Antecedents and consequences of masculinity norms in organizations

Semester

Semester 1, 2023-2024

Type of course

Theory-oriented Workshops

Date

October 27, 2023

Location

Utrecht University

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Duration

1 day

Maximum number of participants

30

ECTS

0.5 EC will be appointed for participation in the complete course

Staff

Andrea Vial (New York University Abu Dhabi), Jenny Veldman (UU)

Content, learning goals, preparation 

Women and other minorities are increasingly entering industries that have been historically occupied by White men (Catalyst, 2020), although they remain substantially underrepresented in those domains. In part due to the preponderance of men, these organizational contexts are often characterized by a “masculinity contest culture” (MCC; Berdahl et al., 2018)—a workplace environment that encourages the enactment of (negative) stereotypically masculine behaviors and attitudes, leading to a workplace culture where employees frequently adopt a “dog eat dog” mindset, avoid showing weakness at all costs, strive to display endurance, strength, and a single-minded focus on work, and engage in cut-throat competition with others. Since the theory paper by Berdahl and colleagues from 2018, emerging research has started to illuminate that masculinity contest cultures have negative consequences for everyone, relating this organizational culture to, for example, increased burnout and turnover, and lower job satisfaction, but also that MCCs are particularly difficult to maneuver for women and other minority groups for whom these masculinity norms are more incongruent with their group’s role prescriptions. Many research questions on the antecedents, consequences, and boundary conditions of masculinity contest workplace cultures remain, which will be explored in this 1-day workshop. 

In preparation for the workshop, students read a few key papers (see below). During the workshop, students learn the start-of-the-art research on masculinity norms in organizational contexts and they work together to develop a new research idea with the goal of exploring this in a collaborative project. See below for a detailed proposed schedule. 

Schedule

10:00am-11:00am: presentation by Dr. Andrea Vial introducing the topic and presenting her own work on antecedents and consequences of masculinity norms in organizations. 

11:00am-11:30am: coffee break. 

11:30am-12:30pm: forming 3 working groups on possible future research directions on (1) antecedents of masculinity norms, (2) consequences of masculinity norms, and (3) boundary conditions.

12:30pm-1:30pm: lunch.

1:30pm-2:30pm: working groups brainstorm about research questions.

2:30pm-3:00pm: working group pitches on draft ideas.

3:00pm-3:30pm: coffee break.

3:30pm-4:15pm: working groups process the group’s and teachers’ feedback + draft research plan. 

4:15pm-5:00pm: working group presentations including research plan. 

Literature

Compulsory reading: 

Berdahl, J. L., Cooper, M., Glick, P., Livingston, R. W., & Williams, J. C. (2018). Work as a masculinity contest. Journal of Social Issues, 74, 422-448.

Cheryan, S., & Markus, H. R. (2020). Masculine defaults: Identifying and mitigating hidden cultural biases. Psychological Review, 127, 1022.

Vial, A. C., Muradoglu, M., Newman, G. E., & Cimpian, A. (2022). An emphasis on brilliance fosters masculinity-contest cultures. Psychological Science, 33, 595-612.

Optional reading: 

Chatman, J. A., & O’Reilly, C. A. (2016). Paradigm lost: Reinvigorating the study of organizational culture. Research in Organizational Behavior, 36, 199-224

Glick, P., Berdahl, J. L., & Alonso, N. M. (2018). Development and validation of the masculinity contest culture scale. Journal of Social Issues, 74, 449-476.

Vandello J. A., Bosson J. K. (2013). Hard won and easily lost: A review and synthesis of theory and research on precarious manhood. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 14, 101–113.