Men, Masculinities, Managements and Organisational Culture

Abstract

The social position of men, the critical study of management, and the theoretical and practical significance of organisational culture have all been the subject of extensive debates in recent years. In this article we review four main conceptual and theoretical ways of linking 'men' and 'masculinities' to debates on 'managerial and organisational culture'. These approaches are not mutually exclusive; rather they are ways of building up a more complex understanding of that relationship. Each is a commentary on both particular types of managerial and organisational cultures and particular analyses of managerial and organisational culture. The four approaches are as follows: taken-for-granted men's cultures; men's explicit domination of organisational cultures; men's domination of subtexts of organisational cultures; and the deconstruction of 'men and organisational culture'. The second of these approaches is focussed on in more detail drawing on empirical ethnographic research on personnel selection processes in UK private sector organisations. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of this approach for future theory and practice.