The unspoken side of mutual adjustment: Understanding intersubjective negotiation in small professional service firms

Abstract

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Maternity Management in SMEs: A Transdisciplinary Review and Research Agenda

“…Research on maternity leave and return to work suggests management through ad hoc mutual adjustment. Negotiations are often initiated by workers (Houston and Marks ; Wapshott and Mallett ), and access to managers may be easier in smaller firms. However, SME employers often delay regulatory discovery (Kitching ) and are reluctant to invest management time in dynamic capabilities (Jones et al .…”

“…Study of small firms in sectors as diverse as garment manufacture to professional services suggests that give, take, resistance, coercion, co‐option and resigned resentment (Ram et al . ) emerge through day‐to‐day, often silent and inter‐subjective ‘moves’ (Wapshott and Mallett ), rather than bureaucratic process, to create an informally negotiated order (Holliday ; Ram ; Ram et al . ).…”

“…(Owner‐)managers may be fearful of unfamiliar regulation and resent time demanded by ‘regulatory discovery’ (Kitching ). Equally, they may feel beholden to staff whose resources are commercially valuable and scarce (Ram , ; Wapshott and Mallett ), regardless of maternity. Even when employment relations are bleak, women exercise some agency, if only to succumb to exploitation (Ram and Edwards ).…”

“…paid maternity leave). This is the inter‐subjective nature of mutual adjustment (Wapshott and Mallett ), likely to be founded on wider social norms regarding gendered responsibility for reproductive labour. A lack of explicit conflict should, however, not be interpreted as absence of underlying tensions within gendered organizing.…”

“…Small and medium‐sized enterprise mutual adjustments are often made silently and rely on presumptions of the other party's interests (Wapshott and Mallett ) and, in maternity management, are likely to be shaped by gendered assumptions about mothering work and mothers’ capacities. The literature on maternity management in SMEs largely neglects these silent negotiations, although there is evidence of small employers’ biased expectations of mothers (Woodhams and Lupton ) and that women's assumptions about organizational resource constraints and colleagues’ interests can curtail their expectations of adjustments (Atsumi ; Whyman and Petrescu ).…”