AHSANULLAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
MBA AND EMBA PROGRAM

Course Title: Industrial Relations

Seminar 1
Course Code: MBA 674
Submitted By:

Name: Shamim Mahbub

Id: 20220151035
Name: Sadia Islam Sumaiya
Id: 20210251045
Name: Sumaiya Sultana Suchi
Id: 202210251021
Name: Mim Rahman
Id: 20220251010
Name: Parves Alam
Id: 20210251036
Question 1: What is an intersectional analysis and what mechanisms may be included?

Answer:

An intersectional approach may be a way forward to achieve this in the field of inequalities.
Thus, we would caution against ownership of the intersectional concept by poststructuralist
thinking and argue that a richer analysis takes account of the interrelationship of agency and
structure, giving insight into the reproduction of inequalities, as well as the less frequent changes
in their patterning.

Intersectionality is an integrated approach that addresses forms of multiple discrimination on the

basis of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance as they intersect with
gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, migrant, socio-economic or other status. Intersectional
discrimination is a form of racism and racial discrimination which is not the sum of race PLUS
another form of discrimination to be dealt with separately but is a distinct and particular
experience of discrimination unified in one person or group.

(United Nations 2001)

These Mechanism of Intersectional Analysis may be included are given below:

Reproduction:
 Informal recruitment and promotion practices.
 Subversion of formal systems.
 Managerial control strategies and ideologies.
 Patriarchal and racialized control strategies.
 Managerial division.
 Organization norms and cultures.

Rationalization:
 Blaming the victim.
 Blaming society/history.
 Benefiting the victim.
 Controlling production.
Resistance:
 External candidates.
 Internal candidates.
 Trade unions.
 Human Resource Management.
 Equality and diversity professionals.

Collinson et al. conclude that the persistence of the contradictory vicious circles of job
segregation is therefore based, in particular, on the partial truths embedded in gender and
managerial ideology and the preoccupation with gender and hierarchical identity which they
reflect and reinforce. To explain the way in which job segregation is routinely reproduced,
rationalized and resisted in the recruitment process, they were concerned to develop the analysis
of power inequalities in the labor market, by focusing on human agency and the subjective pre
occupation with the security of self (Collinson, Knights and Collinson 1990).

Thus, their study shows how it may be in the self-interest of the selectors to discriminate. For
those who witness discriminatory behavior, and whose moral and professional senses (e.g.
human resource managers) are alerted to the unacceptability of this behavior, it may be in their
self-interest to remain silent or to collude in discriminatory rationalizations. Indeed, it may be
against their career interests to challenge ideological rationalizations that are embedded in the
dominant structures of power. As Young (1990:206) argues ‘everyday judgment of and
interaction with women, people of color, gay men and lesbians, disabled people and old people is
often influenced by unconscious aversions and devaluations.’ She goes on to argue that
evaluators often carry unconscious biases and prejudices against specially marked groups. These
are all played out in the vicious circles of segregation.

Source: Adapted from Collinson, Knights and Collinson (1990: 194).

Question 2: Discuss and exemplify how we may use the concepts regulative, normative and
culture/cognitive institutional pillars to shed further light on how gender equality (inequality) is
shaped in the digital age?

Answer:

Scott gives a broad definition of the concept of institutions: "Institutions are comprised of
regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive elements that, together with associated activities
and resources, provide stability and meaning to social life. Thus, institutions are
multidimensional social structures made up of symbolic elements, social activities and material
resources. They are relatively resistant to change and have a kind of solidity which enables them
to maintain themselves and persist through time. Scott characterizes the currents in institutional
research in three main pillars:
Regulative pillar: institutions constrain and regulate the behavior of actors through rules.
Scholars more specifically associated with the regulatory pillar are distinguished by the
prominence they give to explicit regulatory processes: rule-setting, monitoring, and sanctioning
activities. In this conception, regulatory procedures involve the capacity to establish rules,
inspect others’ conformity to them, and, as necessary, manipulate sanctions, rewards or
punishments in an attempt to influence future behavior.
Coercive mechanisms: Agreements with the trade unions, employment legislation,
governmental directives etc. Organizations providing HR with conditions for legitimate actions–
for instance:
 Labor market regulations
 Industrial relations systems
 Production system and work organization
 Social stratification and living standards
 Welfare system
 Household, family and gender systems.
Maintaining regulations on the institutional field

