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The gender pay gap – that is, the difference in wages between men and women for the same or substantially the same work, or work of equal value – still features prominently as a stumbling block in achieving South African gender equality. If South Africa is to dislodge its stagnant gender pay gap, especially for women in the middle and upper levels of the wage distribution, pay transparency – making gender differences in wages known to employees, government and the public – can compel employers to remunerate fairly and equally. We undertook a comparison between the global and national mechanisms of gender pay transparency to propose a way forward to increase transparency in gender pay for South Africa. In addition to a discussion of existing mechanisms, a summary of the gender pay transparency mechanisms of 16 countries is provided as supplementary material to the article. We found that South Africa could strengthen legislated transparency mechanisms, especially with regard to pay reporting and pay audits, provided that sanctions are attached to non-delivery of these duties. Reigniting the debate on strengthening and improving South African legislation and interpretation of existing governance codes in relation to the implementation, monitoring and enforcement of gender pay transparency mechanisms could strengthen the existing collective bargaining framework and provide the impetus to demonstrate that South Africa sees gender equality as an achievable reality, not an improbable ideology. Significance: • Despite the presence of constitutional rights and enabling legislation to prevent workplace gender discrimination, South Africa continues to see a stagnant median gender pay gap of between 23% and 35%. • This study provides a global analysis to reinvigorate the debate on how South Africa can strengthen transparency mechanisms to close the gender pay gap. • Legislators, activists, board members, trade unions, academics, and organisational leaders are provided with suggestions on transparency mechanisms to improve efforts towards economic gender equality for South Africa.

Orientation To learn from reasons for judgements in equal pay litigation to clarify pertinent legal concepts and principles related to equal pay, towards improved pay practices. Content analysis was used to categorise the reasons for the success or failure of 22 pay discrimination litigation cases brought before the CCMA, Labour Courts, and the Labour Appeal Court (1999-2020). Cases were examined prior to and after amendments Section 6(4), of the Employment Equity Amendment Act 47 of 2013.

Men continue to outperform women in obtaining funding through research grants globally, in both science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and social science, in multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary fields. This article focuses on the role of research grant funding conditions in women’s lack of research grant funding. Grant conditions are the rules of participation and funding use set out by grant funders. This study aimed to answer the question: how do grant conditions limit women’s propensity to engage with research grant applications? Research grants from the Open 4 Research database were analysed. Research careers with a reproductive life-cycle perspective and four feminist concepts were deliberately gendered. These resulted in a theoretical framework. A content analysis on n = 270 multidisciplinary early career grants for those who already have a PhD was conducted. Grants were selected from both the social science and STEM disciplines. The findings suggest that, overwhelmingly, grant conditions are gender-neutral, assuming no differences between women and men. A comparison between STEM and social science grant conditions also show very little difference. The article provides a framework to guide multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary grant funders in crafting deliberately gendered grant conditions.Transdisciplinary contributionA pre-application phase to the research grant application process by problematising gender neutrality in early-career researcher grant conditions is introduced. It is posited that grants’ gender neutrality is discouraging women to consider applying, resulting in self-exclusion early in the pre-application phase.

Orientation To present the theoretical development and empirically expanded framework for women doctors' thriving at work. Development of a gender-specific framework from the literature followed by qualitative data collection with two semi-structured appreciative inquiry focus groups to confirm and expand on the framework. The nominal group technique employed to encourage open sharing. Participants were seven women and six men from various medical and surgical speciality fields. Collaborative analysis of data by participants using thematic analysis.

Orientation: The concepts of work- and career-role salience are used interchangeably, yet work focuses on the short-term aspect and career on the long-term aspect.Research purpose: We utilised gender traits, that is, masculinity, femininity and psychological androgyny, to find greater nuances in the salience of work versus career roles. We also set out to confirm the adapted factor structure of the revised Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI).Motivation for the study: Generally, self-reported sex is used to determine differences in role salience between men and women, as opposed to considering the gender roles people associate with.Research approach/design and method: A sample of 395 South African employees was used. Structural equation modelling and t-tests were applied.Main findings: We confirmed work- and career-role salience as distinct constructs. The factor structure of the revised BSRI holds for this study. With regard to gender traits, femininity decreased work-role salience, while psychological androgyny increased work-role salience. Masculinity had a direct effect on work-role salience while indirectly influencing career-role salience through work-role salience. Women were found to be significantly more feminine and psychologically androgynous than men.Practical/managerial implications: Utilising gender traits may have greater career guidance relevance for individuals than traditional approaches utilising differences between the sexes.Contribution/value-add: This study confirmed that work and career roles are to be viewed as separate constructs and that people may view the importance placed on work- and career-role salience differently. The study further contributes by including gender traits as a significant contributor to role salience.

