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This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

This research paper concentrates on investigating career strategies of Malaysian generation Y employees, and uncovers that pursuing a creating career opportunities strategy, a seeking career guidance strategy, or a self-nomination strategy positively influences self-directedness in individuals. Yet far fewer female than male respondents pursued a creating career opportunities strategy driven by career self-directedness at their career establishment stage, but both genders did equally seek career guidance from mentors in a strategic way.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This chapter examines if women in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are constrained in their leadership style and if the organizational culture makes them less valued in senior management teams. It then explores if the 7-S organizational framework has relevance to gender and leadership in HEIs.

The nature of authority within HEIs increases the complexity of leadership within an academic context. Leadership is often vested in a single person, and the positional power of Rectors/Vice-Chancellors (VCs) is based on authority, discipline knowledge, experience, and peer and professional recognition. The literature highlights that HEIs continue to be male dominated and that women are underrepresented in university leadership.

A total of 44 interviews with female and male university senior managers in Australia and Portugal were conducted by the authors and then analyzed using thematic content analysis.

This chapter analyzed the leadership styles of female and male leaders in HEI management teams in Australia and Portugal. It found that both women and men in Australian universities valued transformational leadership skills, whereas the male respondents in Portugal saw traditional management as more effective, even though female respondents considered women demonstrated transformational leadership. It also found that while women’s leadership is recognized in Australian universities, in Portugal men saw women’s leadership as problematic.

The findings suggest that there is more possibility for transformation in the academy if both men and women in HEI leadership value women’s leadership role.

Critical mass theory suggests that attaining a certain proportion of a minority group triggers transformation that improves conditions for minority group members. Using faculty gender composition as a continuous rather than categorical predictor, the present research discerns whether the proportion of women influences perceptions among STEM faculty.

STEM faculty completed a survey examining perceptions of department climate for women (i.e., advancement and discrimination) and division of work time. The proportion of women in each department was calculated.

Using multilevel modeling, we found that women (vs. men) faculty perceive less departmental advancement of women, but that a greater proportion of women in a department is related to increased perceptions that the department advances women. We did not find differences in time male or female faculty reported spending on research, teaching, or service; however, as the proportion of women in a department increases, there is a decrease in the amount of time individual male and female faculty spent on research and an increase in time spent on service. Contrary to critical mass theory, we found a linear rather than quadratic effect of proportion of women on perceptions of department climate and division of work time.

These effects may not be attributable to gender proportion alone.

Given our finding of incremental effects of proportion of women, a critical mass is not necessary or sufficient for change. Underlying problems of discrimination and stereotyping need to be addressed while recognizing that each woman hired has a positive impact.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of generation Y’s career establishment strategies on self-directedness career and to determine the moderation effect of gender on the relationship.

Data were collected from 188 full-time employees from different functional areas and departments of selected MNCs in Malaysian Electrical and Electronic Industry. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to examine the influences of establishment strategies and the moderating role of gender on self-directedness career.

Findings show that there are significant positive relationship between career strategies and self-directedness career at career establishment stages of generation Y. There is a significant difference between males and females in career establishment strategy (i.e. creating career opportunities) and self-directedness career.

This paper explains self-directedness career based on the review of related career literatures whereby some may not specifically referring to Generation Y.

Such insights are useful for HRD practitioners dto develop relevant HRD interventions to assist individuals and organizations in career development.

This paper offers new insight into the predictors of self-directedness career and the moderating role of gender on the relationships.

This study aims to identify women professionals' strategies to persist in the male-dominated technology industry situated in the Bangladeshi socio-cultural context.

In-depth interviews with women tech professionals were conducted to identify and explore the strategies. Thematic coding was used for data analysis.

The findings suggest that the complex interplay of macro-, meso- and micro-factors pushes women to defy societal and gender norms in their choice and persistence, yet they simultaneously conform to these norms. By simultaneous expressions of doing and undoing gender, these women dealt with hierarchies and inequalities, navigated masculinized industry and empowered themselves within a patriarchal culture. The strategies effectively allowed them to demonstrate agency and persist in tech occupations.

The study participants were women and recruited using snowball sampling. Future research could benefit from recruiting a larger, more varied sample using random sampling.

The study can inform teaching and policy initiatives to increase women's representation in tech sectors through awareness campaigns, policy interventions and counseling.

The research extends the doing and undoing framework by integrating the relational perspective to explain women's agency and resilience situated in a patriarchal context. The paper focuses on women's micro-individual strategies to navigate macro- and meso-level forces. Moreover, Bangladesh is an under-researched context, and findings from the study can help design potential intervention strategies to increase women's participation.

Earlier work on career choice has identified that career choice involves gendered processes which lead to differentiated career outcomes for women and men. However, this literature remained anaemic in offering career counselling strategies for addressing the negative impacts of these processes. The paper aims to explore the creativity cycle and other tools derived from personal construct psychology (PCP) and other feminist literature as potential means for dissolving gendered perceptions of various professions and organisational practices.

This is a conceptual paper.

The paper argues that PCP can provide a theoretical and methodological framework for discussing how dichotomous and gender identified the perceptions of professions can be and how such perceptions might be challenged.

