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The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of social capital for career success and sustainability among arts managers and the implication for human resource practice.

This paper is a qualitative study comprising interviews with 73 arts managers in Australia.

While answering an occupational calling and having a sense of passion for the arts is a key driver to embark upon a career in arts management, it is social capital that is essential for both objective and subjective career success and thus for career sustainability. The authors also identify the value of education, global experience and well-honed soft skills for building social capital.

The study is located in Australia – arts management in other national contexts and industries may be different.

This paper identifies the need for arts managers to develop heterogeneous social capital to support both career success and sustainability. It also indicates that whereas passion for the arts may be an important driver, other skills and competencies are required. Both of these themes need to be incorporated into human resource practice in the arts industry.

This paper demonstrates the growing need to acknowledge the impact of relational social capital in the arts in an increasingly volatile work environment.

This paper fills the gap in our understanding of careers that bridge both the arts and management as professional domains of activity and extends understanding on the role of social capital in management careers more generally.

This paper examines an identified but unexplored career gap evidenced at a mid-level classification in the academic career path for women in Australia. This career-stalling effect or holding pattern, is examined to determine underlying causes of career trajectory interruption.

Guided by the epistemological stance of standpoint theory, this exploratory abductive study employs a novel arts-based method, draw, write, reflect, to access experiences that may be difficult to convey verbally. The obtained drawings and reflections were thematically analysed.

Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of illusio this article finds support for female academics’ bifurcated consciousness. Results demonstrate how opposing social role prescriptions result in the deliberate avoidance of work-life conflict, a nuanced lack of confidence in work tasks in combination with other, often competing responsibilities, and the uneven distribution of administrative duties known as “academic housework”, which combine to stall careers. Female academics feel pressure to prioritise their domestic role and eschew career progression.

Despite the small sample size, the findings provide rich career narratives and experiences of female academics in Australia providing additional impetus for increased gender equity efforts.

This study is the first to explore the previously unidentified holding pattern for female academics in Australia. Findings suggest there is a range of previously unexplored impediments resulting in a gendered stalling at a mid-level classification interrupting female academic career progression.

This study explored one form of remote working – work from home – to understand the impact of work disruptions on workers and human resource management (HRM) practice and therefore how to adapt to future crises. Specifically, the purpose is to understand the impact of events on employees when they are forced to move back and forth (yo-yoing) between work from home and a central office, using the case of Perth, Western Australia (WA).

Thirty-nine interviews with leaders, managers and co-workers working in private and public organisations suggest that forced changes to work arrangements affect job content and demands, well-being and potentially career trajectories.

The authors critically applied and developed the tenets of event system theory (EST) (novelty, disruption and criticality) by analysing an ongoing or “long” event rather than a discrete or time-limited one. The study found that the work-from-home experience influenced the individual perception of whether remote working would suit employees in the future, potentially influencing career paths. In addition, the selection of locations to live, preferred properties (e.g. home office space) and access to services (e.g. broadband infrastructure) has also become dominant features of work decisions.

While the study generated rich data, it is not without limitations. The participants were from one Australian state which may not reflect the COVID-19 experiences of other jurisdictions. In addition, the participants were mostly female so this may offer a different perspective than a more gender-balanced sample. The study was limited to the perspectives of employees and middle managers.

The authors note three areas of implications for practitioners. First, the findings suggest that strong organisational and HRM support assists employees to cope well with change. Second, the importance of technological and social preparedness in improving employee experiences highlights the role of HRM in job design. Third, it is key that salient events are recognised as potential determinants of career pathways.

The evidence from this research broadens the application of EST showing that forced flexibility has an influence on work arrangements by influencing a series of changes in features of work and experiences of employees. As such, this impacts employee's well-being and potentially future career decisions.

This research focuses on the extent sharing economy transforms employability for women impacted by domestic and reproductive work. The authors explore the experience of mothers, of how digital peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms can affect their self-perceived employability and skills deterioration by unlocking human capital through technology acceptance.

