Silencing/Voicing Transgender People at Work: An Organizational Perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.19245/25.05.pij.3.1/2.01Keywords:
identity, silence, narratives, inclusionAbstract
Narratives are a means of voicing in organizations. What it follows is a short reflection concerning the challenge taken by narratives of being the lens through which hearing voice from transgender people in organizations. This paper is aimed to scrutinize in what extent the role of transgender people narratives aids inclusion in organizations, through an organizational account of the underlying meanings in writing organizational stories. The reflection is mainly based on two concepts: the first one is silence, as a way to hide themselves in the workplace, and the second one is identity, as an apparatus of comparison between individual and organizational subjectivity. In this reflection, transgender people played the role of being a source of knowledge, triggering a debate concerning voice and silence in organizations.
References
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Alvesson, M., Ashcraft, K.L., Thomas, R. (2008) “Identity Matters: Reflections on the Construction of Identity Scholarship in Organization Studies”, Organization, 15 (1): 5-28.
Anteby, M., Anderson, C. (2014) “The Shifting Landscape of LGBT Organizational Research”, Research in Organizational Behavior, 34: 3-25.
Ashforth, B.E., Mael, F. (1989) “Social Identity Theory and the Organization”, Academy of Management Review, 14 (1): 20-39.
Ashikali, T., Groeneveld, S. (2015) “Diversity Management in Public Organizations and its Effect on Employees’ Affective Commitment: The Role of Transformational Leadership and the Inclusiveness of the Organizational Culture”, Review of Public Personnel Administration, 35 (2): 146-168.
Barry, D. (1994) “Making the Invisible Visible: Using Analogically-Based Methods to Surface Unconscious Organizational Processes”, Organization Development Journal, 12 (4): 37-48.
Beagan, B.L., De Souza, L., Godbout, C., Hamilton, L., MacLeod, J., Paynter, E. and Tobin, A. (2012) “This Is the Biggest Thing You’ll Ever Do in Your Life: Exploring the Occupations of Transgendered People”, Journal of Occupational Science, 19 (3): 226-240.
Bell, M.P., Özbilgin, M.F., Beauregard, T.A. and Sürgevil, O. (2011) “Voice, Silence, and Diversity in 21st Century Organizations: Strategies for Inclusion of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Employees”, Human Resource Management, 50 (1): 131-146.
Bizjak, D. (2018) Diversity Management and Identity in Organisations: From Liminality to Inclusion, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Bowen, F., Blackmon, K. (2003) “Spirals of Silence: The Dynamic Effects of Diversity on Organizational Voice”, Journal of Management Studies, 40 (6): 1393-1417.
Brown, A.D., Starkey, K. (2000) “Organizational Identity and Learning: A Psychodynamic Perspective”, Academy of Management Review, 25 (1): 102-120.
Butler, J. (1999 [1990]) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York, NY: Routledge.
Corley, K.G., Harrison, S.H. (2009) “Generative Organizational Identity Change: Approaching Organizational Authenticity as a Process”, In Exploring Positive Identities and Organizations: Building a Theoretical and Research Foundation, L.M. Roberts and J.E. Dutton (eds), pp. 361-384, London: Routledge.
Davis, D. (2009) “Transgender Issues in the Workplace: HRD’s Newest Challenge/Opportunity”, Advances in Developing Human Resources, 11 (1): 109-120.
Dawson, A., Hjorth, D. (2012) “Advancing Family Business Research through Narrative Analysis”, Family Business Review, 25 (3): 339-355.
Dentice, D., Dietert, M. (2015) “Liminal Spaces and the Transgender Experience”, Theory in Action, 8 (2): 69-96.
Fiol, C.M., Huff, A.S. (1992) “Maps for Managers: Where Are We? Where Do We Go from Here?”, Journal of Management Studies, 29 (3): 267-285.
Gagné, P., Tewksbury, R. (1998) “Conformity Pressures and Gender Resistance among Transgendered Individuals”, Social Problems, 45 (1): 81-101.
