Gender-determined jobs and job-rotation - Problems and possibilities

The aim of the article is to discuss and analyse the strategy for quality i ntroduced by a Swedish daily-ware retailer and especially what role organis ational rationality, irrationality and gender plays for some aspects of thi s strategy. The strategy was motivated by the intense competition. One of its key compo nents was work rotation in the stores. Six out of 90 stores were studied. I n five of these work rotation was selective: the most female-labelled duty, cashier work, and the most male-labelled, butchering, were excluded. In th e sixth store the work rotation was total. Before analysing the results, th e national, sector and company contexts are presented. The analytical tools and concepts are drawn from different feminist organisational researchers. The main conclusions are that decisions made by top managers are necessary but not sufficient to create changes in organisations. The importance of mi ddle management is emphasised although it is obvious that power is present everywhere. These findings indicate that there is not one all-embracing dec ision behind the outcomes but rather many small decisions made by both wome n and men on all hierarchical levels. The outcome also suggests that econom ic rationalities are weaker than gender rationalities, an outcome which oug ht to influence organisational theories.