Ethnic Minority Personnel Careers: Hindrances and Hopes

Personnel departments often have particular responsibility for equal opportunities within their organizations. This paper explores equal opportunities within personnel departments themselves, in relation to the careers of ethnic minority personnel practitioners. Through primary research, it identifies a range of criteria which can affect personnel careers, of which ethnic origin is often one. However, although being categorized as of ethnic minority origin often hinders personnel careers, the paper reveals that it is sometimes possible for individuals who are so categorized to overcome that negative effect through demonstrating some of those other criteria. Thus, the paper suggests, it is not just organisational equal opportunities practices which may provide hope for ethnic minority personnel careers but also – and perhaps more importantly – the actions of the ethnic minority individuals themselves. Ways in which personnel departments might support these actions are discussed

Naming the parts: a case-study of a gender equality initiative with academic women

YesThis paper aims to seek to contribute to current debates about the effectiveness of different types of gender equality interventions in the academic context. This paper presents an argument for the need to move beyond an individual-structural dichotomy in how such interventions are perceived. The paper draws on an action-research case-study, the Through the Glass Ceiling project, to challenge the idea that “individual”/single-actor interventions serve only to reinforce underlying inequalities by attempting to “fix the women”.It is suggested that actions that support women in their careers have the potential to achieve a degree of transformation at individual, cultural and structural levels when such actions are designed with an understanding of how individuals embody the gendered and gendering social structures and values that are constantly being produced and reproduced within society and academia. The case study highlights the benefits of supporting individuals as gendered actors in gendering institutions and of facilitating the development of critical gender awareness, suggesting that such interventions are most effective when undertaken as part of an integrated institutional equality agenda. By calling attention to the ongoing mutual construction of actors and practices in organizations, this paper seeks to make both a conceptual contribution to how we understand the (re)production and potential transformation of gender relations in academia and to influence wider policy dialogues on diversity at work.FP

Approved routes and alternative paths: the construction of women's rarity in large accounting firms. Evidence from the Big Four France

Despite decades of gender-balanced recruitment and clear-cut criteria for promotion based on meritocracy, women in public accounting firms remain proportionally fewer in number in the highest levels of the hierarchy than men. This paper aims to explore the mechanisms fostering women's rarity in top positions within French accounting firms in terms of organizationally constructed approved paths. Drawing on 21 semi-structured interviews with both male and female accountants, the specificities of these approved paths, alongside the construction of alternative, feminised routes, lacking the legitimacy of the former and often implying a derailment of women's careers from a very early stage, will be explored. It is suggested that more than a matter of only lifestyle preferences or practical constraints, this rarity is constructed by the interplay between the two, often resulting in "unintended and unwanted consequences, which retroactively may become unacknowledged conditions of future actions" (Giddens, 1984: 76). The focus of this study is to understand how the discursive and practical components of daily routines contribute to the reproduction of Big Four's gendered culture. Furthermore, this paper invites to question the concept of the glass ceiling and consider the construction of women's rarity in the accounting profession in terms of a labyrinth.gender, Big Four, career path, lifestyles, constraints, glass ceiling, France

Gendered academia. Inequality and inclusiveness in changing Italian academic governance

