ABSTRACT
Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a figure who looms large in organization studies. Since her first major projects in the 1970s, Kanter’s ideas on leadership, change and power generated important shifts in thinking within the field at the time of their writing, and – perhaps most importantly – propagated many developments of management and organization research. In Men and Women of the Corporation, Kanter describes the dynamics of power in a multinational organization that she names “Indsco”–chosen not only for its size and influence in the USA but because of its claims to being “socially conscious”. Inspired by Simmel’s studies of proportions and interpersonal dynamics, Kanter draws on her empirical data to suggest that “It was rarity and scarcity, rather than femaleness per se that shaped the environment for women”. Kanter’s analysis presents a striking finding for the time: companies that were progressive in their human resource practices had a significantly higher long-term profitability and financial growth than other companies.
