Bringing Women's Voice to Research on Women in Management

Abstract

Research on women in management has stagnated; major breakthroughs in our knowledge about women are coming from other disciplines. Three differences between the research on women in management and the research on gender in other disciplines are explored: (a) whether a "deiciency model" for women is assumed, (b) how readily the research embraces feminist thinking, and (c) where the findings of the research are published. A basic assumption in traditional women-in-management research is that organizations, as they currently exist, are okay (or at least inevitable). A feminist perspective-particularly women's voice that takes as its starting point women's unique perspectives and experiences-challenges these assumptions and is seen as essential to discovering new and better ways of seeing and doing things in organizations. Deconstruction is approached more cautiously. For the women-in-management field, a premature focus on the framework of deconstruction could unwittingly become another way of silencing women's voice.