Women in organisations : challenging gender politics

One of the core books in the Management, Work and Organisations series, Women in Organisations examines the causes of gender-based inequality at work and provides a wide-ranging gender critique of liberal and radical approaches to organisational equality and of traditional organisational cultures and structures.

The book focuses on women's agency as the missing ingredient of much organisational analysis; and women's consciousness of gender politics, and their own roles as change agents, is explored in the eight research-based case studies of women in organisations and industries presented in the text.

These are book publishing, retailing, personnel management, the Customs and Excise Service, trade unions, school teaching, the National Health Service and public transport.

The analysis indicates ways in which women acting collectively can play a central role in organisational change, or possibly, even transformation.

Thus change and the opportunities and challenges it offers to women and men in work organisations, is revealed as a dynamic shaped both by organisational gender politics and external societal patriarchal structures - social, economic and political. This book is particularly suitable for MA and MBA students both in the UK and worldwide, but will also be relevant to undergraduate students on business and management courses, those on gender and women's studies and social science programmes, and those studying professional courses such as the Institute of Personnel Development.

It will be particularly useful to managers, professionals and trade unionists wishing to develop equality strategies within their organisations.