Masculine, feminine or neutral? In-company equal opportunities policies in Irish and French MNC retailing
研究了都柏林和巴黎22家跨国零售企业的店内平等机会政策，发现这些政策被中性化且具有国家特色，法国和爱尔兰在劳动力市场监管和女性劳动参与上的差异影响了政策实施。
Several problematic aspects of women's paid employment - e.g. low pay and lack of promotional opportunities - are exacerbated by the segregation of women and men into different occupations. In this article, the potential of in-store equal opportunities policies to break down such gender segregation will be explored, through consideration of the existence and implementation of these policies in twenty-two multinational retail companies in Dublin and Paris. It will be argued that, with one notable exception, the instore equal opportunities policies are effectively neutralized, and furthermore are neutralized in nationally specific ways which can be related to differences between France and Ireland in the organization of labour-market regulation and in women's labour-force participation (LFP). The case-study findings also suggest that the 'country' variable has a stronger effect on the existence and implementation of these policies than the extent of a shop's links to an overseas headquarters. The findings of this study have implications for both the equity of women's incorporation into the paid labour force and understanding of aspects of HRM in branches of multinational companies.