Gagné, P., Tewksbury, R., McGaughey, D. (1997) “Coming out and Crossing over: Identity Formation and Proclamation in a Transgender Community”, Gender & Society, 11 (4): 478-508.
Gartner, W.B. (2007) “Entrepreneurial Narrative and a Science of the Imagination”, Journal of Business Venturing, 22 (5): 613-627.
Gherardi, S., Cozza, M., Poggio, B. (2018) “Organizational Members as Storywriters: On Organizing Practices of Reflexivity”, The Learning Organization, 25 (1): 51-62.
Gioia, D.A., Schultz, M., Corley, K.G. (2000) “Organizational Identity, Image, and Adaptive Instability”, Academy of Management Review, 25 (1): 63-81.
Gotsis, G., Kortezi, Z. (2013) “Ethical Paradigms as Potential Foundations of Diversity Management Initiatives in Business Organizations”, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 26 (6): 948-976.
Hatch, M.J., Cunliffe, A.L. (2013) Organization Theory: Modern, Symbolic and Postmodern Perspective (3rd edn.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hollander, J.A., Einwohner, R.L. (2004), “Conceptualizing Resistance”, Sociological Forum, 19 (4): 533-554.
Knights, D. (2015) “Binaries Need to Shatter or Bodies to Matter: Do Disembodied Masculinities Undermine Organizational Ethics?”, Organization, 22 (2): 200-216.
McLemore, K.A. (2015), “Experiences with Misgendering: Identity Misclassification of Transgender Spectrum Individuals”, Self and Identity, 14 (1): 51-74.
Morrison, E.W., Milliken, F.J. (2000) “Organizational Silence: A Barrier to Change and Development in a Pluralistic World”, Academy of Management Review, 25 (4): 706-725.
Phibbs, S. (2008) “Four Dimensions of Narrativity: Towards a Narrative Analysis of Gender Identity That Is Simultaneously Personal, Local and Global”, New Zealand Sociology, 23 (2): 47-60.
Pinder, C., Harlos, H. (2001) “Employee Silence: Quiescence and Acquiescence as Responses to Perceived Injustice”, Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management, 20: 331–69.
Reingardė, J. (2010) “Heteronormativity and Silenced Sexualities at Work”, Kultūra ir Visuomenė: Socialinių Tyrimų Žurnalas, 1 (1): 83-96.
Riach, K., Rumens, N., Tyler, M. (2014) “Un/Doing Chrononormativity: Negotiating Ageing, Gender and Sexuality in Organizational Life”, Organization Studies, 35 (11): 1677-1698.
Riach, K., Rumens, N., Tyler, M. (2016) “Towards a Butlerian Methodology: Undoing Organizational Performativity through Anti-Narrative Research”, Human Relations, 69 (11): 2069-2089.
Roberson, Q.M., Stevens, C.K. (2006) “Making Sense of Diversity in the Workplace: Organizational Justice and Language Abstraction in Employees’ Accounts of Diversity-Related Incidents”, Journal of Applied Psychology, 91 (2): 379-391.
Rundall, E., Vecchietti, V. (2010) “(In)Visibility in the Workplace: The Experience of Trans-Employees in the UK”, In Transgender Identities: Towards a Social Analysis of Gender Diversity, S. Hines and T. Sanger (eds), pp. 127-150, New York/London: Routledge.
Sanger, T. (2010) “Beyond Gender and Sexuality Binaries in Sociological Theory: The Case for Transgender Inclusion”, In Transgender Identities: Towards a Social Analysis of Gender Diversity, S. Hines and T. Sanger (eds), pp. 259-276, New York/London: Routledge.
Schwabenland, C., Tomlinson, F. (2015) “Shadows and Light: Diversity Management as Phantasmagoria”, Human Relations, 68 (12): 1913-1936.
Scott, S.G., Lane, V.R. (2000) “A Stakeholder Approach to Organizational Identity”, Academy of Management Review, 25 (1): 43-62.
