel system that encompasses two prevalent routinized
spatial practices: ethnic zoning of the workplace and ethnification of job categories.
These routinized spatial practices run alongside – and partially undermine – the formal
discourse on diversity and equality. Moreover, they constrain the free agency of
minority employees. The minority employees spatially respond with five main
strategies: a conciliatory strategy of embodying the stereotype that results in the
reproduction of structural inequality; or opposition strategies of withdrawal, rebellion,
passing, or deviance, all of which challenge the distribution of privilege and
disadvantage in the organization.
In its exploration of a spatial approach to organizational inequality, this paper is
structured as follows. First, the theoretical framework is introduced, in which research
streams on diversity, organizational space, and embodiment are combined. Thereafter,
Archer’s analytical distinction between structure and agency is introduced to allow us
to grasp the workings of substructures of inequality. Second, I present the methods
used to trace the spatial dimensions of structure and agency, drawing on ethnographic
fieldwork in agency. Third, I offer an analysis of the findings, identify the spatial
routines that constrain minority agency, and show how they intersect with minority
employee strategies of conciliation or opposition. Finally, I discuss ways of sensitizing
HRM practitioners to the situated quality of workplace diversity with the goal of
addressing the more subtle workings of organizational inequality.
Theoretical background
The HR diversity management practices advanced in the scientific and management
literature emphasize the importance of understanding and intervention for reducing or
eliminating bias and discrimination in heterogeneous workplaces. This research is
characterized by the noble intent for all organizational members to benefit from
differences by maximizing inclusion, feelings of fairness, and equality (Bendick et al.,
2010; Holck et al., 2016; Ortlieb and Sieben, 2014; Shore et al., 2011; Tatli and Özbilgin,
2012). The field of diversity management is dominated by a social-psychological
approach that stems from research on organizational behavior. This line of research
assumes that negative in-group/out-group dynamics are the product of majority
individuals’ biased cognitive processes and stereotyping, which can be corrected and
limited through formalized HRM practices ( Janssens and Zanoni, 2014; Jonsen et al.,
2013; Mamman et al., 2012; Qin et al., 2014; Verbeek and Groeneveld, 2012; Williams and
Mavin, 2014). Within this tradition, HRM activities include three main types of
practices. The first are objective procedures and pre-specified criteria for selection,
promotion, and lay-off decisions; performance appraisals; and pay structures. Objective
and neutral procedures are believed to restrict ethnic majority decision makers’
discretion and prevent cognitive biases from shaping allocation and reward decisions
(Kalev et al., 2006; Shore et al., 2011). The second practice is training, which aims to
familiarize employees with anti-discrimination law, ensure behavioral changes, and
increase cross-cultural awareness and communication (Dobbin et al., 2011;
Qin et al., 2014). The third set of activities are network and mentoring, which are
designed to counter the social isolation that minorities experience as a result of
homogeneity ( Janssens and Zanoni, 2014; Shore et al., 2011).
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embedded
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However, according to critical diversity scholars, these widespread HRM practices
of diversity management have generally proved insufficient. In fact, little empirical
evidence supports their ability to foster workplace equality (Dobbin et al., 2011; Holvino
and Kamp, 2009; Janssens and Zanoni, 2014; Oswick and Noon, 2014). One line of
critique is that HRM diversity practices are “premature” or based on trial-and-error
processes rather than scientific knowledge. Another line of critique suggests that the
inadequacy results from the targeting of cognition rather than the structural
dimensions of privilege, domination, and disadvantage (Oswick and Noon, 2014;
Zanoni et al., 2010). These critics suggest that such practices might even backfire,
resulting in stereotyping and re-marginalization (Kalev et al., 2006).
This critique of the inability of HRM practices to mitigate workplace inequality leads
to my problematization of how a focus on the individual, cognitive level fails to include
consideration of the spatial-structural and relational aspects of workplace inequality.
A spatial-structural assessment is often either completely overlooked or conceptualized
as introductory or background information (Ahonen et al., 2014; Ghorashi and Sabelis,
2013; Holvino and Kamp, 2009; Jonsen et al., 2013; Klarsfeld et al., 2012; Mamman et al.,
2012; Shore et al., 2011; Tatli and Özbilgin, 2012; Zanoni et al., 2010; Zanoni and Janssens,
2007). By introducing a spatial approach to workplace inequality, this study contributes
to research broadening the scope of HRM practices and craft more emancipative ways of
organizing workplace diversity. In addition, it adds to the small but growing number
of HRM studies analyzing ethnic minority agency in relation to institutional and
organizational barriers (Ariss et al., 2012; Van Laer and Janssens, 2011, 2014). However,
in contrast to other work, this study expands the research scope by exploring how
minority employee agency paradoxically both challenges and reproduces organizational
substructures of inequality.
The enabling and constraining properties of the organizational space
In this study, a spatial approach is used as an analytical lever to investigate the power
dynamics involved in employees’ spatial production and reproduction of substructures of
inequality, which occur alongside the formal values of equal opportunity. This approach
draws on the tradition of focussing on the relation between organizational space and
power. In this tradition, the organizational space is viewed as a political area – a powerscape – in which the employees’ spatial behaviors are implicated in the reproduction of
power relations (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992; Clegg and Kornberger, 2006; Ropo et al.,
2013; Zhang and Spicer, 2014). This involves a productive view on organizational space as
produced and reproduced in interactions involving both human and non-human elements
(e.g. organizational artefacts, such as architectures, furniture, dress codes, techniques, and
rules) that “constitute the experience of space through their forms of occupation, activity
and movements as much as they are constituted through those spaces that enable and
restrict certain events” (Clegg and Kornberger, 2006, p. 144). As emphasized by Clegg and
Kornberger (2006), employees constitute the workspace through countless practices in
their everyday work lives as much as they are constituted through them. This productive
view on the workspace draws heavily on Giddens’ (1984) view on structure and agency as
mutually constituting – structures are produced and reproduced though agency, while
they simultaneously enable and constrain agency. Thus, in this study, the constraining
and enabling capacities of the workspace are directly linked to minority employees’
agency and their degree of freedom to shape their own chosen career paths.
To be able to grasp how minority agency unfolds and navigates the organizational
power-scape, I must analytically distinguish between the constraining/structuring
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capacities and (spatial) structures and their transformative/agentic capacities, as
proposed by Archer (1982, 2003). Conversely, it is impossible to talk about the
stringency of structural constraints vs degrees of personal freedom. Like Giddens
(1984), Archer (1982) conceptualizes structure and agency as mutually constituting.
However, Archer analytically grasps structure to pre-exist agency as a point of
analytical departure, and their interaction leads to either structural reproduction or
structural transformation. In line with Archer, I first determine the constraining
properties of the organizational space. This relates to the organization as a power-scape
consisting of both formalized, explicit structures of equality (e.g. a formalized diversity
policy) and more informal, tacit substructures of inequality, as coined by Acker (2012).
Acker defines substructures of inequality as the often invisible processes in the
ordinary life of organizations in which gendered (and ethnified) assumptions about
masculinity/femininity (minority/majority) are embedded and reproduced, and
inequality is perpetuated (Acker, 2012, p. 215). By zooming in on the informality of
inequality substructures in conjunction with routinized spatial practices, I can uncover
the tacit but routinized relational and behavioral aspects of workplace diversity. I refer
to two categories of constraining properties of the workplace in the materialization of
power and embodiment related to ethnification in job categories. With this spatial
approach, I join Alvesson and Willmott (1992), who highlight how spatial practices
“produce people” as stabilized constructions of power relations become embodied in
and supported by organizational artefacts, such as rules and routines, thereby forcing
employees to behave in certain ways.
