Joan, the author of this essay, concentrated on how to understand race, class, and gender as interconnected systems. She has focused on the barriers to achieving representation in workplace organizations. In light of this, the purpose of this piece will be to evaluate, concisely and critically, why the concept of inequality regimes is important in scrutinizing institutional change programs in order to determine the rationale behind the success of some programs while others fail, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each aspect involved.
The Sources of Discrimination
The author explored the sources of discrimination, focusing on gender, ethnicity, and class. Joan analyzed the United States institutions from a historical perspective, tracking a few years back. From the analysis, men, and women of color were restricted to jobs of the lowest level. Also, they were rejected by the high ranked institutions owned by the whites. On the other hand, the author observed that white men monopolized the United States armed forces. The case was the same in higher learning institutions such as Yale and Harvard. As a result, organizations found it important to come up with a unifying structure for recruiting and hiring staff in a bid to provide people with a good understanding of the importance of an inclusive system, such as ensuring equal opportunities regardless of race. Accordingly, discrimination among personnel and from the top managerial staff will reduce.
Institutional Activities Leading to Inequality
Secondly, the writer examined institutional activities leading to inequality. He achieved his goal by analyzing the organization of jobs according to their requirement and class hierarchies from which he established that jobs were formulated according to the wish of the white man. However, the requirements were flexible to the top managers who were mostly men. Thus, it is critical for today's entrepreneurs to classify jobs strictly as per the level of expertise required. Doing so will help institutions achieve their objectives within a short time since both men and women will get a chance to work in areas they suit well, hence, output the expected standard.
Inequality Awareness
Joan goes further to perform an examination of inequality awareness. The author approaches this by studying the Swedish banks, where she established that bank employees were warned against disclosing their salaries to colleagues (Joan, 2006). The majority of them adhered to this rule. Additionally, some of them opted to discuss their sexuality, rather than their pay rates. She observes that employees in the predominant class tend not to see discrimination within their group, but have a perception it exists in the other classes. From this, it becomes clear that awareness allows management to take necessary actions for the underprivileged class in the organization in terms of their social welfare and wage demands. However, the inadequacy of awareness promotes discrimination among the different classes of employees. In return, it affects their performance and financial capabilities negatively. Therefore, it is critical for the management to promote equality for the benefit of its staff as a mode of motivation and improving production.
Economic Inequality of the Badli Workers of Bangladesh: Contested Entitlements and a 'Perpetually Temporary' Life-World
In this article, Fahreen and George discussed the economic discrimination of badli employees in Jute mills, owned by the state in post-colonial Bangladesh, and the perpetuation of this discrimination (Fahreen & George, 2015). First, they investigated the conceptualization of economic discrimination by drawing thoughts from Sen and Marx. Consequently, they found that not only income was an inequality but also involved ethical, social, political, and civil status. Significantly, the two researchers observed that an individual's potential entailed having a proper functioning lifestyle that relished societal freedom and growth. For enhancement of equality, these provisions play a critical role, thus should be studied. However, there are implications of implementing this for relatively small organizations. Empowering workers both economically and socially is an expensive exercise, given the higher operational costs involved. It is important to note that the empowerment of employees both socially and economically leads to increased output and better living standards.
The Origin and Advancement of the Badli System
Also examined is the origin and advancement of the badli system. The authors approached this area by investigating de Haan's article on the badli structure. Forthwith, they determined that the structure was first set up in the Jute factories, which were later prescribed in the legal structure of LBB206. However, the two researchers observed that due to demand fluctuation for the Jute commodities and declining interests, the owners resorted to hiring unskilled personnel. As such, this aspect is significant to study since it enables entrepreneurs to uphold the social welfare and rights of employees as the law dictates, besides motivating and enhancing better working relationships.