 Nation States (Welfare State)

 Associations (neo-liberal)
 Private-public partnerships
Normative pillar: Institutions produce norms and values which help define the goals to attain
and describe how to do so. Emphasis here is placed on normative rules that introduce a
prescriptive, evaluative and obligatory dimension into social life.
 Prescriptions (Values, Expectations, Standards), professional bodies and employers’
associations, business schools, unions, consultancies, lobby groups etc.
 Norms at play: codes of conduct, Dress code, education, professional ethics, (inter)national
standards, agreements etc.
Agents maintaining norms on the institutional field

 Social Movements
 Professions
 Corporations
 Unions
 Universities
Cultural-Cognitive pillar: Institutions are cultural-cognitive structures which promote the
sharing of meaning and the internalization of behavior. The author stresses the centrality of
cultural cognitive elements of institutions.
Attention to the cultural-cognitive dimension of institutions is the major distinguishing feature
of neo-institutionalism within sociology and organizational studies.
Providing HR with conditions for legitimate actions – for instance: Cross-cultural
communication and diversity/Best fit vs. Top practice.
International HRM will have to consider difficulties to achieve/manage:

 Unitary and unique organizational culture

 Meeting points of fields of culture
 Local subcultures
 Ambiguous cultural configuration

These 3 pillars require legitimacy. Legitimacy is a generalized perception or assumption that the
actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system
of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions.” Legitimacy is a generalized rather than an event
specific evaluation and is “possessed objectively, yet created subjectively”.
Question 4 : Discuss the role of intersectional analysis and the interplay between different
intersections of disadvantage.

Intersectionality is an integrated approach that addresses forms of multiple discrimination on the

basis of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance as they intersect with
gender,age, sexual orientation, disability, migrant, socio-economic or other status. Intersectional
discrimination is a form of racism and racial discrimination which is not the sum of race PLUS
another form of discrimination to be dealt with separately but is a distinct and par-ticular
experience of discrimination unified in one person or group. (United Nations 2001)
Intersectional analysis is crucial for understanding the complex interplay between various
dimensions of disadvantage that individuals may experience. It goes beyond single-axis
frameworks (such as gender, race, or class) to explore how these intersect and shape unique
experiences. For example, an individual may face discrimination not only based on their gender
but also due to their race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or other factors. These
intersecting identities create unique challenges that cannot be fully understood by examining
each factor in isolation. The interplay between different intersections of disadvantage highlights
how systemic structures and societal norms can compound and reinforce inequalities. Addressing
these issues requires recognizing and dismantling interconnected systems of oppression,
fostering inclusivity, and promoting policies that consider the diverse experiences of individuals.
In summary, intersectional analysis provides a more comprehensive understanding of the
complexities of disadvantage by examining how multiple factors intersect and influence one
another in shaping individuals' experiences
Question 3: Discuss and exemplify how we may draw on institutional carriers (symbolic,
relational, activities and artifacts) to understand conditions shaping gender equality and/or
multiple disadvantages in the digital age.
Answer:
Institutions, whether regulative, normative, or cultural-cognitive elements are stressed, are
conveyed by various types of vehicles or “carriers” (Jepperson 1991: 150). I identify four types:
symbolic systems, relational systems, activities, and artifacts.5 These distinctions are largely
orthogonal
to the three pillars, permitting us to cross-classify them (Regulative Normative Cultural-
cognitive)
Symbolic Carriers:
The emergence of language as a human capacity greatly facilitated the transmission of symbols
over time and place. the power and mobility of words advanced immeasurably with the creation
of a theoretic culture involving written language and its externalization in various media ranging
from books to digital information. In his admirable survey of media and empire, economic
historian Harold Innis (1972; 1995) described differences between reliance on an oral tradition
versus all forms of writing.
Introduction of the alphabet meant a concern with sound rather than with sight or with the ear
rather than the eye. Empires had been built up on communication based on sight in contrast with
[the more geographically restricted] Greek political organization which emphasized oral
discussion. (1995: p. 332)

“More persons in more parts of the world consider a wider set of possible lives than they ever did
before” (Appadurai 1996: 53). At the same time that new ideas arrive, however, they are
translated, fused, and blended with local knowledge in a process termed indigenization or
glocalization. Schemas are “transposable”: “They can be applied to a wide and not fully
predictable range of cases outside the context in which they are initially learned” (Sewell 1992:
17). Symbols are transportable, versatile, and malleable.

