search query: @indexterm FLEXIBILITY / total: 403
reference: 4 / 403
| Author: | Kornberger, M. Carter, C. Ross-Smith, A. |
| Title: | Changing gender domination in a Big Four accounting firm: flexibility, performance and client service in practice |
| Journal: | Accounting, Organizations and Society
2010 : NOV, VOL. 35:8, p. 775-791 |
| Index terms: | accounting companies gender equality customers service flexibility |
| Freeterms: | performance |
| Language: | eng |
| Abstract: | Accounting firms, particularly the Big Four (that's Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), have recently made public commitments to promote greater gender equality. Yet they struggle to retain women, especially at more senior levels. Drawing on a recent empirical field study of managers in one of the Big Four accounting firms (pseudonym Sky Accounting), this study explores the effects of a flexible work initiative developed with the aim of creating "the best professional workplace for women". Herein, the flexibility program is addressed as a key organizational practice specifically designed to enhance the progression and retention of talented women at senior levels. It is shown how the initiative designed to challenge the status-quo was, in practice, translated into a mechanism actually reinforcing gender barriers. |
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