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This chapter draws from research on aesthetic labour, gender, management and organisation studies and research on women's careers. We base our analysis on two empirical data sets, namely interviews with women mid-managers in Finland and Scotland, and interviews with highly positioned expert women in Finland in knowledge work. Women in different phases of their careers and life experience manifold pressures on appearances, and are increasingly aware of the demands to ‘look good and sound right’. We address how these pressures impact on women managers' and experts' well-being and career plans.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between subjective career success (SCS) and proactive career behavior as well as family support, with a focus on women professionals in India. The study also investigates the moderating role of perceived organizational support and marital status on these relationships.

The sample consists of 363 women professionals working in the information technology-enabled services industry in India. The study is cross-sectional in design.

Findings from this study posit the positive moderating role of perceived organizational support on the relationship between proactive career behavior and SCS and on the relationship between family support and SCS. As a moderator, marital status has a positive impact on the relationship between proactive career behavior and SCS but has a negative impact on the relationship between family support and SCS.

The results from this study will help organizations understand the predictors of career success of women employees. Another practical implication is that this study establishes knowledge of perceived organizational support, a controllable organizational factor as a moderator in positively influencing the success of women’s careers. Leaders and managers can, therefore, use organizational factors to facilitate the success of women employees.

This study is perhaps the first to examine the relationship between antecedents of career success for women professionals in the context of India.

Research into self-initiated expatriation (SIE) has increased exponentially, although the focus of these investigations has been on professional workers, and little has been gender specific. The purpose of this research therefore is to explore the career and personal motivations for SIE through the novel lens of older women. In this exploratory study, SIE and socio-emotional selectivity motivation theories (SSTs) are used, in addition to the Kaleidoscope Career Model (KCM), to understand the reasons these women have taken this path.

The paper employs a qualitative methodology, drawing on in-depth life story interviews with 21 women aged 50 or more who had taken a SIE. A five-step narrative process using a story-telling approach was the method of analysis.

The findings show important contradictions to the extant literature. Career dissatisfaction and escape are key motivations for these women. Further, contrary to SST, these women were seeking novelty–new places and new experiences. These women were also seeking authenticity as suggested by KCM, but also challenge was to the fore–not in the career domain, but in the personal domain. Their motivations for SIE extend beyond the current evidence base and understanding of the phenomena.

The contributions include new insights into the motivational drivers for SIE for these older women and the importance of timing as facilitators of SIE. The SIE nomenclature is broadened through the inclusion of older women and beyond professional spheres. An initial framework of a more integrated model is developed from this exploratory study and presented as a basis for beginning to understand the phenomenon of older women undertaking SIE.

This study aims to explore the career transition process of women professionals when they return to the workplace after a break and re-integrate with their career aspirations.

This research used a qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews for data collection. All 20 women participants have returned to their careers after a break.

The data analysis reveals women’s career transition and re-integration process into the workplace after a career break. Supervisory support, work–life balance practices, role models, coworker support and career success emerged as factors enabling successful transition. The employing organisations’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring strategy emerged as an important mechanism for re-entry.

Although previous research has studied women professionals returning after a break, the “transition process” that enables re-entry is missing.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an exploration of the involvement of women in the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants of throughout its 100 year history.

The paper draws on archival analysis of professional journal and yearbooks of the New Zealand Institute, as well as the minutes of the Institute, and those of its predecessors (the Accountants' and Auditors' Association and the Incorporated Institute of New Zealand.)

Social stereotyping appears to have influenced women's membership and participation in the accounting profession in New Zealand. Although the number of women in accounting has risen dramatically since the 1980s, and women now have a more prominent role in the profession, they have still not gained equality with their male colleagues.

Research on women in accounting, both in New Zealand and overseas, has tended to focus on women in public accounting (Trapp et al., 1989; Lehman, 1992; Gammie and Gammie, 1995; Whiting and Wright, 2001). This paper contributes new knowledge about the contributions that women have made to their professional associations and how those organizations responded to their women members.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between career competencies and leadership aspiration among women IT/ITeS professionals in South India, examining the mediating effects of work role salience and occupational self-efficacy, along with the moderating effect of achievement aspiration.

The sample consists of 348 women professionals working in the IT/ITeS industry in South India. The study adopts a descriptive methodology and employs a cross-sectional research design.

