Chapter 6: Innovation and Gender Equality Through The Lens of Competition

From the Book: The Refractive Thinker®: Vol. V: Strategy in Innovation

Summary

How we measure inequalities in the labour market such as gender pay gaps and male dominated boardrooms generate a repetitive cycle of static questions rather than provide answers. Competition as a lens offers new ways of re-evaluating current gender equality debates while adding new perspectives to gendered processes in management. As an area of research, competition is largely neglected in the gender and management body of work. Exploring how as both a concept and a practice, competition can operate in organizations and in the individual careers of men and women managers is an opportunity to examine different relationships at work. This includes examining gender performance, individualization, stereotypes and management styles, all of which contribute to building a framework for understanding and engaging with competition and competitive relations.