Archer’s (1982) analytical distinction between structure and agency also creates
an opportunity to trace minority employees’ spatial strategies of navigating the
organizational power-scape, which lead to either structural reproduction or
transformation. In a structure-agency perspective, minority employees are
“knowledgeable agents” who are free to act but simultaneously restricted by their
awareness and reflexive interpretation of the structural conditions, opportunities, and
constraints they face (Ortlieb and Sieben, 2014). Minority employees are viewed not
merely as passive receptacles of control but as agents who reflexively act in more or
less compliant ways. These actions might create partial organizational spaces for their
own micro-emancipation, and potentially, lead to more emancipative ways of
organizing diversity (Ghorashi and Ponzoni, 2014; Janssens and Zanoni, 2014; Tatli and
Özbilgin, 2012; Tomlinson and Schwabenland, 2010).
Spatial constraints in the materialization of power and embodiment. The first
category of constraining properties of the workspace draws on organizational space as
the materialization of power relations. This is widely cited as the disciplinary gaze of
the panopticon, which induces (self-) surveillance, control, and discipline. This view
was formulated by Foucault and propagated by critical poststructuralist scholars of
power, politics, and control (Beyes and Steyaert, 2011; Clegg and Kornberger, 2006;
Ropo et al., 2013). In this perspective, the workplace design embraces a certain effect of
inducing routinized employee interaction, which materialize in stable relations of
dominance (Taylor and Spicer, 2007; Zhang and Spicer, 2014). This spatial effect is
furthered by the disciplinary gaze of peers and managers, who impose particular rules
of engagement that, to varying degrees, are internalized or more or less cynically
performed by employees (Nicholson and Carroll, 2013; Scott, 2010). Of interest in this
regard is that employees pick up cues – often through non-cognitive senses of social
cues and feelings of (dis)comfort and awkwardness – from the atmospheric quality, and
Spatially
embedded
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from coworkers’ spatial behavior and their responses to others’ spatial behavior (Beyes
and Steyaert, 2011; Zhang and Spicer, 2014). These cues are then synthesized in spatial
responses of what appear to be “natural” behaviors in the workspace, and solidify into
spatial routines that guide future action and interaction.
The second category of constraining properties of the workspace is related to
embodiment and bodies at work – elements that have traditionally been critical for
feminist organizational theorists in their attempts to understand inequalities at work
(Acker, 2006; Ashcraft, 2013). In addition, a recent issue of Organization (2015, Vol. 22,
No. 2) demonstrates an increasing interest in theories that include the body and
embodiment as part of the “ontological turn” within organizational studies stressing
ethics in business (e.g. Dale and Latham, 2015; Kenny and Fotaki, 2015; Pullen and
Rhodes, 2015). However, inspired by feminism and Foucault’s historical analysis of the
“docile body” (Ropo et al., 2013; Taylor and Spicer, 2007), I approach embodiment as an
integral part of a spatial analysis. In the context of this study, the notion of embodiment
refers to how “ethnified” bodies are viewed as naturally suited for performing certain
jobs, so that those jobs are recognized not by their content and tasks but by who does
them (e.g. “pink ghettos,” Ashcraft, 2013; Kenny and Fotaki, 2015). Thus, the
organizational space offers templates for action and organizational roles through the
configuration of human “equipment” (i.e. the employees), with its perceived skills and
knowledge, and through job categories (Ropo et al., 2013). The ethnification of job
categories is often legitimized as a matter of meritocracy in combination with a need for
adequate language skills and professional training. This is especially true among
majority employees (Ortlieb and Sieben, 2014). Nonetheless, the organizational powerscape becomes embodied and materialized, such that it favors the upward mobility of
members of the majority to the detriment of members of the minority.
Minority employees’ strategies: the enabling capacity of the workspace. The enabling
properties of the organizational space relate to minority employees’ strategies of navigating
the organizational opportunity structures. Power breeds resistance, and unequal power
relations can always be bent, circumvented, strategically appropriated, and countered,
thereby creating openings for micro-emancipatory projects (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992;
Boogaard and Roggeband, 2009; Goffman, 1961; Ortlieb and Sieben, 2014; Tomlinson et al.,
2013). A spatial lens sensitizes the study to the minority employee’s more covert acts of
silent opposition and deviance, which supplement more overt and explicit resistance. It also
allows for bodily acts of behaving differently or embodying other job categories than the
(majority) norms prescribe. Therefore, the organizational space becomes a negotiated
context in which minority spatial strategies sustain a certain interpretation of reality
because minorities internalize the dominant rules and norms, employ methods of selfsurveillance, and conform. At the same time, these strategies reinforce the very causes of
inequality (Ahonen et al., 2014; Dale and Latham, 2015; Pullen and Rhodes, 2015; Zhang and
Spicer, 2014). Alternatively, minorities can engage in strategies that serve to create partial
areas of resistance, but often at the cost of alienation and anxiety (Alvesson and Willmott,
1992; Goffman, 1961; Nicholson and Carroll, 2013; Scott, 2010; Zanoni and Janssens, 2007).
Figure 1 offers an outline of my spatial approach to the interplay between agency
and structure.
Method, research site, and data analysis
To study spatial practices, the researcher must have a close relation to the setting.
In practice, an ethnographic approach (Beyes and Steyaert, 2011; Zhang and Spicer, 2014)
Spatially
embedded
inequality
Ethnical zoning
of the office
Materialization
of power
Minority spatial
strategies of
reconciliation or
opposition
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Bodies at work
and embodiment
Reproduction or
transformation
of the workspace
Ethnification of
job categories
is required. Ethnography is defined by Van Maanen (2011) as the result of the
ethnographer’s efforts to describe what he/she experiences in immersive, lengthy
participant observations in the field. Furthermore, ethnography makes it possible to
use several supplementary and experimental techniques, as the researcher can rely on
what he or she sees, hears, and experiences in a specific social setting (see Van Maanen,
2011) while adhering to the situational pragmatism of the applied methods.
This study is based on ethnographic qualitative methods with a “participatory
bent,” as the participants (i.e. organizational members) and the researcher as a type of
participant affect the research process. Such research is meant to prompt members to
reflect on the consequences of their actions (Ashcraft, 1999; Ghorashi and Ponzoni,
2014; Ghorashi and Sabelis, 2013). The “collaborative” character of participative
research has a dual aim: to generate understanding, and to encourage the assessment
and transformation of widely taken-for-granted modes of organizing in the focal
organization (Beyes and Steyaert, 2011). The study therefore situated in an
interpretative tradition that acknowledges the constructed and relational nature of
fieldwork and research (Nicholson and Carroll, 2013).
Research site
“Agency” was a municipal center serving the locally operating international businesses
together with the municipal administration to develop the municipal business strategy.
It was founded in 2008 with eight employees, but it had grown to 85 employees by the
time the fieldwork was initiated in May 2012. Its size had been halved by the end of the
fieldwork period (summer 2014). The composition of employees was diverse in terms of
age, ethnic background, gender, culture, educational background, previous work
experience, and language skills. This was evident on the company’s website, on which
employees’ cultures, knowledge, and language skills were explicitly described, thereby
visually stressing the center’s ambition to provide adequate service to international
business. “Diversity” was not specifically mentioned on the organization’s website or in
official communication, but the organization referred to the municipality’s diversity
and equality policy of demographically mirroring the composition of its citizens.
The formal structure entailed three units distinguished by function: advice giving
and courses for entrepreneurs, registration and administration of licenses, and
649
Figure 1.
Structure and
agency in a spatial
perspective
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650
strategic/developmental work relating to the municipal business strategy. Agency had
three middle managers (one female all with local background) and a CEO (male), and its
offices were organized in a free seating, open office manner for the formal purpose of
encouraging cooperative practices and informal information sharing.
