Professional Temporary Agencies, Women and Professional Discretion: Implications for Organizations and Management
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.00097 |
| Author | Steven Albert,Keith Bradley |
| Published date | 01 December 1998 |
| Date | 01 December 1998 |
Introduction
Organizations and managers are increasingly
blessed with a pool of professional employees
that is balanced between men and women
(Albert and Bradley, 1997). We assume that men
and women are equally capable. Thus, the
feminization of the professions implies that in
order to attract the best and the brightest pro-
fessionals to their organizations, managers will
need to attract both males and females in equal
proportions. The implications of failing to do so
would be an organization having a less com-
petitive labour pool. Notwithstanding this, in large
professional organizations the general gender
equivalence is not reflected. Although economic
theory suggests an ultimate gender balance as
a result of increased competition for the best
employee, the evidence seems to consistently
suggest otherwise. There appear to be significant
institutional structures which produce a labour
market wherein large organizations are populated
by a greater proportion of professional men,
while ‘atypical’ professional organizations, like
temporary agencies, are populated by a greater
proportion of women.
It is because the tacit and explicit knowledge
carried by professionals is becoming increasingly
important to the learning and innovative organ-
ization’s intellectual capital, that the organization
of such professionals has become critical to the
role of the manager. The gender skewness of
professional women working through temporary
agencies is equivalent to a haemorrhaging of
capital for organizations. In order to redirect
this flow of capital back into the organization,
investigating questions as to why there are more
women than men working through professional
temporary agencies is critical to organizations and
managers.
British Journal of Management, Vol. 9, 261–272 (1998)
Professional Temporary Agencies,
Women and Professional Discretion:
Implications for Organizations
and Management
Steven Albert and Keith Bradley
The Open University Business School, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK
There are a disproportionate number of professional women working through tempor-
ary agencies. We develop a theory wherein this gender skewness in temporary-agency
employment results from the differences in perceptions of control at work between
men and women working through large traditional organizations. Our theory suggests
that if control is perceived to be less for women than for men in large organizations,
then women will tend to populate other work arrangements, like temporary agencies,
in order to enhance their control. Propositions are tested via a unique data set com-
paring the responses of employees from both a London temporary accountancy agency
and a large London accountancy firm. Our results are consistent with a lack of control
driving professional women from large firms to temporary agencies, and neither rely
on preference differences nor familial obligations.
© 1998 British Academy of Management
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