Interpreting the effects of gendered informal promotion and retention practices on women’s and men’s sport management careers

![CDATA[As women and men go about their sport managerial work, they routinely draw on gender-based assumptions about the people with whom they interact (Knoppers & Anthonissen 2005, 2008). Martin (2003) explored how people routinely practise gender at work often in ‘unreflexive ways’ (p.342). Drawing on Martin’s (2003) concept of liminal awareness and using a Foucaldian post-structural feminist theoretical framework the purpose of this research is to understand how women and men working in Australian national and state sport organisations construct a relationship between their experiences of these gendered interactional dynamics and their sport management careers. In doing so, this research answers the question: How do women and men interpret the influence of informal sport organisation practices and interactional dynamics on their managerial careers? The research used a multiple case study approach with four Australian national and state sport organisations. An analysis of the study organisations’ HRM policies and practices revealed how formally documented and managerially endorsed promotion and retention policies were not always enacted. Instead, there were ambiguities and gaps between formal promotions policies, managers’ interpretations of those policies, and women’s and men’s experiences of the practices routinely enacted to promote and retain sport personnel. The research found that gendered informal promotion and retention practices differentially and inequitably shaped women’s and men’s sport management careers. For example, there were distinct differences between women’s experiences and managers’ claims that they provided flexible work arrangements which improved work–life balance. These arrangements were not only influenced by policy provisions, but colleague’s interpretations, the implications of which were often more challenging for women because they were typically responsible for childcare and domestic responsibilities. In response, women discussed concealing their mothering responsibilities to meet expectations which valued an unabridged commitment to work. Although feminist scholars have shown how workplaces are ‘infused with gender’ (Martin 2003, p.343), the conclusion that gender inequality is no longer an organisational concern (Burton 2015; Cunningham 2014; Shaw & Leberman 2015) continues to make problematic investigations of gender power relations in organisational contexts. Thus, problematising gendered informal practices in sport workplaces means that their normalising effects can be challenged.]]