Data collection
In order to trace the empirical data underpinning the spatial dimensions, I applied a
combination of qualitative methods of contextualized ethnographic observation and
interviews. My aim was to detect, comprehend, and interpret/decode the intersection
between the organizational space and diversity processes. My lengthy stay in the
organization and my participative fieldwork made this possible. While the fieldwork
lasted for a total of 24 months, the bulk of the empirical data were collected over a
nine-month period during which the researcher occupied an Agency desk twice each
week for an average of six hours. Over the nine-month intensive period, three
predominant methods were applied: ethnographic observations, open-ended interviews,
and interventions.
Ethnographic observations focussed on the ways members routinely engaged with
the workspace. This required closer studies of members’ spatial practices, such as their
appropriation of a desk in the morning, including their territorial demarcation of their
space through the use of such elements as bags and writing utensils; their working
routines, and the frequency of both professional and social meetings (with whom and
how often). Together, these elements summed up to their routinized maneuvering of
spatial artifacts and colleagues, which made up Agency’s organizational space.
Moreover participant observations were undertaken in multiple routine meetings,
including center, department, team, and management meetings. In addition, I observed
job interviews, two center workshops on “identity formulation” and “an attractive
workplace,” and ad hoc social gatherings. Thick-description observations, based on my
notes, were recorded each day in fieldwork diaries.
Open-ended interviews were guided by the initial participative observations.
I undertook semi-structured interviews with 18 employees and managers, each of
which lasted from 30 to 120 minutes. I asked participants to describe their perceptions
of the working space in relation to the free-seating situation and the office design, the
work culture, and the cooperative environment in terms of, for example, information
sharing, task distribution, decision-making processes, and socializing. The interviews
included visual elements, as members were asked to draw maps of their spatial routines
and seating habits. A summary of the sample’s demographics is presented in Table I.
Interventions were utilized in the final months of intensive fieldwork. The members
took an interest in the researcher as a “cognizant outsider,” and some even used the
study as grounds for action (Ashcraft, 1999). Interventions provided an opportunity to
test the reliability of the data and the researchers’ presumptions through presentations,
seminars facilitated by the researcher, participation in debates, informal talks and
reflections in response to members’ requests, and one official written report.
Data analysis
Transcription and initial data analysis began shortly after the study started (Silverman,
2001). To analyze participative observations, interviews, and interventions, I applied a
qualitative content analysis inspired by narrative analysis (Lieblich et al., 1998).
The content analysis was carried out by splitting the data into relatively small units of
Function
Culture, training and sex Dates
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Spanish
Internal consultant
Initially in a training position but in Human science
permanent position after six months Woman
Section manager
Local background
Political science
Woman
Consultant and political/strategic
tasks (union representative)
Local background
Political science
Man
Local background
Master in arts
Man
Korea
Business diploma
Woman
Local background
Political science
Man
Local background
Political science
Man
Local background
Political science
Man
North African
background
Business diploma
Man
Local background
Accountant
Woman
Local background
Technical training
Man
Former Yugoslavia
Business diploma
Man
2 generation
Humane science
Woman
Local background
Graphic designer
Man
Chief consultant
Ethnic consultant
In training position
CEO
Section manager
Chief consultant/political-strategic
tasks
Ethnic consultant
Trainee position
Chief consultant/advisor
Ethnic consultant
Consultant/political-strategic tasks
(union representative)
Consultant/advisor
Four interviews: November 2012,
June 2013, March 2014 and
September 2014
Observation job interview
December 2012
Employee development interview
with section manager March 2013
Six interviews: April 2013, 2 × May
2013, June 2013, July 2013,
February 2014
Mail correspondence and Skype
interviews (two)
August 2013-January 2014
Two interviews: November 2012 and
April 2013
Spatially
embedded
inequality
651
Three interviews: November 2013
(Skype), April 2014 and October 2014
Observation job interview
December 2013
Interview December 2013
June 2013
June 2013
November 2013
January 2014
November 2013
December 2013
December 2013
November 2013
December 2013
(continued )
Table I.
Coding of interview
with employees
in “Agency”
PR
45,4
Function
Culture, training and sex Dates
Chief consultant/political-strategic
tasks
Local background
Social science
Woman
India
Formerly self-employed
Woman
Local background
Political science
Woman
2 generation
Political science
Man
Ethnic consultant
652
Chief consultant/political-strategic
tasks
Project position
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Table I.
December 2013
December 2013
December 2013
February 2013
content on the basis of themes. Initially, I began by scanning the data and isolating the
words and phrases connected to majority/minority distinctions in relation to “spatial
zoning,” “embodiment of job categories,” and “minority employee spatial strategies”
with a particular focus on strategies of conciliation and opposition. After assigning
open codes to different sections of the data, the first descriptive coding revealed
common patterns and themes relating to the spatial analytical categories.
In the second round of coding, I paid particular attention to producing adequate
themes. In this regard, I assigned content to three spatial analytical categories. First, in
relation to the “materialization of power,” the emerging themes were power relations
enacted in the spatial routines of zoning of the office space. These emerged from my
own observations and employees’ maps of spatial routines, seating habits, and
employee reflections on those maps. Second, in relation to “bodies and embodiment,”
I traced employee perceptions and behavior that suggested the existence of an informal
system of task distribution, advancement, and cooperative patterns, all of which gave
rise to a system of majority and minority job categories. The third category – minority
spatial strategies – rested on minority employees’ accounts of their own and colleagues’
attempts to navigate the organizational opportunity structures. In particular, one case
of experimenting with a different task distribution in cooperation with a middle
manager and the subsequent “cost of emancipation” was influential for my findings.
In the analysis, I was particularly observant of not only what employees said they did,
but also of actual patterns of action and interaction. My aim was to understand how the
organization as a power-scape was kept in place and challenged by the myriad of
employee practices, many of which ran parallel to the formal structures of rules and
communicated values.
Findings
In this section I present the findings regarding the enabling and constraining
abilities of spatial structures, their intersection with the power-related distribution of
privilege and disadvantage, and minority employees’ strategies of conciliation or
opposition in Agency. The first analysis explores how routinized spatial practices
created durable substructures of inequality in Agency despite a formal commitment
to diversity and equal opportunities. The second analysis investigates how
the organizational space granted minority employees certain liberties to embark on
strategies of opposition or conciliation.
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Spatial constraints in the materialization of power and embodiment
Materialization of power. Agency was situated in a large municipal building. The office
space was open, and it was furnished with funky, low-price design furniture in bright
colors. The furnishings invoked a creative and modern impression that was not too
flashy. With the exception of a central kitchen and a small two-person secluded office
for writing, Agency’s physical layout was dominated by a transparent style, which
signaled openness. It was predominantly made up of a shared working zone in which
tables were lined up in rows along two parallel window sections. A maximum of eight
people could work at each table. The Aisles were found at one end of the tables.
Eight glass-walled meeting rooms were located at the ends of the shared office space,
each offering either comfortable chairs or more formal meeting tables. These offices,
and together with a seating area in the center of the office, were intended to support
frequent meeting activities.
Agency had an official free-seating policy, which was formally articulated by
managers. The aims of the policy were to invoke voluntary, informal information
sharing and rotating cooperation patterns to activate the employees’ diverse skills and
knowledge, and to ensure an inclusive climate. However, when asked, employees were
able to draw maps of the informal zoning of the office and to place most of their
colleagues in fixed seats. In these maps, the administrative staff typically occupied a
zone at one end of the office, while the consultants were typically located at the other
end of the office. The international group occupied a third zone located between the
other two, where members took advantage of the opportunity to take collective breaks
and speak together in Spanish. The international group also inhabited the small
secluded office within the larger office, which was officially reserved for telephone calls
and writing. They referred to this office as “the cage.” As one interviewee stated,
“We are very much subdivided into groups due to the way we sit. I often sit in the cage
with Naya.” When asked whether the cage was reserved for those who make trouble,
this interviewee stated, “Ha ha. Yes, you might say so.” Most respondents emphasized
that they were seated in groups according to ethnic background: “We are very mixed
and very segregated. Just watch how people sit together. Those with similar ethnic
backgrounds speak together and socialize. We are even divided according to whether
we are first or second generation.” Another interview mused, “We are divided between
the ‘real’ Danes and the foreigners. Only a few manage to navigate between the two
groups. It is a rather poisonous environment.”
