Maternity Management in SMEs: A Transdisciplinary Review and Research Agenda

• Published date: 01 April 2018
• Date: 01 April 2018
• Author: Bianca Stumbitz,Julia Rouse,Suzan Lewis
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12143

International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 20, 500–522 (2018)

DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12143

Maternity Management in SMEs:

A Transdisciplinary Review and Research

Agenda

Bianca Stumbitz, Suzan Lewis1and Julia Rouse2

Centre for Enterprise and Economic Development Research (CEEDR), Middlesex University Business School, The

Burroughs, London NW4 4BT, UK, 1Middlesex University Business School, The Burroughs, London NW4 4BT, UK,

and 2Department of Management, Manchester Metropolitan University, Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6BH, UK

Corresponding author email: B.Stumbitz@mdx.ac.uk

This paper provides a transdisciplinary critical review of the literature on maternity

management in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), embedded within the

wider literatures on maternity in the workplace.The key objectives are to describe what

is known about the relations that shape maternity management in smaller workplaces

and to identify research directions to enhance this knowledge. The review is guided by

theory of organizational gendering and small business management, conceptualizing

adaptions to maternity as a process of mutual adjustment and dynamic capability

within smaller firms’ informally negotiated order, resource endowments and wider

labour and product/service markets. A context-sensitivelens is also applied. The review

highlights the complex range of processes involved in SME maternity management and

identifies major research gaps in relation to pregnancy, maternity leave and the return

to work (family-friendly working and breastfeeding) in these contexts. This blind spot

is surprising, as SMEs employ the majority of women worldwide. A detailed agenda for

future research is outlined, building on the gaps identified by the review and founded

on renewed theoretical direction.

Introduction

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) repre-

sent 95% of the world’s businesses and generate two-

thirds of private sector employment(ILO 2015). They

are frequently the site in which women reconcile the

demands of maternity (pregnancy and infant care) and

paid work, and managing staffmater nity is a common

task in SMEs. Yet, gender research on the workplace,

and small business management studies, have created

scarce and disparate research on SME maternity

management. Most governments regulate workplace

maternity (Lewis et al. 2014), but regulators lack the

critiqued evidence needed to grasp the complex inter-

ests involved in SME maternity management. While

managing maternity is demanding for small firms,

calls to exempt them from regulations are simplistic,

as the practical and moral questions of management

remain, and because maternity is the single most

important event in the gendering of careers (Bradley

2012; Gatrell 2011a). Even where regulations exist,

maternity discrimination by small employers is rela-

tively common (Adams et al. 2016a,b). Nevertheless,

small businesses are not a universally bleak site for

maternity management, so it is important to consoli-

date understanding of how contexts and practices pro-

duce better or worse outcomes for SMEs and women

(Lewis et al. 2014; Rouse and Sappleton 2009).

We offer a transdisciplinary, theoretical review of

knowledge that disrupts disciplinary silos (Jones and

Gatrell 2014). Our aim is to describe what is known

about the relations that shape maternity manage-

ment in smaller workplaces and to propose a re-

search agenda built on renewed theoretical direction

to address clear knowledge gaps. Our paper devel-

ops Gatrell’s (2011a) review of workplace maternity

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Maternity Management in SMEs 501

by considering how masculine workplaces and orga-

nizational embodiment shape maternity management

in SMEs.

We also embed maternity management in theory

about small business management, conceptualizing

adaptions to maternity as a process of mutual ad-

justment (employer and employee ad hoc bargaining)

and dynamic capability (employer re-visioning and

reorganization of resources into renewed capabili-

ties). These processes occur in the context of a firm’s

informally negotiated order (where roles and capabil-

ities are flexible, family-like and not openlydebated),

limited resource endowments and wider labour and

product/service markets.

This reviewinfor ms keypolicy debates. The United

Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in-

clude commitments to value care work via social

protection policies, achieve equitable pay, promote

equality of opportunity and rapidly reduce maternal

and infant mortality. International policy-makers are

also concerned to increase productivity in small firms

(Croucher et al. 2013). We suggest these global pri-

orities depend on better understanding of maternity

management in SMEs.

Below, we first conceptualize SMEs and the mater-

nity management process before setting out our the-

oretical framework and review methodology. Next,

we critically reviewthe knowledge base on maternity

management in SMEs. In our discussion and con-

clusion, we build on our framework and review to

develop a research agenda.

Defining and characterizing SMEs

Small and medium-sized firms are commonly defined

as having 1–49 and 50–249 employees, respectively

(European Commission 2016; OECD 2005). They

are heterogeneous, raising questions about their co-

herence as a conceptual category (Dannreuther and

Perren 2013; Micheli and Cagno 2010). Nevertheless,

smaller workplaces are characterized by a number of

key features and, consequently, research on maternity

management in large organizations will not properly

explain practices in SMEs.

We work with a conceptualized understanding of

SMEs (see Kitching and Marlow 2013) concerned

with theory about the implications of ‘smallness’

for employment relations, resources, management

capabilities and relations to markets, rather than size

itself. We focus primarily on small firms, the most

numerous form of SME (ILO 2015). In practice,

however, the maternity management literature rarely

differentiates small from medium-sized employers.

We tabulate the size of firms reviewed, where this

is available (Appendix S2 in the Supporting Infor-

mation). We also include medium-sized businesses

because, while formality of management tends to

increase with size (Cassell et al. 2002), this process

is not linear (Marlow et al. 2010). Survival is also

not assured for growth firms achieving medium size

(Anyadike-Danes and Hart 2015).

Defining the maternity management process in two

phases

Like Gatrell (2011a), we pursue our review questions

in relation to pregnancy and the return to work.Within

pregnancy we also discuss maternity leave, a phase

not covered in Gatrell’s review. We define maternity

management as workplace responses to the repro-

ductive labour of pregnant women and new mothers.

Our separation of maternity management into phases

reflects a western norm of punctuating workplace ma-

ternity with a period of maternity leave, rather than

essential elements. We acknowledge that maternity

leave is short or non-existent in some contexts and

discuss the implications of this for return to work

(e.g. breastfeeding of very young babies). Maternity

leave is also being re-imagined by some regulators,

providing fathers and others with leave entitlements;

we return to the de-gendering of infant care in our

research agenda in the Discussion.

Theoretical review framework

We draw from transdisciplinary literatures on

maternity management, gendered workplaces,

family-friendly working and smaller business man-

agement to advance our theoretical framework in

sections on workplace gendering and embodiment,

and SME employment and market relations and

management capabilities.

Effect of workplace gendering and embodiment

Masculine workplaces. Organizational theory

stresses that work organizations are not gender-

neutral (Acker 1990; Bailyn 2006). They are shaped

by a confluence of interest (Bradley 2012) between

the forces of capitalism, driving organizations

to produce short-term competitiveness in market

economies, and pro-masculine gender relations that

cause numerous forms of sexual division and devalue

C2017 The Authors. International Journal of Management Reviews published by British Academyof Management and John

Wiley & Sons Ltd.