How organizational research can avoid the pitfalls of a co-optation perspective: analyzing gender equality work in Austrian universities with organizational institutionalism

Angelika Striedinger

doi:10.1080/14616742.2016.1189672

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe concept of co-optation offers vocabulary to discuss how concerns and demands of feminist movements are transformed on their way to, and within, mainstream organizations and policymaking. However, applications of this concept can have problematic implications, failing to grasp the complexity of social change efforts and contributing to divisions, rather than alliances, between different groups that work and fight for gender equality. This article argues that conceptual tools from organizational institutionalism can help to avoid these pitfalls by capturing the ambivalence of organizational change initiatives, and allowing us to identify not only counterintentional effects, but also subtle and unexpected opportunities of organizational gender equality work. I illustrate my arguments with empirical examples from research on gender equality work in Austrian universities.

Highlights

When we analyze gender equality work in organizations as a translation of feminist movement concerns into the societal mainstream, an obvious question is: How are these concerns and demands transformed, and what gets lost along the way? One way of investigating the implementation of feminist movement issues into the procedures and structures of mainstream organizations is through the concept of co-optation
I introduce theoretical concepts inspired by organizational institutionalism and propose to embed analyses of co-optation in this wider theoretical perspective in order to (1) improve our understanding of the complexity of the field and (2) produce research that strengthens feminist change initiatives
I elaborate on this point by applying this lens to two examples of gender equality work in universities and contrast this understanding with theoretical concepts inspired by organizational institutionalism

Summary

Introduction

When we analyze gender equality work in organizations as a translation of feminist movement concerns into the societal mainstream, an obvious question is: How are these concerns and demands transformed, and what gets lost along the way? One way of investigating the implementation of feminist movement issues into the procedures and structures of mainstream organizations is through the concept of co-optation. These interpretations certainly help us develop a critical perspective on how feminist concepts and goals travel into organizational procedures, taking on new meanings and implications They run the risk of inversing such accounts when they replace a story of gender equality success with a story of gender equality failure, thereby overlooking the complexity of efforts aimed at changing organizations and, societies. My second point of criticism against analyses that understand gender equality work in organizations as co-opted is that they can end up promoting perspectives that are in effect harmful to feminist movements They tend to portray feminism in a passive role, and mainstream organizations or policy discourse in an active role. By thinking in terms of legacies of social movements, and sequencing or interaction between outsider and insider movements, we can avoid these problematic implications and arrive at more fruitful conceptualizations of organizational gender equality work

Conclusion

Notes on contributor