Sensemaking through the storm: how postpartum depression shapes personal work–family narratives.

Many women experience psychological and emotional challenges during their transition to becoming a working mother. Postpartum depression (PPD) is one common, salient aspect of motherhood that can serve as a work–life shock event and profoundly shape women’s work and nonwork lives yet has evaded discussion in the organizational sciences. Taking a grounded theory approach, we interviewed 41 women who experienced PPD as well as key informants who provided additional insights about PPD (e.g., an obstetrician, women working for organizations that support postpartum health). Our analysis highlights how being diagnosed with PPD activates a complex sensemaking process in which women process an imposing identity—a concept we introduce to the identity and work–family literatures reflecting an unexpected, undesirable identity that imposes upon existing (e.g., work) and/or provisional identities that may or may not be fully elaborated (e.g., motherhood), ultimately shifting how women think about the intersection of work and family. We also delineate how supports and antisupports (i.e., overt acts dismissive of women’s PPD) shape the aforementioned processes. Combined, our research aims to advance the discussion of PPD within organizational scholarship, rendering significant implications for both theory and practice

A Call to Action: Taking the Untenable out of Women Professors’ Pregnancy, Postpartum, and Caregiving Demands

Despite becoming increasingly represented in academic departments, women scholars face a critical lack of support as they navigate demands pertaining to pregnancy, motherhood, and child caregiving. In addition, cultural norms surrounding how faculty and academic leaders discuss and talk about tenure, promotion, and career success have created pressure for women who wish to grow their family and care for their children, leading to questions about whether it is possible for these women to have a family and an academic career. The current paper is a call to action for academia to build structures that support women professors as they navigate the complexities of pregnancy, the postpartum period, and the caregiving demands of their children. We specifically call on those of us in I-O psychology, management, and related departments to lead the way. In making this call, we first present the realistic, moral, and financial cases for why this issue needs to be at the forefront of discussions surrounding success in the academy. We then discuss how in the U.S. and elsewhere, an absence of policies supporting women places two groups of academics—department heads (as the leaders of departments who have discretion outside of formal policies to make work better for women) and other faculty members (as potential allies both in the department and within our professional organizations)—in a critical position to enact support and change. We conclude with our boldest call—to make a cultural shift that shatters the assumption that having a family is not compatible with academic success. Combined, we seek to launch a discussion that leads directly to necessary and overdue changes in how women scholars are supported in academia

Forgone, but not forgotten: Toward a theory of forgone professional identities

Through an inductive, qualitative study, I developed a process model of how people deal with professional identities they have forgone by choice or constraint. I show that, when forgone professional identities are linked to unfulfilled values, people look for ways to enact them and retain them in the self-concept. I further identify three strategies that people use to enact foregone professional identities: (1) real enactment (i.e., enacting the forgone identity through real activities and social interactions either at work or during leisure time), (2) imagined enactment (i.e., enacting the forgone identity through imagined activities and interactions, either in an alternate present or in the future), and (3) vicarious enactment (i.e., enacting the forgone identity by observing and imagining close others enacting it and internalizing these experiences). These findings expand our conceptualization of professional identity beyond identities enacted through activities and interactions that are part of formal work roles, and illuminate the key role of imagination and vicarious experiences in identity construction and maintenance

Free to be me? Evolving gender expression and the dynamic interplay between authenticity and the desire to be accepted at work

International audienceThis article examines how the gender expression of transgender individuals evolve over time as they transition in the context of work

Stable Anchors and Dynamic Evolution: A Paradox Theory of Career Identity Maintenance and Change

People routinely conceive of themselves in their career in both stable and dynamic ways. Individuals may draw common threads across their various career experiences and aspirations to form a stable anchor for their career identity, yet, at the same time, dynamically adapt their self-concept in the context of their career. In this paper, we call attention to the anchoring and evolving forces that people experience as a paradox for their career identity and theorize “career identifying” as an ongoing process of career identity maintenance and change. As individuals contend with career identity tensions, they make adjustments to maintain a balance of anchoring and evolving forces on their career identity or to make shifts that accumulate into career identity change. The career identifying process accounts for both career identity maintenance and change in a single theoretical model that explains how career identity can change over time while being stable enough to make coherent career choices

Profane Pregnant Bodies Versus Sacred Organizational Systems: Exploring Pregnancy Discrimination at Work (R2)

AbstractThis paper explores how pregnancy discrimination at work is perceived by both employers and pregnant employees. Using a public, qualitative dataset collected by the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission that offers perspectives from both employers and pregnant employees, we explore the unfair and unethical treatment of pregnant employees at work. Our findings show how pregnant workers are expected to conform with workplace systems that are treated as sacred. We suggest that employer valorization of the mythical figure of ‘ideal worker’ disadvantages pregnant workers. We observe how, even if this contravenes maternity protection laws, some employers self-justify discrimination against pregnant employees who they perceive to have transgressed ‘appropriate’ workplace behaviors as ethical and reasonable. To illuminate and conceptualize the notion of transgression, our analysis has led us to the ideas of philosopher Georges Bataille, specifically his reflections on how individuals who ‘transgress’ social norms are treated as taboo, as well as his metaphorical descriptions of people and practices as either sacred or profane. We theorize that pregnant workers who are treated as profane should be reclassified as sacred, opening up this idea for debate so as to disrupt long-standing patterns of discrimination.</jats:p

A REVIEW OF FATHERHOOD AND EMPLOYMENT: INTRODUCING NEW PERSPECTIVES FOR MANAGEMENT RESEARCH

Abstract: In this review, we synthesise the growing body of interdisciplinary research on fatherhood and employment for the purpose of guiding future management studies research on the topic. We argue that shifts in research approaches and assumptions are required to fully understand the situation of contemporary employed fathers. Our review draws attention to four distinct but related lenses: work, family, and fatherhood; masculine hegemony and fatherhood; involved fathering; and diversity and fatherhood. Extant research on fatherhood and employment reflects often static notions about the ‘nuclear family,’ with expectations about paternal work orientation failing to reflect contemporary paternal experience. We introduce the sociological concept of ‘family practices’ as a means of shifting from traditional (wherein fathers are positioned as breadwinners and mothers as child-carers within heterosexual couples) to more fluid family forms that characterise 21st century ways of ‘doing fatherhood.’ Implications and avenues for future management studies research are discussed