What it Means to Succeed: Personal Conceptions of Career Success Held by Male and Female Managers at Different Ages

Abstract

This paper describes the findings of a qualitative study which analyses how managers define career success for themselves on their own terms. In exploring career success from the perspective of the individual, not the organization, the research attempts to fill an identifiable gap in the career literature. The paper examines the criteria which individuals use to describe what career success means to them, and expresses them by means of a series of orientational categories – Climbers, Experts, Influencers and Self‐Realizers – which classify the different ways in which managers talk about career success. The variations in the way that the male and female, and older and younger, research participants describe what career success means to them are discussed and compared. The women managers and older managers who took part in the study appear less inclined to define career success in terms of hierarchical and financial progression: the paper considers the implications of this for individuals and for organizations.

What it means to succeed: Personal perceptions of career success held by senior managers

“…As a result societies, and more specifically organisations, tend to evaluate their employees' career success according to objective external measures. Even though in the present business environment it is evident that compensation still remains one of the main indicators of a successful management career (Eddleston et al, 2004), pay and promotions are not all that people seek from their career (Gattiker & Larwood, 1988;Korman et al, 1981;Sturges, 1999). This was clearly reflected by the personal meaning senior managers attached to career success when stating that to them career success was not merely about money, fancy titles or status.…”

“…Considering the nature of the present business environment, compensation still seems to be one of the major indicators of a successful management career (Eddleston, Baldridge & Veiga, 2004). However, monetary compensation and promotions are not all that individuals seek from their careers (Gattiker & Larwood, 1988;Korman, WittigBerman & Lang, 1981;Sturges, 1999). Less substantial and less measurable subjective outcomes, such as a balance between personal life and working life and doing meaningful and purposeful work, are often more significant to individuals (Finegold & Mohrman, 2001;Hall, 2002).…”

Changing perceptions of meritocracy in senior women's careers

“…ultimately a position on a corporate board. This may reflect gender differences in notions of career success, which from Sturges (1999), suggests that men tend to focus more on external aspects like status and pay, whereas women tend to be more concerned with internal definitions such as personal recognition, accomplishment and maintaining balance. (2005) and Mainiero and Sullivan (2005) would suggest that it is women in mid-career, in their 'Endurance' phase, who are more concerned with 'balance'.…”

25 Years On: Reflecting on the Past and Looking to the Future in Gender and Management Research

“…Thus, in a special issue on state-of-the-art review papers, one of the first papers providing a critical review of gender research was published by Judi Marshall in December 1995. Other papers in BJM during that decade charted various aspects of gender in management including the barriers women face in their careers (Ashburner, 1991); differences between men and women in decision making behaviours (Johnson and Powell, 1994); characteristics of male and female small and medium sized businesses (Mukhtar, 1998); career barriers of 'token' women managers (Simpson, 1997); and gender differences in notions of career success (Sturges, 1999).…”