Abstract
In light of the so-called globalization of business life and the expansion of transnational organizations, the concept of “transnational business masculinity” has been developed to describe a new form of masculinity among globally mobile managers. This chapter engages with this debate by focusing on gender and masculinities in the context of transnational corporate labor markets and specifically large transnational companies that are involved primarily or very substantially in knowledge work. The chapter examines the intersections of gender relations, local/national context, and transnational processes within knowledge work and management. It interrogates the complex interrelations of gender, specifically constructions of men and masculinities, with national-transnational intersections – in and between both professional knowledge work and its management and everyday lives and work-life boundaries.
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Notes
- 1.
For example, Linda McDowell in Capital Culture (1997) looked at British men bankers on trading floors (cf. Ho 2009; Longlands 2014); Jesper Blomberg (2009) showed how two different “categories” of men in the Swedish Stock Exchange, analysts and brokers, view and treat each other and retreat from “femininity”; Michael Roper (1994) and Deborah Kerfoot and David Knights (1993) examined changing patterns amongst British managers from more “paternalist” to more “modern” and “technocratic” corporate strategy; Frank Barrett (1996) compared aviators, surface combatants, and supply corps in the US Navy; Patricia Yancey Martin (2001) examined managerial decision-making in US universities; and James Messerschmidt (1995) researched engineers and managers in the space industry.
- 2.
The first qualitative data set was gathered in the “Men, Gender Relations and Transnational Organising, Organisations and Management.” This involved Jeff Hearn, Marjut Jyrkinen, and Rebecca Piekkari, who conducted the interviews.
- 3.
The second data set for “Knowledge Sector Top Managers’ Work-Life Balance Study” was gathered as part of the research project “Age, Generation, and Changing Work-Life Balance and Boundaries.” This involved Jeff Hearn, Mira Karjalainen, and Charlotta Niemistö, of whom the last two listed conducted the fieldwork.
- 4.
Research on these topics continues in the new research project WeAll (Social and Economic Sustainability of Future Working Life, no 292883), funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland.
- 5.
Finland’s competitiveness, or the lack of it, has been under intense public debate since the economic downturn of 2008. The ideology of high competitiveness, coupled with a neoliberal ethos, also impacts on gender equality (Julkunen 2009). In the light of current political and policy discussions, it is possible, for instance, that the right of daycare for children will be limited in future.
- 6.
With such figures, much depends on the exact definitions used. For example, the 2013 Grant Thornton International Business Report survey (Women in Senior Management 2013) listed Finland as having women in 24 % of senior management positions, the same as the global average.
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Hearn, J., Jyrkinen, M., Karjalainen, M., Niemistö, C., Piekkari, R. (2017). Top Men in Transnational Companies. In: Peterson, H. (eds) Gender in Transnational Knowledge Work. Crossroads of Knowledge. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43307-3_6
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