Professional women in organizations: New paradigms for research and action

Writings about professional women in organizations often adopt an advocacy approach and look at problems of women in isolation from the rest of the organization. This article suggests a systems perspective for viewing these problems as concerns of an organizational subsystem that can have important ramifications for the other subsystems and for the organization as a whole. Reviewing research on some major issues encountered by professional women at the workplace, this article demonstrates the usefulness of complementary research to integrate these issues into an organizational framework.