Gender, Work & Organization

⏳ 7 DAYS TO GO! The Countdown to #GWO2026 is ON! ⏳ In just one week, we’ll be gathering at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, for the 16th Annual Gender, Work & Organization Conference, and we couldn't be more excited! A global gathering of minds. A meeting of voices from the margins. A conversation that matters. We're bringing together scholars, practitioners, artists, and critical thinkers from across the world. This year’s theme, "Voices at the Margins: Rethinking Gender, Labor, and Belonging," challenges us to ask some big questions: 💭 Whose knowledge counts? 💭 Whose experiences shape theory? 💭 What new possibilities emerge when we start listening from the margins rather than speaking for them? Over three days, participants across continents, disciplines, and communities will come together to explore questions of gender, labour, care, migration, precarity, belonging, decoloniality, and social transformation. Expect bold conversations, fresh perspectives, challenging ideas, and perhaps a few assumptions left behind along the way. From grounded local stories to global debates, #GWO2026 promises to be a space where critical scholarship meets creativity, community, and change. 📍 Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan 🗓️ 8–10 June 2026 See you in Astana! Shumaila Yousafzai Zumrad Kataeva, PhD Natalia Vershinina Bronwyn P Wood Bettina Lynda Bastian Tabitha Sindani, PhD #VoicesAtTheMargins #GWO2026 #GenderWorkOrganization #FeministScholarship #DecolonialThought #Intersectionality #GenderAndWork #AcademicConference #Astana #Kazakhstan

🔊Editors-in-Chief Pick of the Week! Ending the month of May #EICWeeklydigest with a spotlight on “Work–Life Fragility, Dilemmas, and ‘Gambling’ at the Intersection of Fertility Treatment and Employment” by Dr Krystal Wilkinson , Clare Mumford and @Michael Carroll. This article sheds light on the complex realities of navigating fertility treatment alongside paid work where two competing “greedy institutions” collide. Moving beyond traditional work-life balance approaches, the authors introduce “work-life fragility” concept to capture the unstable and precarious rhythms individuals must manage. Drawing on biographical narrative accounts, the research reveals how workers juggle emotional, embodied, and professional demands, often with limited support. These “fragile synchronicities” expose deeper structural gaps in how organizations respond to fertility-related challenges. A timely call to rethink workplace policies, shifting responsibility from individuals to more supportive and inclusive systems. 🔗 Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/e7MaqtQd Bettina Lynda Bastian Natalia Vershinina Bronwyn P Wood Tabitha Sindani, PhD #WorkLifeBalance #FertilityAtWork #InclusiveWorkplaces #GenderAndWork #EmployeeWellbeing

✨✨✨WHAT A YEAR for #GWO!✨✨✨ A huge thank you note from me your #SocialMediaEditor! From just over 2K followers to more than 4K in just one year since I took up the #SMErole, that’s a phenomenal +2,131 net growth and an incredible 103.6% growth rate! Your followership is proof that critical conversations, inclusive scholarship, and amplifying voices from the margins truly matter, and that this community is growing, engaging, and thriving globally.! On behalf of the #EditorialCaucus, thank you to everyone who has followed, engaged, shared, commented, contributed, and supported the journey this year. Every conference highlight, editorial spotlight, community story and conversations helped build this momentum. The #GWOcommunity is not just growing it’s flourishing! And we're only getting started! Natalia Vershinina Bettina Lynda Bastian Bronwyn P Wood Kinga R. Wiley #SocialMediaGrowth #AcademicCommunity #GenderWorkOrganization #ScholarlyImpact #EditorialCaucus #InclusiveScholarship

🎉NEW SECTION EDITOR ANNOUNCEMENT!!! We’re excited to introduce Dr Amal Abdellatif as Section Editor for Transcending Boundaries. Dr Amal Abdellatif is Assistant Professor in Organisation Studies and a critical management scholar at Northumbria’s Newcastle Business School. Amal's research centres around intersectional inequalities, otherness and marginalisation, women and governance, epistemic and racial diversity, and alternative forms of feminist organising. She is passionate about equity, inclusive approaches in higher education and reimagining alternative ways of knowing, thinking and writing. In exploring these themes, Amal draws on diverse theoretical constructs, adopts unconventional qualitative methodologies, and incorporates the use of poetic, visual and art-based approaches. She is the Early career EDI Forum Lead at @Northumbria University Business school, holds board roles in different academic and non-academic not-for-profit organisations and is the Social Media Editor at Management Learning Journal. Before joining academia, Amal worked in the pharmaceutical industry for nine years, serving in roles including managing and executive director, across different countries spanning Egypt, Kuwait, Dubai, before relocating to the UK. Please join us in giving her a very warm welcome to #GWOSectionEditors Bronwyn P Wood Natalia Vershinina Bettina Lynda Bastian Tabitha Sindani, PhD #GenderWorkOrganization #SectionEditors

