Gender‐based exclusionary practices in performance appraisal
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12311447 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Angel Ellul Fenech (independent scholar), Shireen Kanji (0000-0003-3512-2596, Brunel Business School Brunel University London Uxbridge UK, corresponding author), Zsuzsanna Vargha (0000-0002-1578-6531, ESCP Business School Paris France) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 427-442 |
| Publication date | 2021-11-20 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Gender Work and Organization (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0968-6673 • E-ISSN: 1468-0432 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/gwao.12768 |
| OpenAlex | W3215007127 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 44 |
We examine how performance appraisal is, following Acker, an organizational process producing inequality. By process we mean that appraisal is an on‐going and relational year‐round practice, enacted through interaction between men and women, rather than a bounded and individualized event. We use Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to analyze how masculine domination guides what is presented as a gender‐neutral organizational practice. We conducted in‐depth interviews at a financial sector organization in Malta with employees, their direct appraisers and higher‐level appraisers. Appraisers measured employees’ tangible (task related) as well as “behavioral” performance. We find that the practice of attributing scores to behavior, and the interaction between men and women, appraisers and appraisees, both reflect and produce women’s inferior status. While women concentrated on tangible targets such as sales, male employees and the appraisers focused on soft targets, specifically on socializing with colleagues, which in practice emerged as the key criterion for the behavioral score. We find that male sociality is an organizing process that literally devalues women through quantified performance scores. Managerial discretion translates employees’ behavior into a lasting organizational record, contributing a formalized component to the gendered hierarchy
Discretion · Ethnography · Habitus · Hierarchy · Management · Performance appraisal · Political science · Process (computing · Public relations · Sociality · Sociology · Task (project management · Computer Science · Gender Diversity and Inequality · Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior · Management and Organizational Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology
Covered by Equality
Transparency in Academic Recruitment
The Growing Importance of Social Skills in the Labor Market
Distinction
Advancing Gender Equity in Organizations
The Logic of Practice
No finish line
Giving Up
In the steps of Joan Acker
The Future of ‘Gender and Organizations’
Recruiting Managing Directors
The Micro‐politics of Gendering in Networking
Distorted Views Through the Glass Ceiling
Reducing the Effects of Gender Stereotypes on Performance Evaluations
Male Breadwinning Revisited
The Maternal Wall
Gender subtext revisited
Qualitative Data Analysis
Habitus as Topic and Tool
Interaction and the Conservation of Gender Inequality
Reinforcing Separate Spheres
The Declining Significance of Gender
Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies
Doing Gender
Inequality Regimes
Unpacking the Gender System
Bourdieu in American Sociology, 1980-2004
Getting it Right
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |