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ontological and epistemological of articles of different perspectives of Organisational Theory

The two articles shows different perspectives on Organisational Theory about inequality in organisations. Read the articles and identify on each perspective’s ontological and epistemological position. Summarize main points of the two articles in simple English.

I would need to get the answer for ontological and epistemological in the articles instead of the just the general theoretical ontological and epistemological. Get to me if you are unsure of what i wrote 🙂 thanks a lot!

Scandinavian Journal of Management 32 (2016) 52–62

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

Article history:
Received 2 December 2014
Received in revised form 28 November 2015
Accepted 4 December 2015
Available online 16 January 2016

Keywords:
Gender congruence
Inequality
OCB
Organizational citizenship behavior
Rewards
Outcomes
Projects
Temporality
Temporary organizations

A B S T R A C T

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.

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Scandinavian Journal of Management

journal homepage: www.elsev ier.com/locate /sca man

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

http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1016/j.scaman.2015.12.001&domain=pdf

mailto:barbara.sieben@hsu-hh.de

mailto:timo.braun@

mailto:aristides.ferreira@iscte.pt

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2015.12.001

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09565221

www.elsevier.com/locate/scaman

B. Sieben et al. / Scandinavian Journal of Management 32 (2016) 52–62 53

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 functioningof the organization’. Previous studiesprove that
OCB not only enhances the effectiveness of organizations (Organ,
Podsakoff, & MacKenzie, 2006; Podsakoff, Ahearne, & MacKenzie,
1997), but also promotes social capital and the stabilityand qualityof
relationships, by, for instance, increasing liking and trust among co-
workers (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 evalua-
tions 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 out-
comes 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).

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 supervi-
sion 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, oradvertising, 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 organiza-
tional 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 (Müller-
Seitz & 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 infor-
mation 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 & Buckle-
Henning, 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 employ-
ment 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 gender-
incongruent 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 (‘OCB-
O’) 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 transaction-
al 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 55

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 enact-
ments 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 corre-
spond 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 occupa-
tions; and (3) the gendered structuring of OCB’ (Kark & Waismel-
Manor, 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 initia-
tive, 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.

Firstly, the different natures of PCB-I and PCB-O imply they will
be evaluated differently with regard to project success and
consequently lead to different outcomes for individual project
members. We assume female-typed PCB-I to be particularly
related to soft outcomes (for instance, close and trustful
cooperation) as such behaviors are directed toward relationships
between project members and in that sense important for project
realization and fulfilment. In accordance with Allen (2006), we
assume that to achieve hard employment outcomes (for instance,

bonuses or career steps) male-typed PCB-O is beneficial: organi-
zational decision makers will appreciate behavior directed toward
their organization and project success more highly and reward it
more strongly. Following Kark and Waismel-Manor (2005), we
additionally assume that corresponding perceptions and evalua-
tions of PCB-I and PCB-O strongly vary by project members’ gender.

Women, and in particular their PCB-I, will be rewarded
(preferentially by soft outcomes), as female-typed PCB-I only
corresponds to the female gender role. In contrast, PCB-O displayed
by women will be regarded as contradicting their gender role.
Thus, they will not be rewarded in the same way as

PCB-O

displayed by men, and/or may even be punished. Therewith we
relate to the work of Rudman and others on backlash effects, that is
‘social and economic reprisals for behaving counterstereotypically’
(Rudman & Phelan, 2008, p. 61), which have been demonstrated to
exist for women managers in particular (e.g., Rudman, Moss-
Racusin, Phelan, & Nauts, 2012).

For men, the situation should be different, as shown by Allen
(2006). Performing PCB-O and thus acting in congruence with their
gender role will be expected and rewarded, particularly by hard
employment outcomes such as bonuses or career steps. Also, trust
and closeness in organizations might be enhanced if men show the
legitimate citizenship behaviors that correspond to their gender
role. Some studies even suggest that performing female-typed
PCB-I such as helping may be of advantage for men, as such
behavior be more recognized and evaluated positively when
performed by men (Allen & Rush, 1998; Eagly, Makhijani, &
Klonsky, 1992; Heilman & Chen, 2005). Yet, other gender role
studies have reported on backlash effects for men (Rudman &
Phelan, 2008; Moss-Racusin, Phelan, & Rudman, 2010), suggesting
that showing PCB-I might rather be loosely coupled with work
outcomes for men or even be disadvantageous for them. Thus,
regarding the relation of PCB with project members’ gender role,
we propose,

Hypothesis 1. Gender-role-congruent citizenship behavior will
be positively associated with individual work outcomes.

Hypothesis 1a. The positive relationships between PCB-O and
work outcomes for men are more pronounced than the positive
relationships between PCB-I and work outcomes for women.

Hypothesis 1b. For men, PCB-O will particularly be associated
with hard outcomes, while for women, PCB-I will be particularly
associated with soft outcomes.

Moreover, the association of PCB to rewarding outcomes will
not only vary by project members’ gender and the PCB’s
congruence with specific gender roles, but will vary even more
by project members’ gender and its congruence with (equally
gendered) job roles. As Kark and Waismel-Manor (2005) argue
with reference to Acker’s (1990) conception of the gendered
organization, both the sex segregation of occupations and
gendered hierarchical structures and status distributions add to
the differential gendered impacts of citizenship behaviors.
Women’s overrepresentation in helping and caring service jobs
as well as in lower-status jobs with operative or assisting character
advances the devaluing of their helping behavior, as it will be
perceived as ‘natural’ to their job role and not as extra-role
behavior. Also, structural barriers attached to their lower-status
jobs (low access to organizational resources) may make it more
difficult for women than for men to engage in citizenship
behaviors—or to make them perceivable and salient. Thus, gender
roles not only nurture cognitive mechanisms, individual decisions,
and stereotypical expectations, but also build very much on status
beliefs and gendered cultural frames that coordinate social

56 B. Sieben et al. / Scandinavian Journal of Management 32 (2016) 52–62

relations in the workplace and (re) produce hierarchical inequal-
ities (Acker, 1990; 2006; Calás et al., 2014; Ridgeway, 2011).

We assume that these very dynamics also apply to temporary
organizations such as projects. Even if temporary organizations
have been argued to open employment opportunities for women
(e.g., Fondas, 1996), women are still underrepresented in projects
(Henderson et al., 2013; Legault & Chasserio, 2012; Ojiako et al.,
2014) and are typically engaged in smaller, less well financed
projects than men (Henderson & Stackman, 2010). Yet still, unlike
studies that point to projects as being male-typed organizations
per se (Buckle & Thomas, 2003; Cartwright & Gale, 1995; Gale &
Cartwright, 1995; Lindgren & Packendorff, 2006; Thomas & Buckle-
Henning, 2007), we do not assume temporary organizations such
as projects to be generally male-typed. Instead, we expect
attributions about project roles to be gendered and to have
corresponding gendered impacts (Ridgeway, 2009). For instance,
the function of project manager, with its supervision duties and
budget control, appears – in accordance with gendered job
segregation and ascription – as male-typed, and the supportive
function of a project member, without supervision duties and
budget control, appears female-typed.

Given these considerations, we go beyond a mere gender role
analysis like that of Kidder and Mac Lean Parks (2001), who treat
gender roles as different but equal (Calás et al., 2014; Kark &
Waismel-Manor, 2005). We follow Kidder and Mac Lean Parks
(2001) in their assumption that gendered ascriptions about
citizenship behaviors, jobs, and job incumbents interact, yet we
doubt that women and men in gender-congruent jobs will be
rewarded equally for displaying citizenship behaviors. Particularly
we question if gender-incongruent citizenship behaviors result in
analogous outcomes (i.e., male-typed behaviors displayed by
women in a congruent job role and female-typed behaviors
displayed by men in a congruent job role). Instead we assume that
these relationships will differ between men and women in both
congruent and incongruent job roles because of power differentials
and dynamics that tend to reproduce unequal gender relations
(Kark & Waismel-Manor, 2005; Ridgeway, 2009, 2011).

According to related considerations, women in female-typed
project roles should be rewarded for showing PCB-I (particularly by
soft outcomes), yet they might go unrewarded or even get
punished for displaying male-typed PCB-O, as PCB-O corresponds
to neither their gender nor their job role. Men in gender-congruent
job roles will particularly be rewarded for enacting male-typed
PCB-O (more by hard than by soft outcomes), yet not for showing
female-typed PCB-I. In contrast, perceptions and evaluations of
PCBs will change for project members in gender-incongruent job
roles. While women project managers will not be rewarded for
female-typed PCB-I (i.e., for showing female-typed behaviors in a
male-typed job role), it can be assumed that they will be rewarded
when they display male-typed PCB-O (i.e., conforming to their job
role and contradicting gender role ascriptions), though it is
questionable if they yield more soft or hard outcomes. Instead,
men project members in gender-incongruent roles (i.e., without
supervision, budget control, etc.) might be rewarded for displaying
PCB-I, yet it is questionable if they will be rewarded for displaying
PCB-O, as these stereotypically male behaviors would contradict
the gendered ascription about their job role and might therefore
lack legitimacy (Kark & Waismel-Manor, 2005, p. 905; Martin,
1996). Thus, regarding the relation of PCB and gendered project
roles we propose,

Hypothesis 2. The association of citizenship behaviors and
individual work outcomes for women and men will differ by the
gender congruence of the individuals’ job roles.

Hypothesis 2a. For women project members, PCB-I has a
positive relationship to soft and hard outcomes only when they
occupy gender-congruent project roles; when women occupy
gender-incongruent project roles, PCB-O has a positive rela-
tionship to soft and hard outcomes.

Hypothesis 2b. For men project members in gender-congruent
project roles, PCB-O has a positive relationship to soft and hard
outcomes. This relation lessens or vanishes for men project
members in gender-incongruent project roles; instead PCB-I has
a positive relationship to soft and hard outcomes.

3. Methods

3.1. Sample and data collection procedure

The survey that we composed for this study could be filled out
online. The sample consists of a cross-sectional set of respondents
who work on various projects (from classical construction projects
to project-based IT implementation and event management
projects). The study was supported by the German and Portuguese
representations of the International Project Management Associa-
tion (IPMA). The IPMA has currently more than 40,000 members
(including approximately 7000 in Germany and 1000 in Portugal)
in �40 national associations promoting the project management
profession and providing standards and guidelines for project
management professionals. The survey was announced by the
e-mail newsletters of IPMA Germany and Portugal, at practitioner
conferences organized by the IPMA, and on official websites in
both countries. In addition, IPMA groups on social networks such
as Facebook and Xing were informed. The invitation to participate
was not personalized; thus, a rate of return cannot be calculated
very accurately. However, concerning the overall population (at the
time of date collection), we have reached roughly 4% of the German
and 13% of the Portuguese IPMA members. Moreover, we
interviewed an international board member of IPMA, showing
him the descriptive structure of our dataset, and he confirmed that
the national samples for Germany and Portugal are ‘a very good
approximation of the member structure, except for a slight over-
representation of the IT-sector at the expense of traditional
manufacturing industries, as well as consulting services.

The sample consists of 241 respondents from Germany (48%)
and Portugal (52%) who are regularly engaged in project-based
work (an original group of 247 respondents was reduced by
6 owing to missing gender indications). The respondents are
project managers (73%) and other project workers (27%). The
average age is 40. Sixty-nine percent of the respondents are men,
and 31% are women. Two-thirds of the respondents have over
6 years of project management experience. More than half of the
respondents are in a managerial position with direct reports
(64.7%) and budget control (56.8%). The duration of the projects
ranges from several months to several years, averaging around
1.5 years. Almost half of the sample (47.4%) worked on technology
and communication projects, and the remainder were engaged in
various areas, such as research and development (14.2%),
construction (13.4%), organizational change (9.7%), strategy
(8.1%), and industry (3.6%).

