Description
Combat or fighting is a purposeful violent conflict meant to weaken, or establish dominance over the opposition, or to kill the opposition, or drive the opposition away from a location where it is not wanted or needed.
Case Study on Strategies for Combating Gendered Perceptions of Careers
Abstract
Purpose - Earlier work on career choice has identified that career choice involves gendered processes which lead to differentiated career outcomes for women and men. However, this literature remained anaemic in offering career counselling strategies for addressing the negative impacts of these processes. The paper aims to explore the creativity cycle and other tools derived from personal construct psychology (PCP) and other feminist literature as potential means for dissolving gendered perceptions of various professions and organisational practices. Design/methodology/approach - This is a conceptual paper. Findings - The paper argues that PCP can provide a theoretical and methodological framework for discussing how dichotomous and gender identified the perceptions of professions can be and how such perceptions might be challenged. Practical implications - This theory and its techniques allow us an exploration of the ?exibility of one's constructions system, which determines a person's ability to construe alternative views and to develop new ways of understanding oneself and others. Originality/value - The PCP's potential as a technique to combat gendered perceptions of a career is examined. Keywords Gender, Perception, Careers, Career guidance, Individual psychology Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction Other papers in this special issue draw on a cross-national study which reports findings of a questionnaire survey among MBA students and identifies marked gender differences in career choices of students in all of the countries under study. Gendered career choice is one of the root causes of persistent gender inequalities at work and in life. Re?ecting on the findings of the other papers in the special issue, we propose the use of a technique, repertory grids, for combating and addressing gender differences in career choice. Gender equality and diversity at work can make a positive contribution to organisational performance (Krishnan and Park, 2005; Gratton et al., 2007). Research on gender and professions has extensively documented negative impacts of gendered perceptions on career choice (Correll, 2001; Michie and Nelson, 2006; Kusku et al., 2007) ¨¨ as resilient to change over time, across sectors of employment and internationally (e.g. Watt and Eccles, 2008; Francis, 2002). Despite extensive documentation of the interplay between gender and career choices in this literature, identification of antecedents, correlates and consequences of gendered career choices does not translate directly into strategies for combating the negative consequences and root causes of gendered career choices. Indeed, there has
been insufficient interest in offering practical strategies for addressing the negative consequences of gendered perceptions on career choice. Often such strategies are presented as afterthoughts in "policy/practice implications" in research papers which document gendered nature of career choice. In this paper, we seek to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the potential of personal construct psychology in both revealing gendered perceptions and combating them. Negative consequences of gendered perceptions of careers Career is an overarching concept which refers to the totality of an individual's choices and experiences of work across time and situated settings. In a similar way, gender is the social construction of an individual's biological sex across time and in situated settings. As such, gender stereotyping has a multi-component nature (Six and Eckes, 1991). Gender relations are infused in every aspect of an individual's work and life experiences. Therefore, careers of individuals are imbued with different gender relations across life courses and institutional settings. Although gendered perceptions are not the sole arbiters of career choices, processes and outcomes, gendered perceptions play significant roles in career processes and outcomes of individuals. Forms of inequality and segregation based on gendered perceptions are often reported in the extant literature as important economic and social concerns. Therefore, combating gender inequities has been taken up as an important challenge of social and economic regulation in the past few decades. There have been considerable gains in the field of sex equality in advanced economies over the last century. However, this optimism does not apply across the board to all aspects of social and economic life. Research shows that occupational sex segregation, i.e. unequal representation of women and men across occupational groups (horizontal sex