Women entrepreneurs : jumping the corporate ship or gaining new wings.

Paper originally presented at the 30th International Conference of the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, 7-9 November 2007, Glasgow,UK. Awarded Best Paper ‘Women’s Enterprise and Family Enterprise Development’ track, ISBE Conference 2007 (£500). Advances field through empirical investigation of push-pull dichotomy in career transition literature for women leaving corporate employment for entrepreneurship. Argues women’s motivations for entrepreneurship remain unsatisfied until businesses evolved and they gained personal and professional development

The politics of gossip and denial in inter-organizational relations

Organizational gossip has largely been discussed in terms of effects at the individual level. In this article we turn our attention to the organization level. The article makes a research contribution that addresses gossip that spreads fact-based rumours about organizations in terms of their shifting role in circuits of power. The research question asks what happens when organizations officially formulate themselves as doing one thing while other organizational actors that are influential in significant organizational arenas (in which these formulations circulate) counter that these formulations are patently false. Theoretically, we draw on the literature on organizational gossip and rumour as well as on the politics of non-decision-making. Our argument is advanced by reference to a case study of the Australian Wheat Board and UN Resolution 661. Basically, organizational gossip plays a key role in the production of interorganizational power dynamics, an insight previously neglected. Copyright © 2008 The Tavistock Institute® SAGE Publications