3.2. Measures

A 7-point Likert scale (1 = “I do not agree at all” to 7 = “I totally
agree”) was applied for the items measuring citizenship behavior
and outcomes. All questions focused on the latest fully completed
project in which the respondent was involved.

B. Sieben et al. / Scandinavian Journal of Management 32 (2016) 52–62 57

The independent variables capture the five dimensions of PCB
defined by Braun et al. (2012, 2013), whereby we aggregated,
guided by previous research (Organ, 1997), helping behavior and
relationship maintenance to PCB-I and initiative, loyalty, and
compliance to PCB-O. Examples of items are: (1) helping behavior
(e.g., “I help project staff when they have heavy workloads”, “I offer
the project team members a helping hand if they need it at some
stage in the course of the project”), (2) project loyalty (e.g., “I
defend the project when it is criticized from the outside”, “I feel
strongly committed to the project”), (3) project-based compliance
(e.g., “I follow strictly the rules and instructions that apply to the
project”, “I conform to all contractual obligations I have in the
project with great care”), (4) individual initiative (e.g., “I make
innovative suggestions to improve the project”, “I outline chances
and potentials that could arise in the course of the project”), and (5)
relationship maintenance (e.g., “Occasionally, I catch up with
former external project workers”, “Occasionally, I contact selected
external project employees of previous projects”). All of the
dimensions present good psychometric evidence with construct
validity and Cronbach alphas ranging between .90 for individual
initiative and 0.96 for relationship maintenance. The scale also
presents good construct composite reliability with values ranging
from .70 to .76 (Braun et al., 2012, 2013). In order to avoid
undesirable effects, essentially due to a reduced sample/number of
parameter ratios, we proceeded with item parceling strategies in
SEM, as suggested by the literature (Hall, Snell, & Foust, 1999).
Accordingly, we computed the mean score for each construct (with
3–5 the items belonging to each construct), reducing the number
of free parameters and overcoming sample size demands.

Regarding the dependent variables, we focus on individual
employment outcomes as laid out above divided into “soft” and
“hard” outcomes. ‘Soft’ outcomes of PCB that impact relationship
quality among project members are captured by the items ‘Because
of this project . . . ’ (1) ‘I collaborate closer with particular project
workers than I did before’, and (2) ‘I collaborate more trustfully
with particular project workers than I did before’. ‘Hard’ outcomes
of PCB that impact tenure and career progress are measured via the
items ‘Because of this project . . . ’ (3) ‘I personally receive more
collaboration-requests from project workers than I received
before.’ and (4) ‘I made progress in my professional career’. Thus,

Women (H1) Female congruenc

Men (H1) Male congruence (

PCB -I

Hard
outcomes

PCB -O

So�
outcomes

PCB -I
PCB -O
PCB -I
Hard
outcomes
PCB -O

So�
outcomes PCB -I

PCB -O

Fig. 1. Hypothesized correlations be

we gathered subjective judgments about individual employment
consequences.

3.3. Analysis

In the analysis, we considered a factorial distinction for

PCB-I

(including relationship maintenance and helping behavior) and
PCB-O (including initiative, loyalty, and compliance). Regarding job
roles, in line with the literature (e.g., Acker, 1990; Kark & Waismel-
Manor, 2005; Ridgeway, 2009), we defined male congruence as the
combination of male gender with supervision and budget control
(i.e., male-typed work characteristics). Male incongruence was the
combination of male gender and no supervision and no budget
control. Female congruence was female gender, no supervision,
and no budget control. Female incongruence was female gender
combined with supervision duties and budget control. Finally,
gender congruence comprises male and female congruence,
whereas gender incongruence encompasses male and female
incongruence. Fig. 1 displays the core relationships of PCB to work
outcomes hypothesized both for women and men project
members (H1) and for the different situations of female and male
(in) congruence (H2).

To test our hypotheses, we used structural equation modeling
(SEM) and analyzed the relationship between PCB-I and both soft
and hard outcomes and that between PCB-O and soft and hard
outcomes. We used AMOS to draw the relationship between the
latent variables as laid out in Fig. 2. SEM with covariance matrices
and maximum likelihood estimation was performed to test the
hypothesized model. We studied the goodness of fit for the SEM
presented in Fig. 2. Previously, we tested model validity and found
evidence supporting the instrument’s convergent (Henseler,
Ringle, & Sinkovics, 2009) and discriminant validity (Hair, Black,
Babin, & Anderson, 2010). For the latent constructs, we found an
average variance extracted (AVE) higher than 0.50, which was
higher than the maximum shared variance and average shared
variance. In our study, we combined the comparative fit index
(CFI), the incremental fit index (NFI), and the root-mean-square
error of approximation (RMSEA). As a rule of thumb, CFI and IFI
indicators should be equal to or greater than .90 (Bollen, 1989). For
RMSEA, the most reliable and popular goodness-of-fit indicator

e (H2a) Female incongruence (H2a)

H2b) Male incongruence (H2b)

Hard
outcomes
So�
outcomes
PCB-I
Hard
outcomes
PCB-O

So�
outcome s

Hard
outcomes
So�
outcomes PCB -I
Hard
outcomes
PCB -O
So�
outcomes

tween PCB and work outcomes.

Fig. 2. Path diagram with the relationships between PCB and work outcomes.
Note: PCB-I = project citizenship behaviour � individual; PCB-O = project citizenship behaviour � organizational.

58 B. Sieben et al. / Scandinavian Journal of Management 32 (2016) 52–62

(MacCallum, Browne, & Sugawara, 1996), values smaller than .08
are a reasonable result (Bollen, 1989).

4. Results

Table 1 presents the studied variables, for gender, work
characteristics, PCB, and outcomes. In our results, loyalty
(M = 6.10, DP = 0.67) and initiative (M = 5.96, DP = 0.73) were the
PCB dimensions with the highest mean scores. As for the outcomes,
the second one (trustful collaboration) presented the highest mean
score (M = 5.45, DP = 1.28). Overall, we found moderate and low
positive correlations between the PCB variables and the soft and
hard outcomes. We also found a negative correlation between
supervision and compliance (r = �.16, p < .05) and helping behavior (r = �.18, p < .01), respectively, meaning that employees with supervision responsibilities display lower levels of compliance and helping behavior. Most importantly, there is no correlation between gender and any other of the studied variables, meaning that the self-reported enactment of PCBs does not vary by gender.

Table 2 compiles the results of our structural equation modeling
analysis. A first model comprising all participants indicated that
the model fit the data well (x2 = 41.925, df = 21; IFI = .964;
CFI = .963; RMSEA = .064; see Table 2). This initial model shows a
significant and positive correlation between PCB-I and soft
outcomes (g = .45, p < .05) yet no other significant correlations between PCBs and soft or hard outcomes. A split of the sample into men and women (M1a and M1b) still displays good model fit and shows that the relation of PCBs to soft and hard outcomes indeed

Table 1
Means, standard deviations and correlations among variables.

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3

1. Gender 1.32 .47
2. Supervision 1.35 .49 .00
3. Budget control 1.43 .50 .04 .42**

4. Relationship maintenance 5.10 1.16 �.01 �.08 �.01
5. Initiative 5.96 .73 .07 .01 �.08
6. Compliance 5.89 .64 .11 �.16* .07
7. Loyalty 6.10 .67 .10 �.09 �.05
8. Helping behaviour 5.77 .89 .03 �.18** �.12
9. Close collaboration 5.00 1.43 .10 �.17** �.05
10. Trustful collaboration 5.45 1.18 .01 �.21** �.10
11. Collaboration requests 4.76 1.69 .12 �.14* �.04
12. Career progress 5.01 1.67 .04 �.24** �.21**

Note: Gender: 1 = male, 2 = female; supervision: 1 = yes, 2 = no; budget control: 1 = yes,
* p < .05. ** p < .01.

strongly varies by gender. In the male sample, PCB-O is positively
correlated with both soft and hard outcomes (g = .72, p < .01, and g = .63, p < .01, respectively), and PCB-I is not. Instead, in the female sample PCB-I shows significant correlations with both soft and hard outcomes (g = .44 and g = .43, both p < .05), and PCB-O does not. This pattern supports H1, as we find clear relationships between PCB-O and work outcomes only for men and between PCB-I and work outcomes only for women. Moreover, supporting H1a, we find that the relationship between PCB-O and work outcomes for men is more pronounced than is the relationship between PCB-I and work outcomes for women. Yet, H1b is not supported. For men, the positive relation of PCB-O to hard outcomes is weaker than that to soft outcomes; and for women, the positive relations of PCB-I to soft and hard outcomes are about the same strength. Both results contradict our H1b assumptions.

Then we tested the same model with different samples,
considering the six possible situations of gendered job role
congruence and incongruence. Models 2 and 3 (Table 2) reveal
that gender (in) congruence again makes a difference. Whereas
under gender congruence the (positive) correlation between PCB-
O and hard outcomes is significant (g = .53, p < .05), under gender incongruence there is a (significantly higher) positive correlation between PCB-O and soft outcomes (g = .63, p < .01). Yet in these models PCB-I has no significant correlation to soft or hard outcomes. These results show that the assumptions of Kidder and Mac Lean Parks (2001) based on role theory alone do not hold; if so, project members in gender-congruent job roles should be rewarded for counter role behavior—women for PCB-O and men for

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

.40**

.17** .40**

.21** .44** .34**

.29** .33** .36** .29**

.15* .26** .20** .14** .23**

.24** .26** .24** .11 .25** .71**

.15* .28** .28** .22** .25** .55** .43**

.04 .10 .20** .08 .18** .42** .42** .46**

2 = no. SD = standard deviation.

Table 2
Standardized estimate values and model fit for gender congruence and incongruence models.

Situations PCB-I ) soft
outcomes

PCB-I ) hard
outcomes

PCB-O ) soft
outcomes

PCB-O ) hard
outcomes

Fit indices Dx2 (congruence

–

incongruence)

M1. General sample
(n = 241)

.45* .23 .00 .26 x2 (21) = 41.925; x2/df = 1.996**; IFI = .964;
CFI = .963; RMSEA = .064

–

M1a. Male sample
(n = 165)

�.27 �.18 .72** .63* x2(21) = 40.630; x2/df = 1.935**; IFI = .957;
CFI = .956; RMSEA = .075

Dx2 = 17.074**

M1b. Female sample
(n = 76)

.44* .43* �.22 .08 x2 (21) = 23.556; x2/df = 1.122; IFI = .985;
CFI = .984; RMSEA = .040

M2. Gender congruence
(n = 100)

.01 �.06 .34 .53* x2(21) = 30.197; x2/df = 1. 438**; IFI = .968;
CFI = .966; RMSEA = .067

Dx2 = 10.876**

M3. Gender
incongruence (n = 76)

�.04 .16 .63** .35 x2 (21) = 19.321; x2/df = .920; IFI = 1.008;
CFI = 1.000; RMSEA = .000

M4. Female congruence
(n = 19)

.77* .45 �.64* .19 x2 (21) = 29.177; x2/df = 1.326; IFI = .942;
CFI = .935; RMSEA = .088

Dx2 = 5.131**

M5. Female
incongruence (n = 33)

�.02 .12 .35* .26 x2 (21) = 24.046; x2/df = 1.145; IFI = .963;
CFI = .955; RMSEA = .067

M6. Male congruence
(n = 81)

�.14 �.08 .52* .51* x2 (21) = 31.331; x2/df = 1.492*; IFI = .960;
CFI = .958; RMSEA = .078

Dx2 = 4.435**

M7. Male incongruence
(n = 43)

�.16 �.03 .81** .47* x2 (21) = 26.896; x2/df = 1.281; IFI = .963;
CFI = .959; RMSEA = .082

Note: PCB-I = project citizenship behaviour-individual; PCB-O = project citizenship behaviour-organizational.
* p < .05. ** p < .01.