Senichev, V. (2013) “Human Resource Diversity and Performance within the Frame of Organizations, Teams and Individuals”, Business: Theory and Practice/Verslas: Teorija ir Praktika, 14 (4): 337-345.
Simpson, R., Lewis, P. (2005) “An Investigation of Silence and a Scrutiny of Transparency: Re-Examining Gender in Organization Literature through the Concepts of Voice and Visibility”, Human Relations, 58 (10): 1253-1275.
Solebello, N., Tschirhart, M., Leiter, J. (2016) “The Paradox of Inclusion and Exclusion in Membership Associations”, Human Relations, 69 (2): 439-460.
Thomas, K.M., Plaut, V.C. (2008) “The Many Faces of Diversity Resistance in the Workplace”, In Diversity Resistance in Organizations, K.M. Thomas (ed.), pp. 1-22, New York/London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Townley, B. (1993) “Foucault, Power/Knowledge, and its Relevance for Human Resource Management”, Academy of Management Review, 18 (3): 518-545.
van Dyne, L.A.S., Botero, I.C. (2003) “Conceptualizing Employee Silence and Employee Voice as Multidimensional Constructs”, Journal of Management Studies, 40 (6): 1359–1392. DOI:10.1111/1467-6486.00384.
van Tonder, C.L., Lessing, B.C. (2003) “From Identity to Organisation Identity: The Evolution of a Concept”, SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 29 (2): 20-28.
Ward, J., Winstanley, D. (2003), “The Absent Presence: Negative Space within Discourse and the Construction of Minority Sexual Identity in the Workplace”, Human Relations, 56 (10): 1255-1280.
Ward, J., Winstanley, D. (2005) “Coming out at Work: Performativity and the Recognition and Renegotiation of Identity”, The Sociological Review, 53 (3): 447-475.
Ward, J., Winstanley, D. (2007) “Sexuality and the City: Exploring the Experience of Minority Sexual Identity through Storytelling”, Culture and Organization, 10 (3): 219-236.
Allen, K.R. (1995) “Opening the Classroom Closet: Sexual Orientation and Self-Disclosure”, Family Relations, 44 (2): 136-141. DOI:10.2307/584799.
Alvesson, M., Willmott, H. (2002) “Identity Regulation as Organizational Control: Producing the Appropriate Individual”, Journal of Management Studies, 39 (5): 619–644.
Alvesson, M., Ashcraft, K.L., Thomas, R. (2008) “Identity Matters: Reflections on the Construction of Identity Scholarship in Organization Studies”, Organization, 15 (1): 5-28.
Anteby, M., Anderson, C. (2014) “The Shifting Landscape of LGBT Organizational Research”, Research in Organizational Behavior, 34: 3-25.
Ashforth, B.E., Mael, F. (1989) “Social Identity Theory and the Organization”, Academy of Management Review, 14 (1): 20-39.
Ashikali, T., Groeneveld, S. (2015) “Diversity Management in Public Organizations and its Effect on Employees’ Affective Commitment: The Role of Transformational Leadership and the Inclusiveness of the Organizational Culture”, Review of Public Personnel Administration, 35 (2): 146-168.
Barry, D. (1994) “Making the Invisible Visible: Using Analogically-Based Methods to Surface Unconscious Organizational Processes”, Organization Development Journal, 12 (4): 37-48.
Beagan, B.L., De Souza, L., Godbout, C., Hamilton, L., MacLeod, J., Paynter, E. and Tobin, A. (2012) “This Is the Biggest Thing You’ll Ever Do in Your Life: Exploring the Occupations of Transgendered People”, Journal of Occupational Science, 19 (3): 226-240.
Bell, M.P., Özbilgin, M.F., Beauregard, T.A. and Sürgevil, O. (2011) “Voice, Silence, and Diversity in 21st Century Organizations: Strategies for Inclusion of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Employees”, Human Resource Management, 50 (1): 131-146.