segregation) and across levels of occupational hierarchies (vertical sex segregation), has survived relatively unscathed over time (Anker, 2004). Despite some improvements in vertical sex segregation, as women started entering senior management roles in greater numbers across the world (Anker, 2004), it has long been recognized that horizontal sex segregation has proved unchanging. For example, Burke and Mattis (2007) demonstrated that women are worryingly under-represented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers across the world. The persistence of horizontal sex segregation presents a problematic situation as it provides the objective basis of gendered perceptions, which foster sex typing of jobs and professions. Gender segregation is also important because it colours the perception of a profession (Lent et al., 2000), which in turn may affect an individual's choice of a career. Gendered perceptions of professions affect the way women and men carve out careers and navigate their career choices, which requires policy and research attention if the negative consequences of gendered perceptions are to be tackled. However, studies in the field do not present a positive view and identify that organisations have ill-conceived tendencies to offer solutions which are unsophisticated and quick fix in nature (Rubin, 1997; Cockburn, 1991) or to adopt a deficit approach to combating inequality and gendered perceptions which assume that women should be fixed (trained or educated) as they lack the requisite forms of human capital (Eccles, 1986). There is also a tendency to assume that only men hold gendered perceptions of professions. Conversely, Fernandez et al. (2006) and Kusku et al. (2007) noted that both ´ ¨¨
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women and men hold gendered perceptions and suffer from negative consequences of gendered perceptions in choosing and pursuing their careers. Combating gendered perceptions is only a part of the complex and sophisticated set of strategies which should be adopted in order to address gendered inequalities at work. See, for example, Cockburn's (1991) short and long agendas of change for combating gendered inequalities at work, or Cornelius and Clapp's (2004) study, which proposed personal construct psychology in order to promote gender equality through re-conceptualisation of organisational learning. In order to formulate strategies for tackling gendered perceptions of professions, we focused on three important considerations: (1) promoting exposure to varied experiences and contexts; (2) increasing individual awareness of career alternatives; and (3) recognising cognitive and social background differences among individuals in design of interventions. We examined each of these strategies for combating gendered perceptions of a profession in turn.
Exposure to varied experiences and contexts Women and men experience sexist stereotypes and gendered perceptions in different ways. Experience of gender inequalities and stereotypes offers extensive opportunities for learning across different cultural contexts institutional settings at different points in their life courses. This learning may enable women and men to use strategies of coping which they have developed in one domain of their lives when they face gendered perceptions and stereotypes again in different settings. Gendered perceptions are commonplace across all aspects of an individual's career. Malach-Pines and Kapsi-Baruch (2007) suggest that gender differences in career choice are socially constructed. Drawing on a study across five countries (Israel, the UK, Turkey, Cyprus and Hungary) they show that cross-national variation is largely due to cultural differences in the social construction of gender and choice of careers in entrepreneurship and management. In a similar study, Gushue and Whitson (2006) suggest that both gender and ethnicity shape the career choices and experiences of Black and Latina girls. The authors call for career counsellors to be aware of the significance of context in understanding the way careers are gendered and ethnicised. Operating across varied contexts, with exposure to different forms of inequality, can help individuals develop capacities to recognise and tackle negative gendered assumptions more effectively. Exposure to different contexts can help them question the assumption that gendered perceptions are natural. We examine at the end of this paper how a repertory grids technique can be instrumental in exposing individuals to a wider repertoire of strategies for combating gendered perceptions. The density of the learning experience also leads to higher self-efficacy and outcome expectations (Williams and Subich, 2006). Therefore, varied and enriched learning experiences can help women and men develop their self-efficacy and build up confidence to expect better and more sophisticated career outcomes.