B. Sieben et al. / Scandinavian Journal of Management 32 (2016) 52–62 59

PCB-I. It would mean that no correlation should show up in our
gender congruence sample that comprises both men and women
in gender-congruent job roles.

Instead, a comparison of models 2 and 3 with models 4 to
7 impressively shows that the gender of project members
combined with job role congruence makes the decisive difference,
as hypothesized in H2. Model 4 (female congruence) and model 5
(female incongruence) thereby partially support Hypothesis 2a.
We find, as expected, in situations of female congruence (model 4)
a strong positive and significant correlation between PCB-I and soft
outcomes (g = .77, p < .05), which is higher and more pronounced than the correlation on those variables in both the general sample and the female sample. And for women project members in gender-congruent project roles, a strongly negative relation of PCB-O to soft outcomes (g = �.64, p < .05) is noteworthy. In contrast, no significant correlation to hard outcomes can be found for female job role congruence. This again contradicts the mere role theory-driven assumption that women project members would be rewarded for counter role behavior; instead it points to a backlash effect for women project members. Regarding female incongruence (model 5), PCB-O is positively correlated with soft outcomes (g = .64, p < .05), again supporting H2a, yet there is no significant correlation to hard outcomes.

Models 6 (male congruence) and 7 (male incongruence) reveal
results that partly support our predictions in Hypothesis 2b. For
men in gender-congruent project roles, PCB-I has no significant
correlation to soft or hard outcomes. Instead, PCB-O displays a
positive correlation to hard outcomes (g = .51, p < .05) as well as to soft outcomes (g = .52, p < .05). Yet, contrary to prediction, in situations of male job role incongruence, PCB-O also displays a positive correlation to hard outcomes (g = .47, p < .05) and an even stronger one to soft outcomes (g = .81, p < .01). Instead, against our assumptions, for men in gender-incongruent project roles PCB-I has no correlation to soft outcomes.

In sum, our findings suggest that the achievement of soft and
hard outcomes is significantly related with PCB-O for males, while
it is significantly correlated with PCB-I for females. Our results also
show that the effect of PCB on work outcomes depends on the
typology of gender job role congruence and incongruence. For
example, for gender job role congruence, PCB-O has more influence
on hard outcomes, while PCB-O appears more correlated with soft
outcomes in situations of gender job role incongruence. This
assumption was supported when we studied congruence

differentiation across gender job roles. Ultimately, our findings
show that female job role congruence reflects a significant positive
correlation between PCB-I and soft outcomes, as well as a negative
significant correlation between PCB-O and soft outcomes. For male
project members in gender-congruent job roles, PCB-I was found to
have a significant correlation with soft and hard outcomes.

5. Discussion

The results of the study bear clear relevance for management
research on temporary organizations as well as for organizational
research on gender. The rise of temporary organizations over
recent decades has led to this organizational form’s increasingly
receiving attention from both practitioners and academics, not
least because of the fascination of the time dimension (Bakker
et al., 2013). The objective of the present study was to develop and
test how gender congruence affects the relationship between
cooperative behaviors (operationalized as PCB) and work out-
comes in the face of temporality. More specifically, the primary aim
was to analyze whether gender makes a difference in how
cooperative behaviors are perceived and valued and thus may lead
to different individual opportunities for men and women in
temporary organizations. Our results suggest – in line with
corresponding conceptual and empirical analyses of OCB (Allan,
2006; Kark & Waismel-Manor, 2005; Kidder & Mac Lean Parks,
2001) – that PCB indeed has gendered consequences.

Instead, the (self-reported) enactment of PCB does not vary by
gender. Regarding our results, the absence of correlations between
the types of PCB reported and gender show that men and women
project members engage to similar extents in female-typed PCB-I
and male-typed PCB-O—both in gender-role-congruent and
gender-role-incongruent ways. This finding in a way contradicts
one aspect of the relationships between gender roles and
citizenship behaviors proposed by Kidder and Mac Lean Parks
(2001). It seems that at least job incumbents themselves do not
consider the gender congruency of their PCB; if they did so, they
might withhold reports of gender-role-incongruent behaviors.
Nevertheless, we take the corresponding results, overall high
means of PCB (between 5.10 and 6.10 on a 7-point scale), as an
indication that citizenship behaviors are categorized as important,
be it because respondents see them as leading to organizational or
project effectiveness, or as promoting social capital and the
stability and quality of relationships (e.g., Bolino et al., 2002; Braun

60 B. Sieben et al. / Scandinavian Journal of Management 32 (2016) 52–62

et al., 2013). This utility – in the eye of the beholder, the job
incumbent (here, project member) – seems to be primarily
disassociated from gender role ascriptions.

Yet, while the reported enactment of PCB does not vary by
project members’ gender, the relationship of PCB and its outcomes
does. Our analysis shows that men perceive themselves to be
rewarded for displaying male-typed PCB-O, yet not for displaying
female-typed PCB-I. Instead, women felt to be predominantly
rewarded for displaying PCB-I, and to achieve hard employment
outcomes for it to a lower extent than men for displaying PCB-O.
These gendered outcomes appear as unfair given the result that
gender does not have an impact on project performance (Ojiako
et al., 2014). But, this pattern of gendered outcomes of PCB
corresponds very much to the propositions of Kark and Waismel-
Manor (2005) as well as to the findings of Allen (2006) regarding
OCB. And in our comparison of gender-congruent and gender-
incongruent project roles we go still a step further and highlight
some more aspects of such unequal employment consequences.

Most importantly, our results contradict Kidder and Mac Lean
Parks’s view (2001) that both men and women in gender-
congruent job roles perceive themselves to be rewarded for
gender-incongruent behavior. Instead, in our sample, women
project members displaying male-typed PCB-O rarely perceived
themselves to be rewarded—only in situations of gender incon-
gruence, and only by soft outcomes (in terms of better coopera-
tion). They felt at times even penalized for displaying PCB-O (PCB-
O had a negative correlation to soft outcomes in female-typed
project roles, i.e., without supervision duties and budget control)—
pointing to a backlash effect of counter role behavior that up to
now has above all been shown for women managers (Rudman
et al., 2012). Moreover, men in no case feel to be rewarded for
displaying female-typed PCB-I—what yet should be the case
according to Kidder and Mac Lean Parks (2001) at least for men in
gender-congruent project roles (i.e., with supervision duties and
budget control). The lack of correlations of PCB-I displayed by men
to soft and hard outcomes (in all considered situations) can on the
one hand be taken as an indicator for backlash effects against
(modest) men as discussed by Moss-Racusin et al. (2010). Yet on
the other hand, the strong correlations of PCB-O displayed by men
to soft and hard outcomes (again in all considered situations) make
it difficult to speak of a backlash effect against men; they instead
show that men project members perceive themselves in any case –
in both gender-congruent and -incongruent project roles – better
off and more strongly rewarded than their women counterparts
who display the same citizenship behaviors. In this regard, our
results reinforce Kark and Waismel-Manor’s (2005) view that mere
gender role assumptions should be refuted as they disregard
gendered power differentials. Our results – in accordance with the
distribution of male- and female-typed project roles to men and
women in our sample (and not only there) – indeed support Kark
and Waismel-Manor’s assumptions on the gendered effects of OCB
as well as our assumption that in temporary organizations such as
projects corresponding gendered effects of citizenship behaviors
will show up.

In sum, we conclude that citizenship behaviors tend to
reproduce the gendered division of labor and inequality between
women and men not only in ‘permanent’ organizations, but also in
temporary ones such as projects. This reproduction might be due to
the interrelationships of temporary and permanent organizations
and in particular to the embeddedness of the temporary in the
more permanent. As for projects, our examples of temporary
organization, we know that they cut through organizational
hierarchies, that they are characterized by more informal and a-
bureaucratic team structures, and that these features should make
them fruitful ground for more diversity and equality in a work
setting (as e.g., proposed by Ferguson, 1984; Fondas, 1996; Savage

& Witz, 1992). Hence, our results should be surprising for the
research in the domain of temporary organizations. At the same
time, we know from the still scarce gender research on project
management that this work domain is still heavily dominated by
men (e.g., Legault & Chasserio, 2012), and that both working
conditions and project management procedures (Buckle & Thomas,
2003; Chasserio & Legault, 2010; Henderson & Stackman, 2010;
Legault & Chasserio, 2012; Lindgren & Packendorff, 2006; Thomas
& Buckle-Henning, 2007) tend to reproduce norms of masculinity
and to disadvantage women. The reason may be that projects are
not decoupled from time and space but are rather a result of
historicity (e.g., existing relationships between project members
that have shaped over time), the statuses of project members in an
encompassing line organization, and more (Engwall, 2003). Hence,
given gender relations and gendered statutes in permanent
organizations it should be of no surprise to gender research
researchers that the stable gender inequality (Calás et al., 2014) is
mirrored and reproduced in temporary organizations. Moreover,
we know that limited time can change the mode of information
processing, i.e. if time is limited, individuals tend to process
information rather heuristically than systematically (Bakker et al.,
2013). A typical heuristic is to hold onto stereotypes and proven
roles such as typical gender images. In this sense it appears to be
conclusive and again no surprise that stereotypical gender roles are
reproduced in temporary organizations. As also Kuura, Blackburn
and Lundin (2014) propose in their recent call to link project
management and entrepreneurship literatures, such a view on the
gendering of temporary organizations (in analogy to ‘gendered
entrepreneurship’; see e.g., Jayawarna et al., 2015) will shed light
into this important, yet unexplored research domain.

As to practical implications our study shows that in temporary
organizations such as projects managers need to be sensitized to
corresponding gender role reproductions (and the potential
implications) as well as to the more positive potential of gender
diversity. Above all given the finding that gender does not have an
impact on project performance (Ojiako et al., 2014), managers
should be alerted to appreciate and reward enactments of PCB-I
and PCB-O likewise for women and men in their differential project
roles. Also, managers should be alerted to focus on gender diversity
as early as the time of recruiting and staffing for projects. During
the projects, they should consider rotating tasks to foster mutual
understanding and a focus on team performance instead of
individual performance. ‘Soft indicators’ such as PCB-I should be
incorporated into performance measurement. Though direct
project performance impacts might not be measurable, these
cooperative behaviors can be regarded as indispensable for a
project’s success. Training and development should furthermore
focus on sensitizing for gender stereotyping and avoiding its
consequences.

