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CALL FOR ACTION RESEARCH PROJECTS
AOM 2012 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP
Women in the Informal Economy: Listening to Voices and Improving Lives thru Caring Action Research Projects
Meeting Date and Time: Sat., August 4, 2012, 8:00 am to 12:00 pm
Location: Boston, To be determined
Primary Sponsor: GDO Division, with cosponsors BPS, CMS, HR, IM, OB, ODC, ONE, PNP, and SIM
How do we, as management scholars and practitioners, advance the power, earnings, and opportunities for women who work in the informal economy? How do we promote "decent work"
[1] for women in all geographic and economic arenas-and improve their perceived and real value?
Employment in the informal economy reaches 45 to 60 percent in non-agricultural GDP
(Chen 2000). This figure does not include women's unpaid housework and caregiving activities, or paid roles in home-based remunerative work, street vendor-ships, prostitution, or sex trafficking. Women in these roles are poor. They are not afforded basic human rights, social protections, or social dialogue. Yet, women and girls have been found to be the critical lynchpin for socioeconomic progress across the globe.
The goal for this PDW is to create an exciting conversation between academics and practitioners across disciplines and Academy divisions who want to design real-world projects to help women in the informal economy find their voice and improve their lives with action-oriented care and "decent work"
(Chant and Pedwell 2008). Our intent is to solve real organizational, community, and inter-organizational problems and generate deeper learning and publishable knowledge in the area of the socioeconomic development of women in the informal economy, care, and caring economics-and ignite the inclusion of care as a critical component of societal, economic, and organizational change.
We invite scholars and/or research practitioners who are interested in empowering women through the caring transformation of organizations, societies, and leaders (in governments, for profits and/or non-profit institutions) to submit a one page proposal for Action Research Projects by July 1, 2012 (either embryo or in-process projects) that will be organically and collaboratively created, nurtured, developed, and/or critiqued. Be part of an exciting cross-divisional, cross-disciplinary conversation as you design real-world projects that help women improve their lives. We'll utilize Action Research methods to bridge research with experience in hands-on, practice-oriented, practice-grounded roundtables.
* Please contact in order to discuss conceptual project ideas.
PDW Organizing Committee
· Kristine Kawamura, PhD, Director of Graduate Business Studies and Professor of Management, St. Georges University, Grenada (Email:kristinekawamura@yahoo.com) · Jeana Wirtenberg, PhD, Institute for Sustainable Enterprise, Silberman College of Business, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, New Jersey (Email: jwirtenb@fdu.edu )
TOPIC BACKGROUND
This workshop builds upon the experience and excitement generated from the 2010 and 2011 Academy of Management (AOM) Conferences in the area of "care" and "caring economics".
In 2010, the All Academy Theme at AOM was "Dare to Care: Passion and Compassion in Management Practice & Research." Here, great enthusiasm was generated at a well-attended event called "Creating a Caring Economics: Theory, Research, and Practice" that was delivered by keynote speaker Riane Eisler (Author of The Chalice and the Blade and The Real Wealth of Nations), panelists Peter Senge (Society of Organizational Learning and author of The Fifth Discipline: Creating Learning Organization), Jay Barney (Ohio State University), and Jane Dutton (University of Michigan), and convenor/moderator Jeana Wirtenberg (Co-Founder, Institute for Sustainable Enterprise, FDU and editor of The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook: When It All Comes Together).
In 2011, the All Academy Theme at AOM was "West Meets East: Enlightening-Balancing-Transcending." Here, Dr.'s Kawamura, Wirtenberg, and Eisler delivered two Professional Development Workshops ("Shaping Caring and Cultures in Organizations" and "Transforming Institutions and Leaders in Support of Caring Economics Principles, Policies and Practices") as well as an All-Academy Theme Symposium ("Women, Men, and Care in the New East-West Economy.")
We are committed to taking these themes to the next level at AOM 2012.
PDW OVERVIEW
This workshop is dedicated to generating collaboration among academics and practitioners and a synergy between theory and practice in bringing about a more caring world with respect to the valuation and empowerment of women in the informal economy. Care is a vital ingredient for such a change, and a much overlooked yet critically important aspect of the transformation to a more sustainable world for generations to come (Wirtenberg 2009; 2011a; 2011b).