The relatively fixed groupings of employees according to ethnic background were
evident in the physical zoning of the open office space, in the patterns of who spoke to
or smoked cigarettes with whom, in the lunch patterns, and in the languages used
around the office. The groups also displayed different behavioral norms. The loudness
of collective breaks in the international group provided a direct contrast with the
relative silence of the shared workplace. This was often met with resentment: “They
just look at us when we talk in Spanish. Often we hear jokes like: ‘Do you dare tell
them that they speak rubbish?’ ” Employees’ spatial practices clearly signaled patterns
of inclusion and exclusion but also indicated who were able to break the unwritten rules
of behavior.
Agency’s organizational workspace was a contested space encompassing an
ethnified hierarchy despite of its equivocality: the contrast between the signal of
openness (i.e. free seating) and the visible spatial enactment (i.e. segregation and ethnic
zoning). Accordingly, where an employee placed his or her body represented a political
Spatially
embedded
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act that demonstrated whether that employee was privileged with a “permanent” seat
that no one would (dare to) take or a provisionary employee in a low position who had
to fight for a workspace everyday. The seating choices also reflected the ethnic groups
with which employees identified. The power-scape became very visible in these daily
seating dramas.
Contrary to the official intention, the free-seating hampered social interaction and
served as a type of collective shaming. Employees were very careful with regard to the
kinds of signals they sent through their spatial behavior, and they paid close attention
to the signals sent by their colleagues. This resulted in less frequent interaction due to
fear of interrupting or annoying colleagues, which had a notable negative effect on the
inclusion of newcomers with an international background. Newcomers talked about
feeling lost and forgotten in the office space, and stated that they never know where to
sit. They also highlighted a fear of occupying a “taken” seat and thus breaking
unwritten office rules. Navigating the free-seating office space was described as one of
the biggest on-boarding challenges. Apart from this frustration, the dysfunctional free
seating highlighted an inclusion problem. As such, this problem became a legitimate
theme, under which lied the theme of a lack of coherence and cross-ethnic cooperation,
which in turn perpetuated a substructure of inequality.
Bodies at work and embodiment. The ethnic zoning of the workplace was closely
related to another spatial practice that reinforced a substructure of inequality. One
particular spatial artefact – the employee body with its salient demographic features –
was used to stabilize power relations. In line with Ashcraft’s (2013) metaphor of “the
glass slipper,” this dimension captured how job categories in Agency “naturally”
possessed features that fitted certain groups of employees but not others, resulting in
the “ethnification” of job categories.
In Agency, there were no formal rules or procedures for task distribution. Rather,
tasks were distributed at the discretion of the managers, allegedly according to who
was most qualified to perform the task. In addition, promotions were decided by the
CEO on the basis of meritocratic principles outlined in the municipal policy. However,
informally, two job categories existed: high-prestige political/strategic jobs and lowprestige representative/practical advice-giving jobs. Even though the very idea behind
the organization was to help practitioners and political strategists work together to
generate innovative political-strategic proposals, there was a sharp functional
distinction between members performing the political/strategic work, which
predominantly consisted of writing tasks and attending political meetings, and the
more representational, customer-oriented functions of consultancy and advice giving.
The customer-oriented tasks were officially praised as the center’s backbone. However,
they were unofficially perceived as low-status tasks intended to showcase the
“diversity” of the employees and their language competences. One minority employee
reflected on the fact that he was pictured on Agency’s main web page but not
considered “qualified” to represent the organization at municipal meetings: “We are
good enough when we can be used for promotion and to look politically correct.
However, when it comes to doing the exciting jobs, we are left out.”
Most employees described the political-strategic work as high status and as the access
point for advancement in the municipal hierarchy. Political-strategic assignments were
often referred to at center meetings as victories in which Agency contributed to the
city-wide business strategy. Members working with political/strategic tasks often
received task assignments directly from the CEO and were asked to join him at
strategically important meetings. The CEO officially praised the representativeness and
the international dimension of the employees. However, employees with the “right”
professional training (in political science), and native Danish speaking and writing skills
were selected for almost all of the high-prestige tasks. Therefore, entrance into highprestige tasks and professional career tracks was guided by a process aimed at filtering
out those employees who were “adequately skilled” to perform certain tasks, as
articulated by the CEO:
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In order to be able to mirror the municipal corporate landscape, it is important that we have
language skills and ballast from other cultures. For example, if we deal with a greengrocer
who speaks Arabic, then it is fine to bring Jamal. However, everything that goes up the
political system is in Danish, and it is probably just easier for ethnic Danes because they fit,
they know how to frame it, and the language is natural in another way. It is a matter of trust
throughout the system.
Even though the CEO described the issue as a matter of legitimacy and the practice as
one that benefitted all concerned, the end result was that employees with international
backgrounds found themselves in the representative, low-prestige job category. At a
managerial meeting, the CEO even encouraged the other section managers to be “more
tedious […] we must avoid signaling that we have many different backgrounds and
we are ‘strange’. Instead we have to signal that we are efficient and knowledgeable.”
From his perspective, difference was the same as non-professionalism, while the
“tediousness” of white employees trained in political science was equated with
professionalism.
Most of the respondents – both employees and managers – spoke of ethnicity as a
“skill” in itself. The official recruitment strategy embraced this view, as the talent
pool from which Agency drew on was very diverse: “When we recruit employees
for advisory tasks, we need ethnic diversity to, for example, service the pizzeria
owners.” However, most of the employees with international background entered
Agency through an active labor-market scheme, which aimed to move the unemployed
into provisional, publicly funded positions. In other words, diversity was coupled
with corporate social responsibility and newly appointed “diverse” employees were
assigned a lower status, at least initially. Moreover, they had to fight to obtain a
permanent position.
Minority employees’ strategies of navigating opportunity structures
This analysis examines how minority agents in Agency both mobilized and reinforced
the constraints of the organizational space. Of key concern is how minority employees
spatially navigated the power-scape while trying to manipulate events and material
resources in order to turn them into opportunities, which in turn may have the potential
to transform the organizational opportunity structure. Like bricoleurs, employees
creatively applied five main strategies according to the situational logic, and they even
vacillated among the strategies.
Conciliatory strategy: embodying the stereotype. The most prevalent minority
employee strategy was linked to bodies at work and embodiment, and implied what
Goffman (1961) terms “colonization” – accepting and cynically demonstrating compliance.
By playing the game and embodying the stereotype of doing representative work, conflicts
were temporarily kept at bay. This strategy was closely related to Alvesson and Willmott’s
(1992) warning about the costs of emancipation in the form of anxiety and alienation.
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Hence, embodiment of the stereotype created a secure position and stability in work life,
but it was accompanied by low self-esteem and a relentless need to justify the situation
as organizational unfairness. This strategy was evident in the employees’ compliance
with ethnically zoned seating, collaboration, and socialization patterns. Feelings of social
injustice strengthened the bonds among peers with minority backgrounds, while
expanding feelings of alienation from majority colleagues.
However, the ethnified job categories could be turned into a strategic position of
indispensability. In other words, ethnic minority employees could exclude others by
stressing the valuable language and cultural skills they possessed. Paradoxically, this
kept minority employees from challenging the basic cause of inequality – the
stereotypical distinction between majority and minority employees in terms of skills
and competencies. In fact, they reinforced this stereotypical view in order preserve their
own power (Boogaard and Roggeband, 2009). This touches upon how the constraint
exercised by any structure over one person is directly related to the opportunity it
offers to another, which leads to an inherent paradox of inequality and opportunity
along ethnically defined lines (Ortlieb and Sieben, 2014). The activation of the minority/
majority distinction granted access to advantages and disadvantages in Agency.