This research is not without limitations. Our use of a cross-
sectional correlational design limits the generalizability of our
findings. Structural equation modeling is a useful technique in
testing causal paths between variables; however, one must be
cautious when establishing cause–effect inferences. Also, many of
the studied concepts are intangibles and thus difficult to measure.
Furthermore, all measures in the present study were self-reported
and based on employees’ perceptions. To avoid common method
bias, it would be helpful to have several sources of information and
in particular objective data (Podsakoff et al., 2003). This applies
particularly to the outcome measures. Unfortunately, such data
was not available to our study. Even though this is an obvious
restriction, it seems not only an issue for this study, but also a
widespread limitation of OCB research (Organ et al., 2006). As this
does not legitimize the bias, we tried to analyze it as much as
possible. We chose the Harman one-factor test, a widely used
technique (Podsakoff et al., 2003) with the central assumption that

B. Sieben et al. / Scandinavian Journal of Management 32 (2016) 52–62 61

if a major amount of common method variance occurs, a single
factor emerges from an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (Aulakh &
Gencturk, 2000). Considering these methods, we loaded all
variables into an EFA in a first phase (using principal component
analysis and varimax rotation) and examined the nonrotated result
to examine the number of factors that accounted for variance in the
variables. Ten factors accounting for 67% of the variance emerged.
The largest factor accounted for only 21%. The CFA showed that the
one-factor model did not fit the data well; meaning that the
general factor (the common method variance) did not explain the
majority of the covariance among the measures (Iverson &
Maguire, 2000). Although these results give us confidence
regarding common method bias, this approach does not control
the common method variance effects in a statistical sense
(Podsakoff et al., 2003, p. 889). However, results suggested that
common variance is not a major concern and thus should not affect
the main conclusions of our study.

In addition, the sample used here is relatively small. Still, all
models converged and fit indices are satisfactory, an indication
that the data model can be adequately assessed with small
samples. For example, Nevitt and Hancock (2004) found that fit
statistics can even operate well with samples of fewer than 50,
even with nonnormal data. Yet, some interesting aspects could not
be treated because of the small sample size. For instance, the
specific business context, which has been shown to matter for the
gendering of managerial work in permanent organizations
(Eriksson, Henttonen, & Meriläinen, 2008), could not be analyzed
in detail. Though controlling for variables such as project size,
project budget, and industry yielded no significant differences in
our sample, we assume that this may well be different in a bigger
sample composed along business context variables.

Lastly, our sample consistedof projectworkers fromtwo different
countries, Portugal and Germany. As both project management
(Ferreira, Braun, & Sydow, 2013; Kuura et al., 2014) and gender
relations are culturally bound (Kark & Waismel-Manor, 2005;
Ridgeway, 2009), one might expect a country effect on the studied
relations. We tried to perform the same structural equation analyses
described above with project members’ nationality added. However,
some of the subsamples (e.g., Portuguese + female) were too small
for an inductive analysis, so the respective models did not converge.
Our analysis is based on the same dataset that we use in a prior study
oncultural differenceswith respect tocitizenship behaviors(Ferreira
et al., 2013). Ourfindings in this studyappear to be compatible, andat
the least not contrary, to those of our previously published study on
cultural differences. Furthermore, the smallness of some of our
subsamples may account for the initial descriptive indications of
culturally embedded differences in gender variables that our
inductive statistical test failed to support. Taken together, these
points give us confidence in the validity of our findings. Moreover, a
previous multicultural study conducted with participants from
33 different countries showed no direct relationship between
cultural variables (power distance and individualism) and group
organizational citizenship behavior (Euwema et al., 2007). Despite
the evidence, we still believe that future studies should expand the
analysis to include a comparative view on the national and cultural
context of gender relations in temporary organizations. Moreover,
our study includes project members from different sectors which
might have influenced the outcomes. Inductive analyses on sectoral
differences did not lead to significant results (p > .05), and for those
sectors with few respondents a subsequent analysis was not
possible. Thus, futurestudies with largersamples within each sector
might consider controlling the sector variable. For example,
whether a sector is male- or female-typed (e.g., technological work
vs. humanitarian work), might affect the results.

Several other avenues could be pursued. In terms of replicating
our results, further studies with different methods and samples

should examine the domain of equality, diversity, and gender
roles in temporary organizations. A deeper understanding of
how gender roles are enacted in temporary organizations is
needed, preferably one based on ethnographic case studies that
scrutinize the practices and processes sustaining gender inequal-
ities (e.g., Aaltio-Marjosola, 1994; Acker, 2006; or Eriksson et al.,
2008; on gendering processes in permanent organizations).
Such studies can help reveal the reasons for male dominance
and explore organizational conditions that may bring more
women into employment in temporary organizations.
Another important topic for further investigation is the interre-
lationship of the temporary and the permanent. More precisely,
future studies may ask what mechanisms existing in line
organizations reproduce behavioral patterns in temporary orga-
nizations and thus shed more light on the historicity of this
organizational form.

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Reproduction of ‘Typical’ gender roles in temporary organizations—No surprise for whom? The case of cooperative behaviors …

1 Introduction
2 Theoretical background
2.1 OCB in projects
2.2 Gender and project citizenship behavior
3 Methods
3.1 Sample and data collection procedure
3.2 Measures
3.3 Analysis
4 Results
5 Discussion
References

human relatio

1 –26

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DOI: 10.1177/0018726715621612

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human relations

‘Trapped’ by metaphors for
organizations: Thinking and seeing
women’s equality and inequalit

Linzi J Kemp
American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Abstract
Gender was consistently identified as a major force in all editions of Images of Organization
(Morgan, 1986, 1997, 2006), yet 30 years after publication of Morgan’s (1986) seminal
work, women’s equality remains elusive in twenty-first-century workplaces. This state
of affairs became the stimulus for the present research study, and its purpose the
exploration of influences on women’s equality and inequality from the eight metaphors
contained in Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986, 1997, 2006). Data were collected
from a sample of 70 articles in 30 leading academic journals that referenced Images
of Organization (Morgan, 1986, 1997, 2006), and were analyzed for within-domains
similarity between the eight metaphors and imageries of women in organizations. The
results were then investigated for women’s equality and inequality via content analysis.
Four themes of influences on women’s equality and inequality were identified from
these metaphors for organizations. The implications of these findings are discussed, and
two novel images are introduced to progress equality for women. The contribution
to scholarly knowledge from this study is the proposition that the influence of these
metaphors for organizations has in effect trapped ways of seeing and thinking regarding
women’s equality and inequality. The practical value of the current study lies in the
proposal of new images to release organizational praxis for women’s equality to become
a real force in twenty-first-century organizations

Keywords
gender equality, gender-neutral, genderless, ‘Images of Organization’, metaphor-in-use

Corresponding author:
Linzi J Kemp, Department of Management, School of Business Administration, American University of
Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
Email: lkemp@aus.edu

621612HUM0010.1177/0018726715621612Human RelationsKemp
research-article2016

at RMIT University Library on June 2, 2016hum.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://hum.sagepub.com/

2 Human Relations

Introduction

The concept of gender was consistently raised in each edition of Images of Organization:
‘it often makes a great deal of difference if you’re a man or a woman! Many organiza-
tions are dominated by gender-related values’ (Morgan, 1986: 178; 1997: 191; 2006:
185–186). The participation and status of women in the workforce has improved in the
30 years since the publication of that seminal work on metaphors (Adler, 1997;
Fitzsimmons et al., 2013; Morgan, 1986); however – and as Morgan (2006) somewhat
predicted – women’s equality remains elusive because gender continues as an organiza-
tional issue (Hopfl, 2005; Kupers, 2013).

Scholarship regarding metaphors for organizations1 has proliferated, though few stud-
ies have investigated the meaning for women’s equality and inequality of Morgan’s
(1986) original eight metaphors (Deignan, 2003). It was therefore important to investi-
gate Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986, 1997, 2006), not only because it is the semi-
nal work, but because there are few studies on the influence of those original metaphors
on women’s equality or inequality. Furthermore, the current study was inspired by the
potential implications of metaphors for organizations on women’s leadership in an era of
increasing rates of female employment (Barsh et al., 2008; Forgionne and Peeters, 1982;
Koller, 2004a, b; Simpson and Lewis, 2005).

This research therefore seeks to explore the eight metaphors, contained in Images of
Organization (Morgan, 1986, 1997, 2006), for influences on women’s equality and ine-
quality in organizations, and to address the gap in research literature, and indeed knowl-
edge, referred to above. Four emergent themes were identified in this study regarding the
influences of those metaphors for organizations on women’s equality and inequality, and
we also go beyond the original eight metaphors by introducing two novel images to
stimulate imaginization of women’s equality in twenty-first-century organizations
(Morgan, 2006: 365 [emphasis in original]).

Relevant literature is reviewed to identify the impact of metaphors in an organiza-
tional context, and the effect of such metaphors on imageries of women in organizations
is addressed. The results from content analysis of data collected from 70 peer-reviewed
articles in 30 peer-reviewed journals (Denzin and Lincoln, 1998) is then presented, and
the scholarly and practical implications are discussed, leading to the finding of four
themes of influences from metaphors for organizations on equality and inequality for
women. Finally, two novel images are introduced to stimulate research and organiza-
tional praxis towards women’s equality in twenty-first-century workplaces.

Metaphors for thinking and seeing organizations

We review two concepts in this section for the influences on organizational theory and
behavior from metaphors. The concepts of source metaphor and metaphor-in-use are
defined and the relationship between the two concepts is explained.

According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), ‘we live by’ metaphor, because new and
vivid imagery is formed about existing phenomena through this powerful language
device (Kupers, 2013). We also work by metaphor, as espoused theories and theories-in-
use are represented/re-represented to simplistically explain complex organizational

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Kemp 3

phenomena (Basten, 2011; Cornelissen et al., 2005). Metaphors simplify complexity in
organizations, shape employees’ judgment of the organization, and thereby influence
organizational behavior (Akin and Palmer, 2000; Tsoukas, 1991). As concluded by
Morgan (2006: 4 [emphasis in original]), metaphor usage stimulates ‘a way of thinking
and a way of seeing’ the world and organizations.

The conceptual metaphor theory states that each subsequent metaphor can be traced
back to a source metaphor, through transference of an image about a known domain to a
target (unknown domain) (Andriessen and Gubbins, 2009; Lakoff and Johnson, 1980;
Tsoukas, 1991). Comprehension of meaning is owing to within-domains similarity from a
multiplicity of factors that are similar between the source and target domains (Cornelissen
and Kafouros, 2008: 366 [emphasis in original]). Words/phrases are thus identified as
metaphors when, in the context, meaning is sent and understood beyond the literal
(Andriessen and Gubbins, 2009). The power from metaphors in the context of organiza-
tions arises when there is both ‘explicatory impact’ to clarify meaning, and ‘generative
impact’ to change organizational behavior (Cornelissen and Kafouros, 2008: 367). The
effectiveness of a metaphor, as a communicative device, is thereby judged on its potential
to transform understanding about an organizational phenomenon (Kupers, 2013).

Metaphors are shared between employees to understand concepts in organizations
and multiple versions of organizational reality (Deignan, 2003; Gherardi, 2000). A ver-
sion of organizational reality arises from understanding transferred from a known
source to the unknown target in organizations, and this generates activity to fit with the
meaning of the metaphor (Cornelissen et al., 2005). As such, metaphors form a bridge
between abstract concepts and organizational practices (Akin and Palmer, 2000;
Andriessen and Gubbins, 2009). The identification of a metaphor is also somewhat of
an experimental bridge between theory and praxis because, when abstracted from its
original meaning, certain features are emphasized whereas others are suppressed:
‘…all theories of organization and management are based on implicit images or meta-
phors that lead us to see, understand, and manage organizations in distinctive yet partial
ways’ (Morgan, 2006: 4).

The selection of metaphor in organizational theory is thus a heuristic process, for
which other influences on organization praxis may be overlooked (Cornelissen et al.,
2005; Gherardi, 2000; Kupers, 2013).

