Suchergebnisse

Sexuality and the experience of sexual minorities in the workplace are under-researched areas. The research reported here - a case study in one government department in the UK - utilizes a discursive research method to uncover a theme that is at the centre of this experience - silence. In-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with individuals eliciting their stories on their experience as lesbians and gay men in the workplace, and these stories were then used to promote more general discussion within focus groups. Understanding silence in the research process with relation to both the researcher and the respondent was found to be vital for research in this area, and the article raises issues to do with uncovering previously silenced voices. Silence also emerged as a recurrent theme in the research and found that there were many ways in which this silence can play an integral role in organizational discourse and the creation of social identity. We have therefore suggested that silence could be referred to metaphorically as 'negative space', as this term helps to emphasize the multifaceted nature of silence. The research highlighted reactive silence and the absence of response, silence as a form of suppression, of censorship and of self-protection and resistance. It also concludes that silence, in all its changing forms, influences and contributes to the creation of social reality and gay identity for lesbians and gay men in the workplace.

Debates on the impact of management ideas tend to assume a mechanistic view of knowledge with its value or threat conceived of in terms of the extent to which it is directly applied in practice. This is echoed in policies and practices of management education in terms of an emphasis on practical relevance. Such debates typically neglect processual views of knowledge and, in particular, the existential and associated emotional aspects of 'acquiring' knowledge—learning as becoming. This article explores managers' reflections on the consequences of studying a range of explicit management ideas within the context of the MBA. Some direct translation, combination and application of ideas is evident, along with the more indirect discursive construction of an identity as 'strategic' or managerial in content. However, the reverse is more evident, where opportunities for application to organizational practices are seen as inappropriate or impeded within the organization. Instead the principal outcome of ideas acquisition and the process of 'acquiring' them is an (albeit necessarily precarious) sense of 'self-confidence', which is reinforced through discourse. The MBA thus becomes a means for acquiring appropriate language fluency in management and the self-confidence to gain legitimacy and social privilege in senior management. The article points to the analytical value of exploring the translation of knowledge beyond that of the transformation of ideas and of the discursive content of identity towards the existential-emotional transitions associated with 'identity work'. It also has significant implications for our understanding of management, management education and the centrality and boundaries of knowledge as an organizing concept.

Claims that, for the 1990s, images of careers are multidimensional and individualistic. Notes that employees are encouraged to take responsibility for their own self‐development, incorporate horizontal as well as vertical moves, and forge careers based on "employability", i.e. learning, networking and reputation. Bases its arguments on the findings of a study into senior executives in the NHS, and explores the consequences of organizational restructuring for the careers of clinical, general and functional managers. Suggests that organizational and professional barriers exist to undermine the notion of the multidimensional career. Argues that prescriptive approaches to career self‐development need to take account of organizational context and that, to meet the challenges of careers in the 1990s, both the organization and the individual need to become more willing to take risks.