However, taking advantage of reserved, ethnified job categories concomitantly
reproduced the very structures that perpetuated marginalization.
Opposition strategies of withdrawal, rebellion, passing, and deviation. The most
prevalent opposition strategy was passive resistance in which the employee avoided
the managerial and collegial gaze through withdrawal (Goffman, 1961; Scott, 2010),
linked to the materialization of power. Agency’s free-seating setup resembled a
panopticon in which surveillance and self-surveillance were parts of its members’
interactions. However, Agency also offered numerous hideaways in which members
were free from direct scrutiny. These could be found in online social media, in the
smoking area outside, in visits to external clients, and in working at home. Another
strategy of withdrawal was to take collective breaks during which languages other
than Danish were spoken. This created a space free of majority dominance, while it
consolidated the language-based social and collaborative groups. The numerous
reports of stress and long-term sick leave pointed to yet another withdrawal strategy.
A second, more active opposition strategy was rebellion (Goffman, 1961; Scott,
2010). Rebels emphasized social-demographic categories with political ends. In systems
built on the privileges and rights of certain fixed identities, the uncovering of privilege
can be converted into political activities, thereby creating internal group solidarity as a
point of departure for mobilizing transformational pressure (Holck et al., 2016). The
rebel in Agency was motivated to fight for justice on behalf of others and often held an
employee representative function in the collaborative structure. In that position, the
employee would seize every opportunity to unmask unfairness in the distribution of
tasks assignments for others, while maintaining his or her privileged situation as an
exception to the rule. This created a strong power base for an employee known by peers
for speaking the truth and viewed as untouchable by management, as the Janus face of
the rebel was the martyr.
The minority strategies of withdrawal and rebellion both took place within a
hierarchy in which minority employees were placed in representative roles at the
bottom and white majority employees trained in political science were at the top. This
power-scape was reified through routinized expectations of behavior and biased
interpretations of events – by the winners and losers in the spatial order.
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Among the more troublesome opposition strategies actively challenging the status
quo of distribution of privilege and disadvantage, was passing (Goffman, 1961;
Nicholson and Carroll, 2013). Employees trying to “pass” as members of the majority
group were marked by their peers as traitors or deniers of their background: “You
know Sarah? She pretends she is not a foreigner. She once asked me if Lebanese people
can eat licorice, but she is a Muslim herself!” Hence, the strategy of “passing” was
difficult for colleagues to tackle because it obstructed the rebel’s political struggle for
social justice, invalidated the claims of unfairness made by the stereotype, and impeded
the naturalized matrix of task and status distribution introduced by the privileged
employees. Accordingly, few members were allowed to adopt a passing strategy with
the status “second generation immigrant” as a necessity.
The most problematic of the minority strategies was deviance, which aimed to create
partial spaces of micro-emancipation (Scott, 2010). The deviant insisted on moving beyond
patterns of inequality, and vowed to stick to his or her own chosen career path. For
example, Isaac, an employee with international background persuaded a section manager
that he should be assigned political-strategic tasks. This assignment was made
unofficially and “at his own risk.” As no formal system of task distribution and job
categories was in place, this was just a matter of distributing tasks differently than
prescribed by the managerial discretionary routine. Accordingly, the Isaac was left to his
own devices while trying to prove that a foreigner who had not studied political science
could perform political/strategic tasks. The responses from colleagues were immediate:
“The first thing [a section manager] asked me last Friday was ‘Why did you get these
assignments on business policy? Why are you allowed to do this with your background?’ ”
Thereafter, Isaac experienced an increase in professional and social isolation:
It has become very unpleasant to be here, and I get back-stabbed every now and then […]
people are constantly questioning whether “we” – the non-Danes – have the right
competences, especially writing skills. I constantly have to prove that I am good enough.
Remarkably, Isaac’s exclusion was reinforced by peers with minority backgrounds.
Especially among the rebels and the stereotypes, Isaac was viewed as impersonating
the “stranger among us” and as a threat to the spatial organizational ordering of
“us versus them.” Isaac embodied an equivocal other who both unmasked the artificial
character of the minority/majority distinction on which claims of social injustice were
based, and demonstrated its pervasiveness by demonstrating very tangible barriers to
equal opportunity. Isaac ended up being excluded and unofficially exiled from Agency:
“Troublemakers like me get ‘engaged,’ or lent out to other organizations, so that we are
kept out of sight.” The materialization of power relations subsequently solidified,
demonstrating the mutual constitution of estrangement and solidarity (Scott, 2010).
Table II provides an overview of the findings in relation to the spatial themes of
materialization of power and embodiment, and minority employees’ strategies.
Concluding discussion, implications for HRM practices, and limitations
This study adds to the emerging field of critical diversity research by moving diversity
debates away from their foundation in cognition and social psychology (Ariss et al.,
2012; Qin et al., 2014; Williams and Mavin, 2014; Zanoni et al., 2010). This paper has
explored the enabling and constraining capacities of Agency’s organizational space in
relation to minority employees’ abilities to shape their own chosen career paths.
The study demonstrates how spatial practices can detract from, distort, or even hijack
Spatially
embedded
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Enabling and
constraining capacity
of space
Materialization of
power
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Bodies at work and
embodiment
Minority employee
spatial strategies
Table II.
Overview of spatial
themes and practices
in “Agency”
Themes
Spatial practices
Ethnical segregation Ethnical zoning and fixed seating in a “free seating”
of the office space
office
Segregated patterns of socializing and cooperation
The office space as a power-scape reinforced by
symbolic employee spatial practices related to seating
and socializing routines
“Ethnification” of
High-prestigious job categories are reserved for ethnic
job categories
majority employees legitimized by meritocracy
Low-prestige job categories are reserved for ethnic
minorities hampering their own choice of career paths
Embodying the stereotype
Strategies of
Withdrawal from the gaze
conciliation and
Passing
opposition
Rebellion
Counter-space of deviance
formal policies on equal opportunity by spatially re-inscribing a majority/minority
distinction. In Agency, the zoning of the office space along ethnic lines and the
ethnification of the job hierarchy resulted in the assignment of certain job categories to
either minority or majority groups.
This spatial approach to organizational substructures of inequality informs current
research on HRM diversity management in two ways. First, I argue that formal HRM
practices – such as objective procedures, sensitivity training, and networking – often fail
because they are not embedded in a situational assessment of the tacit, organizational
“underbelly” of power battles related to privileges, disadvantages, and resistance.
For instance, Agency relied on objective criteria in recruitment and selection – a
common HRM practice. As a result, minority applicants were recruited, but only for
limited number of job categories, and predominantly on a provisional basis with little
potential for advancement. Hence, the diversity potential was undermined by spatial
practices that produced ethnic stratification in relation to cooperation, socializing, and
task-distribution routines. In addition, to be able to benefit from training and network
activities, a general recognition of the existence of substructures of inequality is
necessary. In Agency majority employees had the privilege not to see their privilege
(Acker, 2006) persuaded by objective and neutral criteria of municipal meritocracy
backed by formal diversity policies of equal opportunities. In this situation sensitivity
training and networking/mentoring might even have led to re-marginalization and
stereotyping, triggering negative (majority) responses in which promoted minority
members were perceived as non-deserving (Kalev et al., 2006).
Second, a focus on the barriers experienced by minorities, rather than the reflexive
agency they deploy, cuts HRM diversity management practitioners off from an
important vehicle of transformation. To facilitate change, HRM practices must provide
disadvantaged minority employees with material and symbolic resources in order to
empower them to fight against their marginalization (Boogaard and Roggeband, 2009).
