Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T00:59:32.117Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Feminist Epistemology and Business Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2021

Lauren Kaufmann Open the ORCID record for Lauren Kaufmann [Opens in a new window]
Lauren Kaufmann*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Neoclassical economics has become the predominant school of economic thought, influencing scholarship on management, organizations, and business ethics. However, many feminist economists challenge the individualist and positivist foundations of neoclassical economic epistemology, arguing instead that purportedly gender-neutral and value-free methods routinely and systematically leave out and undervalue women. Extending this proposition, this article introduces the epistemic foundations of feminist economics and illustrates how they can produce novel insights relevant for business ethics. In particular, by examining economic phenomena from the point of view of the people they affect, feminist economic epistemology is able to elucidate the ways in which power asymmetries and gender norms that constitute the social world can be reflected in business practices. I apply this methodological insight to three case studies of global supply chains to challenge the neoclassical assertion that including women in labor markets necessarily catalyzes gender equality.

Keywords

feminismepistemologygenderlaborglobalization
Type
Article
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , October 2022 , pp. 546 - 572
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Business Ethics

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Amis, J. M., Mair, J., & Munir, K. A. 2020. The organizational reproduction of inequality. Academy of Management Annals, 14(1): 195–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anker, R. 1997. Theories of occupational segregation by sex: An overview. International Labour Review, 136(3): 315–39.Google Scholar
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1957. Intention. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bair, J. 2010. On difference and capital: Gender and the globalization of production. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 36(1): 203–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bair, J., & Gereffi, G. 2001. Local clusters in global chains: The causes and consequences of export dynamism in Torreon’s blue jeans industry. World Development, 29(11): 1885–903.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bair, J., & Werner, M. 2011. Commodity chains and the unevent geographies of global capitalism: A disarticulations perspective. Environment and Planning A, 43: 988–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barker, D. 1999. Neoclassical economics. In Peterson, J. & Lewis, M. (Eds.), The Elgar companion to feminist economics: 570–77. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Barrientos, S., & Perrons, D. 1999. Gender and the global food chain: A comparitive study of Chile and the UK. In Afshar, H. & Barrientos, S. (Eds.), Women, globalization and fragmentation in the developing world: 150–73. London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, G. 1957. The economics of discrimination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bee, A., & Vogel, I. 1997. Temporeras and household relations: Seasonal employment in Chile’s agro-export sector. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 16(1): 83–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beneria, L. 2003. Gender, development, and globalization: Economics as if all people mattered. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Berkey, B. 2021. Sweatshops, structural injustice, and the wrong of exploitation: Why multinational corporations have positive duties to the global poor. Journal of Business Ethics, 169: 43–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bordieu, P. 1990. The logic of practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borgerson, J. 2005. Preparing ethics for the future: Addressing the “global basic structure” in the ethics of international biomedical research involving human subjects. Journal of Philosophical Research, 30: 235–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borgerson, J. L. 2007. On the harmony of feminist ethics and business ethics. Business and Society Review, 112(4): 477–509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borgerson, J. L. 2010. Witnessing and organization: Existential phenomenological reflections on intersubjectivity. Philosophy Today, 54(1): 78–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chant, S. 2008. The “feminisation of poverty” and the “feminisation” of anti-poverty programmes: Room for revision? Journal of Development Studies, 44(2): 165–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clair, J. A., Humberd, B. K., Rouse, E. D., & Jones, E. B. 2019. Loosening categorical thinking: Extending the terrain of theory and research on demographic identities in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 44(3): 592–617.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Code, L. 1981. Is the sex of the knower epistemologically significant? Metaphilosophy, 12(3/4): 267–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Code, L. 2014. Feminist epistemology and the politics of knowledge: Questions of marginality. In Evans, M., Hemmings, C., Henry, M., Johnstone, H., Madhok, S., Plomien, A., & Wearing, S. (Eds.), The Sage handbook of feminist theory: 9–25. London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connell, R. 2011. Masculinity research and global society. In Chow, E. N.-L., Segal, M. T., & Tan, L. (Eds.), Analyzing gender, intersectionality, and multiple inequalities: Global, transnational and local contexts: 51–72. Bingley, UK: Emerald.