🔊 Editors-in-Chief Pick of the Week! On this week's #EICWeeklyDigest is “Technofeminism at Work: Artificial Intelligence-Mediated Negotiations and the Reproduction of Gendered Communication Norms” by Sue Moon and @Jing Betty Feng. The study explores how Artificial Intelligence is reshaping workplace negotiations and with it, gender dynamics. While AI-mediated interactions appear to level the playing field, the findings reveal a deeper paradox: masculine-coded communication styles still yield better outcomes, even within seemingly neutral systems. Participants also anthropomorphised the AI projecting gender identitites that shaped satisfaction and outcomes. Introducing the concept of recursive human-AI gender learning, the authors show how humans and algorithms continuously shape and reinforce gendered norms. A reminder that AI doesn’t just transform work it can also reproduce the inequalities we aim to disrupt. 🔗 Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/eGvY2FBz #AIandWork #FemisistAIScholarship #Technofeminism #GenderAndWork #FutureOfWork #DigitalInequality Bettina Lynda Bastian Natalia Vershinina Bronwyn P Wood Tabitha Sindani, PhD

🔊 🔊 🔊 CALL FOR SPECIAL ISSUE PAPERS! We invite submissions for this Special Issue "Neurodiversity, Gender, and Work" which seeks to advance understanding of the intersection between neurodiversity and gender in workplace contexts. Guest Edited by Sophie Hennekam, Bettina Lynda Bastian and Bruno Felix This Special Issue aims to move beyond deficit-based narratives by exploring both the challenges and strengths of neurodivergent individuals, while examining how gendered norms, identities, and structures shape their work experiences. The guest editorial team welcome theoretical, empirical, and practice-based research that critically engages with neurodiversity across the gender spectrum and contributes to building more inclusive and supportive workplaces 🔗 See full details: https://lnkd.in/evrNps97 Bronwyn P Wood Natalia Vershinina Bettina Lynda Bastian Tabitha Sindani, PhD #CallForPapers #GWO #Neurodiversity #GenderAndWork #Inclusion #DiversityResearch

🔊 Editors-in-Chief Pick of the Week! We’re starting May strong with this week’s #EICWeeklyDigest, spotlighting: “Hung Out to Dry: Gender Washing in Organizations” by Rebecca Burke PhD, MBA, MRes, FHEA and Miguel Imas. This compelling paper advances feminist organisational theory by unpacking gender washing - where organisations publicly promote gender equity while quietly sustaining discriminatory practices. Drawing on in-depth interviews with women across UK industries, the study reveals how gender washing operates through HR policies, organisational discourse, and legal mechanisms—often silencing, isolating, and gaslighting those who challenge inequality. Key contributions: •Conceptualising gender washing as the gap between rhetoric and lived experience • Exposing gaslighting and personal attacks as systemic organisational practices • Uncovering the use of NDAs and SLAPPs as tools to silence women By foregrounding the emotional and psychological toll of gender washing practices, this paper offers a powerful lens to critically examine how inequality is maintained under the guise of progress. An essential read for anyone interested in gender, organisations, HR practices, and feminist critique. 🔗 Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/evK_DzvS #GWO #GenderWorkOrganization #EICWeeklyDigest #FeministResearch #GenderEquality #OrganizationalStudies Bronwyn P Wood Natalia Vershinina Bettina Lynda Bastian Tabitha Sindani, PhD

