Bug Busting is a method of clearing head lice by the tutored use of a fine‐toothed plastic comb in association with ordinary shampoo and conditioner. It is becoming recognized as…
Abstract
Bug Busting is a method of clearing head lice by the tutored use of a fine‐toothed plastic comb in association with ordinary shampoo and conditioner. It is becoming recognized as a viable alternative to pesticidal treatments at a time when their efficacy and safety are in question. Discusses the importance of providing parents with adequate instruction in the method and co‐ordinating their informed efforts on Bug Busting Days (31 October and 31 January). Describes the results of monitoring whole‐school participation.
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Joanna Fox and Irine Mano
Gender inequality and age discrimination persist in the Higher Education (HE) sectors. The significance of gendered health at middlescence, including peri/menopause, is often…
Abstract
Purpose
Gender inequality and age discrimination persist in the Higher Education (HE) sectors. The significance of gendered health at middlescence, including peri/menopause, is often negated. This article explores women’s lived experiences of gendered health issues at middlescence in the neoliberal academy through an intersectional lens.
Design/methodology/approach
Two female academics engaged in dialogic narrative using duoethnography addressing their experiences of gendered health issues in a UK Higher Education Institution (HEI). They recorded intentional written reflections and met to explore their experiences over a four month period. Thematic analysis was applied to analyse their responses.
Findings
Both women considered how they self-advocated for their own care at the stage of middlescence whilst seeking health support and in accessing accommodations in the HE workplace. This process impacted on the construction of their professional identity and on their self-concept as social work academics at the dynamic intersection of age, gender, ethnic, social and professional status.
Originality/value
This article uniquely foregrounds two female academics’ lived experiences of middlescence in a UK HEI conceptualised through an intersectional lens. Their experiences are explored in the context of gendered age discrimination in HE sectors that are perpetuated through masculinized forms of career progression and management. The concept of the ideal academic, a white male, unencumbered by domestic responsibilities, is contested through consideration of care ethics. We acknowledge that forms of epistemic injustice silence women’s narratives in the neoliberal academy but highlight recommendations to enable their stories of gendered health discrimination to be heard.
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The article aims to show how using the framework of social capital can be useful in understanding the careers of senior retail managers.
Abstract
Purpose
The article aims to show how using the framework of social capital can be useful in understanding the careers of senior retail managers.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative research design in the form of 17 biographical interviews with 11 men and six women was adopted to understand the perceived influence and active involvement of social capital factors in retail career development at senior levels.
Findings
Men and women were equally aware of the importance of accumulating social capital factors for career development purposes, although they considered that the accumulation of human capital factors to be crucial in their own career development. Evidence indicated that women and men had benefited from borrowing social capital early in their career. However, having reached senior status the ways and reasons women accumulate social capital seemingly differ from the men's. Overall, men acquired social capital and used networking techniques more strategically and instrumentally than the women with regard to career development purposes. Senior women talked about engaging in expressive networks for social support and to overcome macho cultures.
Research limitations/implications
The research is limited to 17 qualitative interviews and so cannot be generalised to the wider population. Rather, it is intended to instigate debate over the importance of social capital in careers.
Practical implications
The findings imply that gender impacts access to and accumulation of social capital for career development purposes. It highlights issues that need to be explored in more detail so as to enable a more complete understanding of the factors important for people's careers.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to an understanding of men's and women's career development in relation to social capital, an area that has received limited attention in the human resource and retail fields.
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Joanna Radomska, Przemysław Wołczek and Susana Costa e Silva
The manager of the 21st century is expected to succeed in an environment strongly characterized by unprecedented volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). In…
Abstract
The manager of the 21st century is expected to succeed in an environment strongly characterized by unprecedented volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). In fact, today’s business environment consists of contradictory pressure and tensions, where competitive advantage could be gained by ambidextrous activities. The concept of ambidexterity has already been discussed by many scholars, but still little is known about managerial practice and actions that are useful for finding the balance between the paradoxes that have been identified at that level. Although there are different tensions, dynamic and evolving according to the changes observed in the environment: more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, the pressure to remain flexible and simultaneously maintain the plan of development, seems to be essential. In recent research studies, networking perspective is mentioned as one of areas worth exploring while analyzing the concept of ambidexterity. For that reason, the main goal of this chapter is to investigate if networking is one of the factors useful for managing ambidexterity. To gain deeper insight, we investigated further, searching for the factors essential for managing ambidexterity: we compared the research results between companies of different sizes to identify any regularities. We focused on ambidexterity reflected by managerial practice where stability/plans and flexibility are implemented simultaneously. We investigated 150 managers using paper-and-pencil interviewing. Our research results confirmed that networking could be one of the main approaches having an impact on ambidextrous activities. However, we cannot conclude that companies are obliged to apply a networking perspective to be ambidextrous, although it could be recommended. Further analysis of companies of different sizes revealed the relationship between ambidexterity and networking in case of small and large companies, and no relation in medium-sized enterprises.