Increasing individual awareness of career alternatives Having an awareness of career alternatives is an important requisite for an individual to break vicious cycles of gendered perception and inequality. Muldoon and Reilly (2003) reveal that the availability of career alternatives has a significant impact on the career choice of students. Ozbilgin et al. (2005) propose that career choice has two ¨ conditions: (1) career choices are available for the individual; and (2) the individual can recognise these alternative choices. Therefore, career choice has both an external (objective) and an internal (subjective) component. Gender stereotyping of professions as well as gender discrimination tend to have a limiting impact on individual repertoires of career choices (Stratton et al., 2005). However, Tokar and Jome (1998) note that vocational interests may help individuals break free of traditional career paths which are congruent with their gender identities. Nevertheless, the process of sex typing creates job boundaries, which limit the career imagination of women and men. Therefore, in order for individuals to overcome gendered career choices, they need to have access to a wider range of alternatives and examples, and enhance their imagination and topography of career choices in ways that free them from traditional gender biases. Different recipes for different individuals One of the most important challenges facing efforts to combat gendered perceptions of professions is the difficulty in formulating strategies which can recognise and cater for individual requirements, when such initiatives often target groups. Reportedly, equality and diversity interventions suffer from several problems (Liff and Cameron, 1997). First, there are frequent reports of backlash. Second, some initiatives are considered "preaching to the converted", if they do not include participants from dominant groups in the organisation. Third and more importantly, equality interventions are not well received when they are designed in a way which does not recognise differences among individuals. Blanket interventions would be too unsophisticated to deal with complex and subtle differences in individual circumstances and choices. Therefore, any attempts to offer strategies for addressing gendered perceptions of careers should be receptive to individual differences. In the following section, we examine the suitability of the repertory grid technique to deliver on the three requirements, as described above, for tackling gendered perceptions of professions, through counselling, awareness and training interventions. The repertory grid technique in career counselling There are many methods of identifying how individuals carve out jobs, careers, and occupations for themselves and how they navigate their paths in their chosen fields and professions of work. Traditional career counselling interviews are one method of offering insight into individual strategies for job crafting and navigation. However, there are not many methods that provide an explicit definition of a person's preverbal or tacit knowledge of a career, as it is often difficult to describe. The repertory grid technique is unique in this respect. It enables the identification of the way in which a person construes a particular idea by attaching verbal and explicit symbols or meanings, which are termed "personal constructs", to that idea.
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The repertory grid technique was developed by George Kelly as part of his well-elaborated theory of personal constructs (Kelly, 1955/1991). At the core of this theory lies a notion that individuals anticipate the world around them by using their own and unique set of bio-polar dimensions of meaning, so-called personal constructs. Constructs form patterns that enable us to chart our behaviour. They can be explicitly formulated or implicitly acted upon. However well or poorly formulated, our construct system can always be developed by increasing its repertory. By altering our construct system we can provide better fits between them and certain areas of our lives. Personal construct psychology offers a framework for tackling workplace inequality by focusing on what lies "below the surface" and making it visible (Cornelius, 2005, p. 213). It enables us to engage in a dialogue on issues that are not only personally sensitive but also potentially resistant to change. The strength of PCP as compared to traditional approaches focused on strategy or practices lies in the ability of this framework to tackle the breadth and the width of the problems behind workplace inequality. Personal construct psychology has the tools and techniques to access core features of an individual's construing at its disposal. Access to central and presumably important constructs is an aid to understanding of the personal meaning systems (Neimeyer et al., 2000). The repertory grid technique provides a means for identifying people's attitudes or beliefs (see Stewart and Stewart, 1982), not through the lenses of the researcher but through the personal construct of the research participant. Practical applications of the repertory grid The repertory grid interview can play a central role in our attempt to make sense of the respondent's construing of the world. The technique became popular among constructivist psychologists as a convenient means of accessing the features of a person's meaning system and has since been applied extensively in environmental and architectural design, career counselling and business applications (Jankowicz, 1990; Neimeyer et al., 2000; Stewart and Stewart, 1982). Business applications of the repertory grid have been especially prominent in knowledge management. Grids offer a sophisticated tool for tacit knowledge elicitation and clarification of some aspects of it. The conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge though the use of grids has attracted a lot of managerial attention (Jankowicz, 2001a). The repertory grid technique is also widely used in human resource management (HRM) (Jankowicz, 1990), where it can aid performance appraisal, job evaluation, training design or general job analysis. It is the ability of this technique to elicit knowledge at a very specific level that enables us to analyse the difference between behaviours that lead to success or effectiveness in organisations as opposed to those that fail. Grids can also be used in team building and climate setting, where a mutually important topic from a managerial point of view is analysed by means of group examination and exchange of constructs used by team members. This application of the technique is also linked to organisational development applications. These interventions take place at all levels of the organisation starting from an individual level, where grids are used in coaching or vocational guidance, to group level, which can be enhanced by team development or group goal setting, to organisational and process applications. Interventions at the organisational level range from those focusing on organisational structure, design and culture to management and functional