[Italiano]: Negli ultimi decenni, profonde trasformazioni hanno ridisegnato il mondo accademico e l’ambiente della ricerca. Le riforme delle strutture di finanziamento, della valutazione della ricerca e delle procedure di responsabilità stanno ancora ridisegnando le pratiche del lavoro accademico, ridefinendo i programmi di ricerca e determinando effetti rilevanti sui percorsi di carriera scientifica. Nonostante gli sforzi delle politiche europee verso lo sviluppo di una ricerca più responsabile ed inclusiva, i processi che emergono da queste trasformazioni dei contesti accademici stanno producendo nuove disuguaglianze e rafforzando quelle vecchie. Le nuove regole nel reclutamento e nella progressione di carriera dei ricercatori riducono, in alcuni casi, e intensificano, in altri, i divari di genere preesistenti, con un impatto variabile sui ricercatori, a seconda della loro appartenenza a diverse coorti, al genere o a gruppi minoritari, e sulle università, a seconda delle dimensioni e dei contesti regionali. Adottando una prospettiva intersezionale, i contributi di questo volume si concentrano sui processi di gendering nel mondo accademico italiano. Complessivamente, essi riescono a conseguire un duplice risultato: svelare il carattere di genere delle pratiche accademiche e di ricerca e tracciare i percorsi emergenti verso la loro rimodellazione in senso più equo e inclusivo./[English]: • In recent decades, deep transformations have been reshaping academia and the research environment. Reforms in funding structures, research assessment, and accountability procedures are still redesigning the practices in academic work, redefining research schedules, and determining relevant effects on scientific career paths. Despite European policies efforts towards the development of more responsible and inclusive research, the processes emerging from these transformations of academic contexts are producing new inequalities and strengthening old ones. New rules in the recruitment and career progression of researchers reduce, in some instances, and intensify, in others the pre-existing gender gaps, with varying impact on researchers, according to their belonging to different cohorts, gender or minority groups, and on universities, according to size and regional contexts. Adopting an intersectional perspective, contributions in this volume focus on gendering processes in Italian academia. Altogether, they succeed in accomplishing a double result: to unveil the gendered character of academic and research practices and to trace emergent paths towards their reshaping into more equitable and inclusive ones

Gendered academia. Inequality and inclusiveness in changing Italian academic governance

In recent decades, deep transformations have been reshaping academia and the research environment. Reforms in funding structures, research assessment, and accountability procedures are still redesigning the practices in academic work, redefining research schedules, and determining relevant effects on scientific career paths. Despite European policies efforts towards the development of more responsible and inclusive research, the processes emerging from these transformations of academic contexts are producing new inequalities and strengthening old ones. New rules in the recruitment and career progression of researchers reduce, in some instances, and intensify, in others the pre-existing gender gaps, with varying impact on researchers, according to their belonging to different cohorts, gender or minority groups, and on universities, according to size and regional contexts. Adopting an intersectional perspective, contributions in this volume focus on gendering processes in Italian academia. Altogether, they succeed in accomplishing a double result: to unveil the gendered character of academic and research practices and to trace emergent paths towards their reshaping into more equitable and inclusive ones

Why Are There So Few Female Top Executives in Egalitarian Welfare States?

We identify pertinent institutions governing the structure of payoffs with regard to female career progression. Drawing on recent insights in behavioral economics, we hypothesize that interactions between psychological mechanisms and the institutional setup may be important determinants of cross-country differences in the level and evolution of female representation in executive positions in the business sector. We test this proposition informally by exploring whether it can be used to account for some of the observed differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries in this respect. Three particularly important conclusions emerge: (i) broad welfare state policy promotes high female labor force participation, but blunts incentives to pursue top executive positions in the business sector; (ii) therefore, it is likely to be misleading to use the share of female executives as a proxy for gender equality in welfare states; and (iii) psychological mechanisms are likely to amplify the effects of policies and institutions.Career choice; Career incentives; Gender equality; Parental leave; Household production

Getting in, getting on, getting out? Women as career scramblers in the UK film and television industries

This article looks at the predominance of freelancing in the film and television industries as a lens to examine the persistence of gender inequalities within these fields. Previous research has indicated that women fare better in larger organizations with more stable patterns of employment, and in this article we explore why that might be the case, by focusing on the experiences of female freelancers at a moment when project-based, precarious work and informal recruitment practices are increasing in the UK film and television sector. We highlight in particular the ways in which gender inequality is mediated by age and parental status, and the impact of intersectional identities on women's ability to sustain a career in film and television

International Mobility of Women in ICT sectors: professional and personal goals, responses and outcomes

Sección Deptal. de Economía Aplicada, Pública y Política (Políticas)Fac. de Ciencias Políticas y SociologíaTRUEMinisterio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN)submitte