Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to explore coping strategies devised by executive women in family relationships to advance their career and to maintain careerlfamily balance. Design/methodology/approach -A qualitative methodology using a sample of 25 executive women explores career advancement and careerlfamily balance strategies within work and family contexts. Findings -Analysis produces multiple career advancement and careerlfamily balance strategies, including professional support, personal support, value system, and life course strategies such as the "ordering" of career and family, negotiating spousal support, and whether to have children. Research limitations/implications -Adaptive strategies facilitate engagement in career and family, even in challenging gender environments, encouraging continued research on executive women's advancement and careerlfamily balance. The idiosyncratic nature of careerlfamily balance calls for greater emphasis on the context and timing of career and family experiences. Practical implications -The paper offers guidance to women seeking to combine executive career and family and to organizations committed to the advancement and retention of women. Originality/value -The paper jointly explores career advancement and careerlfamily balance strategies pursued by executive women in family relationships. It contributes to a growing body of research on the coping mechanisms and adaptive strategies underlying balance between career and family.

In recent years, entrepreneurship has grown as an attractive career alternative, promoting much scholarly attention. Still, little is known about the work–life interface of entrepreneurs, in particular whether entrepreneurship enhances work–life balance or exacerbates conflict between domains. We base this study on boundary theory to explore how subjective perceptions of balance and boundary management might illuminate this contradiction. Indeed, entrepreneurial roles are unique in that they entail high flexibility and permeability, facilitating role blurring, or boundarylessness. We interpretively explored three research questions pertaining to entrepreneurs’ perceptions of their work–life interface and boundaries between roles, as well as the context factors that could explain these perceptions. Findings suggest that several subjective as well as objective factors could explain how entrepreneurial work is sometimes experienced as conflicting, and at other times, perceived as conducive to balance. Theoretical and practical implications and recommendations as well as study limitations are discussed in closing.

Research has found that the most prevalent forms of bullying in the workplace are ambiguous and difficult to detect. As a result, bullying often results in subjective interpretations of the behavior thereby inducing various possible attributions by targets. Based on findings about the misattribution of bullying behavior, we extend current conceptualizations of workplace bullying and investigate the role of targets' attributions in explaining the relationship between workplace bullying and key dimensions of targets' performance. We propose that different attributions can have differential effects on targets' work performance. This contributes to the current debate and conflicting views about the effects of workplace bullying on work performance. We develop a theoretical model of bullying attributions that integrates key contextual factors across multiple levels. We propose that bullying can paradoxically result in positive effects on target performance under certain conditions. This theoretical model serves as a roadmap for future research in this area.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how women entrepreneurs experience entrepreneurship in the Canadian technology sector and the types of obstacles posed by the field's male‐dominated character.Design/methodology/approachThe authors' research purpose called for an inductive approach. Interviews with a sample of women technology entrepreneurs allowed for in‐depth exploration of their subjective experiences and the contexts in which these were situated.FindingsThe research subjects encountered persistent gender stereotypes, a paucity of female role models, resistance from associates within and outside of their organizations, and societal pressures to maintain appropriate levels of work‐family balance.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough exploratory and preliminary in nature, the findings indicate that women entrepreneurs do not experience “glass ceilings” as much as they experience “labyrinth walls” and what the authors identify as “thorny floors”, meaning opposition and sabotage from male subordinates.Social implicationsWomen considering entrepreneurship should expect to encounter resistance to their leadership, albeit manifested in different forms than in corporate settings. Male‐dominated fields such as technology involve industry‐level resistance as well as opposition from within the organization. Nevertheless, women perceived the field as merit‐driven whereby they gained acceptance once they had established themselves as credible competitors.Originality/valueThis study is one of few to elucidate the multiple levels of opposition to women's entrepreneurship in male‐dominated settings and introduces the concept of “thorny floors” to research on women's advancement and entrepreneurship.

We know very little about how ethical climates are built and the potential role of a firm's HR system in facilitating the development of this resource. The resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm suggests that human resource systems directly influence a firm's performance through the development of resources that are deeply woven in a firm's history and culture. How this occurs though has not been thoroughly considered in the research literature. Drawing on the theoretical insights from the resource‐based view of the firm, this article explores how HR systems can foster the development and maintenance of five types of ethical climates. In so doing, this article improves our conceptual understanding of why ethical climates may be seen as having strategic value for firms and how HR systems may influence that value. In addition, it contributes to theory by extending the domain of the resource‐based view of the firm by exploring its integration with the varied types of ethical climates. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.