Bizjak, D. (2018) Diversity Management and Identity in Organisations: From Liminality to Inclusion, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Bowen, F., Blackmon, K. (2003) “Spirals of Silence: The Dynamic Effects of Diversity on Organizational Voice”, Journal of Management Studies, 40 (6): 1393-1417.
Brown, A.D., Starkey, K. (2000) “Organizational Identity and Learning: A Psychodynamic Perspective”, Academy of Management Review, 25 (1): 102-120.
Butler, J. (1999 [1990]) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, New York, NY: Routledge.
Corley, K.G., Harrison, S.H. (2009) “Generative Organizational Identity Change: Approaching Organizational Authenticity as a Process”, In Exploring Positive Identities and Organizations: Building a Theoretical and Research Foundation, L.M. Roberts and J.E. Dutton (eds), pp. 361-384, London: Routledge.
Davis, D. (2009) “Transgender Issues in the Workplace: HRD’s Newest Challenge/Opportunity”, Advances in Developing Human Resources, 11 (1): 109-120.
Dawson, A., Hjorth, D. (2012) “Advancing Family Business Research through Narrative Analysis”, Family Business Review, 25 (3): 339-355.
Dentice, D., Dietert, M. (2015) “Liminal Spaces and the Transgender Experience”, Theory in Action, 8 (2): 69-96.
Fiol, C.M., Huff, A.S. (1992) “Maps for Managers: Where Are We? Where Do We Go from Here?”, Journal of Management Studies, 29 (3): 267-285.
Gagné, P., Tewksbury, R. (1998) “Conformity Pressures and Gender Resistance among Transgendered Individuals”, Social Problems, 45 (1): 81-101.
Gagné, P., Tewksbury, R., McGaughey, D. (1997) “Coming out and Crossing over: Identity Formation and Proclamation in a Transgender Community”, Gender & Society, 11 (4): 478-508.
Gartner, W.B. (2007) “Entrepreneurial Narrative and a Science of the Imagination”, Journal of Business Venturing, 22 (5): 613-627.
Gherardi, S., Cozza, M., Poggio, B. (2018) “Organizational Members as Storywriters: On Organizing Practices of Reflexivity”, The Learning Organization, 25 (1): 51-62.
Gioia, D.A., Schultz, M., Corley, K.G. (2000) “Organizational Identity, Image, and Adaptive Instability”, Academy of Management Review, 25 (1): 63-81.
Gotsis, G., Kortezi, Z. (2013) “Ethical Paradigms as Potential Foundations of Diversity Management Initiatives in Business Organizations”, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 26 (6): 948-976.
Hatch, M.J., Cunliffe, A.L. (2013) Organization Theory: Modern, Symbolic and Postmodern Perspective (3rd edn.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hollander, J.A., Einwohner, R.L. (2004), “Conceptualizing Resistance”, Sociological Forum, 19 (4): 533-554.
Knights, D. (2015) “Binaries Need to Shatter or Bodies to Matter: Do Disembodied Masculinities Undermine Organizational Ethics?”, Organization, 22 (2): 200-216.
McLemore, K.A. (2015), “Experiences with Misgendering: Identity Misclassification of Transgender Spectrum Individuals”, Self and Identity, 14 (1): 51-74.
Morrison, E.W., Milliken, F.J. (2000) “Organizational Silence: A Barrier to Change and Development in a Pluralistic World”, Academy of Management Review, 25 (4): 706-725.
Phibbs, S. (2008) “Four Dimensions of Narrativity: Towards a Narrative Analysis of Gender Identity That Is Simultaneously Personal, Local and Global”, New Zealand Sociology, 23 (2): 47-60.
Pinder, C., Harlos, H. (2001) “Employee Silence: Quiescence and Acquiescence as Responses to Perceived Injustice”, Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management, 20: 331–69.
Reingardė, J. (2010) “Heteronormativity and Silenced Sexualities at Work”, Kultūra ir Visuomenė: Socialinių Tyrimų Žurnalas, 1 (1): 83-96.