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crenshaw, K. 1988. Race, reform, and retrenchment: Transformation and legitimation in antidiscrimination law. Harvard Law Review, 101(7): 1331–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crenshaw, K. 2016. Demarginalising the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of anti-discrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and anti-racist politics. In Lutz, H., Vivar, M. T. H., & Supik, L. (Eds.), Framing intersectionality: Debates on a multi-faceted concept in gender studies: 25–42. Surrey, UK: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Cunliffe, A. L. 2003. Reflexive inquiry in organizational research: Questions and possibilities. Human Relations, 56(8): 983–1003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derry, R. 1996. Toward a feminist firm: Comments on John Dobson and Judith White. Business Ethics Quarterly, 6(1): 101–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derry, R. 2012. Reclaiming marginalized stakeholders. Journal of Business Ethics, 111(2): 253–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donaldson, T. 1996. Values in tension: Ethics away from home. Harvard Business Review, 74(5): 48–62.Google Scholar
Elson, D. 1979. The value theory of labour. In Elson, D. (Ed.), Value: The representation of labour in capitalism: 115–80. London: CSE Books.Google Scholar
Elson, D. 1999. Labor markets as gendered institutions: Equality, efficiency and empowerment issues. World Development, 27(3): 611–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elson, D., & Pearson, R. 1981. “Nimble fingers make cheap workers”: An analysis of women’s employment in third world export manufacturing. Feminist Review, 7(1): 87–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eschle, C. 2004. Feminist studies of globalisation: Beyond gender, beyond economism? Global Society, 18(2): 97–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, M. S., & Orlikowski, W. J. 2011. Theorizing practice and practicing theory. Organization Science, 22(5): 1240–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, J., & Gupta, A. 2002. Spatializing states: Toward an ethnography of neoliberal governmentality. American Ethnologist, 29(4): 981–1002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Folbre, N. 1994. Who pays for the kids? Gender and the structures of constraint. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, M. 1970. The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. New York Times Magazine, September 13.Google Scholar
Frye, M. 1983. The politics of reality: Essays in feminist theory. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press.Google Scholar
George, G., Howard-Grenville, J., Joshi, A., & Tihanyi, L. 2016. Understanding and tackling societal grand challenges through management research. Academy of Management Journal, 59(6): 1880–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gereffi, G., & Lee, J. 2012. Why the world suddenly cares about global supply chains. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 48(3): 24–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghoshal, S. 2005. Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 4(1): 75–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilligan, C. 1982. In a different voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Grapard, U. 1995. Robinson Crusoe: The quintessential economic man? Feminist Economics, 1(1): 33–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grenz, S. 2005. Intersections of sex and power in research on prostitution: A female researcher interviewing male heterosexual clients. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 30(4): 2091–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grosser, K., McCarthy, L., & Kilgour, M. 2016. Introduction. In Grosser, K., McCarthy, L., & Kilgour, M. (Eds.), Gender equality and responsible business: Expanding CSR horizons: 1–14. Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf.Google Scholar
Grosser, K., Moon, J., & Nelson, J. A. 2017. Gender, business ethics, and corporate social responsibility: Assessing and refocusing a conversation. Business Ethics Quarterly, 27(4): 541–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haraway, D. 1988. Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3): 575–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartsock, N. 1983. The feminist standpoint: Developing the ground for a specifically feminist historical materialism. In Harding, S. & Hintikka, M. (Eds.), Discovering reality: Feminist perspectives on epistemology, metaphysics, methodology and philosophy of science: 283–310. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.Google Scholar
Haslanger, S. 2012. Resisting reality: Social construction and social critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heidegger, M. 1962. Being and time (Macquarrie, J. & Robinson, E., Trans.). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Heintz, J. 2008. Revisiting labour markets: Implications for macroeconomics and social protection. IDS Bulletin, 39(2): 11–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Held, V. 2006. The ethics of care: Personal, political and global. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Himmelweit, S. 2007. The prospects for caring: Economic theory and policy analysis. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 31: 581–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Himmelweit, S., Santos, C., Sevilla, A., & Sofer, C. 2013. Sharing of resources within the family and the economics of household decision making. Journal of Marriage and Family, 75(3): 625–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humberstone, I. L. 1992. Direction of fit. Mind, 101(401): 59–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ichheiser, G. 1949. Misunderstandings in human relations: A study in false social perception. American Journal of Sociology, 55(1): 1–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivan-Ungureanu, C. 2008. Impact of globalization on women. Romanian Journal of Economics, 27(2): 57–62.Google Scholar