In this regard, objective criteria, networking, and mentoring are insufficient.
Empowerment must include a broader set of structure-targeting HRM practices
involving minority employee participation and empowerment, and a break with ethnic
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zoning and the ethnification of job categories. In Agency these could have included
compulsory rotations in teamwork, conflict-resolution processes, access to crucial
information and resources, involvement in high-prestige mainstream tasks, and
providing some influence on decision-making processes ( Janssens and Zanoni, 2014;
Qin et al., 2014; Van Laer and Janssens, 2011, 2014).
The adoption of a spatial approach to workplace inequality also has significant
implications for practice, as the empowerment of minority employees requires careful
consideration of the advantages and costs of strategies related to either conciliation or
opposition. Consequently, a complex and paradoxical configuration of the motivations
behind minority employees’ strategies in Agency emerges. On the one hand, they
worked within an organizational structure that reflected and sustained majorityenforced norms. On the other hand, they benefitted from their favorable positioning,
which arose from their specific skills for dealing with international customers and
representing the company. This paradoxical position may explain why conciliatory
strategies tended to prevail despite the broader variety of opposition strategies and the
high level of minority dissatisfaction. Notably, employees from both the ethnic majority
and the ethnic minorities gained from this paradoxical minority position of privilege/
disadvantage, which in turn perpetuated a substructure of inequality.
This serves to highlight the rarity of structural transformation – once minority
employees have learned to play the game, the losses associated with deviations are
high and the desire for reform declines (Ortlieb and Sieben, 2014; Tomlinson et al.,
2013). The stakes must be shifted increasing the advantages of opposition, especially in
relation to the strategy of deviation, which posed the greatest challenge to the skewed
opportunity structures in Agency. The costs of micro-emancipation were too high in
terms of alienation and anxiety for minority employees (Alvesson and Willmott, 1992).
An alternative organizational space must to be crafted in which all employees’
contributions are valued equally. This necessitates a broader definition of the
competencies that constitute a qualified employee regardless of ethnic affiliation
(Ghorashi and Ponzoni, 2014; Ghorashi and Sabelis, 2013; Janssens and Zanoni, 2014).
This study suffers from several limitations but highlights potential areas for future
research. First, there are limitations associated with focussing on a single case, as the
findings cannot be generalized to the total population but can only demonstrate the
power of the example (Silverman, 2001). Second, focus is on a particular type of (flat
and post-bureaucratic) organization in a specific cultural context (Danish). However, as
there are other modes of organizing in other cultural contexts, more work is needed to
explore the various types of spatially embedded substructures of inequality and the
related configuration of minority employees’ strategies.
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About the author
Lotte Holck is a MA in Human Geography and Administration, BA in Business (Innovation and
Change Management) and PhD fellow in workplace diversity with a particular focus on
organizational structures and agency in conjuncture power and space. Lotte Holck can be
contacted at: lho.ioa@cbs.dk
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Scandinavian Journal of Management 32 (2016) 52–62
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Scandinavian Journal of Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scaman
Reproduction of ‘Typical’ gender roles in temporary organizations—No
surprise for whom? The case of cooperative behaviors and their
acknowledgement$
Barbara Siebena,* , Timo Braunb , Aristides I. Ferreirac
a
Helmut Schmidt University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Chair of Human Resource
Management, Holstenhofweg 85, 22043 Hamburg, Germany
b
University of Kaiserslautern, Department of Business Studies and Economics, Germany
c
ISCTE—Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Business Research Unit, Portugal
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history:
Received 2 December 2014
Received in revised form 28 November 2015
Accepted 4 December 2015
Available online 16 January 2016
Temporary organizations such as projects are known to differ in various respects from permanent ones
and have been argued to be more gender-neutral. Inspired by gender research in permanent
organizations, we show that (in)congruency between gender and project roles evokes similar
mechanisms in both permanent and temporary systems. Using the example of cooperative behavior,
operationalized as project citizenship behavior (PCB), we examine how temporary organizations reward
such behaviour. A cross-sectional study was conducted, with 241 project managers and workers
participating. The results of seven structural equation models reveal that though the enactment of PCB
does not vary by gender, the relationship of PCB with its outcomes does: men and women were clearly
rewarded differently depending on the gender congruency of their project roles.
ã 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Gender congruence
Inequality
OCB
Organizational citizenship behavior
Rewards
Outcomes
Projects
Temporality
Temporary organizations
1. Introduction
Research into gender and organizations has shown up to now a
persistence of gender inequality (e.g., Calás, Smircich, & Holvino,
2014). Studies for the most part have concentrated on permanent,
or line, organizations. Might examining temporary organizations
instead make a difference? Projects, the most prominent type of
temporary organization (Turner & Müller, 2003), have unique
features distinguishing them from permanent/line organizations,
in particular temporality and certain termination; a team
$
We wish to thank first of all the IPMA for its valuable support in the process of
data collection. Moreover, we thank attendees of the EURAM 2014 conference and
those of the HRM and organization section workshops of the German Academic
Association for Business Research for discussions of prior versions of this paper. We
also heartily thank Thorsten Reichmuth for additional data analyses and
Persephone Doliner who helped us in improving language and style. Last, but
not least we are grateful for the anonymous reviewers’ and the editors’ comments
which finally helped to spell out the core argument of this paper.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: barbara.sieben@hsu-hh.de (B. Sieben),
timo.braun@wiwi.uni-kl.de (T. Braun), aristides.ferreira@iscte.pt (A.I. Ferreira).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2015.12.001
0956-5221/ ã 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
structure; and a complex, nonrepetitive task (Bakker, 2010; Lundin
& Söderholm, 1995; Söderlund, 2011). Projects are embedded in a
context of organizational and social structures and relationships as
well as in a historic sequence of events (Engwall, 2003; Sydow,
Linkvist, & DeFillippi, 2004). Because of their flatter structures,
more decentralized decision making, and higher employee
autonomy, projects have been argued to be more gender-neutral
than permanent organizations and to offer more employment and
promotion opportunities to women (e.g., Ferguson, 1984; Fondas,
1996; Savage & Witz, 1992). Thus, for research referring to
temporary organizations it would be of no surprise if the
mechanisms of gender role creation and enactment were
somewhat different compared to permanent organizations—not
least because of distinctive mechanisms of human information
processing in the face of temporality (Bakker, Boroş, Kenis, &
Oerlemans, 2013). Yet still, gender oriented studies underline that
men predominantly conduct and manage project-based work (e.g.,
Henderson, Stackman, & Koh, 2013; Legault & Chasserio, 2012;
Ojiako et al., 2014). Moreover, Henderson and Stackman (2010)
note that women work both as project managers and team
members twice as much as men on smaller projects with lower
B. Sieben et al. / Scandinavian Journal of Management 32 (2016) 52–62
budgets. Against this background, for gender researchers a
reproduction of typical gender roles and relations would be less
surprising than a clear break with gender roles and hierarchical
relations in temporary organizations. Thus, we are facing a tension
between the research streams on temporary organizations on the
one hand and gender-related research on the other. To explore this
tension, it is necessary to focus more on informal processes and
shape our view to the more subtle characteristics of temporary
organizations. This will help to expose what is actually happening
instead of what is supposed to happen (per prescriptive project
management approaches). In particular, it is necessary to go
beyond a differentiation between men and women (i.e., a
reduction to the control and dummy variable ‘sex’), but to take
in a consideration of typical gender segregations in terms of
gendered project roles and their effects.
To dig more deeply into these relationships and potentially find
opportunities to diminish gender inequalities, we focus in our
study on cooperative behaviors and their impacts on potentially
gendered reward structures. Thereby we do not only compare men
and women and their assumed gender-(in) congruent behaviors
(e.g., Triana, 2011), but also men and women in gender (in)
congruent project roles.
Temporary organizations and in particular projects rely on
discrete cooperative behaviors of individuals (project citizenship
behavior [PCB]). These behaviors are performed voluntarily, in that
they are beyond the scope of a work contract, and are supposed to
accomplish complex and nonrepetitive tasks. At the same time, these
behaviors may be inevitable, because tasks blur organizational
boundaries and in an interorganizational setting, legal agreements
are not specific enough to clearly allocate all duties to individual
organizations (Autry, Skinner, & Lamb, 2008; Braun, Ferreira, &
Sydow, 2013; Braun, Müller-Seitz, & Sydow, 2012). The research
tradition on such cooperative efforts of individuals tracks back to the
1980s when the construct of organizational citizenship behavior
(OCB) was introduced (Organ, 1988; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, &
Bachrach, 2000). Organ (1988) defines OCB as ‘individual behavior
that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the
formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the
effective functioning of the organization’. Previous studies prove that
OCB not only enhances the effectiveness of organizations (Organ,
Podsakoff, & MacKenzie, 2006; Podsakoff, Ahearne, & MacKenzie,
1997), but also promotes social capital and the stability and quality of
relationships, by, for instance, increasing liking and trust among coworkers (Bolino, Turnley, & Bloodgood, 2002). Corresponding
studies on temporary organizations have shown that PCB may
increase the effectiveness of this type of organization in analogous
ways (Braun et al., 2013). OCB and PCB respectively enhance not only
organizational and project outcomes, but also individual work and
employment outcomes, for instance through performance evaluations and rewards (e.g., Allen & Rush, 2001; Kiker & Motowidlo,1999;
Podsakoff, Whiting, & Podsakoff, 2009).
Yet, as Bergeron, Shipp, Rosen, and Furst (2013) warn, the
relation of OCB and individual career outcomes is not necessarily
positive, but is determined by systemic features, such as
performance evaluation based on organizational outcomes (which
typically privileges task performance). What is more, hitherto
research has rarely accounted for gender issues in the relationship
of citizenship behaviors and their outcomes.
Hence, inspired by Kark and Waismel-Manor (2005), who ask
what gender has got to do with organizational citizenship
behavior, we examine the specific gendered employment outcomes of citizenship behavior in temporary organizations. Scholars
have only rarely examined the gendered enactment of OCB (Kidder,
2002; Kidder & Mac Lean Parks, 2001; Kmec & Gorman, 2010) or
OCB’s gendered impact on performance evaluations (Allen & Rush,
2001; Heilman & Chen, 2005), salary, and promotion (Allen, 2006).
53
In sum, examinations of the gendered enactment and outcomes of
citizenship behavior as postulated by Kark and Waismel-Manor
(2005) remain rare, and we are not aware of studies focusing on
citizenship behavior in temporary organizations such as projects.
Against this background, we ask about the gendered outcomes
of PCB and in particular how they impact workplace (in) equality
and diversity. More precisely, we examine the employment
consequences of project citizenship behavior for men and women
in both gender-congruent and gender-incongruent project roles
(i.e., men in a project manager role entailing supervision duties and
budget control; women in an administrative role lacking supervision duties and budget control; and vice versa). We derive
hypotheses and utilize a quantitative survey design to test them.
The paper is structured as follows: first, we elaborate the
theoretical background and derive hypotheses from research on
OCB in temporary organizations (or PCB) and gender research on
citizenship behaviors. Second, we outline our quantitative
methodology, providing information about sample, data collection,
measures, and methods of analysis. Third, we present the findings
of our analyses. Fourth, we discuss our results against the backdrop
of the previously introduced theoretical concepts of PCB and the
research on gender issues. We point to theoretical implications,
empirical limitations, and directions for future research.
2. Theoretical background
Projects are popular with managers since they are often more
flexible than line organizations and have more predictable costs.
They occur in various industries, including traditional ones such as
construction or pharmaceuticals, creative industries such as theatre,
film making, or advertising, and service industries such as consulting
and IT services (Sydow et al., 2004). Projects differ from permanent
organizations in terms of time (Lundin & Söderholm, 1995).
Examining temporality is crucial to understanding this organizational form. Even though it seems that limited duration is often
perceived as necessarily implying short duration, this does not need
to be the case (Bakker, 2010). While a formal kick-off event often
marks the starting point of a project, a deadline usually marks its
end (Bakker, 2010). Nonetheless, there are cases in which
termination is postponed or even abandoned completely (MüllerSeitz & Sydow, 2011); thus, the border between temporary and
permanent can become fuzzy. This is also due to historicity of
temporary organizations, i.e., the shade of past projects affects
present and future organizing, thereby embedding the single
occurrence into permanent structure (Engwall, 2003). What is
more, the nature of temporality can lead to distinctive mechanisms
of information processing that are quite different from permanent
organizations. In particular, the time-limitation evokes more
heuristic information processing as opposed to systematic information processing (Bakker et al., 2013). That means, in the face of
temporality, individuals tend to grasp the information at hand (e.g.,
proven schemes, rules of thumb) instead working systematically
(i.e., follow processes, analytical procedures etc.).
Second, projects rely on teams, or interdependent sets of
collaborating people (Goodman & Goodman, 1976). Generally,
project teams that are often characterized by high levels of
interdisciplinarity, cut through organizational hierarchies and
cross organizational boundaries (Bakker, 2010). Research on
organizational behavior and project management literatures
address, for example, how to motivate, communicate, and build
commitment in team environments (Lundin & Söderholm, 1995).
Third, projects are defined by specific tasks. The task is usually
the reason why a project exists (Lundin & Söderholm, 1995), and it
dominates the becoming as well as the being of this organizational
form. Generally, projects appear to be more important to their
members than permanent organizations appear to be to their staff
54
B. Sieben et al. / Scandinavian Journal of Management 32 (2016) 52–62
(Bakker, 2010; Katz, 1982). Project tasks can be rather complex and
unique rather than simple and repetitive (Lundin & Söderholm,
1995). Thereby, project structures stretch across organizational
departments and hierarchies and may even cross organizational
boundaries, as does an interorganizational project (Midler, 1995).
Quite surprisingly, gender research has not paid much attention
to temporary organizations yet, despite for a call for more critical
research on projects, including a look at equality issues (Hodgson &
Cicmil, 2008). Projects may distinctly differ from line organizations
in regards to gender equality. In particular, projects cut through
organizational hierarchies and sometimes also organizational
boundaries. Thus, notions such as the ‘glass ceiling’ may not
apply to projects (e.g., Fondas, 1996). Yet the few gender analyses of
projects that exist point to a reproduction of the gender gap, be it
via gendered biases in organizational culture (Cartwright & Gale,
1995; Gale & Cartwright, 1995), via gendered project management
models and procedures (Buckle & Thomas, 2003; Henderson &
Stackman, 2010; Lindgren & Packendorff, 2006; Thomas & BuckleHenning, 2007), or via other mechanisms, such as unplanned and
unpaid overtime, which disadvantages women (Chasserio &
Legault, 2010; Legault & Chasserio, 2012).
In a recent gender-informed study on project management,
Henderson et al. (2013) analyze women project managers’
advantages and disadvantages as well as their issue-selling
behavior, thus coming close to our intent to analyze the gendered
outcomes of citizenship behaviors. Henderson et al. (2013) find
that using and developing networks, communicating, meeting
challenges, and issue selling are important for women’s employment outcomes in project management roles. Yet still, networking
behavior and subsequent resource acquisition might realize
different outcomes for men and women, as the study of Jayawarna,
Jones, & Marlow (2015) on entrepreneurial behavior shows.
Consequently, we will ask if citizenship behaviors, enacted by
men and women in either a gender-congruent or a genderincongruent role (i.e., as either project member or manager), make
a difference for employment outcomes.
