Asia Pacific Journal of Management - Call for Papers: Special Issue on "Theorizing Gender in Management Studies: An Asia Pacific-Perspective"

Guest Editors:

Prof. Yingying Zhang-Zhang, Graduate School of International Management, International University of Japan, email: yzhang@iuj.ac.jp (this opens in a new tab)

Prof. Saba Colakoglu, Scheller College of Business - Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, email: saba.colakoglu@scheller.gatech.edu (this opens in a new tab)

Prof. Matevž (Matt) Rašković, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, email: matt.raskovic@aut.ac.nz (this opens in a new tab)

Prof. Rebecca Piekkari, School of Business, Aalto University, Finland, email: rebecca.piekkari@aalto.fi (this opens in a new tab)

Consulting Editor: Prof. Li-Qun Wei, Hong Kong Baptist University, email: weiliqun@hkbu.edu.hk (this opens in a new tab)  

Scope: 

The Asia-Pacific region has garnered significant global attention due to the robust economic growth and significant social transformation exhibited by its member countries. The 2023 McKinsey report asserts that Asia is about to start a new era as the world’s ‘new majority’ in business and economic activity. This special issue aims to contribute to the evolving body of knowledge about gender in management studies in the Asia-Pacific regional context. We define gender as a complex and multifaceted concept that encompasses social, cultural, and psychological facets. As a concept, gender goes beyond the biological distinctions between male and female and includes roles, behaviors, expectations, and identities that society attributes to individuals based on their perceived sex (WHO, n.a.). 

Gender is a salient topic within the field of management studies, both in terms of research and managerial practice. Gender equality constitutes the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #5 of the United Nations with implications for fostering innovation and sustainability (Bazel-Shoham et al., 2023). In the current landscape, organizations and their stakeholders grapple with an expanding array of questions associated with gender, spurred by societal changes, particularly in areas such as representation, legitimization, and stigmatization of diverse gender identities and orientations (e.g., Campana, Duffy, & Micheli, 2022). The pursuit of sustainability in gender equality mandates an understanding of underlying explanatory mechanisms. These mechanisms encompass macro-level explanations associated with legal, political, socio-economic, cultural, and institutional factors, meso-level explanations at the organizational level and micro-level explanations at the group and individual levels. The interplay of different explanatory mechanisms weaves a complex gender narrative in the Asia-Pacific region, offering exciting opportunities for novel theorizing – a goal that this special issue aims to start detangling.

Gender diversity exerts a pervasive influence on various facets of management as well as the broader environment in which organizations operate (Post et al., 2021). For example, as outsiders in Asia-Pacific multinational corporations may have the license to deviate from local norms and tap into the talent pool of female managers which has traditionally been excluded from managerial positions on the local labor market (Siegel, Pyun, & Cheon, 2019). Despite its consistent presence, gender as a social category remains somewhat marginalized in management and organizations (Fotaki, 2023). Much of the research on gender in international management has centered on contrasting and comparing women and men, treated gender as a cultural macro variable or as a mere control variable in research design; few studies have specifically delved into the intricacies of gender dynamics in organizations and made gender the focal research object (Koveshnikov, Tienari & Piekkari, 2019). Thus, it has become increasingly clear that gender research demands more sophisticated, nuanced, complex, and contextualized theorizing about how it affects different facets of organizational life – such as career progression, human resource strategies, employee expectations, leadership, public relations, knowledge management and transfer, and strategic decision-making processes.

Unlike in Western societies, the critical feminism movement is largely absent in Asia (Cooke, 2023). A study of gendered management and institutions (Figueira et al., 2023) may reveal distinct and potentially unique behaviors compared to Western counterparts, unveiling insights into Asian paradoxes, like that of modernity vs. tradition. The unique characteristics within the Asia-Pacific region could provide a compelling research arena to deepen our understanding of gender in the field of management studies and how we go about studying it across a variety of organizational settings. 

Possible Research Questions: 

The special issue aims to delve deeper into gender dynamics in management studies in the context of Asia-Pacific. During this crucial juncture in addressing contemporary societal and managerial challenges, the special issue strives to enhance the theoretical and methodological progress within the field. The objective is to provide a better understanding of how gender and management intersect in the Asia-Pacific context, whether through comparative analysis especially in relation to Western management approaches, or stand-alone examination. This context offers a fertile ground for the development of new theories and concepts, a reexamination, reconceptualization, and advancement of existing theoretical frameworks as well as for methodological innovations. Below we present a list of potential questions and topics to move the field forward. However, the special issue is by no means limited to these and can well go beyond them:

• How do gendered phenomena in the Asia-Pacific affect organizations, their management, and the broader socio-economic development in the region? What are the impacts of institutions, structures, and culture on women’s economic participation and career development? What are the impacts of such factors on the economic progression and career development of other groups like LGBTQIA+?
• How do traditional leadership styles and values in the Asia-Pacific region intersect with gender norms? How does gender-based diversity within upper echelons contribute to sustainable performance of organizations and the economy? What is the interplay between gender, power dynamics, legitimacy and stigma in organizational contexts in Asia-Pacific? How do actors from different genders and gender identities legitimize themselves in organizations? What micro-to-macro social translation mechanisms help us understand the validation of gender roles and their organizational legitimacy across the Asia-Pacific?
• What progress has been made in achieving gender equality in different management roles across countries in Asia-Pacific countries? How have government policies, social movements, and corporate initiatives shaped the landscape of gender norms and dynamics in gendered organizations?
• How does technology shape the participation of genders in the workplace, leadership and entrepreneurship? What are the implications of artificial intelligence (AI), virtual and augmented reality, digitalization, and digital business model for organizational life from a gendered perspective?
• How and why do global accelerated dynamism and disruptions such as the VUCA contexts, and COVID-19 pandemics, geopolitics, and civil unrest disproportionally affect gendered social groups?
• How do we go about studying gender in the specific context of Asia-Pacific? How can we advance responsible research methods and give voice to understudied and marginalized groups with the aim of making a solid theoretical contribution? How does the researcher’s own gender identify affect the research process and outcomes? How does the choice of research methods and paradigms influence gender studies in management?
• Why do some economically developed or under-developed Asian countries experience limited progress in gender equality? What novel insights can be gained when studying immigrants, entrepreneurs, and other social groups from a gendered and intersectional perspective?

Recognizing the pivotal role of gender in management studies as a critical issue for sustainable development in Asia-Pacific, the special issue aspires to establish a dedicated platform for exploring it. Our regional scope extends across the broader Asia-Pacific, encompassing traditionally understudied regions such as Eurasia and Central Asia, in addition to East Asia, the Pacific, and Southern Asia. We extend an invitation for contributions that employ comparative perspective and diverse methodologies, embracing both traditional approaches as well as innovative methods such as experiments, ethnographic methods or machine learning techniques. Our scope encompasses studies at the micro, meso, and macro levels, covering units of analysis at the supranational, national, organizational or individual levels. We also encourage inclusivity across all gender orientations and identities.

Submission Guideline: 

A Paper Development Workshop (PDW) will be jointly organized with Women in the Academy of International Business (WAIB) at the AIB annual meeting in Seoul, South Korea on July 2nd, 2024. Special issue guest editors will join the PDW to coach the papers. Kindly submit your work-in-progress papers and abstracts for this PDW before March 1st, 2024, via https://forms.gle/ZWfUD6hq5zcU7bvz6. Include an extended abstract (maximum 5 pages, single-spaced; tables, figures, and references excluded from the page limits). Acceptance notifications will be sent out on March 15th, with the full paper submission deadline set for June 1st. Please note that submitting to AIB conference does not mean your submission to APJM special issue. 

For the final full paper submission to APJM, please format and submit manuscripts in accordance with the Journal's guidelines (this opens in a new tab) before November 15th, 2024. Authors should select this special issue, while submitting manuscripts online (this opens in a new tab). Informal inquiries are valued, and can be directed to the guest editors.

Important Deadlines:

WAIB Joint PDW abstract submission deadline: March 1st 2024 
WAIB Joint PDW full paper submission deadline: June 1st 2024 
WAIB Joint PDW during AIB conference in Seoul: July 2nd 2024 
Full papers submission (to APJM) deadline: November 15th 2024

References:

Bazel-Shoham, O., Lee, S.M., Munjal, S., and Shoham, A. (2023). Board gender diversity, feminine culture, and innovation for environmental sustainability. Journal of Product Innovation Management. DOI: 10.1111/jpim.12672

Campana, M., Duffy, K., and Micheli, M.R. (2022). ‘We’re all born naked and the rest is drag’: Specularization of core stigma in RuPaul’s Drag Race. Journal of Management Studies. 59(8): 1950-1986.

Cooke, F.L. (2023). Changing lens: Broadening the research agenda of women in management in China. Journal of Business Ethics, 184: 375-389.

Figueira, S., de Oliveira, R.T., Verreynne, M.-L., Nguyen, T., Indulska, M., and Tanveer, A. (2023). Entrepreneurs: Gender and gendered institutions’ effects in open innovation. Industrial Marketing Management. 111: 109-126.

Fotaki, M. (2023). Gender in Organizations, Oxford Bibliographies. Accessed on November 11, 2023, available at https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780199846740/obo-9780199846740-0190.xml (this opens in a new tab)

Koveshnikov, A., Tienari, J. and Piekkari, R. (2019). Gender in international business journals: A review and conceptualization of MNCs as gendered social spaces, Journal of World Business, 54: 37-53.

Post, C., Muzio, D., Sarala, R., Wei. L., and Faems, D. (2021). Theorizing diversity in management studies: New perspectives and future directions. Journal of Management Studies. 58(8): 2003-2023.

Siegel, J., Pyun, L., and Cheon, B.Y. (2019). Multinational firms, labor market discrimination, and the capture of outsider’s advantage by exploiting the social divide. Administrative Science Quarterly, 64(2): 370-397.

World Economic Forum (2023). Global Gender Gap Report 2023: Insight Report June 2023. Accessed on August 12, 2023, Available at https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2023.pdf (this opens in a new tab)

World Health Organization (n.a.). Gender and health. Accessed on November 11, 2023, available at https://www.who.int/health-topics/gender#tab=tab_1 (this opens in a new tab)