Exploring career‐life success and family social support of successful women in Canada, Argentina and Mexico

Lirio, Pamela; Lituchy, Terri R.; Monserrat, Silvia Inés; Olivas‐Luján, Miguel R.; Duffy, Jo Ann; Fox, Suzy; Gregory, Ann; Punnett, Betty Jane; Santos, Neusa Maria Bastos Fernandes dos

doi:10.1108/13620430710724811

Cited by 62 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Women define their career differently than do men. Their definitions of success often focus on subjective rather than just objective outcomes (Lirio et al, 2007;Sturges, 1999;Pachilicz et al, 2008;Valcour and Ladge, 2008;Wise and Millward, 2005). In protean careers, career success is internal, based on fulfillment of one's personal values.…”

Section: Protean Careersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protean organizations

Cabrera

2009

Career Development International

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Purpose -This paper aims to understand women's careers better in order to help organizations make changes to increase female retention. Two specific questions are addressed: Are women adopting a protean career orientation by becoming career self-agents?; and Are women's career decisions guided by the kaleidoscope values of challenge, balance, and authenticity? Results are used to discuss changes that organizations can make to better attract and retain female talent. Design/methodology/approach -Open-ended semi-structured interviews were conducted by telephone with 25 women graduates of a top ranked international business school located in the USA who had voluntarily left the workforce at some time in their career and had since returned to work. Findings -Results show that 17 of the women interviewed followed a protean career orientation when they returned to the workforce, finding part-time or reduced-hours positions or completely changing careers. Of the women, five returned to work following a traditional career orientation and three chose to return to a job rather than reinitiating their careers. The vast majority of the women who adopted a protean career were driven to do so in order to satisfy their need for balance in their lives. Overall, eight of the women expressed a need for authenticity in their careers and only two mentioned a desire for challenge. Many of them felt they had already satisfied their need for challenge earlier in their career, as the KCM suggests. Practical implications -As with protean careers, protean organizations adapt to evolving circumstances. Companies that recognize and respond to the need to reshape how work gets done and how careers are built will achieve a competitive advantage by attracting and retaining valuable female talent. Organizations should shift their focus from an emphasis on face time to an emphasis on results, giving employees more control over how, when, and where they work. They also need to move away from the traditional career model that emphasizes full-time, continuous employment and instead embrace arc-of-the-career flexibility that allows women to adopt a protean orientation, managing their own careers in order to align them with their personal values. Originality/value -The paper helps to explain the motives behind professional women' career moves and makes suggestions on how organizations can better attract and retain female talent.

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Section: Protean Careersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protean organizations

Cabrera

2009

Career Development International

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“…Women may go through numerous cycles as they seek to create careers that satisfy their own personal needs and definition of success (Valcour and Ladge, 2008). As opposed to men, women's definitions of career success often focus on subjective rather than just objective outcomes (Lirio et al, 2007;Sturges, 1999;Pachilicz et al, 2008;Valcour and Ladge, 2008;Wise and Millward, 2005), because they generally have more non-work responsibilities than men, making it difficult to adhere to the norms of the traditional career model. In protean careers, career success is internal, based on one's personal values.…”

Section: The Protean Careermentioning

confidence: 99%

Career attitudes and subjective career success: tackling gender differences

Enache

Sallán

Simó

et al. 2011

Gender in Mgmt: Int J

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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of gender upon the relation between protean and boundaryless career attitudes and subjective career success, in today's dynamic and changing organizational context. Design/methodology/approach -Data were collected using a questionnaire conducted on 150 graduate and post-graduate distance learning students. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings -The analysis indicates that women's career success is positively related with self-direction and negatively related with their reliance on their own values. Furthermore, the authors found a negative relation between organizational mobility preference and men's subjective career success. Research limitations/implications -A potential limitation of this study is that all participants were distance-learning students, thus limiting the generalizability of the findings to other populations. Furthermore, cross-sectional designs do not permit drawing conclusions regarding the causal direction. Practical implications -Organizations should transform work structures and human resources policies and provide career models that allow women flexibility and more control over their work. Research results show that values-driven predisposition may lead to low levels of perceived career success. This indirectly suggests that individuals experience intrinsic career success when their values are consistent with organizational values, and therefore they should seek work opportunities in organizations whose aim, scope, and philosophy is consistent with their ideals. Originality/value -This is the first paper to shed light on gender's impact upon the relationship between protean and boundaryless career attitudes and subjective career success, in a context in which there have been calls in literature for more career research taking into account gender differences.

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“…In the literature on career success, in contrast to men whose career aspirations are characterized by 'objective' factors like hierarchical advancement and remuneration, women's goals are described in terms of values such as personal accomplishment, interesting work and recognition (Sturges, 1999;Lirio et al 2007). Taking issue with this largely Western literature, studies have shown how South Asian women prioritize hierarchical advancement (Authors, 2011;Budhwar et al 2005) and financial security (Author B et al 2009).…”

Section: Women's Careers Aspirationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the interplay between Buddhism and career development: a study of highly skilled women workers in Sri Lanka

Fernando

Cohen

2013

Work, Employment and Society

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Exploring the interplay between Buddhism and career development: a study of highly skilled women workers in Sri LankaThis article adopts a socio cultural lens to examine the role of Buddhism in highly skilled women workers' careers in Sri Lanka. While Buddhism enabled women's career development by giving them strength to cope with difficult situations in work, it also seemed to restrict their agency and constrain their career advancement. Based on our findings, we argue that being perceived as a good Buddhist woman worked as a powerful form of career capital for the respondents in our sample, who used their faith to combat gender disadvantage in their work settings.

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Exploring career‐life success and family social support of successful women in Canada, Argentina and Mexico

Cited by 62 publications

References 29 publications

Protean organizations

Protean organizations

Career attitudes and subjective career success: tackling gender differences

Exploring the interplay between Buddhism and career development: a study of highly skilled women workers in Sri Lanka

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