COMMITMENTS AND CONFLICTS: CORPORATE SEDUCTION AND AMBIVALENCE IN WOMEN MANAGERS

Examines gender differences in relation to organizational commitment. It considers the ways in which corporate culture attempts to seduce employees into commitment via the construction of appearances and values. The satisfactions which men derive from work appear to make them more susceptible to the construction of particular frames of organizational behaviour and, in this sense, commitment can be viewed as a consensual interpretation of appropriate organizational action. Women,however, have more ambiguous and conflictual encultured imagery which is not easily reconciled with male reality definitions. Hence, women introduce ambivalence into the workplace. This inevitably constitutes a threat to male consensus and framing of appropriate action. Women′s action lacks propriety within male frames because women embodyambivalence. Therefore, by virtue of their mere presence, women threaten the deconstruction of commitment.