Riach, K., Rumens, N., Tyler, M. (2014) “Un/Doing Chrononormativity: Negotiating Ageing, Gender and Sexuality in Organizational Life”, Organization Studies, 35 (11): 1677-1698.
Riach, K., Rumens, N., Tyler, M. (2016) “Towards a Butlerian Methodology: Undoing Organizational Performativity through Anti-Narrative Research”, Human Relations, 69 (11): 2069-2089.
Roberson, Q.M., Stevens, C.K. (2006) “Making Sense of Diversity in the Workplace: Organizational Justice and Language Abstraction in Employees’ Accounts of Diversity-Related Incidents”, Journal of Applied Psychology, 91 (2): 379-391.
Rundall, E., Vecchietti, V. (2010) “(In)Visibility in the Workplace: The Experience of Trans-Employees in the UK”, In Transgender Identities: Towards a Social Analysis of Gender Diversity, S. Hines and T. Sanger (eds), pp. 127-150, New York/London: Routledge.
Sanger, T. (2010) “Beyond Gender and Sexuality Binaries in Sociological Theory: The Case for Transgender Inclusion”, In Transgender Identities: Towards a Social Analysis of Gender Diversity, S. Hines and T. Sanger (eds), pp. 259-276, New York/London: Routledge.
Schwabenland, C., Tomlinson, F. (2015) “Shadows and Light: Diversity Management as Phantasmagoria”, Human Relations, 68 (12): 1913-1936.
Scott, S.G., Lane, V.R. (2000) “A Stakeholder Approach to Organizational Identity”, Academy of Management Review, 25 (1): 43-62.
Senichev, V. (2013) “Human Resource Diversity and Performance within the Frame of Organizations, Teams and Individuals”, Business: Theory and Practice/Verslas: Teorija ir Praktika, 14 (4): 337-345.
Simpson, R., Lewis, P. (2005) “An Investigation of Silence and a Scrutiny of Transparency: Re-Examining Gender in Organization Literature through the Concepts of Voice and Visibility”, Human Relations, 58 (10): 1253-1275.
Solebello, N., Tschirhart, M., Leiter, J. (2016) “The Paradox of Inclusion and Exclusion in Membership Associations”, Human Relations, 69 (2): 439-460.
Thomas, K.M., Plaut, V.C. (2008) “The Many Faces of Diversity Resistance in the Workplace”, In Diversity Resistance in Organizations, K.M. Thomas (ed.), pp. 1-22, New York/London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Townley, B. (1993) “Foucault, Power/Knowledge, and its Relevance for Human Resource Management”, Academy of Management Review, 18 (3): 518-545.
van Dyne, L.A.S., Botero, I.C. (2003) “Conceptualizing Employee Silence and Employee Voice as Multidimensional Constructs”, Journal of Management Studies, 40 (6): 1359–1392. DOI:10.1111/1467-6486.00384.
van Tonder, C.L., Lessing, B.C. (2003) “From Identity to Organisation Identity: The Evolution of a Concept”, SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 29 (2): 20-28.
Ward, J., Winstanley, D. (2003), “The Absent Presence: Negative Space within Discourse and the Construction of Minority Sexual Identity in the Workplace”, Human Relations, 56 (10): 1255-1280.
Ward, J., Winstanley, D. (2005) “Coming out at Work: Performativity and the Recognition and Renegotiation of Identity”, The Sociological Review, 53 (3): 447-475.
Ward, J., Winstanley, D. (2007) “Sexuality and the City: Exploring the Experience of Minority Sexual Identity through Storytelling”, Culture and Organization, 10 (3): 219-236.
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Published
2018-10-16
How to Cite
Bizjak, D. (2018). Silencing/Voicing Transgender People at Work: An Organizational Perspective. PuntOorg International Journal, 3(1/2), 5–13. https://doi.org/10.19245/25.05.pij.3.1/2.01