Over the past two decades, employment in the informal sector has risen rapidly in all global regions reaching nearly 45 to 60 percent in non-agricultural GDP
(Chen 2000). The informal sector may be even larger than official statistics suggest as they do not include women's unpaid housework and caregiving activities or even their paid work. The 1995 United Nations Human Development Report estimated that the value of women's unpaid work is a whopping $11 trillion per year, and noted that "if national statistics fully reflect the 'invisible' contribution of women, it will become impossible for policymakers to ignore them in national decisions"
(Eisler 2007). However, this has not yet happened, and women and "women's issues" are still generally considered secondary, if they are considered at all. When you include the magnitude of women's invisible paid work, particularly home-based remunerative work (i.e. paid work that is typically part of global care chains or global value chains yet are invisible in statistics), both the percentages of women and the share of informal workers in the work force would dramatically increase. For example, in India and in Indonesia, nine out of ten women working outside agricultural are in the informal economy, 95% of these in Benin, Chad, and Mali and 50% in ten Latin American and four East Asian countries
(Chen 2000; UN 2000). Recognizing and counting women's invisible remunerative work challenges our understanding of the informal economy as well as measures of income, productivity, and wellbeing around the globe.
The need to focus attention on women's needs and contributions is even more evident given the fact that women are over-represented in the informal sector worldwide. The vast majority of women in the informal sector in developing countries are home-based workers and street vendors. Home-based workers are linked to the global economy through a global care chain (
a series of personal links between people across the globe based on the paid or unpaid work of caring) (Hochschild 2000) or global value chain (a global assembly line of lead firms, sub-contractors and homeworkers) (Chen 2000). Informal street vendors represent a very high proportion (73to 99%) of employment in trade and a significant share (50-90%) of trade gross domestic product (GDP), with women accounting for 50 to 90% of these, except in those countries where social norms restrict women's mobility outside the home (Chen 2000). When you include the number of women who are prostitutes by choice, or victims of sex trafficking, the total number of women in the unregulated, oftentimes ignored economy is staggering (Kristof and Wudunn 2009).
Why should we care about women who work in the informal sector? We need to care because there are overlaps between being a woman and both being poor and contributing to growth (Chen 2000)-and because all women deserve basic human rights, social protection, and a "voice" in their lives, communities, and economy. Women are also a lynchpin of the region's development strategy through the "girl effect", women-supported businesses, empowerment and especially education which helps to combat poverty, raise economic productivity, reduce infant mortality, break up sex trafficking, end hunger, raise living standards, and save lives (Kristof and Wudunn 2009). In short, progress and human potential is achieved through women. The condition of girls ripples out to their families, communities, and countries, and echoes into future generations in particular and profound ways (Levin, Lloyd et al. 2008). Indeed, a number of studies show that the status of women is a powerful predictor of a nation's quality of life and general economic success (Eisler, Loye, and Norgaard, 1995; Hausmann, Tyson, and Zahidi, 2010.
We believe that there are "good" and "bad" policies, jobs, and attitudes in the informal economy with respect to women, and that in order to move forward, we who are focused on the valuing and empowering of women and men-all humans-must collaboratively work for transformative change in human values and work, including: institutional policy and international legislation; entrepreneurship, microfinance, skills development, and market access; extension of social security and protection; organization representation; and social dialogue, responsibility and action. We need to care, and to bring care into our work, attentions, and conversations.
"Gender" is an over-arching socio-cultural variable, seen in relationships to race, class, age, and ethnicity and it deals with both women and men, and to their status relative to each other. Gender equality relates to the stage of human social development where "the rights, responsibilities, and opportunities of individuals will not be determined by the fact of being born male or female-or in other words, a stage when both men and women realize their full potential." (Lopez-Claros and Zahidi 2005) The struggle for gender equality in the informal economy will require nothing less than a cultural, societal, political, and economic transformation – with particular challenge for women.
How do we advance the role, power, earnings, and opportunities for women who work in the informal economy? How do we promote "decent work"
[2] for women in all geographic and economic areas and sectors--and improve their perceived and real value? In this PDW, we invite members of GDO and the co-sponsoring divisions to submit working projects regarding this topic.