Janssens, M., & Steyaert, C. 2019. A practice-based theory of diversity: Respecifying (in)equality in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 44(3): 518–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnstone-Louis, M. 2017. Corporate social responsibility and women’s entrepreneurship: Towards a more adequate theory of work. Business Ethics Quarterly, 27(4): 569–602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, D. 2012. Masters of the universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the birth of neoliberal politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Kabeer, N. 2012. Women’s economic empowerment and inclusive growth: Labour markets and enterprise development. International Development Research Centre. https://www.lse.ac.uk/gender/assets/documents/research/choice-constraints-and-the-gender-dynamics-of-lab/Women%27s-economic-empowerment-and-inclusive-growth.pdf.Google Scholar
Kabeer, N., & Natali, L. 2013. Gender equality and economic growth: Is there a win-win? IDS Working Papers, 2013(417): 1–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalev, A., Dobbin, F., & Kelly, E. 2006. Best practices or best guesses? Assessing the efficacy of corporate affirmative action and diversity policies. American Sociological Review, 71(4): 589–617.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karam, C. M., & Jamali, D. 2013. Gendering CSR in the Arab Middle East: An institutional perspective. Business Ethics Quarterly, 23(1): 31–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keller, E. 1985. Reflections on gender and science. Binghamton, NY: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Kilkey, M., Perrons, D., & Plomien, A. 2013. Gender, migration and domestic work: Masculinities, male labour and fathering in the UK and USA. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kossek, E. E., & Buzzanell, P. M. 2018. Women’s career equality and leadership in organizations: Creating an evidence-based positive change. Human Resource Management, 57(4): 813–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kukla, R., & Ruetsche, L. 2002. Contingent natures and virtuous knowers: Could epistemology be “gendered”? Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 32(3): 389–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamprou, E. 2017. Spatiality as care: A Heideggerian perspective on sociomaterial practices. Organization Studies, 38(12): 1733–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langton, R. 2009. Sexual solipsism: Philosophical essays on pornography and objectification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lauwo, S. 2018. Challenging masculinity in CSR disclosures: Silencing of women’s voices in Tanzania’s mining industry. Journal of Business Ethics, 149(3): 689–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leslie, L. M. 2019. Diversity initiative effectiveness: A typological theory of unintended consequences. Academy of Management Review, 44(3): 538–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewin, K. 1939. Field theory and experiment in social psychology: Concepts and methods. American Journal of Sociology, 44(6): 868–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, P. 2014. Postfeminism, femininities and organization studies: Exploring a new agenda. Organization Studies, 35(12): 1845–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longino, H. 1990. Science as social knowledge: Values and objectivity in scientific inquiry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackay, F., Kenny, M., & Chappell, L. 2010. New institutionalism through a gender lens: Towards a feminist institutionalism? International Political Science Review, 31(5): 573–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKinnon, C. 1987. Feminism unmodified. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, C. 1989. Toward a feminist theory of the state. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Marcal, K. 2017. Who cooked Adam Smith’s dinner? A story of women and economics. New York: Pegasus Books.Google Scholar
Marlow, S., & Martinez Dy, A. 2018. Annual review article: Is it time to rethink the gender agenda in entrepreneurship research? International Small Business Journal: Researching Entrepreneurship, 36(1): 3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
May, L. 1992. Sharing responsibility. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McCarthy, L. 2018. “There is no time for rest”: Gendered CSR, sustainable development and the unpaid care work governance gap. Business Ethics: A European Review, 27(4): 337–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, L., & Glozer, S. 2021. Heart, mind and body: #NoMorePage3 and the replenishment of emotional energy. Organization Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840621994501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, L., & Muthuri, J. N. 2018. Engaging fringe stakeholders in business and society research: Applying visual participatory research methods. Business and Society, 57(1): 131–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, L., Soundararajan, V., & Taylor, S. 2020. The hegemony of men in global value chains: Why it matters for labour governance. Human Relations. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726720950816.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCorkel, J. A., & Myers, K. 2003. What difference does difference make? Position and privilege in the field. Qualitative Sociology, 26(2): 199–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mies, M. 1983. Towards a methodology for feminist research. In Bowles, G. & Klein, D. (Eds.), Theories of women’s studies: 117–39. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Mohanty, C. T. 1988. Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Feminist Review, 30: 61–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mutch, A. 2018. Practice, substance, and history: Reframing institutional logics. Academy of Management Review, 43(2): 242–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, J. 1995. Feminism and economics. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9(2): 131–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, J. 1996. Feminism, objectivity and economics. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nelson, J. 1999. Economic man. In Peterson, J. & Lewis, M. (Eds.), The Elgar companion to feminist economics: 284–88. Northhampton, UK: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M. 2000. Capabilities and social justice. Journal of Human Development, 1(2): 219–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, M. 2003. Capabilities as fundamental entitlements: Sen and social justice. Feminist Economics, 9(2–3): 33–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ozkazanc-Pan, B. 2019. CSR as gendered neocoloniality in the Global South. Journal of Business Ethics, 160(4): 851–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearson, R. 2007. Beyond women workers: Gendering CSR. Third World Quarterly, 28(4): 731–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plato. 2002. Five dialogues (Grube, G. M. A., Trans.; Cooper, J. M., Rev.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Prieto-Carrón, M. 2008. Women workers, industrialization, global supply chains and corporate codes of conduct. Journal of Business Ethics, 83(1): 5–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pritchard, D. 2009. Knowledge. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Ramamurthy, P. 2003. Material consumers, fabricating subjects: Perplexity, global connectivity discourses, and transnational feminist research. Cultural Anthropology, 18(4): 524–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rankin, K. N. 2001. Governing development: Neoliberalism, microcredit, and rational economic woman. Economy and Society, 30(1): 18–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, L., & Ward, A. 1996. Naive realism in everyday life: Implications for social conflict and misunderstanding. In Reed, E. S. & Turiel, E. (Eds.), Values and knowledge: 103–35. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Rubin, G. 1975. The traffic in women: Notes on the “political economy” of sex. In Reiter, R. (Ed.), Toward an anthropology of women: 33–65. New York: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Salzinger, L. 2003. Genders in production: Making workers in Mexico’s global factories. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Sandberg, J., & Tsoukas, H. 2011. Grasping the logic of practice: Theorizing through practical rationality. Academy of Management Review, 36(2): 338–60.Google Scholar
Sen, A. 1990. Gender and co-operative conflicts. In Tinker, I. (Ed.), Persistent inequalities, women and world development: 123–49. Oxford: University of Oxford Press.Google Scholar
Shotter, J., & Katz, A. M. 1996. Articulating a practice from within the practice itself: Establishing formative dialogues by the use of a “social poetics.” Concepts and Transformation, 1: 213–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shotwell, A. 2011. Knowing otherwise: Race, gender, and implicit understanding. University Park: Penn State University Press.Google Scholar
Spence, L. J. 2016. Small business social responsibility: Expanding core CSR theory. Business and Society, 55(1): 23–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spivak, G. 1988. Can the subaltern speak? In Nelson, C. & Grossberg, L. (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture: 271–313. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Strassmann, D. 1993. Not a free market: The rhetoric of disciplinary authority in economics. In Ferber, M. & Nelson, J. (Eds.), Beyond economic man: Feminist theory and economics: 54–68. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Tharenou, P., Latimer, S., & Conroy, D. 1994. How do you make it to the top? An examination of influences on women’s and men’s managerial advancement. Academy of Management Journal, 37(4): 899–931.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomkins, L., & Simpson, P. 2015. Caring leadership: A Heideggerian perspective. Organization Studies, 36(8): 1013–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tzannatos, Z. 1999. Women and labor market changes in the global economy: Growth helps, inequalities hurt and public policy matters. World Development, 27(3): 551–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waring, M. 1988. If women counted: A new feminist economics. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Wasserman, V., & Frenkel, M. 2015. Spatial work in between glass ceilings and glass walls: Gender–class intersectionality and organizational aesthetics. Organization Studies, 36(11): 1485–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werner, M. 2012. Beyond upgrading: Gendered labor and the restructuring of firms in the Dominican Republic. Economic Geography, 88(4): 403–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wicks, A. C., & Freeman, R. E. 1998. Organization studies and the new pragmatism: Positivism, anti-positivism, and the search for ethics. Organization Science, 9(2): 123–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, I. M. 1988. Five faces of oppression. Philosophical Forum, 19(4): 270–91.Google Scholar
Zwolinski, M. 2007. Sweatshops, choice, and exploitation. Business Ethics Quarterly, 17(4): 689–727.CrossRefGoogle Scholar