A metaphor-in-use is a word/phrase that simplifies the complexity of organizational
reality into simple language and imagery that becomes an accepted and shared descriptor
for the way things are in organizations (Perren and Atkin, 1997). We offer an example
here to summarize the relationship between a source metaphor and a metaphor-in-use that
has shaped meaning for management practice. The image of employees (target domain),
as cogs in the wheel of organizations (metaphor-in-use), can be traced through within-
domains similarity to the metaphor of organizations as machines (source domain) (Kemp,
2013; Morgan, 2006). As concluded by Hopfl (2005), that particular metaphor for organi-
zations and resultant imagery of workers has led to an interpretation that both employee
and organization serve the means of production rather than humanity. The worker was
imagined as somewhat ‘neutral’ and ‘disembodied’ through meaning transferred from that
metaphor for organizations as machines (Basten, 2011: 155). We now move forward to
review meaning from metaphors for the concept of gender within organizations.

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4 Human Relations

Metaphors for thinking and seeing women in organizations

This study on the eight metaphors for organizations contained in Images of Organization
(Morgan, 1986, 1997, 2006) is important for three reasons. The first is that the inclusion
of women in organizations was largely unimagined and unimaginable at the time those
original metaphors were considered. The twentieth century was an era with low rates of
female economic participation and leadership (Adler, 1997) when compared with the
twenty-first century, with an expectation of ‘nearly 1 billion women entering the global
labor force’ (PWC, 2014: para. 3). An organizational reality now, and for the future, is
that women inhabit these thoroughly changeable and perpetually changing organizations
(Clegg and Baumeler, 2010).

Secondly, as metaphor usage in organizations impacts organizational behavior, poten-
tially it will also affect women’s status in the workforce (Barsh et al., 2008). There has
been a ‘significant increase in the number of women entering the workforce, and along
with this, a steady movement of women into managerial positions’ (Forgionne and
Peeters, 1982: 101). Academic articles and economic reports offer evidence that the
numbers of women in management, and at board level, has increased globally (Basten,
2011; Kupers, 2013; World Economic Forum, 2013). However, equal proportions of
women and men in management, or in many professions, has not yet ensued in organiza-
tions (Lewis and Morgan, 1994).

Thirdly, the study of metaphors has been a relatively organization-centric approach,
that is, the focus was on organization rather than the human beings involved in the praxis
of organizations (Cornelissen et al., 2005; Cornelissen and Kafouros, 2008). An organi-
zation-centric approach was somewhat followed in Images of Organization (Morgan,
1986, 1997, 2006) because, although there were two anthropomorphic metaphors for
organizations (as Brains2 and as Organisms), the majority of the chosen metaphors were
non-human (Cultures, Flux and Transformation, Instruments of Domination, Machines,
Political Systems and Psychic Prisons). The metaphors for organizations are sans human
and genderless as a result.

These three important reasons – inclusion of women in organizations, impact on
organizational behavior and organization-centric approaches – justify the rationale for
this current study on influences of metaphors for organizations, on women’s equality and
inequality (Morgan, 20063). Furthermore, the concept of gender is hidden from view by
the non-human imagery of metaphors for organization. Our proposition is that non-
human and genderless metaphors for organizations affect imageries of women in organi-
zations, and lead to influences on thinking and seeing women’s equality and inequality.

Metaphors for organizations as genderless

We have interpreted the metaphors for organizations as genderless and, consequently,
apply that phrase to this study. In so doing we do not imply that the opposite is gender-
full, nor indeed that those metaphors for organizations should be somehow genderized.
We considered that such a direction, although admittedly an important one, moved our
research beyond the present study of women in organizations, and onto the path of gen-
der theories (Acker, 1990; Zimmer, 1988).

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Kemp 5

We recognized, however, that an organization-centric approach focused thinking on
organizations, and thereby somewhat neutralized the seeing of gender in organizations:
‘gender-neutral theories of organizational behavior may mask rather than explain reality’
(Zimmer, 1988: 71). Pertinent to that point was a study on Organizational Citizenship
Behavior, where it was found that metaphors-in-use adversely affected women’s equality
(Kark and Waismel-Manor, 2005). An approach of gender neutrality to the study of
organization theories and praxis has been questioned because it ignores gender as funda-
mental to all organizational processes (Acker, 1990; Zimmer, 1988). Gender4 was not
ignored as a concept in this study because we study women in organizations; nor, to a
certain extent, does Morgan (2006) ignore gender.

The concept of gender was mainly discussed in Images of Organization (1986, 1997,
2006) with reference to three of the eight metaphors for organizations. Gender was con-
sidered a force in the metaphor of organizations as cultures, whereby organizations were
revealed as ‘no-woman’s land’ and ‘a man’s world’ (Morgan, 2006: 131 [quotation marks
in original]). Managerial strategies were differentiated through gendered images in organi-
zations as political systems. A successful female strategy, named as ‘The Daughter’, was to
seek out ‘The Father’, as a mentor in organizations, and mentorship was, in turn, deemed a
male strategy (Morgan, 2006: 189). Men managed the employees like a ‘patriarchal family’
in organizations as psychic prisons, in which women were ‘socialized to accept roles plac-
ing them in a subordinate position’ (Morgan, 2006: 218). Morgan, in Images of Organization
(1986, 1997, 2006), had probed within some metaphors to reveal the impact of gender in
organizations. Our understanding from that review was that other metaphors were not as
genderless as we had originally taken them to be, and this realization suggested that mean-
ing within those metaphors for women’s inequality was worthy of exploration.

Metaphors for organizations as masks of reality

New ways to see organizations through the lens of gender have emerged to explain wom-
en’s continued inequality, and the contribution of metaphors to that theory-building
regarding gender and organizations is now considered.

We uncovered a story of organizations that historically identified the male as the ideal
and preferred worker (Boje, 2008; Ramarajan and Reid, 2013). Our impression of that
identification of the worker as male was the exclusion of women from the work of organ-
izations. Employed females were ‘re-presented’ as the ‘second sex’, through the imagery
of men only as workers – in a far from neutral approach to thinking and seeing women
(De Beauvoir, 1949). We found the extent of that biased approach in a quotation on
women as not only disempowered, but also resented in organizations: ‘the Other, differ-
ent as it might be (a woman, a dog), can nevertheless be familiar; might provoke distaste,
but only occasionally fear’ (Czarniawska and Sevón, 2008: 236). The metaphor-in-use,
‘the Other’, was supported through the imagery of a juxtaposition between a woman and
a dog. The shock value of that extension of one image to another stimulated our thinking
about a woman’s status in organizations. ‘The Other’ (woman) was not only thought
about and seen as different in comparison to the normal employee (man), but the harsh
reality was revealed through imagery of a woman as a dog. We had extracted a deeper
meaning about the extent of women’s inequality in organizations from this metaphor.

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6 Human Relations

The discourse and language prevalent in organizations became related more to the
experiences of the male worker, and consequently rendered the metaphors-in-use less
meaningful to women, as ‘the Other’ in organizations. Accordingly, the values of organi-
zations and organization praxis were embedded and enacted in business discourse asso-
ciated with a man’s world (Garnsey and Rees, 1996; Koller, 2004a, b; Wilson, 1992). A
female employee remarked, ‘I don’t feel my career is a journey, it has no meaning’
(Robinson, 2010: 909 [quotation marks in original]). The metaphor for a career, as a
linear journey, clashed with that particular woman’s experience of career. That was a
similar occurrence for other women, for whom organizations were experienced as a ‘lab-
yrinth’ to be circumnavigated in the quest for leadership positions (Eagly and Carli,
2007: 63). Metaphors-in-use follow a ‘widely-used, one-size fits all’ approach that
results in a lack of meaning for those for whom organizations are not that experience
(Robinson, 2010: 909).

The words and phrases contained in metaphors-in-use were further revealed as a
source of women’s inequality in organizations because of the prevalence of the language
of war (Koller, 2004b). That finding is of interest for this study because women were
considered to be less familiar than men with the meaning of this particular language, and
hence organizations were rendered unfamiliar to women (Koller, 2004a). Morgan (2006)
also invoked the metaphor of war for management strategies: ‘The Warrior’ was assigned
as an image for a male strategy that represented the fighting of corporate battles, whereas
‘The Great Mother’ was the image for a female managerial strategy of caring and nurtur-
ing (Morgan, 2006: 189). We considered that inequality for women was reinforced
through these metaphors-in-use for management praxis, as they resulted in images of
organizations that were outside women’s experiences, through the unknown language of
war, or indeed because motherhood was not an experience for all women.

The power of metaphor to change organizations has also been shown to weaken when
the target image that results is over-extended from the source domain (Akin and Palmer,
2000; Smith et al., 2012). One example from Morgan (2006) illustrates why inequality
for women remains as a result of an over-extension of the original source to the target of
women in organizations. The example is extracted from a narrative about leadership
practice, ‘men, and the women who have entered the fray, joust and jostle for positions
of dominance like stags contesting the leadership of their herd’ (Morgan, 2006: 218). We
interpreted that women’s inequality was contained within this metaphor for organiza-
tions as instruments of domination (source) because of the way we subsequently saw and
thought about leadership (target) – it was ‘the fray’, there was jousting and jostling, and
it was a contest. Women were included as leaders in that quotation, but then women were
excluded through over-extension of the metaphor because the leader was represented as
male (i.e. an image of the Stag rather than an image of the female deer, the Doe). An
organization-centric approach had over-extended the original source domain to the target
domain, and, in so doing, formed a bridge between theory and practice that inadvertently
reduced meaning for women’s leadership (Alvesson, 1993). The example reveals the
ease with which influences from metaphors on women’s inequality increased through
over-extension of source domain to the target domain. As a consequence, our interpreta-
tion was that organizational strategies to promote women were negatively affected by the
over-extension of a metaphor for organizations to imagery of women in organizations.

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Kemp 7

There was evidence in our literature review that ostensibly genderless metaphors for
organizations had masked the reality of inequality for women in organizations. The
meaning of organizations for women was diminished, because metaphor-in-use was
more familiar to a man’s world of discourse. Metaphors for organizations were over-
extended to the target, and inequality for women continued through that over-extension.
Women’s inequality was acknowledged in organization theory, yet women’s equality had
failed to emerge from a ‘maze of metaphors’ (Smith et al., 2012: 436). Metaphors to
bridge theory with organization praxis had denied alternative ways to see and think about
women’s equality and inequality.

We do not want to criticize Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986, 1997, 2006) too
harshly, given the relatively few female employees, and the low status of women in
organizations at the time (Adler, 1997; Forgionne and Peeters, 1982; Koller, 2004a, b;
Simpson and Lewis, 2005). We acknowledge that Morgan (2006: 421) also regarded
‘gender as a major force in all aspects of organization’, and had discussed the influence
of gender for three of the eight metaphors for organizations. We are, however, critical
from the perspective of our study that the influence of gender in organizations was not
discussed in the majority of chapters of Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986, 1997,
2006). Another criticism was that these metaphors were non-human and genderless
sources for other imagery of organizations. The third criticism was that these metaphors
could be seen as effectively trapping organizational theorists and practitioners into ways
of seeing and thinking organizations without gender, without women – and therefore
meaning for equality and inequality was lost.