2.1. OCB in projects
The concept of organizational citizenship behavior, introduced
in 1983, has received increasing interest and gained increasing
influence in the field of organizational behavior through today
(Podsakoff et al., 2000; Braun et al., 2012). The concept’s
managerial relevance and its potential effects on organizational
functioning and performance account for this popularity (Organ
et al., 2006). OCB is discretionary behavior that is not explicitly
rewarded but is nevertheless useful for organizational functioning
(Organ, 1988).
The vast majority of OCB studies refer to intraorganizational
settings (Organ et al., 2006; Podsakoff et al., 2000). Yet there is
empirical support for the prevalence of OCB in interorganizational
projects (e.g., Autry et al., 2008; Braun et al., 2012). According to
this stream of research, project citizenship behavior, PCB, consists
of the following dimensions (cf. Braun et al., 2012, 2013):
Helping behavior is directed toward helping another individual
face-to-face (Smith, Organ, & Near, 1983). This behavior solves or
prevents problems among staff (e.g., Borman & Motowidlo, 1993;
George & Brief, 1992; Smith et al., 1983) and it is crucial for bridging
organizational boundaries in interorganizational projects (Braun
et al., 2013).
Project loyalty entails supporting and defending objectives of a
project—analogous to organizational loyalty that has been
conceived as loyalty of an individual to an organization’s objective
(Borman & Motowidlo, 1993). It also includes spreading goodwill,
protecting organization and project, and defending them against
various threats (Podsakoff et al., 2000).
Project compliance is the acceptance of rules and regulations
as well as various project procedures and their internalization by
individuals. Compliance is directed toward the well-being of an
entire organization or project rather than toward the well-being of
an individual (Smith et al., 1983). A ‘good citizen’ obeys rules even
when nobody is watching (Podsakoff et al., 2000). For projects, this
behavior is essential since this organizational form tends to be
characterized by horizontal rather than hierarchical coordination
(e.g., Bechky, 2006).
Individual initiative refers to task-related behaviors that
extend beyond minimally expected performance to moments of
creativity and innovation. Examples of individual initiative include
an employee’s tackling additional tasks or motivating fellow
employees to do the same (Podsakoff et al., 2000). On a project, a
team member might proactively suggest improvements without
being asked to.
Relationship maintenance refers to behaviors such as
participating at industry conferences or project management
venues, simply having lunch with former project co-workers, or
calling previous colleagues to catch up. Relationship maintenance
occurs outside operative day-to-day work and reflects individuals’
interest in the ‘big picture’, for instance the governance of a project.
Thus, the focus of these behaviors is rather strategic.
Some of the above dimensions (in particular helping behavior
and loyalty) are present in the vast majority of OCB studies, while
others (such as initiative) are used less frequently. Furthermore, it
should be noted that OCB dimensions have been re-conceptualized
over and over and the application of different conceptualizations in
empirical research is very common (e.g., Podsakoff et al., 2000).
One distinction which is widely accepted distinguishes behaviors
directed toward individuals (labeled ‘OCB-I’) from behaviors (‘OCBO’) directed toward an organization as a whole (Organ, 1997).
Correspondingly, in our empirical section we distinguish between
PCB-I (comprising helping behavior and relationship maintenance)
and PCB-O (comprising initiative, project compliance, and project
loyalty), following the corresponding distinction proposed by
Braun et al. (2012, 2013). There is a broad body of research on the
antecedents of citizenship behavior, which include attitudinal and
dispositional conditions as well as task, leadership and work
context related antecedents (for an overview: Organ et al., 2006).
The OCB construct reflects explicit individual and organizational
expectations that may constitute an appropriate role behavior,
which in turn, is influenced by external variables. For example, the
existing literature suggests that transformational and transactional leadership styles are positively related to OCB (Nahum-Shani &
Somech, 2011). Different individual characteristics may reflect
different needs and interests and different leadership styles
influence their tendency to develop OCB (Euwema, Wendt, &
van Emmerik, 2007).
As for the outcomes of citizenship behavior, empirical analyses
have shown that PCB may generate outcomes for temporary
organizations and their members that are similar to the outcomes
of OCB in line organizations. Just as OCB has been shown to impact
organizational effectiveness (e.g., Organ et al., 2006; Podsakoff
et al., 1997), PCB may enhance project effectiveness in terms of
time, budget, and quality (Braun et al., 2013). With regard to
individual outcomes for project members, PCB was shown to affect
relationship quality (Braun et al., 2013), furthering related findings
of OCB analyses (e.g., Bolino et al., 2002). Also, first indications of
positive employment outcomes of PCB have emerged (Braun et al.,
2013) analogous to OCBs’ impact on employment outcomes such as
salary and career (Allen & Rush, 1998; Kiker & Motowidlo, 1999;
Podsakoff et al., 2009), though these are not necessarily positive
(Bergeron et al., 2013). In our analysis, we focus on these two
categories of individual outcomes; we label PCB’s impact on the
extent of closeness and trust in collaboration as ‘soft’ outcomes and
B. Sieben et al. / Scandinavian Journal of Management 32 (2016) 52–62
label PCB’s impact on collaboration requests and career progress as
‘hard’ outcomes.
Moreover, we focus on the question of how the congruence with
gender roles and gendered job roles affects the relation of PCB and
individual outcomes. As laid out in more detail below, according to
gender role theory and findings of gender stereotype research, the
PCB-I category tends to be associated with stereotypical female
behavior (social, caring, emotional), while the PCB-O category is
associated with stereotypical male behavior (responsible, leading)
(Kidder, 2002; Kidder & Mac Lean Parks, 2001; Kmec & Gorman,
2010; Rudman & Phelan, 2008). That is not to say that women and
men will necessarily behave differently, but that how they behave
is evaluated according to the behaviors’ congruence with the
individuals’ gender role (Rudman & Phelan, 2008). Thus, men and
women may be evaluated differently for their gendered enactments of citizenship behaviors (Allen, 2006; Allen & Rush, 2001)
and also rewarded differently by ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ outcomes, even
more so when their enactments of citizenship behaviors correspond to or contradict their equally gendered job role—built on
historical occupational and organizational gender segregations
with corresponding reward structures (Acker, 1990, 2006).
2.2. Gender and project citizenship behavior
As Kark and Waismel-Manor (2005) argue, the concept of
citizenship behavior has a highly gendered nature, and its
enactment holds different consequences for men and women,
thus producing a gendered division of labor and inequality in
organizations. The authors assume that it does so because of three
related dynamics: ‘(1) congruence and incongruence with
gendered social expectations; (2) the sex segregation of occupations; and (3) the gendered structuring of OCB’ (Kark & WaismelManor, 2005: 903). Inspired by these authors, we examine such
gendered dynamics in the context of temporary organizations,
looking at gendered appearances of PCB and gendered outcomes
for individuals working in projects.
We derived our hypotheses from the literature on gender and
OCB. To begin with, the very enactment and perception of
citizenship behaviors is gender-typed. According to gender role
theory, behaviors directed toward the welfare and care of others
(like helping behavior) or toward establishing and nurturing
relationships (like relationship maintenance) correspond very
much to stereotypes of femininity and the female gender role,
whereas behaviors directed toward an organization (like initiative, compliance, and loyalty) relate much more to the male
gender role, as they are associated with such stereotypical notions
of masculinity, as assertiveness and conscientiousness (Kark &
Waismel-Manor, 2005; Kidder & Mac Lean Parks, 2001; Kidder,
2002). It is important to note that we do not assume that women
and men behave differently “by nature”. Rather, we claim that the
(self-) perceptions of project members will differ according to
gender stereotypes, corresponding status beliefs, and gendered
cultural frames (Ridgeway, 2011). Consequently, we assume that
women and men project members will perceive and evaluate
PCB-I and PCB-O behaviors differently because of gendered
expectations and ascriptions that coordinate gender relations in
the workplace.
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