Sample Projects
All types of projects are welcome. We especially encourage projects that are multi-disciplinary and contain both research- and practitioner-oriented perspectives. The projects should focus on the critical importance of caring practices, policies, and programs that develop the health, wealth, wellbeing, and value of women in informal economies. We encourage projects to address a broad range of "people" that both affect, and are affected by the unequal status, education, and value of women in many parts of the world, including: children, the elderly, men, families, communities, and societies.
Sample questions for exploration via action-research:
Gender and Diversity:
· How do we promote social protection and security for women in the informal economy?
· What kind of gender and employment legislation will empower women in formal and informal economies?
· How do we improve the quality of women's work, as well as their associated income and wealth levels?
· How can we understand and improve reproductive rights and maternity mortality, and bring attention to their long range socioeconomic benefits?
· What are the gendered dimensions of global care chains and global commodity chains, and how can we improve them?
· What skills and training are needed to move women and girls from work in the informal economy to the formal economy?
· What is the linkage between environmental and human sustainability with regards to women's work, empowerment, and voice?
· How do we create 'decent work' for women across the globe?
· How can we utilize socioeconomic and policy changes to reduce prostitution and sex trafficking across nations and within regions?
· How do we create the mindset changes needed to empower and value women across the globe, within different regions and communities, and inside families?
· How can nonprofits, non-governmental agencies, governments, and corporations within the formal economy address the socioeconomic and human rights needs of women in the informal economy?
· How does gender affect the hierarchy of care needed for women and men, boys and girls, to survive, thrive, and realize their full potential?
Economics and Work
· How can the theory, principles, and practices of care and caring economics fuel change for women in the informal economy?
· What type of organizations can support women to develop 'decent work'?
· What kind of skills and training are needed for women in their respective regions and communities to develop 'decent work' in informal economies?
· What are the critical employment and poverty issues oppress women in the informal economy and how can they change?
- What caring practices, programs and policies will empower as well as develop the well-being of women and children through Caring Economics?
- What is 'decent work' and how may it be developed for women in different regions and nations?
Management and Leadership
· What practices and competencies of managers and leaders are needed for women to improve their lives, launch or run entrepreneurial ventures, or create 'decent work' opportunities?
· How might managers and leaders of organizations in the formal economy support and bring value to women in the informal economy?
· How do we develop the leadership and management capability of women in the informal economy?
Business, Organizations, Strategy, and Policy
· How can entrepreneurism and micro-finance create 'decent work' opportunities for women in the informal economy?
· What skills and training is needed to promote 'decent' work for women in the informal economy?
· What success stories and case studies provide insight into factors that bring health, wealth, and value to women in the informal economy?
· How do the global care chain and global commodity/value chain empower or disempower women, and how may they offer an opportunity for improving the lives and value of women in informal economies?
· What are the gendered dimensions of the global care chain and the global commodity/value chain?
Societies, Communities, and Families
· How can we understand and change the gendered dimensions of social protection and "voice" for women in the informal economy?
- What institutional assumptions, mindsets, players or entrenched systems either block, or resist, a move to empower women through care and opportunities for 'decent work'?
· How may we create interaction between stakeholders (including governments and multi-laterals, communities, organizations, and NGOs) to encourage new methods of co-creating and valuing women in the informal economy?
· How can we reduce migration and trafficking of women in the illegal informal economy?
· How can we promote and foster the 'girl effect' in specific nations and regions?
· How can we empower women and men, girls and boys, so that they can live healthy, wealthy, and valued lives?
Bibliography
Wirtenberg, J., Russell, W.G., and D. Lipsky (2008). The Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook: When It All Comes Together. Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf Publishing and New York: AMACOM.
Wirtenberg, J. (2011a). Unleashing Talent in Servce of a Sustainable Future, In The Talent Management Handbbok, Chapter 37: 366-374. New York, McGraw Hill.
Wirtenberg, J. (2011b). Sustainable Enteprise for the Twenty-First Century. In The Business of Sustainability: Trends, Practices and Stories of Success. Chapter 4, Vol. 1:.67-88, Santa Barbara, Ca., Praeger.
[1] "Decent work" is understood to be constituted by four key pillars: employment opportunities, rights, social protection, and voice. Chant, S. and C. Pedwell (2008) Women, gender and the informal economy: An assessment of ILO research and suggested ways forward.
[2] "Decent work" is understood to be constituted by four key pillars: employment opportunities, rights, social protection, and voice. Ibid.