The relative career advancement of men and women engineers in the United States

Despite the fact that women engineering students perform as well as their male classmates during college, women engineers report lower salaries and supervisory responsibility levels after about five years in the labour force. Several hypotheses concerning the reasons for the differences in career advancement of men and women engineers were investigated in a national survey of engineers in the United States. The gender differences in career advancement could not be explained by differences in education level or in self-perceptions of ability. The fact that women were more likely to have taken a career break than were men did decrease their salaries and supervisory levels. However, gender differences were still apparent even when this factor was controlled. The careers of both men and women were affected by conflicts arising from the multiple roles of worker, spouse, and parent, but many women engineers avoided such conflicts by remaining single and childless. These results challenge several popular explanations for the differential advancement of men and women, but the actual causes remain unknown.     

The relative career advancement of men and women engineers in the United States

Abstract

Despite the fact that women engineering students perform as well as their male classmates during college, women engineers report lower salaries and supervisory responsibility levels after about five years in the labour force. Several hypotheses concerning the reasons for the differences in career advancement of men and women engineers were investigated in a national survey of engineers in the United States. The gender differences in career advancement could not be explained by differences in education level or in self-perceptions of ability. The fact that women were more likely to have taken a career break than were men did decrease their salaries and supervisory levels. However, gender differences were still apparent even when this factor was controlled. The careers of both men and women were affected by conflicts arising from the multiple roles of worker, spouse, and parent, but many women engineers avoided such conflicts by remaining single and childless. These results challenge several popular explanations for the differential advancement of men and women, but the actual causes remain unknown.     

When does part-time employment allow managers with family responsibilities to stay on the career track? A vignette study among German managers

The present study examines the specific conditions under which part-time (PT) arrangements in managerial jobs allow parents with childcare responsibilities to stay on the career track. By integrating economic signaling theory and gender role congruity theory, a vignette study among German managers revealed that substantial PT hours, flexible working schedules, and flexible childcare arrangements positively influence decision makers’ personal promotion decisions. Further, we found a significant fatherhood bias with male PT managers receiving less favorable promotion decisions than female PT managers. The study further reveals that decision makers’ evaluations of managers’ levels of advancement motivation mediate several significant relationships. The paper discusses practical impactions and future research directions.     

Is There a Double‐Negative Effect? Gender and Ethnic Wage Differentials in Italy

This paper investigates the gender and ethnic wage differentials for female migrants in Italy by applying the Oaxaca–Blinder decomposition, with and without Heckman correction, to account for self‐selection into the labour market. The gender wage gap is nearly 15 per cent, more than 60 per cent of which is unexplained by observable differences. The ethnic wage gap is much larger (39 per cent), but endowments explain 53 per cent of the gap. We also estimate the double‐negative effect of being both female and a migrant. A female migrant earns 42 per cent less than an Italian male; the unexplained component is estimated to be 53–65 per cent. Results are robust to different specifications.     

Exploring the Career Capital Impact of International Assignments within Distinct Organizational Contexts

The existing expatriation literature concentrates on what individuals need to perform in an international assignment (IA) but neglects what they gain from their foreign work experience. Using a dual‐dependency perspective this study presents results from 26 in‐depth interviews with international secondees within two UK‐based organizational contexts. The paper explores the perceived impact of an IA on the career capital of individuals, showing that the outcomes of IAs can be equivocal for expatriates. Each firm concentrated their human resource mechanisms on developing different types of career capital and this focused individual behaviour on diverse career capital activities. In one of the organizations there was an internal misalignment between organizational and individual assignee focus. Based on the research a number of propositions were developed. This study provided an exploratory insight into points of departure rather than complementarity in individuals' international careers in organizations, which has been at the core of much recent research and writing. A more complex, contextualized picture of the effects of IAs on the careers of individuals emerged.     

Exploring teachers’ career self-management. Considering the roles of organizational career management,occupational self-efficacy,and learning goal orientation.

The current study examines how organizational career management – i.e. activities undertaken by schools in order to plan and manage teachers’ careers – relates to teachers’ career self-management – i.e. teachers steering their careers by means of searching for opportunities, networking, or seeking supervisory support. Moreover, it examines the mediating roles of occupational self-efficacy and learning goal orientation in this relationship. Mediation analysis in SPSS, using the PROCESS macro of survey data from 220 Dutch secondary school teachers, showed that positive relationships between organizational career management and career self-management were mediated by occupational self-efficacy and learning goal orientation.     

