Summary
Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s "Men and Women of the Corporation" argues that an individual's career trajectory and self-perception within a corporate environment are directly shaped by their position within the distribution of power and powerlessness. This analysis extends to all corporate roles, including managers, professionals, executives, secretaries, and even the wives of managers, illustrating how structural power dynamics affect everyone. The book examines these dynamics and, in its later edition, analyzes changes in corporate attitudes and practices related to these power structures during the 1990s.
Kanter explores how corporate power structures influence the lives and self-images of individuals at various levels. The book, a landmark in understanding corporate power and its impact on women, provides insights into the mechanisms by which organizational hierarchies dictate opportunities and internal experiences for different groups. It addresses how women seeking advancement are affected by these established systems.
Key concepts
- Distribution of power and powerlessness — The book's central thesis that an individual's corporate experience is determined by their placement within organizational hierarchies of influence.
- Corporate power structure — The system of formal and informal authority and influence within a company that shapes the careers and self-images of its members.
- Attitudes and practices within the corporate power structure — The prevailing norms, behaviors, and beliefs that characterize how power operates and is maintained within organizations.
From the book
Description: "In this landmark work on corporate power, especially as it relates to women, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the distinguished Harvard management thinker and consultant, shows how the careers and self-images of the managers, professionals, and executives, and also those of the secretaries, wives of managers, and women looking for a way up, are determined by the distribution of power and powerlessness within the corporation. This new edition of her award-winning book has a major new afterward in which the author reviews and analyzes how attitudes and practices within the corporate power structure have changed in the 1990s"--Unedited summary from book cover.
Description: In this landmark work on corporate power, especially as it relates to women, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the distinguished Harvard management thinker and consultant, shows how the careers and self-images of the managers, professionals, and executives, and also those of the secretaries, wives of managers, and women looking for a way up, are determined by the distribution of power and powerlessness within the corporation. This new edition of her award-winning book has a major new afterward in which the author reviews and analyzes how attitudes and practices within the corporate power structure have changed in the 1990s.
Snippet: In this landmark work on corporate power, especially as it relates to women, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the distinguished Harvard management thinker and consultant, shows how the careers and self-images of the managers, professionals, and ...