🎉NEW ASSOCIATE EDITOR ANNOUNCEMENT!!! It’s a Terrific Tuesday with big news at #GWO! We’re so thrilled to welcome a fantastic new member, Zumrad Kataeva, PhD to our Associate Editorial Board! Zumrad Kataeva, PhD is an Associate Professor of Higher Education at the Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education. Her research sits at the intersection of social justice and equity, with a strong focus on gender equality, the academic profession, and higher education policy. Her work spans gender equality in higher education, qualitative methodologies, and gender in STEM with a particular commitment to universities across Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. She brings a distinctive voice to feminist and gender scholarship from Central Asia and the wider post-Soviet context. Through her scholarship, she amplifies voices from underrepresented contexts and advances the decolonisation of knowledge production in higher education research. Her work is published in leading journals including Gender, Work & Organization, International Journal of Educational Development, Gender and Education in Central Asia, Women's Studies International Forum. Her recent co-edited volume Gender and Education in Central Asia and forthcoming book Higher Education in Central Asia (Palgrave Macmillan) further reflect this commitment. Beyond academia, Zumrad's work bridges academia and international development, having worked as a researcher and education consultant for UNICEF, UNDP, and the World Bank, and has also served as an Erasmus Higher Education Reforms Expert. We are delighted to have her join our ever-growing #GWOcommunity. Her expertise, regional insight, and commitment to inclusive scholarship will further enrich our editorial team. Please join us in giving her a very warm welcome to the #EditorialCaucus! Natalia Vershinina Bronwyn P Wood Bettina Lynda Bastian Tabitha Sindani, PhD #GenderWorkOrganization #AssociateEditors #HigherEducation #DecolonisingKnowledge

🔊 Editors-in-Chief Pick of the Week! In this #EICWeeklyDigest, we spotlight “An Exploration of the Inter-Sectional Identity of Black Female Leaders in the UK: A Shotterian Study” by Rita Klapper, Paul Upham and @Sven Kuenzel. This compelling study centres the lived experiences of Black female leaders in UK business, offering a nuanced exploration of how intersectional identities are understood, negotiated, and experienced in contexts of marginalisation. Drawing on a Shotterian, dialogical approach and advancing "withiness/withinness" thinking, the paper shifts away from treating participants as research “subjects” toward co-created meaning-making, foregrounding voice, relationality, and lived experience. The paper challenge conventional leadership narratives, particularly the limitations of “glass and concrete ceiling” metaphors, by introducing richer, more complex understandings of internal perceptions (self, identity ) and structural (individual-organisational relationships) dimensions of intersectional identity of black female leaders. An insightful read for anyone interested in intersectionality, leadership and the lived realities of marginalised leaders in contemporary organisations 🔗 Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/ePpSwegc #Intersectionality #BlackWomenLeaders #InclusiveLeadership #FeministResearch #WorkplaceEquity #EICWeeklyDigest # Bettina Lynda Bastian Natalia Vershinina Bronwyn P Wood Tabitha Sindani, PhD

🔊 Editors-in-Chief Pick of the Week! In this #EICWeeklyDigest, we spotlight the editorial “Making Africa Visible: Pathways for Intellectual Activism in Work and Organization” by Anita Bosch , Ameeta Jaga, Prof Nasima M.H. Carrim and Dr. Faith W. Ngunjiri which accompanies the “Lessons and Future Possibilities From the GWO Conference in Africa: Turning to Intellectual Activism to Advance Equality of Gender Identities in Work and Organization” Special Issue. This thought-provoking piece offers an introduction to the African context, tracing its historical and contemporary organisation of societies across the continent. Drawing on a long colonial past and far more extensive histories, this editorial outlines several relevant strands of scholarship on the continent and calls for a renewed commitment to intellectual activism. At its core, this editorial urges us to centre African scholarship, amplifying marginalised voices, and advancing more inclusive futures in work and organization research, as well as providing valuable references, starting points and courses of action. Considering how to ‘do’ contextual research, varying patterns of family structure, matriarchy and patriarchy, coloniality, race and gendered hierarchies, this is a wide-ranging and insightful introduction to the Special Issue, and to the richness and complexity of the continent more broadly. An essential and eye-opening read for anyone interested in the future of gender in general and pathways forward for our shared scholarship. 🔗 Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/eeXN6vxv #IntellectualActivism #AfricanScholarship #GenderAndWork #DecolonizingKnowledge #GlobalSouth Bronwyn P Wood Natalia Vershinina Bettina Lynda Bastian Tabitha Sindani, PhD