The Career Attitudes and Intentions of Managers in the Finance Sector

A questionnaire survey of career attitudes and intentions was administered to 1646 middle managers from eight organizations in the UK finance sector. Lengths of time in the organization, in previous and in present job were shown to predict career attitudes and intentions. Longer-serving managers were less ambitious and were unwilling to accept various career options. Those who had spent longer in their present job neither expected any change nor were willing to accept it. While decreased inter and intraorganizational mobility are consequences of cost-cutting and recession, it is argued that efforts to increase mobility are likely to pay dividends. Other measures may also succeed, given the finding that organizations differed in terms of their managers' career attitudes and intentions over and above the effects of mobility.     

Understanding top managers’ careers: How does career variety impact tenure on the board?

Career variety has recently received attention in management literature in general, and top management literature in particular. While existing publications have predominantly linked career variety to individual adaptability, agility or competences, this paper focuses on the relationship between top managers’ career variety and their tenure on the board. We rely on the boundaryless career approach and argue that there is a negative relationship between career variety and board tenure. Drawing on a sample of executive directors in UK FT 100 firms, we provide empirical evidence that increased career variety leads to shorter tenure on the board. We also reveal that this relationship is further strengthened with international educational experience. In addition, we show that in-house work experience mitigates the negative association between career variety and board tenure. We contribute to the literature on top managers’ careers by unravelling the consequences that career variety during early and mid-stages of a career has on tenure on the board – and hence on career stability in later stages of a career.     

Work–Family Conflict and the Senior Female International Manager

The particular focus of this paper is on the workÐfamily conflict experienced by senior female international managers within a European context. This research is particularly relevant as existing European studies have not specifically addressed issues pertaining to the senior female international manager. For the purpose of this study 50 senior female expatriate managers were interviewed, representing a wide diversity of industry and service sectors. The study establishes that work–family conflict still prevents many female managers from progressing to senior management. The results of the study show that the senior international career move has largely been developed along a linear male model of career progression, a development which, together with gender disparity both in organizations and family responsibilities, frequently prevents women employees from reaching senior managerial positions. The study extends work primarily in the international human resource management literature, while also contributing to the research literatures on women in management and career theory.     

Gender disparity in the C-suite: Do male and female CEOs differ in how they reached the top?

Through a comparison of the life and career trajectories of thirty male and thirty female CEOs of large organizations, this study offers insights into the genesis of gender disparity in corporate leadership positions, discusses the implications for leadership development, and puts forward a model explaining the disparity in CEO roles. We found gendered patterns in the accumulation of career relevant experiences stretching back to birth into working lives that created significant and cumulative limitations upon the ability of women to access CEO roles and the types of CEO appointments available to them. Limited access to career relevant experiences in childhood, adolescence and in organizations lead to on-going limitations in capital accumulation throughout women's careers. Implications of our findings for both theory and practice are discussed.     

Women on the boards of listed companies: Evidence from Finland

This paper investigates gender differences on the corporate boards of Finnish listed companies. The personal characteristics, careers, and boardroom roles of female and male directors on boards were analyzed on the basis of empirical data collected by questionnaire. An analysis of the findings revealed only minor differences between the women and men in personal characteristics such as their marital status, number of children and education, or in their careers. However, female board members were on average younger than their male counterparts and considered themselves to be more protean, took more active roles on the board, and enjoyed power more than men did. They also felt a need for more women on the board. The goal of this study is to contribute to the existing research in two ways. Firstly, it provides empirical evidence on women??s representation on boards from Finland, where women??s and men??s rights are regarded as more equal than in many other countries. Secondly, the study aims to increase our knowledge of gender differences, careers and roles of women in top positions in Finnish business.     

Corporate expatriate career development

Western business expatriates assigned to Hong Kong responded to a mail survey regarding availability and usage of corporate career development activities. Despite the strategic need for expatriation, it was found that corporate development activities had a low availability indicating little interest on the part of parent organizations to assist in the development of expatriate careers. Large-size parent organizations, with substantial interests in international business operations, generally provide more expatriate career development assistance as opposed to small and medium-sized enterprises with fewer resources and little experience to cater to such needs. Experienced expatriate managers generally use more career development activities than less experienced managers, which could pose a problem for the procurement and advancement of new generations of expatriate managers. Implications of these findings for managers and their employers are discussed in detail.     

Women and Part-time Work: The Careers of Part-time NHS Nurses

This paper examines theoretical explanations of the employment disadvantage experienced by many female part-time workers. Data from a survey of 643 qualified National Health Service (NHS) nurses is used to establish employment profiles of respondents. Employment profiles reveal that, contrary to many predictions, part-time female nurses do not 'invest less' in their careers than their full-time counterparts in terms of qualifications and experience. Neither are part-time nurses relatively 'uncommitted' to their careers compared to full-time nurses. It is found that the organizational context affects how opportunities are structured for part-time nurses. The management implications of the findings for the NHS are also considered.     