The Emergence of the Khalispur Industrial Township
Fahreen and George also investigated the emergence of the Khalispur Industrial Township by performing research on the Township emergence. As a result, they came up with five themes: political management mechanisms, inconsistencies, exclusion and marginalization, security and restriction of economic privileges. The process involved collecting data through observation and interviews. Afterwards, they found out that the township developed due to the setting up of mills. Also, the emergence led to the development of schools, churches, and mosques. The findings of the study also revealed that there was discrimination in wages, exclusion of workers, employment uncertainty, inadequate recognition, and suppression of social privileges. According to them, the government was actively involved in the management. However, industrialization was important for the development of social amenities and the creation of jobs. In light of this, industrialization is an area worth studying as it enables people to understand the policies and challenges associated with it, such as exclusion and inequalities of wages. Regardless of this, it is critical to embrace industrialization. Importantly, government management mechanisms help in coming up with an inclusive program with the capacity to enhance the working conditions of employees.
Managing Masculinity/Mismanaging the Corporation
The focus of this piece was on proposing an alternative in the presentation of gender perception, which can support, at the same time, protect the common wisdom. David and Maria, as the authors submitted, that an association between masculinity management and mismanagement of the corporation prompted the government to provide financial assistance to institutions that were almost going bankrupt (David & Maria, 2011). As such, it is worth noting that specific masculinity interests are major contributors to business failure.
Men in Top Managerial Positions
The two researchers began by examining how men had monopolized top managerial positions in institutions. The approach employed was an analysis of articles done by other scholars, such as Acker and Gherardi. From the results obtained, the number of women in working institutions had increased although men were still predominant in management. Significantly, they observed that institutions had the misconception that men were better managers than women. For such a misconception, it becomes imperative to establish different ways of appreciating women, such as giving them an opportunity in management to avoid the uncertainty in organizations due to over-reliance on men. Considering this proposal will increase competitiveness in the institution. Besides, the non-fulfillment of this leads to gender discrimination, since only men will be considered for top managerial positions. It is the reason women have taken an initiative to acquire skills in management to overcome the masculinity domination.
The Bank's Financial Crisis
Also, there was an interrogation of the bank's financial crisis by analyzing banks' operations in the United States and the United Kingdom. The results showed that amassing secure and re-secure arrears in the system of Collateralized debt obligations, CDOs, and their protection over Credit Default Swaps had exposed the institutions financially due to the toxic property that could not be sold. Notably, the observation was that banks had angered the common man over its high liability loan policies. Therefore, it is important for the government to study different approaches that can be used to regulate financial institutions properly. One approach can be through passing legislations that allow organizations to operate much easily with reduced financial uncertainty. If not, a financial crisis is likely to be evident, making banks raise their interest rates as a justification for their high operational costs. As a result, other sectors such as real estate that heavily depend on loans from financial institutions will collapse. Importantly, citizens will benefit from the intervention by the government since they will be able to get loans at affordable interest rates. Thus, it is important that the government steadily regulates financial institutions to avert a possible crisis in the banking sector.
The Swedish Wrongdoings
David and Maria also examined the Swedish wrongdoings. Regarding this, the approach used was based on the analysis of financial institutions in Sweden. Explicitly, the outcome revealed that men demanded huge wages and benefits due to their superiority notion. Due to this, stakeholders of the export sector suffered a major blow as they would not afford loans to sustain their businesses. The additional observation was that excessive men domination and actions in the banking sector had detrimental outcomes; banks spend more on their wages. Thus, there is a need to study this area for the stability and sustainability of the banking sector. In fact, it is essential to emphasize this aspect to prevent banks from imposing higher liabilities on loans to meet their financial obligations. However, this crisis, to some extent, was beneficial, considering the fact that it made Swedish banks gender sensitive and standardize their wages and benefits program for all employees. In addition, they reduced their expenditure substantially and began offering loans at relatively low-interest rates.
References
David, K. & Maria, T., 2011. Organization. Managing masculinity/mismanaging the corporation, 19(4), pp. 385-404.Fahreen, A. & George, C., 2015. Human Relations. Economic inequality of the badli workers of Bangladesh: Contested entitlements and a 'perpetually temporary' lifeworld, 68(7), pp. 1131-1153.
Joan, A., 2006. SAGE. Inequality Regimes Gender, Class, and Race in Organizations, 20(4), pp. 441-464.
