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Dangerous liaisons: the "feminine-in-management" meets "globalization." - female-oriented approach to globalization - includes related articles - Women

Business Horizons - March 1, 1993

HELP WANTED

Seeking transforming manager. Impatient with rituals and symbols of hierarchy. Favors strengthening networks and interrelationships, connecting with coworkers, customers, suppliers. Not afraid to draw on personal, private experience when dealing in the public realm, Not hung up by a "What's in it for me?" attitude. Focuses on the whole, not only the bottom line; shows concern for the wider needs of the community. If "managing by caring and nurturing" is your credo, you may be exactly what we need. Excellent salary and benefits, including child care and parental leaves.

Contact CORPORATE AMERICA

FAX: 1-800-INTRUBL

An Equal Opportunity Employer We do not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, age, disabilities, or sexual orientation.

How soon can we expect to see such a want ad? Soon, no doubt, if recent literature is to be believed. Since the mid-1980s, books and articles have appeared that, like our fictitious advertisement, support approaches to management based on traits and orientations traditionally associated with women, the female, and the feminine. A common story runs through these examples: Currently, business firms in the U.S. are suffering countless setbacks. Changes are needed. Therefore, if women and women-oriented qualities are brought into organizations and allowed to exert influence, it is likely that changes in the right direction will occur. Tom Peters (1990) best articulated this sentiment:

It's perfectly

obvious that

women should

be better

managers than men in today's topsy-turvy business environment. As we rush into the 90s, there is little disagreement about what business must become: less hierarchical, more flexible and team-oriented, faster and more fluid. In my opinion, one group of people has an enormous advantage in realizing this necessary new vision: women.

In principle, we cannot do other than share the sentiment, as Peters' statement seems to argue for more managerial opportunities for women. But it is important to approach this discussion by cautiously asking the following questions: What is the historical significance of recent discussions about "women's ways of leading" and the "female advantage"? Do they really help create new opportunities for women? Do they mark a new era of openness to difference, signaling the arrival of real receptivity to qualities that were once undervalued? Or do they signal only more of the same, or worse?

Recent research has argued that there are dangers associated with such "feminine-in-management" positions. We have pointed out (Calas et al. 1991) that although these positions are presented as a call for change in organizational thinking, they in fact do little more than restate existing management approaches under a different name. The dangers, we argued, are very real insofar as their apparent valuing of some "essential women's" qualities maintains an illusion of opportunity and equality for women in the managerial world while obstructing critical examination of the pervasive theoretical assumptions sustaining that world.

In this article we further analyze the problems and dangers associated with the femininein-management positions. As we point out below, the current appearance of these positions is not arbitrary, nor do they represent a natural progression toward more advanced organizational knowledge. Rather, we see a repetition of a cycle common in both academic and managerial circles when a need for change appears. On those occasions there is a tendency to obscure the need for fundamental change--which would alter the established balance of power--with a surface change that maintains that same balance while creating the appearance of a radical rethinking of what is. Women have been used for this purpose on more than one occasion. Therefore, if such is the case with the feminine-in-management, what is the "essential female" obscuring? What else is happening that propels managers and management theorists to "cherchez la femme"?

Other writings that call attention to the contemporary economic scene faced by American corporations have been appearing concurrently (Reich 1991; Kuttner 1991; Porter 1990; Ohmae 1990; Thurow 1992). In these writings the corporate actor is discussed within the wider environmental context of a "global reality." Different from earlier times, the arguments go, American corporations are no longer competing on familiar grounds. Contemporary managers face a more complicated competitive field where not all actors play by the same rules. Like the feminine-inmanagement literature, these writings announce changes, both behaviorally and structurally, for America's corporate ways.

But why these parallel discourses now? We argue that there is, in fact, a close relationship between feminine-in-management and "globalization." If approached separately, each of these managerial discourses appears to bring about fundamental changes in corporate America. However, when taken together, one--the feminine-inmanagement--maintains the domestic balance of power that allows for the other--globalizationto fight for continuing that same balance in the international arena. Together they keep in place America's traditional social, cultural, and economic values, not effecting any transformational changes.

We propose that the lines of thought portrayed by these two parallel discourses might hurt both women and organizations insofar as their "solutions" to managerial troubles repeat an old quick-fix way of thinking prevalent in the U.S. Therefore, we will also analyze the more longterm dangers associated with such positions. As we will show in our conclusions, "thinking feminine" may be the necessary thing to do at this point, but not as it has been so far presented by the feminine-in-management.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FEMININE-IN-MANAGEMENT RHETORIC

For about 20 years, literature on women and management stressed women's abilities as managers as equivalent to those of men. But in the mid-1980s, general discussions about the place of women in management took a turn. Besides talk about how women could perform managerial roles as well as men (the equality discussion), a case was now being made that women's unique "feminine skills" could make important contributions to organizational management (the difference discussion), on which the feminine-in-management rhetoric is based.

The "women's difference" talk finds its support in recent research literature on the psychology of women (Gilligan 1982; Chodorow 1978; Miller 1976). These works show that traditional views of gender differences have not been culturally neutral; rather, qualities associated with males have been prized and those associated with females have been devalued. Yet because value systems are social and cultural constructions, it is possible to reconceptualize female characteristics as positive-even though different-rather than as inferior to male characteristics.

Clearly, the appeal of these ideas stems from their implications for revaluing women and feminine qualities in various kinds of activities, including approaches to management. For instance, Marilyn Loden (1985) was one of the first to argue, under the women's difference umbrella, that women's managerial styles could be what was needed for solving American productivity problems. Similar arguments followed in other periodicals (Cosmopolitan, Organization Dynamics, Harvard Business Review, Academy of Management Executive) and books (Reinventing the Corporation, Megatrends 2000, The Female Advantage). In these writings, what was once disparaged as female patterns in need of overcoming for success in management were now positioned as special and useful for organizations.

For example, Jan Grant (1988) proposed that "women may indeed be the most radical force available in bringing about organizational change," thanks to qualities gained in experiences with their families and communities. In Grant's view, women's skills at communication and cooperation, their interests in affiliation and attachment, and their orientation toward power as a transforming and liberating force to be used for public purposes rather than for personal ambition and power over others are critically needed human resource skills in contemporary organizations.

More recently, Judy Rosener (1990) described "interactive leadership" as characteristic of some of the executive women she studied. Patterns unique to women's socialization made them comfortable with encouraging participation and facilitating inclusion, sharing power and information, enhancing the self worth of others, and energizing and exciting others about their work.

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