Relational Carriers:
Institutions can also be carried by relational systems. Such systems are carriers that rely on
patterned interactions connected to networks of social positions: role systems. Flows of
immigrants bring new ideas, modes of behavior, and relational commitments across societal
boundaries. Many robust relational systems transcend and intersect with the boundaries of
organizations, as is the case with occupational and professional connections and communities of
practice (Brown and Duguid 2000).

A more complex and consequential role of relational systems for institutional structures and
processes is suggested by Powell and colleagues (Owen-Smith and Powell 2008; Powell, Koput,
and Smith-Doerr 1996; Powell, White, Koput, and Owen-Smith 2005).

Activities as Carriers:
Early economic institutionalists such as Veblen and Commons, borrowing from the American
pragmatist tradition early in the 20th century, emphasized the importance of habit,routine, and
convention in social behavior. These scholars stressed the centrality of behavior, of social action.
Cohen (2007; 2009) suggests that a momentous shift in organization studies occurred with the
decision by Herbert Simon (1945/1997: 1) to shift primary attention from action,“getting things
done,” to decision making, “the choice that prefaces all action.”

Activities associated with the normative pillar include all the ways in which social action is
structured in institutional settings, including, most important, roles, generally, and jobs, more
specifically.

In related work, Clemens (1997: 39) borrows from social movement scholars the concept of
“repertoire” to refer to the “set of distinctive forms of action employed by or known to members
of a particular
group or society.”

Artifacts as Carriers:
Anthropologists have long recognized the importance of “material culture” or artifacts created by
human ingenuity to assist in the performance of various tasks. We adopt Suchman’s (2003: 98)
definition: “An
artifact is a discrete material object, consciously produced or transformed by human activity,
under the influence of the physical and/or cultural environment.”

Barley (1986) provides an instructive empirical study of the adoption of “identical” technologies
(CT scanners) by radiological departments in two community hospitals, examining the ways and
extent to
which the technologies were associated with somewhat divergent changes in the decision making
and power structure of the departments.

Artifacts, like other carriers, can be viewed as associated with, and affected by, each of the three
pillars. The design and construction of some artifacts and technologies is mandated by regulative
authorities often in the interests of safety. Modern societies contain a wide range of agencies—
ranging from those that attempt to ensure the reliability of atomic plants to those that set
performance and safety standards for commercial aircraft and passenger cars—which oversee
product quality.

Understanding these institutional carriers helps uncover how they perpetuate or challenge gender
inequalities and multiple disadvantages in the digital realm, paving the way for more equitable
and inclusive practices and technologies.
Question 5 : Ways in which inequality regimes are being reproduced. Gender equality
prospects and the fourth industrial revolution

The reproduction of inequality regimes can be observed through various mechanisms:

(i) Informal recruitment and promotion practices: Informal recruitment is the process of
recruiting potential new hires through personal relationships and social interactions, rather than
through more formal channels like advertising or campus events.
(ii) Subversion of formal systems: Subversion can be described as an attack on the public
morale and, "the will to resist intervention are the products of combined political and social or
class loyalties which are usually attached to national symbols. The formal systems has become
sub-versioned.
(iii) Managerial control strategies and ideologies: Managerial control strategies and ideologies
refer to the methods and beliefs that organizations employ to manage and regulate the behavior
of employees.
(iv) Patriarchal and racialized control strategies: Patriarchal and racialized control strategies
refer to approaches that involve the exercise of power and influence based on gender and racial
considerations within the workplace.
(v) Managerial divisions: Managerial divisions typically refers to the different functional areas
or departments within an organization that are responsible for managing and overseeing various
aspects of the employer-employee relationship.
(vi) Organisation norms and cultures: Organisational norms and culture refer to the shared
values, beliefs, behaviors, and unwritten rules that characterize how people within a workplace
interact with each other, make decisions, and handle various aspects of their professional lives.