This theory and its techniques allow us an exploration of the flexibility of one's constructions system, which determines a person's ability to construe alternative views and to develop new ways of understanding oneself and others.

The PCP's potential as a technique to combat gendered perceptions of a career is examined.

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

The purpose of this study was to compare South Korean female executives’ definitions of career success with those of male executives, identify their career development strategies for success and provide implications for research and practice. Two research questions guiding our inquiry included: How do female executives’ definitions of career success differ from those of male executives? What career development strategies do male and female executives use for career success?

A basic qualitative research design was used and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 male executives and 15 female executives in diverse corporations by using an interview protocol of 13 questions regarding participants’ background, definitions of career success and final thoughts. To analyze the interview data, we used both NVivo 11 and a manual coding method.

Gender differences were detected in the participants’ definitions of career success and success factors. As previous studies indicated, male and female executives had different perspectives on career success: men tended to define career success more objectively than women. Many male executives, through experiencing transforming changes in their careers, began to appreciate work–life balance and personal happiness from success. Gender differences were also detected in their career development challenges, meanings of mentors and networking activities. While work stress surfaced as a challenge that men faced, experiencing the token status in the gendered workplace was a major challenge for female participants.

In this study, three research agendas are presented, needing further investigation on career success, women’s token status and comparative analyses.

Three implications for practice have been provided, including organizational support, government’s role and HRD’s role.

Gender differences in this study were not as distinctive as previous literature has indicated. Some male executives valued more subjective career success than others, while a few female executives spoke of more objective definitions than others. These subtle differences could be captured through in-depth interviews. By hearing the participants’ stories, both objective and subjective definitions of success, for both genders, could be observed, which might not have been possible in quantitative research. In addition, the study findings reflect the nature of a uniquely Korean context. The participants worked in a Confucian and military culture, which operates in hierarchical structures and the command and control system, coupled with a heightened camaraderie spirit in the workplace.

The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the issues affecting successful employment outcomes for young women in male-dominated careers, focusing on those generally accessed via a traditional Australian apprenticeship model. Current patterns of participation in trades-based fields of education and training reinforce the highly gender segregated nature of the Australian Labour Force. Women are particularly under-represented in the large industries of construction, mining and utilities, where female employees account for only around 12, 15 and 23 per cent of employees, respectively, an issue of concern both in terms of increased economic participation of women and girls, and gender equality more broadly. The foundations for transition from education and training to employment are established during school. It is during these formative years that young men and women have notions of what is possible for them, and what is not possible, reinforced. Unfortunately, gendered stereotypes and perceptions around certain career options for young women are still reinforced within schools and create barriers to widening young women’s participation in a range of careers, particularly in fields traditionally dominated by males. The paper discusses strategies supporting initial apprenticeship opportunities for young women, and supportive structures to help women and girls build careers in these industries.

This paper draws from a mixed method study, involving a national electronic survey of educators, industry and community groups, and a range of semi-structured interviews. Whilst the major study focused primarily on career exploration in relation to young women taking on careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and non-traditional industries, this paper focuses on one aspect of this study, young women taking up an apprenticeship in a male-dominated career. The research around career exploration was undertaken in 2014, and this paper has placed it in the current context of falling apprenticeships and increasing pressures to increase the number of women and girls employed in a wider range of careers.

The findings of this particular study consider the barriers to young women taking on apprenticeships and identify strategies that hopefully will produce more successful pathways. This paper can be seen as adding to the public discourse to address the Australian Government’s stated reform objective in vocational education and training (VET), that trade apprenticeships are appropriately valued and used as career pathways.

This paper can be seen as adding to the public discourse to address the Australian Government’s stated VET reform objective, that trade apprenticeships are appropriately valued and used as career pathways.

This paper aims to explore and compare academics’ experiences of managing work-life balance (WLB) in the British and Chinese contexts. The authors have three specific purposes. Firstly, to investigate whether there are marked gender differences in either context, given female and male academics’ work is considered fully comparable. Secondly, to examine contextual factors contributing to gender differences that influence and shape decisions in WLB and career paths. Thirdly, to explore the gendered consequences and implications.

A cross-national and multilevel analytical approach to WLB was chosen to unpick and explore gender land contextual differences and their influence on individual academics’ coping strategies. To reflect the exploratory nature of uncovering individual experience and perceptions, the authors used in-depth, semi-structured interviews. In total, 37 academics participated in the study, comprised of 18 participants from 6 universities in the UK and 19 participants from 6 universities in China.

This study reveals gendered differences in both the British and Chinese contexts in three main aspects, namely, sourcing support; managing emotions; and making choices, but more distinct differences in the latter context. Most significantly, it highlights that individual academics’ capacity in cultivating and using coping strategies was shaped simultaneously by multi-layered factors at the country level, the HE institutional level and the individual academics’ level.

Very few cross-cultural WLB studies explore gender differences. This cross-national comparative study is of particular value in making the “invisible visible” in terms of the gendered nature of choices and decisions within the context of WLB. The study has significant implications for female academics exercising individual scope in carving out a career, and for academic managers and institutions, in terms of support, structure and policy.