• CHAIRPERSONS
• INVITED SPEAKERS
• BACKGROUND
• WORKSHOP PROGRAMME
• PRACTICALITIES
• DOWNLOAD ACCEPTED PAPERS

Iiris AALTIO, Professor
Lappeenranta University of Technology, Department of Business Administration

Elisabeth SUNDIN, Professor
Linköping University, Department of Management and Economics and
National Institute of Working Life, Norrköping

Monika KOSTERA
Professor in Organization and Management Theory
School of Management, Warsaw University
and
Professor in Management Studies
Entrepreneurship Profile, Växjö University

Anne KOVALAINEN
Professor at the Turku School of Economics and Business Administration
Turku
Finland

This workshop explores the multiple relationships between gender, management and organizations. Human resources form the social capital of a firm, based on trust as well as on the core capabilities and supporting values of the organizational members. The various aspects related to the cultural diversity of an organization call for cross-cultural knowledge and an understanding of gender and age issues as well as individual differences in the social capital of the firm.

Many international studies on managers show that females continue to form a small minority, especially in top management positions. The flow of knowledge has increased our understanding of differences between the sexes in various disciplines – like sociology, psychology, and anthropology – but our cultural knowledge about organizations and management is still scarce. To know what gender means is to understand its cultural dimensions in the explored context. While the debate which focuses on women as managers is a broad and continually expanding topic, the connection between men and management also adds to our cultural knowledge in the organizational field. The nature of the managerial jobs of women and men differs: human-resource management attracts more female managers to top organizational positions than other managerial areas. By studying organizations as sites in which gender attributes are assumed and reproduced we can make visible their gendered nature, thus enabling us to increase a sensitive understanding of the issue beyond the statistics of managerial jobs.

In all of today’s economic societies, social capital is a highly valued and also a very vulnerable form of corporate capital. When human resources are scarce, the invisible elements of human capital are often offered as a solution. Business firms compete for capable managerial candidates. It is common rhetoric that women are a resource, an invisible potential, for the organization and that female managers could even increase the profits of the firm. Apart from this rhetoric there is widespread scepticism. Are women marched into the field only if there are no other worthy alternatives? Are firms open to the cultural diversities that may emerge as a result? What can business life learn from the new qualities introduced by female managers? These questions need to be addressed through sensitive analyses and interpretations around the issues of female gender, management and the social capital of the firm.

Women and men occupy managerial positions differently, and correspondingly, they also differ as entrepreneurs. The segregation between female and male entrepreneurship resembles the division of the workforce in general. When female entrepreneurs promote change, they tend to base their innovations on social ideas. Female entrepreneurs often practise their professional expertise in training and consultancy firms, in addition to the traditional occupations in the caring, hotel and restaurant businesses. In technical fields they constitute the minority world-wide. It was not until the 1990s that women entrepreneurs began to embark on business ventures in all types of markets and industry sectors, bringing with them a huge body of knowledge and skills, primarily based on their previous organizational experience. We are witnessing a rapid increase of women-owned businesses on a global scale. Entrepreneurship is enriched as women bring in their know-how and experience into all branches of business. The study of women entrepreneurs, moreover, is no longer a sub-field but is taking its place in entrepreneurship studies. On the other hand, essentialism continues to figure in research on entrepreneurship as it does in research on management. Often “entrepreneurs” and “managers” are studied as the essential individual, without any gender attributes. The use of gendered lenses in the study of entrepreneurship adds to our perspectives to the social-capital aspects of society. How is change possible? How can cultural diversity in economic life be advanced? Entrepreneurs appear to have a special position in forming, developing and reorganizing the social capital in the business world.

Please click HERE to download the workshop programme.

LOCATION :

The workshop will take place in the new premises of EIASM (Place De Brouckère-plein 31, 1000 Brussels). These are located on the second floor of the Hotel Métropole.

The Hotel Métropole is marvelously well located right in the historical centre of Brussels, just a few steps away from the “Grand-Place”, the “Bourse” and the “Theatre de la Monnaie” and close to the central and north railway stations, that each have direct connections to Brussels International airport.

For joining instructions, please have a look on :

http://www.eiasm.be/contactus/howtoreach/index.html

or on :

http://www.eiasm.be/contactus/roadmap/index.html

In case you need a hotel reservation, here are 2 hotels suggested. You are requested to contact the hotel directly to make your booking.

* Citadines Apart'hotel (recommanded !!)
51 quai au Bois à Brûler - 1000 Brussels
Tel 32 2 221 14 11 - Fax 32 2 2211599 - stecatherine@citadines.com
http://www.citadines.com
Special rates for a studio (for 1-2 pers) : 87 EUR breakfast excluded.(12,5 EUR per pers)
Appartment (for 1-4 pers) : 117 EUR breakfast excluded (12,5 EUR per pers)
Please mention "EIASM " when making your reservation.

* Hotel Ibis (Ste Catherine)
Rue Joseph Plateau 2 - 1000 Brussels
Tel 32 2 5137620 - Fax 32 2 5142214 - www.ibishotel.com
http://www.ibishotel.com

RESOTEL can also help you to find a room at a competitive price : info@resotel.be (also valid for the Métropole Hotel !)
Here is the search system of the company RESOTEL : http://www.belgium-hospitality.com/

Cancellations made before October 9, 2004 will be reimbursed minus 20% of the total fee. No reimbursement will be possible after that date.

Payments should be made by :

• The following credit cards: Visa or Eurocard/Mastercard/Access

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