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

ABSTRACT

The 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.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-optation
• organizational institutionalism
• gender equality
• universities

Acknowledgments

I want to thank my fantastic colleagues in the GENIA research team, Katharina Kreissl, Johanna Hofbauer and Birgit Sauer, for their support and inspiration over the years; Sara De Jong and Susanne Kimm for their helpful comments; and the IFJP editors and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Angelika Striedinger is a PhD candidate at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and researcher at the University of Vienna. Her research focuses on institutional theory of organizations, gender equality and universities. In her PhD thesis, she investigates equality agents’ work in the context of a changing university landscape. She is currently part of the research project GENIA – GenderChange in Academia in which she investigates the gendered effects of New Public Management on career opportunities in academia.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [grant no. I 727-G22].