Managing motherhood – Female experts’ experiences of navigating pregnancy at work
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
Authors
Date
2024
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
mib
Language
en
Pages
96 + 14
Series
Abstract
While research around work identities and embodied experiences at the workplace has been increasing over the years, there are still many gaps in the existing knowledge that need further inquiry. A deeper understanding of female work identities and their construction during pregnancy, as well as the corporeal experience of the maternal body at the organizational context will allow for the development of more inclusive people management practices. This thesis contributes to the scholarly discussion around female work identity and its embodiment in organizations. In addition, this study builds on current discourse on maternity and the maternal body in organizations by investigating how female professionals in expert positions in Finland experience pregnancy. Furthermore, this thesis examines how women navigate their prenatal time at the workplace using various embodied coping strategies. First, the relevant literature regarding female work identities and their construction will be summarized, followed by an introduction of embodied identity work in organizations. Finally, the topic of pregnancy and the maternal body at the workplace will be discussed. This thesis was conducted as a qualitative study with the empirical data collected using semi-structured interviews with ten female professionals, who have navigated pregnancy at work in Finland. Additionally, the study uses an interpretivist multiple case study design, and the empirical data is analyzed using the Gioia approach based on grounded theory. This study proposes a grounded process model that illustrates how perceived organizational attitudes steer expecting employees’ feelings towards their pregnancy, and what kind of embodied coping strategies the pregnant employees use to manage their pregnancy experience in the work context. The key findings suggest that women's maternal experience at work is impacted by a multitude of organizational, individual, and social factors, as well as by the expectant employees’ individual expert roles and the organizational contexts in which they operate. The findings also indicate that women's prenatal experience at the workplace is driven by a number of internal and external presumptions and biases towards maternity in the organizational context, which lead them to use various embodied coping strategies to manage their pregnancy experience at work.Description
Thesis advisor
Katila, SaijaKeywords
pregnancy, identity theory, corporeality, body work, maternity in organizations