FROM STEW TO SALAD: MEN AND WOMEN MANAGERS AS CONTRIBUTORS TO ORGANIZATIONAL DIVERSITY

Abstract

After two decades of women′s increasing presence in management, raises the question of what impact this has had on perceptions of management. Discussion of the impact of work by Virginia Schein on supporting “women only” training, based on reducing female “deficiencies”, and by Sandra Bem in developing the idea of the androgynous manager leads to consideration of valuing diversity as an important theme for management development in the 1990s. Sets the argument for recognizing diversity against evidence from a small‐scale study which showed that both male and female managers saw increasing masculinity as crucial to being effective and successful. Raises the implications for trainers, and argues the need for management development programmes to include consideration of diversity from a contributory perspective.