This study adopted a pragmatism-based approach incorporating using a single-case study research design with the Gioia methodology. It utilised a semi-structured telephone survey to collect data to explore the decisions around usage of a newly developed mobile P2P app, aiming to support employability among mothers. Analysis was conducted inductively using thematic analysis and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The study finds that mothers experience high rates of continued labour market attachment on a casual or part-time basis, difficulty in juggling family and work, and high levels of concern both about future employment/entrepreneurial opportunities and expected stress in balancing dual roles of carer and earner. While mothers are interested in using new sharing economy technologies to reduce skills deterioration and improve signalling, the authors find that there were both technology and non-technology related barriers. These included trust and security, life-stage mismatch, time poverty and limitation of service offerings.

This research was limited to mothers in one state in Australia and by the case study research design, the measurement model and the self-report nature of the data collection. Hence, the findings may lack generalisability in other contexts. It also limits the ability to make conclusions regarding causality.

This exploratory study contributes to research in the intersection between human resources (HR) and entrepreneurship by illustrating how sharing economy platforms can offer women a means to overcome the issues of signalling and skills deterioration in relation to aspects of human capital theory by developing new skills that may act as positive signals signal to potential employers or investors. Additionally, the social interactions between mothers, through technology adoption, can provide a basis for improving future self-employment or entrepreneurship and employability.

Literature around the careers of female academics is targeted mainly toward identifying and examining career progression inhibitors, while the drivers appear largely unexplored. This paper aims to contribute to contemporary knowledge by identifying drivers to the career progression of female academics in Australia. With COVID-19 currently impacting the careers of female academics this knowledge can assist universities and human resource (HR) professionals in developing policies and practices to better facilitate female academic career progression.

Empirically this paper draws on a qualitative study of 18 male and 29 female academics, as well as nine senior university stakeholders. The authors employed semi-structured interviews and a novel methodology, Draw, Write, Reflect.

In line with attribution theory, senior stakeholders mainly identified organisational efforts, including leadership, gender equity endeavours, recruitment and promotion approaches, as well as a construct known as “relative to opportunity considerations”, as drivers of female academics’ career progression. Female academics, however, largely attributed their career progression to personal factors, such as family support, informal mentoring, and determination and persistence.

The findings have implications for universities and HR practices seeking to facilitate female academic career progression. Implementation of the drivers identified may enhance female academics’ abilities to progress their careers.

By focussing on the drivers of, rather than the barriers to, female academic careers, the research is novel in its identification of a previously unexplored mismatch between organisational attribution and individual attribution of career progression drivers thereby advancing knowledge of gender differences in academic careers.

This paper seeks to examine whether cultural context facilitates the emergence of different leadership styles. The key objective of the paper is to consider whether leadership styles are culturally‐linked and/or culturally‐biased.

A multifactor leadership questionnaire was utilised to measure differences in leadership styles and to offer explanations as to why the “one size fits all” view is not appropriate. Analysis of variance and t‐tests were utilised to compare means for more than two managerial groups.

The analysis found significant differences between leadership styles and cultural groups, hence, supporting the argument that culture and leadership interact in different ways in diverse contexts. Transactional leadership was found to be strongly aligned with the ratings of managers from Malaysia, and transformational leadership scales correlated with the Australian respondents' mean ratings.

Variations in leadership styles are due to cultural influences because people have different beliefs and assumptions about characteristics that are deemed effective for leadership. Therefore, it is fundamental to know what leadership skills and knowledge are valued most by managers on a global level. This information is critical as it offers insight into developing competencies in different workplaces, especially as organisations expand their geographical boundaries into international markets.

The findings of the study provide empirical understanding for culturally‐linked leadership styles. The paper contributes to understanding the importance of workforce diversity and attention to other cultures and, thus, enhances our appreciation of today's “global village”.

The increase in general managerial roles held by women has failed to translate into senior management positions in many countries. The paper aims to focus on the experiences of two groups of female and male managers in two diverse countries and how these groups of employees view career advancement and how this perspective may relate to the lack of women in senior managerial roles.

This study adopts deductive reasoning to understand social practice as a means by which and how senior management identities are perceived and whether these roles are attainable. A survey was administered to female and male managers in Malaysia and in Australia.

The findings indicate that women in two countries studied still have significant responsibilities for performing family duties, and bringing up children. In particular, the Malaysian respondents viewed family and personal responsibilities as their greatest impediment to attaining senior management positions. Hence, they are unable to contemplate both careers and families, a view strongly supported by the Australian women as well.

Societal expectations on women in certain cultures are still strongly entrenched because they believe that they are required to comply with the social roles by prioritising marital obligations over any desire for senior management careers.

