Time for a Change? Women's Accounts of the Move from Organizational Careers to Self‐Employment

Abstract

This paper is based on a study of women's transition from careers within organizations into self‐employment. It focuses on three key issues: the ways in which women accounted for their career transition, their decisions to opt for self‐employment, and the extent to which, in telling their stories, respondents engaged with emerging career discourses. First, this paper considers recent debates within the literature on women's exit from organizations, and emerging discourses of career and self‐employment, focusing on the position of women within these changing discourses. Research findings are then presented, examining three central themes: entrepreneurial orientation, dissatisfaction with the organization and balance of personal and professional life. The concluding section considers how women made sense of the web of factors involved in their career transition and reflects on whether indeed it is ‘time for a change’.

Constructing a career: women architects at work

“…This causes difficulties when applied to professional work which demands a certain level of commitment not required by other occupations with lower level entry qualifications (Hakim, 1995(Hakim, , 1996 and tends to translate into longer working hours (Epstein et a,l 1999). There are few professions in which part-time work or any deviation from the 'traditional' working patterns is commonplace in spite of many commentators suggesting that the flexible patterns of working adopted by women could be advantageous and applicable in a much wider context (Sullivan, 1999;Mallon and Cohen, 2001;Shaw et al, 2000).…”

Flexible Working, Professional Success and Being Female: Are They Incompatible?

“…In addition, Van Dick et al, (2004) used a social identity approach to show organisational identification feeds into job satisfaction, which in turn, explained turnover intentions. Key reasons for women wanting to move from working in organisations to self-employment are greater freedom, autonomy, balance and the ability to live by a personal value system threatened by the organisation (Mallon & Cohen, 2001). …”

Le passage au travail autonome

“…Nous proposons dans cet article que ces deux explications de l'entrée dans le travail autonome ne sont pas nécessaire-ment indépendantes ou opposées, mais plutôt complémentaires. Dans ce sens, nous suggérons que ce statut d'emploi est rarement pleinement choisi par le travailleur ou complètement imposé par son contexte professionnel ou de travail (Mallon et Cohen 2001). Nous concevons en conséquence le caractère « volontaire-involontaire » du travail autonome comme un continuum plutôt qu'une dichotomie.…”

“…Par exemple, une personne ayant de faibles possibilités de développer ses compétences ou d'obtenir une promotion dans son emploi évaluera plus positivement l'aventure du travail autonome, notamment si ses aspirations de carrière pertinentes au travail autonome sont élevées (Mallon et Cohen 2001).…”