processes such as marketing, planning, decision-making and the development of expert systems. Vocational guidance through the repertory grid interview has resulted in a significant body of work (Edmonds, 1979; Davies, 1985; Cochran, 1987; Neimeyer, 1989). By using jobs as elements on the grid we can elicit counselling clients' constructs, which they use to differentiate between occupations (for examples, see Neimeyer, 1989; Smith et al., 1978). The elements can be provided by an interviewer or chosen together with the interviewee. For the purposes of overcoming gender bias they should contain jobs that are strongly gendered such as, for example, a manager, a pilot, engineer or nurse, as well as jobs that are relatively gender neutral, for example, an office worker. It is important to note that these occupations should provide our interviewee with a variety of elements. Following construct elicitation this type of a grid will help us define client's vocational construct system, in particular its content, structure and responsiveness to change (Neimeyer, 1989). The analysis can also reveal the level of construct system differentiation related to the maturity of one's vocational development and possible dilemmas linked to a particular occupational choice. We can enrich the process of grid interview and add a dimension of gender to it by using Honey's (1979) technique. This provides a person with an overall construct, for example, "male versus female" that is then used to capture the interviewee's process of construing around the subject summarised under the supplied construct. Honey's technique offers an opportunity to clarify the picture of one's construing of a certain topic and its relation to a specific construct. It can give us a clearer picture of the relationship between all constructs elicited during the interview and a supplied construct that is of a particular interest or importance to the interviewee and a researcher. Key elements of the repertory grid in career counselling The repertory grid is a generic but highly ?exible technique with a great variety of applications (Winter, 1992). As an interview method it is relatively complex and requires considerable skill in order to be tailored to the needs of the interviewee. There is a vast amount of literature exemplifying different designs of the grid according to the requirements of the interview (see Boxer, 1981; Parker, 1981; Ravenette, 1975; Smith et al., 1978). In this section we will focus on the elements of the grid that have a particular relevance to career counselling and therefore should receive special attention at the stages of interview design and analysis. Grid content According to Kelly (1955/1991), the content of one's constructs presents the richest source of data that we can obtain from the repertory grid interview. Although the repertory grid technique involves filling in a record sheet with an interviewee in order to define the relationship between elements and constructs, the accent of inquiry is to listen closely to the respondent. For this reason, the term "repertory grid interview" should not evoke the connotations people have with traditional questionnaires and psychometric tests as used in psychology. The construct elicitation process can already reveal some differences in the level of clarity an interviewee has regarding certain constructs. The role of a counsellor is to
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pick up those differences and use them when describing the grid. The number of constructs we can elicit during the procedure varies greatly. However, the more meaningful the process is to the interviewee, the more likely it is to provide constructs on the topic. Additionally, the grid is likely to illustrate the constructs that the interviewee has an interest and/or some expertise in, has to confront in his/her work, and has thought about before (Jankowicz, 2004, p. 81). An interesting and powerful aspect of the grid lies in the bi-polar nature of the constructs that are elicited. It is of great importance to pay attention to both poles of the construct, as the full meaning of one's construct can be fully understood only by taking its contrast into account. By reading both poles we can examine not only the behaviour the person chooses to engage in, but also the behaviour that the interviewee is rejecting (Fransella, 1995, pp. 57-8). It is therefore possible to understand not only the gendering of the career choice, but also the gendering of the way certain career choices are rejected. Diversity and recurring themes of one's constructs are another aspect that can be useful to look at. They can give some insights into alternative constructs that the person has available for a particular element. Recurring themes or constructs clusters can be used in order to understand individual's unique occupational outlook (Neimeyer, 1989). One particular advantage of this attribute of the repertory grid technique is that it makes it possible to read the depth and breadth of an individual's career choice and identify implications of these variations by gender. Grid structure The personal construct system of an individual consists of constructs at various levels of cognitive awareness. At the lowest level of cognitive awareness, there are the preverbal constructs. They represent the constructs that might be used by an individual despite not having a verbal or word symbol attached to it. They can be brought to life either in a person's behaviour or by verbalisation. Making the preverbal construct more explicit with the help of the repertory grid technique enables an individual to verbalise the construct that might have otherwise remained at a low level of awareness and not fully understood (Jankowicz, 2001a). After the level of preverbal constructs, there are the subordinate and then superordinate constructs. The subordinate constructs such as "monotonous versus interesting" or "people oriented versus technology oriented" are relatively easy to elicit and the repertory grid interview can assist us in our attempt to make sense of respondents' construing of the world. The last level of the construct system is filled by superordinate constructs that are of fundamental importance: core constructs such as "right versus wrong" or "dependence versus freedom". An awareness of them is essential for understanding theworld of another human being, or of ourselves (Hinkle, 1965, p. 34; cited in Neimeyer et al., 2000). Their elicitation can be difficult, however. There is a tool that can aid the accessing of people's superordinate constructs. The laddering technique, introduced by Hinkle (1965), represents a convenient means of exploring core features of a person's meaning system. The laddering technique is particularly helpful for identifying constructs that are tacit or more difficult to articulate verbally than the subordinate constructs.