The result shows that work role salience mediates the relationship between career competencies and leadership aspiration and that this mediation is moderated by achievement aspiration. Additionally, occupational self-efficacy is found to have a supplementary effect on leadership aspiration, further contributing to the model.

Despite the limitations of online data collection, the study showcases adaptability, providing valuable insights into women's career aspirations. It acknowledges opportunities for future research improvements, such as implementing longitudinal frameworks and incorporating a more diverse sample, to enhance the robustness and applicability of findings.

The study offers valuable insights for managers, researchers and academia, aiding in the identification of crucial competencies for women aspiring to leadership roles, and fostering the retention of top talent in a diverse and inclusive work environment. Individuals can leverage these insights for enhanced career development by recognizing and emphasizing strengths while addressing weaknesses through accurate self-assessments.

This study offers a novel perspective by identifying the essential competencies that are crucial for women to achieve leadership positions, thus making a valuable contribution to the existing literature in the field.

The purpose of this paper is to critically explore media representations of opting-out and how these present particular professional identities as appropriate career choices for women. Through an examination of a UK women's magazine the paper looks at how opting-out in favour of work based on traditionally female housewifery skills and attributes is communicated and justified in the texts.

The paper adopts a social identity approach to a qualitative content analysis of 17 consecutive monthly magazine features.

While the magazine frames women's career choices as unlimited, identity is presented as gendered, biologically fixed and therefore inescapable. The magazine presents opting out as an appropriate route for women based on a “female identity” grounded in traditional female attributes of caring, hosting, baking, etc. However, this leaves women's work open to potentially negative interpretations of these traditional female attributes. The texts appeal to a post-feminist discourse and imply that problems experienced by women in public sphere careers are partly the outcome of the feminism of the 1960s and 1970s.

Future research should study how readers interpret the texts.

The paper demonstrates the explanatory potential of using of a social identity approach in the analysis of media texts.

This study examined the kinds of work‐family conflict experienced by female married professionals with children in Hong Kong and the coping strategies they had adopted. Data were obtained through 50 in‐depth interviews. The results revealed the general ineffectiveness of coping strategies being used by married women professionals. The percentage of women who attempted to use positive coping strategies designed around job changes was low, possibly due to their reluctance in negotiating for family‐friendly organizational policies. It appears that companies in Hong Kong extend little support to working mothers in managing the work‐family interface. Implications of the findings for women’s career progressions are also discussed in this paper.

To develop a testable model for girls' career choices in technology fields based on past research and hypotheses about the future of the information technology (IT) workforce.

Review and assimilation of literature from education, psychology, sociology, computer science, IT, and business in a model that identifies factors that can potentially influence a girl's choice towards or against IT careers. The factors are categorized into social factors (family, peers, and media), structural factors (computer use, teacher/counselor influence, same sex versus coeducational schools), and individual differences. The impact of culture on these various factors is also explored.

The model indicates that parents, particularly fathers, are the key influencers of girls' choice of IT careers. Teachers and counselors provide little or no career direction. Hypotheses propose that early access to computers may reduce intimidation with technology and that same‐sex education may serve to reduce career bias against IT.

While the model is multidisciplinary, much of research from which it draws is five to eight years old. Patterns of career choices, availability of technology, increased independence of women and girls, offshore/nearshore outsourcings of IT jobs are just some of the factors that may be insufficiently addressed in this study.

A “Recommendations” section provides some practical steps to increase the involvement of girls in IT‐related careers and activities at an early age. The article identifies cultural research as a limitation and ways to address this.

The paper is an assimilation of literature from diverse fields and provides a testable model for research on gender and IT.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the findings from longitudinal study conducted with women leaders in tech cities to understand the cultural and discursive burden affecting their professional experiences and the dominant cultural boundaries they regularly have to cross to legitimise their knowledge and expertise.

The paper draws on research from the Gender in Tech City project that included serial interviews with 50 senior women leaders over three years at three different tech city sites.

The paper illustrates the differing spatialities that women continue to face within tech culture and how terms such as “women in tech” are problematic.

This study adds to the conceptualisation of tech culture and gendered constructions within a spatial context; there is a need to strengthen this path of investigation beyond gender as a lone issue.

The study contributes to the literature on spatial context, examining a new micro-context within tech culture that amplifies hidden biases and restricts the movement of women professionals.