Monika Kostera

Heather Höpfl

Over the past ten to fifteen years there has been an increasing interest in emotion in organizations, in diversity, ethics, care and the ubiquitous pursuit of quality. These concerns, however, have consistently been reduced to issues of management and regulation. There is now a growing need to confront issues related to the dehumanization of organizations. This book brings these issues together, presenting an original construction of the organization via an emphasis on the (m)other. This book is not a feminist tract, nor is it primarily about the experiences of women in organizations. It rather argues that conventional representations of the organization are patriarchal, masculine, directed by the animus and that such representations reduce the notion of 'organization' to abstract relationships, rational actions and purposive behaviour. This challenging book will be of essential interest to all critical management theorists. With its innovative approach, it will also appeal to students, teachers, and all those looking for an approach to management that does justice to the complexity, ambivalence and chaos of the world of organizing.

Interpreting the Maternal Organization

Ruth Simpson

Patricia Lewis

Natasha Slutskaya

This book explores new understandings and contemporary experiences of dirty work – tasks or roles that are seen to be disgusting or degrading. Through novel empirical sites that include nursing, medicalization, sex workers, sex call operators, financiers and women's magazines, the book offers new theoretical insights into a form of work that is increasing in significance in the contemporary labour market. By drawing on concepts such as staining, embodiment and 'whiteness', it complicates the clean/dirty divide in the context of work and contributes to understandings of dirty work as contingent, fluid and socially constructed. It offers rich insights into the complex ways in which such work is experienced and the variety of strategies drawn on as dirty workers seek to manage identity.

Heather Höpfl

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