We believe sincerely in adages from Morgan (2006: 4 [emphasis in original]) that
metaphors for organizations stimulate ‘a way of thinking and a way of seeing’ and that
they also ‘lead us to see, understand, and manage organizations in distinctive yet partial
ways’. As a consequence of our criticisms, and belief in those aforementioned maxims,
we considered it expedient to study the influences on women’s inequality and equality
from metaphors for organizations that were contained in Images of Organization (1986,
1997, 2006). We envisaged that themes would emerge from such an exploration that
could constitute findings to address inequality now, and also to progress action towards
equality for women in organizations in the future.

Method

Qualitative methodology was chosen to investigate data for meaning about women’s
equality and inequality (Silverman, 2000). We followed the approach of Cornelissen and
Kafouros (2008) and Cornelissen et al. (2005) in their studies of metaphors for theory-
building about organizations. Content analysis of articles in peer-reviewed academic
journals was undertaken to extract vital data about women’s equality and inequality.
Each article was chosen for its reference(s) to the works of Morgan (1986, 1997, 2006)
and women in organizations. We chose to conduct a qualitative study in our methodo-
logical approach, deeming it appropriate, as having previously been used to explore
women’s inequality in organizations: content analysis of discourse (Garnsey and Rees,
1996); content analysis of literature pertaining to citizenship behavior (Kark and
Waismel-Manor, 2005); and leadership journeys (Barsh et al., 2008; Eagly and Carli,

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8 Human Relations

2007). Furthermore, a qualitative approach has been followed to make sense of metaphor
use when applied to women in organizations: in academia (Basten, 2011); for careers
(El-Sawad, 2005); and in organizational planning (Garnsey and Rees, 1996).

Data collection and sample

The sample of data sources was chosen to follow Cornelissen et al. (2005), where aca-
demic articles were selected from journals that were listed in the Journal Citation Reports
Social Science (Thomson Reuters, 2012). Our choice of such data sources was therefore
justified for this study because we collected literature that was also contained in articles
published in peer-reviewed academic journals.

Firstly, we conducted a search through the database, ProQuest, using the search term,
‘Images of Organization’. This term was chosen because we wished to study Morgan’s
(1986, 1997, 2006) eight metaphors in particular, and the expectation was that authors
who published studies on metaphors in high-quality journals would inevitably reference
that seminal work. The search was restricted to ‘business’, ‘peer reviewed’ and ‘post
1986’ (to coincide with the first edition, 1986) and narrowed to articles in scholarly
journals. Secondly, the search included the terms ‘woman’ OR ‘women’, rather than
‘female’, which was considered a biological descriptor. Previous searches, for ‘Images
of Organization’ and women’s equality/inequality or gender equality/inequality, had
returned too small a sample size. Thirdly, the sample size was filtered to include only
articles that were contained in journals that rated an impact factor (IF) as an indicator of
quality in the academic community (Thomson Reuters 2012). The resultant number of
articles (70), as published in 30 high-quality journals, was deemed a large enough sample
size to represent significant interpretations about the subject (Andriessen and Gubbins,
2009). There was an average IF of 1.923 per journal, with the IF ranking ranging from
7.817 (Academy of Management Review) to 0.300 (Systemic Practice and Action
Research). The average number of articles per journal was two, and Human Relations
was the journal that had published the most articles (9, 13%).

Data analysis

All data were submitted to the software NVivo 10 for storage and retrieval, and to support
the process of coding. Firstly, we conducted an analysis of within-domains similarity on
text in articles that referenced the works of Morgan (1986, 1997, 2006) – see Table 1.

Metaphors for organizations (column 1). Each of the metaphors for organizations con-
tained in Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986, 1997, 2006) was designated as a source
domain. These were then classified as parent codes (Creswell, 1998; Denzin and Lin-
coln, 1998), referred to as nodes in the software (NVivo 10).

Within-domains similarity (column 2). The content in each article was searched for connec-
tion to each source domain using direct references, literal language, keywords and syno-
nyms. These similarities were designated as sub-codes (child nodes) to the parent codes.
For example, data that referred to thinking, intellect and the brain capacity of employees

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Kemp 9

Table 1. Women’s equality and inequality – within-domains similarity.

Metaphors for
organizations
Source domain

Within-domains
similarity

Women in
organizations Target
domain Inequality

Articles

Brains Linear thinking Non-linear thinkers Groves et al. (2011)
Brain capacity of

employees
Little difference
between genders

Iske and Boersma
(2005)

Ability to think Man (male) is the
human study

Nien-Tsu (2007)

Cultures Service-oriented
culture

Nurses told ‘live with it’ Boje and Baskin
(2011)

Masculine culture Non-women culture Bradbury and
Mainemelis (2001)

Archetypes defined as
cultural symbols

Virgin or whore Cunliffe (2002)

Freedom of choice is a
cultural value

Has little professional
choice

Harrison (2000)

A canteen culture Unseen/unheard Johnson and Cassell
(2001)

Cultural strength aligns
employees

Different treatment of
female (to male)

Long and Jean (2010)

Conservative cultures Easy virtue Mano and Gabriel
(2006)

Cultures of airforce Barrier to promotion Real and Putnam
(2005)

Organizational culture
archaic patriarchal

Within/under a
patriarchal culture

Simpson et al. (2014)

Macho culture Non-feminine culture Trauth et al. (2009)
Cultural creativity Women leave Wadsworth (2008)
Flux and
transformation

Transformational
leaders

Boundaryless person Amernic et al. (2007)

Organizational change
(merger)

Women’s institute-y as
pejorative

Brown and
Humphreys (2003)

Transformational
leaders make change

Females leaders have
to ‘climb over the
Himalayas’

Chao (2011)

Structural changes Manager Dougherty and
Hardy (1996)

Shutting down
departments

Upset women Drummond (1998)

Change fails in risk
management

Woman is raped but no
one sees

Drummond (2011)

‘Way’ of nature, is a
continuous flux

No relevance Kakabadse et al.
(2007)

Potential to transform a
story through narrative

Heroine King and Acklin
(1995)

(Continued)

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10 Human Relations

Table 1. (Continued)

Metaphors for
organizations
Source domain
Within-domains
similarity
Women in
organizations Target
domain Inequality
Articles

Narrative as a
construct for change

Few women in
profession

O’Connor (2000)

Change in shift patterns Mothers have to leave Radnor and Boaden
(2004)

Managers change their
behavior temporarily

More likely to spot
inequality

Raelin (1993)

Rethinking
organizational change

Fertile (actual/potential) Tsoukas and Chia
(2002)

Instruments of
domination

A male-dominated
industry

Wife as catalyst for
male CEO action

Browning et al.
(1995)

Directly confronted
each other on the
battlefield

No relevance Check-Teck (2007)

Dominant masculinity Differentiated other Collinson (2003)
Dominance of the

public sphere
In domestic sphere Domagalski (1999)

Male-dominated
military

Occasionally the good
guy

El-Sawad (2005)

Intelligence Studied separately Glynn (1996)
Predominant male

assumptions
Subservient female
sometimes is career
woman

Goffee and Scase
(1992)

Dominant position
given to males

Subservient –hero (not
heroine)

Kavanagh (1994)

Indicated a white
dominance effect
among the workers

Visitors to the
workplace

Moore (2012)

Pre-defined, dominant
corporate culture

Have to assimilate Pless and Maak
(2004)

Image of a powerful and
dominant male figure

Non-represented Terry (1997)

Machines Production of desire Betty Crocker Ashman and
Winstanley (2007)

All sorts of mechanisms Prevention of women
doing job

Broadbent and
Laughlin (1998)

Public administration
produces

Products Fairholm (2004)

Juxtaposition (e.g. ‘org
with machine’)

Success through
internal locus of control

Geh (2014)

Interim management
–prototype

Useful role for mothers Inkson et al. (2001)

(Continued)
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Kemp 11

Table 1. (Continued)
Metaphors for
organizations
Source domain
Within-domains
similarity
Women in
organizations Target
domain Inequality
Articles

Western view
–deterministic and
mechanistic modeling

Man only as leader Ma and Osula (2011)

A sense of being false,
mechanical

Prostitute Mumby and Putnam
(1992)

Organizations – fusion
of the person and the
machine

Bionic woman Sementelli and Abel
(2007)

Employees as products Commodities Walters-York (1996)
Organisms Implication system has

needs
Organization is male
(not female)

Andersen (2008)

Organization as life Sales agent
(Tupperware)

Ashforth and
Humphrey (1995)

Oppositions that
are created between
humans and nature

Differences to men’s
roles –subservient

Gladwin et al. (1995)

Organizational
decoration meets
growth needs in
organization as
organisms

Feminine –decoration Julie and Minahan
(2006)

Do companies retain
pregnant female
employees

Females dispensable Jorgensen and
Simonsen (2002)

An active and living
system

Differentiation between
employees

Kerttula and Takala
(2012)

Turning into ‘biological
organisms’

Business owner Low (2007)

Emotional management Good at emotional
labor

Morris and Feldman
(1996)

Organizations nested
within biological
ecosystems

Men over women Purser et al. (1995)

Pregnant employees Potential mothers Randels (1998)
Political systems Employee account

politically motivated
Careerist Alvesson and

Karreman (2000)
Political processes vital Secretary (can be her

or him)
Canning and
O’Dwyer (2006)

Crafty management of a
political system

Sacred she Conklin (2007)

Social change through
feminist work

Sees discrimination Creed et al. (2002)

(Continued)
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12 Human Relations

Metaphors for
organizations
Source domain
Within-domains
similarity
Women in
organizations Target
domain Inequality
Articles

The Body Shop Outlier Jermier (1998)
New political

movement (Feminism)
Feminist Llewelyn (2003)

Political system in the
Philippines

President female Manacsa and Tan
(2012)

Organizing is political as
value systems differ

Entrepreneur Pless (2007)

Career development,
e.g. politics

Kaleidoscopic careers Smith-Ruig (2008)

Political astuteness Subordinate Smith and Zane
(2004)

English Factories Act Included with children Tinker (1998)
Kafka was no feminist Feminism = support of

wom

Warner M (2007)

Psychic prisons Organizations function
like psychic prisons

Daughter (employee) Litz (2008)

Patriarchy as a
conceptual prison

Outside the network Reid et al. (2010)

Table 1. (Continued)

were sub-coded within the source domain of brain (Groves et al., 2011; Iske and Boersma,
2005; Nien-Tsu, 2007).

Women in organizations (column 3). Content in each article was investigated for refer-
ences to woman/women as the target domain (Cornelissen and Kafouros, 2008). The
exploration included direct references and other keywords for women (e.g. daughter–
female–her–mother–she–sister–wife). For example, content within the source domain
of brain was further explored for connection to women’s thinking, intellect and brain
capacity (Groves et al., 2011; Iske and Boersma, 2005; Nien-Tsu, 2007).

Articles (column 4). The appropriate reference is given to each article in this study.
We had firstly established within-domains similarity between source and target

domains, and further exploration of the results was required for sensemaking to emerge
about women’s equality and inequality in organizations (Weick, 1995). A deeper explo-
ration was then undertaken to identify themes of influences on women’s equality and
inequality from across all the eight metaphors for organizations.

The surrounding text from those initial results was re-examined at this second stage
of analysis. We analyzed the textual content for language, images and metaphors that
related to women’s equality and inequality (Kark and Waismel-Manor, 2005). Discourse
in the text that related to positive imagery of women in organizations was defined as
evidence of women’s equality. For example, evidence of a woman holding the position
of a manager was considered a positive image. Alternatively, text that related to negative
imagery of women in organizations was defined as evidence of women’s inequality. For

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Kemp 13

example, a woman’s role described as subservient was defined as negative imagery of
women in organizations and became evidence for women’s inequality. We also com-
pared and contrasted results with our reading of Images of Organization (Morgan, 2006).