Up in the Skies? The Relationship between Body Height and Earnings in Germany

Abstract. This paper analyses whether taller workers earn more than their shorter counterparts. Using GSOEP data from 1991 to 2002, earnings functions are estimated for male and female workers for both West and East Germany. The Hausman–Taylor IV estimator is applied to account for unobservable heterogeneity including also time‐invariant indicators. The results do not imply wage differentials based on height for female workers and male East German workers. For the height range up to 195 cm there is, however, a wage premium associated with stature for male workers from West Germany of about 4 per cent for each additional standard deviation increment in height.     

Key Issues in the Senior Female International Career Move: A Qualitative Study in a European Context

Research investigating the position of women in management has, largely, been confined within national boundaries. Over the last 15 years, empirical studies of women in international management have been undertaken, predominantly in North America. Overall, however, in this research field, many questions remain unanswered or have been only partially addressed. The particular focus of this study is on the senior female international managerial career move in Europe – a relatively unexplored area. Fifty senior female expatriate managers were interviewed, representing a wide range of industry and service sectors. The aims of the study were to develop an understanding of the senior female international career move in a European context in order to more fully understand both the covert and overt barriers that may limit women's international career opportunities. The results of the study show that the senior international career move has largely been developed along a linear male model of career progression, a development which, taken together with gender disparity both in organizations and family responsibilities, frequently prevents women employees from reaching senior managerial positions. The findings suggest that organizations which adopt a proactive approach to female expatriate managers should have a competitive advantage in the international environment.     

Generation Y graduates and career transition: Perspectives by gender

The aim of this paper is to explore, by gender, UK Generation Y graduates’ views on their career transition after graduation from under-graduate business programmes. Following a literature review, the empirical work takes the form of an on-line questionnaire with business school graduates from a post-1992 Scottish University in five recent academic sessions. Gendered nuances are found in several aspects of the respondents’ views on their career transition, including statistically significant differences in: more women continuing their student job after graduation; women being more accepting of starting after graduation in a non-graduate level job; and more women than men encountering gender discrimination in the workplace. The identified nuances and differences appear to be setting the genders on diverging career tracks as early as the transition from university, in that they seem to signal more career progress, even advantage, among the men than the women.     

How do executive search firms increase interest in career opportunities? The role of past interactions

This article explores how executive search consultants stimulate executives’ consideration of career opportunities available at other employers. The study is based on a panel dataset of 3582 executives invited to a job interview by a global executive search firm from January 2005 to May 2009. The results demonstrate that past interactions between executives and the search consultants had a delayed effect on consideration of career opportunities. The results contribute to research on executive careers by identifying past relationships with search consultants as a factor affecting rejection of new career opportunities. They also shed light on the relatively understudied phenomenon of executive search firms.     

Deus ex machina? Career progress and the contingent benefits of knowledge management systems

Knowledge management (KM) systems are increasingly common in firms which promote self-managed careers and autonomy, such as professional service firms. Yet, whether or not KM systems provide real benefits is underexplored. Our focus is on the impact of KM use on the career progress of service professionals. We use recorded logs of employee KM system use and career progress data over a two-year period within a strategy consultancy to study the effect of KM use on career advancement speed. We present a contingency-based model to KM use effectiveness, showing that, although KM use generally boosts career progress speed, (a) benefits vary by seniority (more junior employees benefit more), (b) benefits vary by knowledge type (encyclopedic vs. social), with social knowledge use mattering more to career progress, and (c) those service professionals who tap a wider range of knowledge sources progress faster in their careers. We also find mediating effects, specifically that KM system use operates partly by accelerating the development of task-related skills. We draw the conclusion that KM systems contain neither a magical Deus ex machine for boosting employee performance and progress but nor do they warrant excessive skepticism, rather their impact on careers is contingent on employee needs.     

What it Means to Succeed: Personal Conceptions of Career Success Held by Male and Female Managers at Different Ages

This paper describes the findings of a qualitative study which analyses how managers define career success for themselves on their own terms. In exploring career success from the perspective of the individual, not the organization, the research attempts to fill an identifiable gap in the career literature. The paper examines the criteria which individuals use to describe what career success means to them, and expresses them by means of a series of orientational categories – Climbers, Experts, Influencers and Self-Realizers – which classify the different ways in which managers talk about career success. The variations in the way that the male and female, and older and younger, research participants describe what career success means to them are discussed and compared. The women managers and older managers who took part in the study appear less inclined to define career success in terms of hierarchical and financial progression: the paper considers the implications of this for individuals and for organizations.