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The HR occupation: the gendered nature of its legitimacy
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Berrington, Catherine (2022) The HR occupation: the gendered nature of its legitimacy. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3877320~S15
Abstract
This research explores perceptions of legitimacy and professionalisation within HR and the extent to which these are underpinned by gendered assumptions. In understanding legitimacy and professionalisation as gendered concepts, consideration is given as to how this impacts the HR occupation.
Through 55 semi-structured interviews with HR practitioners, this research explores how perceptions and experiences regarding legitimacy and gender have shaped understanding of the HR occupation. The thesis findings and discussion are structured around three key concepts: legitimacy, professionalisation, and gender. This research explores the pervasive legitimacy challenges within the HR occupation and the ways in which HR practitioners have largely/apparently embraced the rhetoric of HR as a commercial and strategic organisational function. HR is positioned in an uncertain space whereby professionalisation is indeed desired, but there are clear barriers to the achievement of occupational closure. The HR occupation is subject to gendering and HR practitioners are seeking to distance themselves from feminised constructions of the occupation. This research shows the way in which gender is interwoven with legitimacy and professionalisation in HR. With commerciality and strategy underpinned with notions of masculinity, legitimacy and gender in HR are seen as inextricable.
The findings of this research contribute to the relatively small stream of academic literature exploring gender in HR and how this may play into longstanding issues around legitimacy and professionalisation. This study offers a novel insight into the micro-level perceptions of gender in HR and how these shape understandings of the occupation. This research furthers our understanding as to the gendered tensions HR practitioners experience with regards to the credibility of the function, by showing how the dominant theme of commerciality in the HR occupation has the potential to valorise masculinity in HR whilst still masking the gendered underpinnings within the function.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HF Commerce H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman |
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Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Personnel management, Personnel departments -- Employees, Women employees | ||||
Official Date: | January 2022 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Warwick Business School | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Dean, Deborah ; Galetto, Manuela | ||||
Extent: | vii, 201 pages | ||||
Language: | eng |
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