The present paper is based on a cross‐cultural exploration of middle managers in two diverse cultures and aims to focus on how the leadership styles of managerial women are perceived and evaluated. In particular, female and male peer evaluations of leadership effectiveness in Malaysia and Australia are to be explored.

Surveys from 324 middle managers from Malaysia and Australia were quantitatively analysed. The sample for the study was drawn from organisations in four industry types in both countries.

Findings suggest that evaluations of female managers' leadership styles in general, and within the respondent's own organisations, were strongly culture specific, especially in Malaysia. The results reflected the strongly held values, attitudes and beliefs of each country. While this is not unexpected, it does highlight a need to be cautious when interpreting Western research results and attempting to transplant those into other cultures. In Malaysia, female managers were not seen as effective in the leadership styles they adopted in their roles when compared to the Australian female managers' evaluations. Such an evaluation may have had little to do with an objective appraisal of the female managers' capability, but rather with a strongly held cultural belief about the appropriate role of women in society, and in organisations in particular.

It is suggested that national culture manifests itself in the values, attitudes and behaviours of people. Cultural influences are therefore likely to impact on the way women and men behave in the workplace, particularly when roles of authority and power are evident, and the way in which that behaviour will be evaluated by others. Further research using different samples in different cultures are recommended. In addition, the influence of ethnicity, race or religion in plural countries such as Malaysia and Australia is also worthy of investigation.

This research suggests that values and attitudes are strongly culture‐specific and therefore have the ability to influence evaluations at an organisational level. Such an awareness of cultural influences should guide appropriate human resource practices, particularly within a globalized environment.

The inclusion of a gender comparison in the data analysis in this paper is a significant attempt to add to the extant knowledge of the cross‐cultural research. This is a unique contribution because of the omission of a gender perspective in the previous two seminal studies in culture literature (i.e. Hofstede and House et al.). In addition, the findings suggest that culture‐specific influences are important determinants that impose expectations on the role of women differently from men in society and within organisations hence, making the gender comparison of the findings more significant.

This paper seeks to examine two management doctoral research projects to highlight the advantages in mixed methods as the primary research design.

This paper summarises the methods of data collection and analysis which were used by two doctoral students in their management research. The researchers used mixed methods approaches (quantitative and qualitative) to explore different areas of management.

The paper supports the view that triangulation of research methods strengthens the findings and inferences made for understanding social phenomena in more depth, compared to using a single method.

The paper relies excessively on two doctoral research projects which utilise sequential mixed methods. Therefore, arguments made in the paper are specific because other doctoral projects that have used different methods from those employed in the two projects were not considered.

Early researchers, in particular students commencing doctorate studies, should apply mixed methods research because it develops skills in the two most dominant data collection methods used in management research. This paper is a practical guide on how this could be done effectively.

The paper is drawn from two unique doctoral research projects. The paper's originality and value is in providing experiences and practical insights on how mixed methods research is undertaken.

This exploratory study aims to explore the perceptions and experience of women doctors on working with each other and draw attention to their ‘voice’ on this issue. The equivocal and limited nature of relevant literature piqued our curiosity on how women perceive working with each other in work settings, particularly within the medical profession.

Twelve women doctors within Australian public hospitals were interviewed through semi-structured informal interviews to “voice” their experiences and views on the comforts and discomforts of working with other women doctors. Their responses were compared to literature to determine similarities and uniqueness of their experiences to women in other settings.

Insights from the respondent’s perceptions and experiences highlight several constructive and negative aspects of working alongside women doctors. Social and psychological constructs of being a “woman” and being a “woman doctor” as well as systemic/cultural issues of the medical fraternity formed how the women in this series of interviews perceived and related to the women doctors they worked with.

This exploratory provides initial insights into the experiences of women doctors on working with each other. Many themes identified have been explored in other settings. Hospital as a workplace, presents many similar work dynamics when considering the work interactions of women in other settings. This study should be used to drive more rigorous enquiry and a larger sample size.

The working relationships women build with each other influence individual careers and organizational outcomes. Understanding the dynamics that improve and hinder the development of constructive work relationships between women can strengthen women-focused managerial and organizational policies and practices.

The consolidation of literature coupled with the exploratory insights of this research contributes to a limited depth of existing literature not only in the medical profession, but in other industries and settings as well.