Orientation: Most CEOs in South Africa are chartered accountants (CAs). Retaining women CAs might therefore lead to an increase in women in leadership. The Job Demands-Resources model presents a framework to investigate organisational job-related factors that promote or deter voluntary turnover of women CAs.Research purpose: The primary objective was to investigate which organisational factors promote or reduce the risk of turnover intentions for South African women CAs. The secondary objective was to investigate the moderating potential of job resources on the relationship between job demands and turnover intentions.Motivation for the study: There is a fair amount of research on the problems associated with the retention of women CAs in public practice but very little is known about how those problems interact with each other, and whether there are factors that could buffer them.Research design, approach, and method: The study consisted of a sample (n = 851) of women CAs in public practice firms nationally in South Africa. We used structural equation modelling together with moderated regression analysis.Main findings: Job demands promote turnover intentions, whereas job resources have a negative effect on turnover intentions. Counter-intuitively a negative direct effect was found between job insecurity and turnover intentions. Statistical support was found for the moderating role of all job resources, except financial advancement, on the relationship between work–family conflict and turnover intentions; and growth opportunities, on the relationship between job insecurity and turnover intentions.Practical/managerial implications: No job resource measured could buffer the impact of job overload on turnover intentions.Contribution: This is the first study to investigate factors that may retain women CAs in public practice audit, tax, and advisory firms (Big Four Accountancy Firms) using the JD-R model. Few studies have investigated the buffering effect of job resources on the relationship between job demands and turnover intentions in general.Keywords: gender; auditing; voluntary turnover; female; moderate; JD-R model

This paper contributes to the discussion on methodological decolonisation in business ethics research by illustrating how local epistemologies can shape methodology. Historically, business ethics research has been dominated by Western methodologies, which have been argued to be restrictive and limit contextually relevant theorising in non-Western contexts. Over the past decade, scholarship has called for more diversity in research methods and epistemologies. This paper regards arguments founded along neatly divided universalist versus contextualised methodologies as a false dilemma. Instead, we explore how ubuntu, a sub-Saharan African epistemology, can contribute as a complementary epistemology and methodology to interpretivism when conducting business ethics research in sub-Saharan Africa. The paper discusses four aspects—research agenda, access, power relations, and context-sensitive methods—that highlight practical ways in which ubuntu epistemology, with its communitarian and relational underpinnings, can enhance business ethics research. We illustrate that methodological decolonisation can be achieved by fusing relevant elements of local epistemologies and methodologies and conventional methodologies to generate context-relevant research approaches.

Orientation: Crises that threaten an organisation’s continued existence cannot be seen in isolation when considering the perception of threats to individual job security. These threats often go hand in hand with employee panic.Research purpose: The aim of this study was to establish a model to assist organisations in managing employee emotionality and panic during times of crisis.Motivation for the study: Environmental crises threaten organisations’ existence, threatening employees’ livelihood and resulting in employee panic. Panic reduces employees’ contributions. Organisations that are successful harness employee contributions at all times.Research design, approach, and method: A modernist qualitative research methodology was adopted, which included a case study as research strategy, purposive sampling to select 12 research participants, semi-structured interviews for data gathering, focus groups for data verification, and the use of grounded theory for data analysis.Main findings: An organisation’s ability to manage employee panic depends on the relationship between the foundational elements of authentic leadership, crisis readiness, resilience practices, versatile and committed talent, strategic management, quality management, and coherence actions taken during the crisis, which include crisis leadership, ongoing visible communication, mindfulness, work flexibility, and decisions based on the greatest financial need and social support.Practical/managerial implications: The study provides a best-practice option for managing emotionality during crises for the case organisation and other organisations within the vehicle components and other manufacturing industries.Contribution/value-add: The Coherence Hexagons Model is presented as a tool to manage employee panic during crisis.Keywords: crisis management; employee emotionality; employee panic; authentic leadership; talent management

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the underlying organisational features, according to the gendered organisation theory, that have contributed to high levels of representation of women executives, contrary to the trend in the South African financial services industry. Design/methodology/approach A critical realist approach was employed, using semi-structured interviews, based on a theoretical framework of the gendered organisation. Data were aligned to the theoretical levels of critical realism. Findings The research found that the pool from which the successful candidates were appointed was influenced by two features. The first was the perceived attractiveness of the organisation as an employer, composed of organisational prestige, opportunity for altruism, and the sex of the CEO. The second was the role of the CEO as gatekeeper, most notably the CEO’s network and the impact of the similar-to-me paradigm during selection. Originality/value The utilisation of critical realism as an approach allowed for organisational features embedded in the theory of the gendered organisation to be identified and gives an indication of how the number of women at executive management level may be increased. The salient factors are the role the woman CEO played in the inclusion of more women at the executive level by virtue of her being a woman, and the attractiveness of the organisation to women employees. Organisational features identified were gendered towards the feminine.

The STEM disciplines are characterized by a shortage of women and actuarial science is no exception. This phenomenon is even more prevalent where black women are concerned. The purpose of this study was to investigate the internal and external factors that contributed to black women in South Africa choosing mathematics in school and actuarial science at university, and ultimately qualifying and persisting in the field. This multiple case study investigated the experiences of six black women qualified actuaries in South Africa. Narratives and interviews were used to collect data detailing experiences in three phases: choosing mathematics in school, choosing actuarial science at university and persisting with their studies, and persisting in the field. Thematic analysis was conducted. The results indicate that there were multiple external factors that had contributed to their choices, but the greatest determining internal factor was self-efficacy. Aspects that enhance self-efficacy are discussed from which management practice recommendations are made.