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Julia Richardson and Jelena Zikic
This paper aims to examine the “darker side” of what it means to engage in an international academic career. Extending beyond well‐documented themes relating to the difficulties…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the “darker side” of what it means to engage in an international academic career. Extending beyond well‐documented themes relating to the difficulties of cross‐cultural adjustment and unfulfilled expectations/opportunities for promotion, this paper seeks to introduce “transience and risk” as two important dimensions of this very specific career choice. The paper draws especially on the contemporary “new” careers literature, including conceptions of career exploration as a framework to understand the research findings.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs a qualitative methodology, drawing on semi‐structured interviews conducted in situ with 30 expatriate academics in four different countries.
Findings
Transience and risk were identified as two important dimensions of the “darker side” of pursuing an international academic career. However, these two dimensions also had further positive aspects, thus signalling the complex and often contradictory nature of this specific career form.
Research limitations/implications
Introduces a more cautionary note to the contemporary literature on international careers and career exploration more generally.
Practical implications
Careers that evolve across international boundaries require support that extends beyond cross‐cultural training.
Originality/value
The paper contends that in as much as an international academic career offers a broad range of opportunities for fulfilment it also presents significant challenges that should be acknowledged.
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Existing research has established that women drop out of engineering careers in part because of a dissatisfaction with their career development, but women's understanding of…
Abstract
Purpose
Existing research has established that women drop out of engineering careers in part because of a dissatisfaction with their career development, but women's understanding of career development in engineering has been as yet largely unexplored. This paper aims to explore female engineers' experiences of navigating their careers and their perceptions of barriers to career development, through the lens of the intelligent career framework (ICF).
Design/methodology/approach
The in-depth interviews of this study were conducted with female engineers in the UK and analysed using template analysis.
Findings
The authors identified three structural barriers that participants felt hinder women's career development in engineering: (1) promotions are more likely to be given to people who are widely known – more often men; (2) promotions are more likely to be given to people on whom high status is conferred in this context – more often men and (3) promotions are more likely to be given to people who conform to the ideal worker ideology – more often men. The women also offered a series of counter-narratives in which they reframed the behaviour they witnessed as something other than sexism.
Originality/value
The findings highlight the significant and systemic bias against women's career development through gender stereotypes in workplaces and an implicitly gendered organisation that hinders the development of the three competencies needed for career advancement. The authors describe a range of counter-narratives that the participants use to help them to make sense of their experiences. Finally, the authors illustrate the application of the intelligent career framework (ICF) as a lens to view the career development culture of an organisation.
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Richard Boyatzis and Udayan Dhar
The ideal self has had a place in management literature in recent years with reference to identity and role change. However, except for a JMD article in 2006, there has been…
Abstract
Purpose
The ideal self has had a place in management literature in recent years with reference to identity and role change. However, except for a JMD article in 2006, there has been little theorizing on the ideal self, which is often treated as a static construct. The purpose of this article is to update and refine the concept and explain the dynamic nature of the construct.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper is based on a review of the recent management and psychology literature related to the ideal self and its components.
Findings
The authors propose a dynamic theory of the emerging ideal self and delineate how its components evolve over time.
Research limitations/implications
The ideal self, or one's personal vision, is a major motivator of learning and change and the sustainability of such efforts. The time dynamic theory would encourage and guide longitudinal research using better variables and measures as well as help in conceptualizing the role of socialization, social identity and life/career stages.
Practical implications
With a better theory of the ideal self, trainers, consultants, coaches and teachers can help people update their deep sense of purpose and the sustaining driver of learning and change the ideal self. It could help people and organizations address a major determinant of engagement.
Originality/value
This theory offers a temporal understanding of how the ideal self can motivate learning and change at different life and career eras, which can help in designing future research on identity-related transitions.
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Cynthia Ingols and Devon Eckert
The purpose of this case study is to illustrate how Dianne Savastano, founder and CEO of Healthassist, Inc., a US-based health-care advocacy firm, successfully led her clients and…
Abstract
Case study abstract
The purpose of this case study is to illustrate how Dianne Savastano, founder and CEO of Healthassist, Inc., a US-based health-care advocacy firm, successfully led her clients and team through the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. To gather the data for this case study, the authors interviewed the protagonists, the members of her team and two clients. The authors read Healthassist Newsletters and the firm’s documents; and in fact, they included one Newsletter and several documents in the Exhibits of the case study. The authors conducted a literature review for articles in newspapers and journals about the newly developing field of “health-care advocacy,” a field which Savastano helped to create.
Findings of the case study
The authors illustrate how Savastano, using the five practices of exemplary leadership by Kouzes and Posner, in The Leadership Challenge, led her team through the pandemic of 2020. This is a story of a woman leader, using traits such as warmth, empathy, analysis and decisiveness, keeps her small business afloat when so many other firms collapsed in 2020.
Research
The authors conducted seven interviews and literature searches on the topics of health-care advocacy; women leaders; leading through a crisis; and COVID-19.
Practical implications
The case study illustrates how a woman founder and CEO can lead her firm through a crisis.
Value of the case study
This is an example of how a woman leader managed through the 2020 pandemic.
Subject code
CSS 3: Entrepreneurship