Retracted Article: Fitting into technical organizations? Exploring the role of gender in construction and engineering management in Greece

Abstract

While there is growing interest in professional identity construction, little is known about how marginalization may influence the development of professional identity of minority professionals, such as women engineers holding middle and upper management positions in construction management. Professional identity is defined as one's professional self-concept based on attributes, beliefs, values, motives and experiences. The development of professional identity under conditions of marginalization presents an interesting puzzle. Professional roles are defined as prestigious and provide the role holder with autonomy and, often, a degree of privilege. However, marginalized professionals are often accorded little prestige and/or privilege because their identities are perceived as inferior. Thus, the purpose of the study is to build and enrich theory around the development of professional identity under conditions of marginalized gender identity. To accomplish this goal, the study of narratives by 33 prominent Greek women civil engineers with careers in construction management explores what it means to be both women and engineers holding high management positions in their organizations. The analysis of the findings revealed a redefinition rather than an adaptation process as a central task for the professional identity construction of women managers in engineering which involved three redefinition tasks: redefining occupational rhetorics, disadvantage, and the self.

Horseplay, care and hands on hard work: gendered strategies of a project manager on a construction site

“…Although she identifies herself as a woman on site, a marginalised and minority identity, she places herself firmly at the centre of the operation with "her lads". She rejects 'being the outsider' and highlights her gender identity as advantageous (see Kyriakidou, 2012). This allows her to work outside the usual confines of 'managerial identity' which includes for example the implicit suppression of emotion (Hay, 2014: 511, 513).…”

Managerial competencies of female and male managers in the Swedish construction industry

“…Data based on employment statistics of 2011 show that 27% of civil engineers and architects, 8% of technicians, 1% of craft workers, and only 5% of managers are women (Table 1). These figures are not unique to Sweden; the low percentages of women working in the construction industry and in particular, the low percentages of female managers are also prevalent in the UK (Fielden et al, 2000;Worall et al, 2010), the US (Menches and Abraham, 2007), Australia (Loosemore and Galea, 2008), Denmark (Kamp, 2005), and Greece (Kyriakidou, 2012). Clearly, the presence of women in the industry is very low and few manage to get roles as managers and higher executives in the business (Dainty et al, 2004;Watts, 2009;Kyriakidou, 2012).…”

“…There are examples in many countries of how women working in the construction industry are forced to either assimilate and conform to the existing masculine culture or become marginalized, discouraged, and possibly ejected from the industry (e.g. Loosemore and Galea, 2008;Powell et al, 2009;Watts, 2009;Kyriakidou, 2012). Agapiou (2002) studied men's and women's attitudes towards women in the industry and found that women's role was constantly negotiated both among men and among women.…”

Compromising gender identities

“…For example, women are now pursuing higher education and entering occupations previously dominated by men, such as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM: Glass et al , 2013; Cain and Leahey, 2014) industries, making such workplaces gender-atypical for women. Employee movements across gender-atypical industries are identified as a positive input to contemporary work contexts (Kyriakidou, 2012; Wallace, 2014). However, gendered organizations pose a number of problems and challenges to the minority gender.…”

“…information technology (IT) firms) continue to garner scholarly attention, given the rise in women entering non-traditional work domains (Wallace, 2014) and the many challenges faced by them in such contexts (e.g. Denissen, 2010; Kyriakidou, 2012; Moore et al , 2008; Pilgeram, 2007; Watts, 2007; Williams et al , 2012). As Kvande (1999) finds, women employed in these contexts cross the border of gender-atypical labor to enter highly technical professions and in doing so become the numerical and normative minority in organizations where men have the greater ruling power.…”