What Would You Sacrifice? Access to Top Management and the Work–life Balance

Abstract

This article is based on a current research, combining quantitative (human resources figures and statistics) and qualitative data (60 interviews with career managers, top managers and high potential talents, both men and women), conducted in a major French utility company on the subject of diversity and more specifically on the issue of women's access to top management positions. The main purpose of this research is to understand the difficulties women may encounter in the course of their occupational career linked to organizational aspects, including the 'glass ceiling' processes, informal norms related to management positions (such as time and mobility constraints) and social and cultural representations attached to leadership. The other perspective of this research focuses on the different strategies women and men build either to conform to the organizational norms or bypass them. The issue of work-life balance are therefore addressed both from a corporate/organizational standpoint and an individual and family perspective.Keywords: managerial career, work-life balance, glass ceiling, women in management, organizationThe formal and informal requirements of organizational careers E ven if a great amount has been written on organizational careers since the 1960s (Dalton, 1959;Glaser, 1968), these studies have rarely focused on the articulation between work and private life, as if it was possible to separate these two spheres of life. Conversely, women's management studies have shown the importance of combining paid and unpaid work in the analysis of women's difficulties in accessing power. Inspired by the American

How do male managers narrate their female spouse ' s role in their career?

“…Linehan (2000) says in her study of 50 senior international female managers that the majority of the married women in the study believed that progressing to the top of their managerial careers had been facilitated by the careers of their spouses being placed secondary to their own careers. Guillaume and Pochic (2009) also conclude that to have access to top management it is implicitly expected that the spouse has sacrificed his/her career. They add that it is most commonly the woman's sacrifice: the woman is generally expected to sacrifice her career for the sake of her spouse.…”

“…The significance of the subordination of one spouse's career to the managerial career of the other spouse is a result found in recent studies about advancing to top management (Linehan, 2000;Guillaume & Pochic, 2009). Linehan (2000) says in her study of 50 senior international female managers that the majority of the married women in the study believed that progressing to the top of their managerial careers had been facilitated by the careers of their spouses being placed secondary to their own careers.…”

Perceived Gender Discrimination and Women’s Subjective Career Success: The Moderating Role of Career Anchors

“…Of course, this leaves open the question of the nature of career anchors, and in particular their stability. Research has shown that women make adaptations to their career goals (e.g., Guillaume and Pochic, 2009) and it is debatable whether career anchors, though socially-grounded, are stable after the very early career years, or whether they may change according to later work experiences. This amounts to the question of whether women's "choices" indeed really are choices or just rationalized constraints (e.g., Crompton and Lyonette, 2011).…”

Organizational Leadership and Work-Life Integration: Insights from Three Generations of Men

“…In addition, further insight is needed to understand how employees in the three generations (Millennials/Gen Y, Gen X, and Baby Boomers), which predominantly comprise the current workplace, view organizational leadership in relationship to work-life balance. Since the voices of women have been studied extensively (Eagly & Carli, 2007;Favero & Heath, 2012;Guillaume & Pochic, 2009;Jyothi & Jyothi, 2012;Roebuck, Smith, & Elhaddaoui, 2013;Schueller-Weidekamm & Kautzky-Willer, 2012), this exploratory study examines the perspectives of working men by asking how different generations of men view organizational leadership in light of work-life balance. The researchers used a convenience sample to invite men to participate in an online survey about organizational leadership, work-life balance and generational factors.…”