Female Part‐Time Managers: Careers, Mentors and Role Models

Abstract

This paper explores the careers of 27 women employed as part-time managers in a range of UK public, private and not-for-profit sector organizations. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews, the article briefly summarizes the career trajectories of these women, prior to and after a transition to part-time working, before exploring whether and how career progression is linked to the support of role models and mentors. The part-time managers in this sample held varied careers while working full-time, but careers often stalled following a transition to part-time work. Given research has identified role models and mentors as having a positive impact upon career progression, this paper explores the existence of role models and mentors within the sample of female part-time managers. While the majority of interviewees identified role models, just over half identified these as negative role models who did little to champion part-time working. Drawing upon Gibson's 'positive/negative' role model dimensions, we argue the likelihood of identifying positive and negative role models alters when an analysis takes account of gender and working hours. Few interviewees identified mentors: just four women spoke of being mentored currently, though ten others identified being mentored in the past. We argue this lack of mentors and the identification of negative role models, the majority of whom were women, exacerbates the already precarious position of these female part-time managers. The paper concludes by commenting on the lack of support for female part-time managers, and the paucity of influential people working part-time in organizations, despite the rapid growth of part-time work in the UK over the past four decades.

Informal Mentoring at Work: A Review and Suggestions for Future Research

“…These studies show the importance of a careful exploration of support functions. It seems reasonable as well that particular characteristics of the dyad in terms of gender and race influence the content of the relational interactions (Durbin and Tomlinson ). Future studies should extend this research by qualitatively exploring how functions, behaviors and relationship phases differ for various types of developmental relationships (varying in, for example, relationship strength and frequency of contact).…”

Balancing the Scales of Gender and Culture in Contemporary South Africa

“…Similar to international research (Durbin & Tomlinson, 2014), South African research findings highlight women's need for mentors, in particular female mentors (Martin & Barnard, 2013). In addition to mentoring, Van Wyk (2012) highlights the importance of developing personal leadership skills as fundamental to South African women leaders' coping.…”

“…Many, however, still regard gender transformation and equity in South African leadership echelons as unsatisfactory (Kinnear, 2014). Despite the positive trend of increasing numbers of women in executive positions, many women still choose to leave the organisational setting in favour of home-based entrepreneurial work, part-time work or other careers that better accommodate the demands of their role as the primary caregivers in the household (Durbin & Tomlinson, 2014;Martin & Barnard, 2013). This situation is exacerbated by the conflicting role demands entrenched in the socio-economic culture, as well as the persistent discriminatory gender role stereotypes with which women have to deal.…”

What helps? Women engineers' accounts of staying on

“…The importance of role models for individuals' career progression is well established in the careers literature (Durbin & Tomlinson, ). As our data show, role models worked as symbols of possibility for women engineers, offering inspiration and removing uncertainty by demonstrating that other women have combined a career in engineering with domestic responsibilities.…”