Findings

In this section, we offer evidence that the content in these articles revealed inspiration from
particular metaphors (Morgan, 1986, 1997, 2006). Furthermore, we point out influences
from these metaphors on women’s equality and inequality. The section relates to the remain-
der of the article by leading through to a discussion on these findings – identified themes of
influences on women’s equality and inequality, ‘trapped’ by metaphors for organizations.

Four themes of influences on women’s equality and inequality in organizations were
identified as findings (Table 2). These themes emerged from a deeper analysis of the text
in each article that had previously been investigated for within-domains analysis. The
content had been re-examined for themes of women’s equality and inequality that were
interpreted from language, images and metaphors applied in the text. We interpreted
themes from content analysis that linked positive imagery of women with equality for
women in organizations, and negative imagery to women’s inequality in organizations.

As a result of that content analysis, two themes were categorized as indicators of
women’s equality: Alignment between values of organizations and the value of women
in organizations (Theme 1) and Similarities between women and men in organizations
(Theme 2). Furthermore, two other themes were categorized as indicators of women’s
inequality: Clash between values of organizations and the value of women in organiza-
tions (Theme 3) and Differences between women and men in organizations (Theme 4).

We focus in these findings on evidence of women’s inequality because that was the
major finding. Allowing for the confines of manuscript length, at least one illustrative
example of these emergent themes on inequality is presented for each of the metaphors
for organizations (in alphabetical order).

Organizations as brains

Morgan (2006:131) had previously inspired thinking about inequality in this metaphor
by saying, ‘traditional forms of organization are often dominated and shaped by male
value systems. For example, the emphasis on logical, linear modes of thought and action,
and the drive for results’.

An article from our study evidenced that ‘women tend to have higher non-linear pro-
files’ (Groves et al., 2011: 459). In comparison with a genderless view of organizations as
brains, we found that the metaphor had an influence on inequality in organizations
because women were different to men in their thinking style, and that a non-linear mode
of thinking clashed with linear thinking as THE way to think in organizations that were
shaped by male value systems.

Organizations as cultures

The way Morgan inspired seeing and thinking about organizations as cultures was stated
thus: ‘…patterns of belief or shared meaning, fragmented or integrated, and supported by

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14 Human Relations
T

a
b

le
2

.
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he
m

es
o

f
in

flu
en

ce
s

o
n

eq
ua

lit
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an
d

in
eq

ua
lit

y
–

co
nt

en
t

an
al

ys
is

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ag

es
o

f
o
rg

an
iz

at
io

(s
o
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ce
d

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n)

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an
iz
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ns
(

ta
rg

et
d

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ai
n)

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er

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t
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es

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ua

lit
y
an
d
in
eq
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lit
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ra

in
s

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n-

lin
ea

in
ke

rs
. L

it
tl
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di
ffe

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nc

e
be

w
ee

n
ge

nd
er

s.
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an
(

m
al

e)
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s
hu

m
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lig
nm

en
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tw

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va
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nd
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ns

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ul

tu
re

s
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ur
se

s
to

ld
‘l

iv
e

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it
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it
’.

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o
n-
w
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m

en
c

ul
tu

re
, v

ir
gi

n
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w
ho

re
. L

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tl
e

pr
o
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l c

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ns
ee

n/
un

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iff
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(t

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e)
. E

as
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ue
. B

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it
hi

n/
un

de
r

a
pa

tr
ia

rc
ha

l
cu

lt
ur

e.
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o
n-

fe
m

in
in

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cu

lt
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v

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te

t
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le

av
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it
h

‘a
ge

nt
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f
ee

t’

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lit
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ux

a
nd

an
sf

o
rm

at
io

n
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o
un

da
ry

le
ss

p
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so
n.

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o
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’s

in
st

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ut

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y’

a
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jo

ra
ti
ve

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em

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ad

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s

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ve

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‘c

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th

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al

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as

’.
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ag

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. U

ps
et

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. W

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ut

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o
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ly
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eq
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lit

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(
ac

tu
al

/p
o
te

nt
ia

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m

ila
ri

ti
es

b
et

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st

ru
m

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ts

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f

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m

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ife

a
s

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ta

ly
st

f
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ct

io
n.

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iff

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en

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o

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er

. I
n

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. H

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(

no
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is

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t
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rk

pl
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av
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im

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. N
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re
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In
eq

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lit
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lo

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s

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l.
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se
fu

l r

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le

f
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m
o
th

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s.

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an

o
nl

y
as

ad
er

. P
ro

st
it
ut

e.
B

io
ni

c
w

o
m

an
. C

o
m

m
o
di

ti
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iff
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s
be
tw
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rg

an
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m
s

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rg
an
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at
io

n
is

m
al

e
(n

o
t
fe
m

al
e)

. S
al

es
a

ge
nt
f
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‘T
up

pe
rw

ar
e’

.
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iff
er

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ce

s
to

m
en

’s
r

o
le

s
–

su
bs

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vi

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t.
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m
in

in
e

–
de

co
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ti
o
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m
al

es
d

is
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ns
ab

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. D

iff
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be
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. B

us
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. S
ec

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ta

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(

ca
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be
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hi

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).
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. S

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au

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(e

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. O

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n

et
w
o
rk

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Kemp 15

various operating norms and rituals can exert a decisive influence on the overall ability
of the organization to deal with the challenges that it faces’ (Morgan, 2006: 125).

We found a challenge for organizational thinking and seeing women’s inequality,
because ‘social reality’ was created in the norms for organizations (Morgan, 2006: 115).
A woman was deemed more blameworthy for an office romance than her male colleague
through a descriptive image of her as a ‘woman of easy virtue’ (Mano and Gabriel, 2006:
20). The negative imagery evidenced inequality for the woman, as there was no corre-
sponding image for the man in that illicit affair. Shared meaning for those working within
the organizational culture was that women’s behavior, in and outside the workplace, was
sanctioned differently to that of men. As a consequence, women were vilified to a greater
extent than men in a clash with a cultural norm.

Organizations as flux and transformation

This metaphor was apparently genderless as it inspired seeing organizations as ‘unfold-
ing logics of change’ (Morgan, 2006: 241). However, change in the organization had a
disparate effect on women because, as mothers and workers, they were forced to leave
employment at a higher rate than men when new timings were introduced to a shift sys-
tem (Radnor and Boaden, 2004). Women had to leave the organization because their
value as mothers clashed with their value as workers in organizations as the new timings
meant they could not attend to childcare duties, and this organizational change did not
affect men to the same extent. We found that the authors had revealed women’s inequal-
ity in organizations through the use of language of change that was inspired by this meta-
phor for organizations.

Organizations as instruments of domination

To a great extent domination has inspired argument for seeing and thinking women’s
inequality in organizations. The meaning of the influence on inequality for women was
found in articles in this study through connection of the word ‘domination’ to the word
‘male’: predominant male assumptions (Goffee and Scase, 1992); a dominant male fig-
ure (Terry, 1997); and a male-dominated industry (Browning et al., 1995). Women had to
assimilate to survive a pre-defined organization that was presumed as male-dominated
(Pless and Maak, 2004). Particular industries – the Air Force, Navy and the Police – con-
tinued work practices as instruments of domination that reinforced inequality, ‘repro-
duces a dominant masculinity’, where ‘women and gay men serve as the differentiated
others’ (Collinson, 2003: 535).

In addition, we discovered further influence on women’s inequality. For instance,
women were considered as people in the ‘domestic’ sphere, and yet organization was in
the ‘public’ sphere (Domagalski, 1999) – causing a differentiation between the way
women and men were valued in organizations. Reading of Morgan (2006: 189 [quotation
marks in original]) revealed a strategy of ‘The First Lady’ that was adopted by many
‘corporate wives’ who were ‘content to exercise power behind the throne’. Evidence of
this power was found in the study via the wife of a Chief Executive Officer who was a
catalyst for her husband to improve women’s status in his male-dominated industry

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16 Human Relations

(Browning et al., 1995). We chose to interpret this finding as evidence of inequality
because the authors had revealed that women were differentiated from men in being
perceived as existing in the domestic sphere, and could only exercise their power through
the enablement of a male as a consequence.

Organizations as machines

No woman, or man, exists in organizations as a machine, although thinking about
organizations was inspired by this thoroughly non-human metaphor: ‘…we talk about
organizations as if they were machines, and as a consequence we tend to expect them
to operate as machines: in a routinized, efficient, reliable, and predictable way’
(Morgan, 2006: 13).

We found that inequality for women was influenced by the machine metaphor in an
article about female flight attendants: ‘…like prostitutes, flight attendants often estrange
themselves from their work as a defense against being swallowed by it, only to suffer
from a sense of being false, mechanical, no longer a whole integrated self’ (Mumby and
Putnam, 1992: 472).

These female flight attendants saw the routine, efficiency, reliability and predicta-
bility of organizations, and subsequently avoided a clash with that organizational
approach by becoming mechanical (machine-like). Consequently, inequality had been
influenced by the metaphor of organizations as machines because the result was an
estrangement for women from their work. The language used by the authors that
described women as false and mechanical was influenced from the source of the meta-
phor of organizations as machines, and it helped us to see inequality (Mumby and
Putnam, 1992). We can appreciate the negative imagery of women as prostitutes because
it revealed and reinforced the concept of women’s inequality in organizations.

Organizations as organisms

Morgan (2006: 59) inspired thinking and seeing organizations as organisms through the
lens of a natural world with plentiful resources: ‘…organizations, like organisms in
nature, depend for survival on their ability to acquire an adequate supply of the resources
necessary to sustain existence’.

We discovered influences on women’s inequality in this metaphor because of bio-
logical imagery of a woman as an organism presented in articles. Women were seen
as either mothers now, or they were thought of as potential mothers for the future
(Jorgensen and Simonsen, 2002; Low, 2007; Purser et al., 1995; Randels, 1998). All
women were then imagined to be a finite organizational resource through this lens of
fertility. The influence on women’s inequality, from this way of seeing organizations,
was exampled particularly in one article, as all women were assumed to be potentially
fertile, and were thereby banned from working in an area harmful to that condition
(Randels, 1998). We found a clash with the values of organizations because of the
assumption that all women will ultimately become an unavailable resource because of
their biological state.

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Kemp 17

Organizations as political systems

We interpreted that it was the political agenda of feminism that was connected to the
metaphor of organizations as political systems. Feminism was a differentiation between
women and men because it seemingly only affected women: ‘this concept allowed
women to assess their experience from a new perspective, it enabled them to act differ-
ently’ (Llewelyn, 2003: 672). The company, The Body Shop, was founded by a female
entrepreneur and was categorized as an ‘outlier’ organization because it was founded on
feminist ideals to conduct business in ‘radically different ways’ (Jermier, 1998: 250; also
see Pless, 2007). Morgan (2006: 132 [quotation marks in original]) had inspired thinking
about the positive values of feminine principles (not feminism) through citing the entre-
preneur, Anita Roddick: ‘principles of caring, making intuitive decisions, not getting
hung up on hierarchy or all those dreadfully boring business-school management ideas’.
Inequality for women was found because women and men were seen as different through
the division between feminine and masculine principles and because feminism was
equated with women only. We also interpreted this as inequality for women because of
the clash between organizational values, considered to be male values, and the value of
women in organizations.

Organizations as psychic prisons

According to Morgan (2006: 207), ‘organizations are ultimately created and sustained by
conscious and unconscious processes, with the notion that people can actually become
imprisoned in or confined by the images’.

The metaphor of organizations as psychic prisons inspired imagery of the patriarchal
prison that influenced women’s inequality. An organization in the information systems
industry was represented in the study as a prison of patriarchy, in which women ‘lack
access to decision makers’ in formal and informal networks of power (Reid et al., 2010:
528). Networks of power were valued for improved status in organizations, and hence we
had found an influence on women’s inequality, for women were different to men in
organizations because of the lack of access to such networks.

We had applied within-domains-similarity analysis and content analysis to data that
were contained in articles that referenced Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986, 1997,
2006). Our investigation had identified four themes of influences on equality and ine-
quality for women in organizations from these eight metaphors for organizations. We
now discuss the significance of this study for women’s equality and inequality in twenty-
first century organizations.

Discussion

This discussion addresses the article’s purpose to explore influences on women’s equal-
ity and inequality from those metaphors contained in Images of Organization (Morgan,
1986, 1997, 2006). The first edition of Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986), a second
edition (Morgan, 1997), and an updated edition (2006) have guided meaning for concepts

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18 Human Relations

and phenomena in organizations for 30 years. Those eight metaphors were chosen in the
twentieth century, and have been significant as a way of thinking and seeing organiza-
tions since then. We considered that the phenomenon of gender, as a potential organiza-
tional issue, was raised in these works, but that women’s equality and inequality was
taken into account mainly with reference to only three of those eight metaphors (Morgan,
1986, 1997, 2006). Unsurprisingly, Images of Organization (1986, 1997, 2006) did not
fully take into account women in organizations because they were relatively few in num-
ber and of no significant status at the time (Adler, 1997; Forgionne and Peeters, 1982;
Koller, 2004a, b; Simpson and Lewis, 2005).

We reviewed the literature on metaphors through an organization-centric approach, and
following this our review turned to the literature on metaphors and imagery of women in
organizations. We perceived those metaphors as genderless and as a mask of reality for
thinking and seeing women in organizations. The eight metaphors for organizations were
then explored in this study of 70 articles that referenced Images of Organization (Morgan,
1986, 1997, 2006). Firstly, these metaphors were designated as source domains for analysis
of within-domains similarity to women in organizations (target domain). We then applied
content analysis in a second stage of investigation to enable us to closely explore the sur-
rounding content of results for each metaphor. We also compared and contrasted findings
with our reading of Morgan (2006). Four themes of influences on equality and inequality
for women in organizations were identified across these metaphors. Our literature review,
analysis and findings have allowed us to more deeply think and see influences for equality
and inequality from metaphors for organizations on women in organizations.

The metaphors contained in Morgan’s (1986, 1997, 2006) seminal work have offered
ways of thinking and seeing organizations for 30 years. Metaphors for organizations
have become so accepted that we concluded that meaning beyond them was overlooked
(Andriessen and Gubbins, 2009). Morgan said that,

…traditional management perspectives often lock us into fixed frameworks. They offer a way
of seeing that in effect says, ‘This is THE WAY to see.’ As a result, we often get trapped by the
metaphors on which they are based. (Morgan, 2006: 364 [capitals and quotation marks in original])

Influences from these metaphors had not previously been questioned to a great extent
because they had become THE way to see organizations without gender. The effective-
ness of these metaphors as communicative devices was thereby lost because of failure to
transform meaning about women’s equality and inequality as organizational phenomena
(Kupers, 2013).

From our viewpoint, meaning from metaphors for equality and inequality of women
in organizations was particularly missing. We concluded that those eight metaphors for
organizations that were studied have, somewhat, failed to open up exploration of other
ways to think and see organizations – in this case, women’s equality and inequality.
Instead, we acknowledged that these original metaphors now, in turn, have seemingly
locked theorists and practitioners into ‘fixed frameworks’, which have consequently
caused particular ways to see and think about women in organizations. As a result, the
issues of women’s equality and inequality have become ‘trapped by the metaphors on
which they are based’ (Morgan, 2006: 364).

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Kemp 19

The findings inspired us to consider methods to release ways of thinking and seeing
women’s inequality and equality in organizations. We considered it necessary to think
and see imagery of women in the twenty-first-century workplace in new ways, and there-
fore we have identified two novel images for organizations to meet that need. Management
thinking is an evolving process for which new metaphors are required for a generative
impact on organizational behavior (Cornelissen and Kafouros, 2008; Iske and Boersma,
2005; Wren and Bedeian, 2009). We have called these ‘images of women in organiza-
tion’, to follow the title of Morgan’s works (1986, 1997, 2006), and further research may
develop these new images into robust metaphors for organizations. We emphasize
urgency to address women’s equality and inequality by the introduction of new images
for organizations to complement the original eight metaphors (Morgan, 2006).

Organizations as femicide and justice

We introduce the image of organizations as femicide to see inequality for women in
organizations in a new way (Morgan, 2006 [emphasis added]). The alarming image
of femicide was deliberately chosen to think about and to ‘imaginize’ the amelioration of
women’s inequality in contemporary organizations (Morgan, 2006: 365). That image of
the murder of women, in and by organizations, was chosen as a distasteful image, and
follows the shocking metaphor for women’s experience of work as the ‘harrowing of
hell’, in which a woman’s identity is ‘disaggregated on entry to work’ (Hopfl, 2005: 179
[emphasis in original]). That disaggregation of identity has excluded women from organ-
izations through ‘reifying business as a male arena’ (Koller, 2004a: 173), and that exclusion
has, metaphorically, contributed to the murder of women in organizations.

We introduce organizations as justice as an image to think equality for women in a
new way (Morgan, 2006 [emphasis added]). This novel image of organizations as justice
was selected for its generative impact to stimulate action towards women’s equality in
organizations (Akin and Palmer, 2000; Cornelissen and Kafouros, 2008). There were
instances of positive images for women within the maze of metaphors found, but there
will only be justice in organizations when there is equality (Smith et al., 2012). There has
already been a call for metaphors to invite action against injustice because ‘too much
attention is given to theorization and not enough to action’ (Hopfl, 2005: 179). Out of our
study comes the image of organizations as justice in a call for action to ‘solicit inquiry on
egalitarian values’ (Raelin, 1993: 582). This image of organizations as justice captures
the ideal of women’s equality in organizations to support the identification of further
metaphors by theorists and practitioners from this source domain.

We considered that the metaphors contained in Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986,
1997, 2006) were genderless because of an organization-centric approach (Andriessen
and Gubbins, 2009; Cornelissen and Kafouros, 2008; Cornelissen et al., 2005). In contrast,
our chosen images of organizations, as femicide and justice, move towards a women-cen-
tric approach for metaphors. Organizations as femicide and justice were chosen to address
women’s inequality and equality in a conscious process of image selection because both
source and target domains relate to women. Equality and inequality of women in organiza-
tions has now become the center of attention in these images to inspire the selection of
further metaphors for informed sensemaking about women’s equality and inequality in
organizations (Gioia and Thomas, 1996; Maitlis, 2005; Weick, 1995).

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20 Human Relations

This discussion has gone beyond Images of Organization (Morgan, 1986, 1997, 2006)
to address the gap in knowledge that still remained after the said metaphors for organiza-
tions were developed – metaphors that have, until now, influenced women’s equality and
inequality. We proposed two new images for organizations, as femicide and as justice, as
a result of identifying four emergent themes for women’s equality and inequality in this
study. The research that was conducted will, it is hoped, open up previously locked-in
ways ‘of thinking’ and ‘of seeing’ women in organizations to garner new meaning about
equality and inequality for the future (Morgan, 2006: 4 [emphasis in original]).

Limitations

The author recognized that a limitation of this study was that she ‘read organization’,
itself a metaphorical act, through the lens of women’s equality and inequality (Morgan,
2006: 418). That potential female bias in interpretation was ameliorated somewhat by a
male linguistic expert, who collegially discussed the content, and contributed insight in
analysis of the articles. The study was further limited by a relatively small selection of
articles, from high-quality academic journals, that met the specific criteria to analyze as
a sample. It is recommended that this study be extended, by female and male academi-
cians, to include a larger sample of articles than the eight metaphors for organizations
that comprised this study.

Conclusion

Inquiry into women’s equality and inequality was conducted through within-domains
analysis and content analysis of text from 70 articles published in 30 leading aca-
demic journals. These analyses offered evidence of equality and inequality for women
influenced by those original metaphors for organizations contained in Images of
Organization (Morgan, 1986, 1997, 2006). Four emergent themes were identified as
findings, and two new images for organizations were introduced. We considered that
Morgan (1986, 1997, 2006) had influenced equality and inequality in organizations
because imagery of women, as found in the analyzed articles, was inspired by those
metaphors for organizations. We somewhat caution the use of negative imagery for
women in organizational literature because those images reveal, but also reinforce,
inequality in organizations. The significance of these study findings is that influences
from those eight metaphors have trapped ways of seeing and thinking women’s equal-
ity and inequality.

Metaphors guide thinking to stimulate understanding about the unknown in organiza-
tions, and similarly, in this study, eight metaphors for organizations have guided thinking
and stimulated understanding about women’s equality and inequality. This research evi-
denced that women’s inequality and equality continue as organizational phenomena
because theorists and practitioners rely on those original eight metaphors as sources for
targeting such phenomena. We chose two novel images – organizations as femicide and
justice – to release new ways of thinking and seeing women’s equality and inequality.
These new images were chosen through a process of deliberate identification, respectful
selection and appropriate application (Cornelissen and Kafouros, 2008). As such, this

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Kemp 21

study has attempted to remain faithful to the premise that ‘organization is really a crea-
tive process of imaginization. We organize as we imaginize, and it is always possible to
imaginize in new ways’ (Morgan, 2006: 365).

Our study has theoretical and practical applications, and has shed illumination on the
meaning that metaphors for organizations hold, as sources for women’s equality and
inequality. The study revealed a great deal about women in organizations, and much still
remains un-thought and unseen about women’s equality and inequality. The direction for
further study is to go beyond current metaphors for organizations towards a future replete
with images that both women and men equally can work by (Kupers, 2013; Lakoff and
Johnson, 1980; Morgan, 2006).

Funding

This research was supported by an American University of Sharjah faculty research grant (grant
number FRG 14-2-29).

Notes

1 The work is entitled Images of Organization, and we follow Morgan (1986: 11) by referring to
the original eight metaphors as metaphors for organizations (e.g. organizations as machines).

2 An initial capital letter is used in first naming the metaphors, and in tables, following the style
of Images of Organization (1986, 1997, 2006). Subsequently, lower-case letters are used for
each metaphor in this article.

3 From this point in the article, having previously stated the metaphors for organizations that
are a focus in this study, we reference those metaphors as such. Quotations from Images of
Organization are from Morgan (2006).

4 The issues of equality/inequality for men and the social construction of feminine/masculine
behavior are outside the remit of this study.

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Linzi J Kemp is Associate Professor in the Department of Management at the School of Business
Administration, American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Her areas of
research and teaching interests have a focus on women in organizational leadership in the Arab
region, and also cross-cultural issues of organizational behavior. Her research has been published
recently in Personnel Review (accepted for publication), Gender in Management: An International
Journal and International Journal of Cross Cultural Management. She has held teaching and
administrative positions in universities in the UK, USA, UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and
the People’s Republic of China. Furthermore, she has previously held managerial positions in the
UK public and private sectors. [Email: lkemp@aus.edu ]

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mailto:lkemp@aus.edu

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