There are two structural grid measures that are especially relevant to occupational counselling: (1) differentiation; and (2) ordination. Differentiation is the number of different constructs used by the person, known as the level of differentiation or cognitive complexity (Winter, 1992). This measure illustrates how multidimensional one's construing of behaviour is and it is more closely linked to personality trait theories than the personal construct psychology (Fransella and Bannister, 1977). However, it can be a very useful dimension of one's grid. According to Bodden (1970; cited in Winter, 1992) the higher the complexity level of people's occupational construing, the more likely they are to make a vocational choice congruent with their personality style. Furthermore, the judgement of "liked occupations" is less cognitively complex than that of "disliked occupations". Ordination assesses the extent to which interviewees can integrate their constructions by using superordinate constructs representing core values and beliefs (Winter, 1992). It is based on the assumption that one's construct system is organised in hierarchical manner and at the bottom, or the core, of this system lie our core values or superordinate constructs that govern our behaviour. Responsiveness to change The repertory grid technique has the potential to prioritise personal values by means of the resistance to change (RTC) technique (Fransella and Bannister, 1977). It enables us to identify where, in any subsequent intervention, change may be possible, and where it would be resisted, since the values at stake, for example freedom or independence, are too central and might not be open to argument. It is arguable whether the RTC phenomenon is a useful process (Jankowicz, 1996). Fransella (1995) suggested that the term "resistance" could be replaced with the more positive term "persistence". According to personal construct theory, the person resisting change does so only in the eyes of those expecting this change to happen. Hence, we should perceive this phenomenon as a matter of choosing not to change rather than that of resistance. Coming from this perspective, we might want to consider what kind of status quo people are actually trying to maintain by choosing not to change (Fransella, 1995, p. 83). Career choice interventions for career counselling We propose three specific interventions through which personal construct psychology may be used in order to combat the negative effects of gendered perceptions on career choices. Exposure to varied experiences and contexts The construct system of every individual is in a process of constant change as we engage in experiments that test our predictions of reality. The validation or invalidation of our predictions in?uences the shape of our construct system. Each construct has a limited number of situations that it can be applied to. These situations are termed the "range of convenience" of a construct. One of the ways in which we change our perception of reality is by extending the range of convenience of our
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constructs, for example, making them apply to more events. This aspect can be especially important in increasing self-esteem. For example, a woman who performs very well in a female-only environment but finds herself intimidated by men and thus less effective in a mixed or male-dominated environment can try to extend her range of convenience by trying to apply constructs that enable her good performance in situations or environments she currently finds difficult. This applies equally to men who hold and are exposed to negative and positive gendered assumptions in their job roles. Organisational opportunities for rotation through which individuals can test their competences across a number of job roles can help break some of these negative gendered assumptions, allowing for greater interaction between women and men across the organisation. Such varied exposure can help the individual find strength in their higher achievements or the positive gender stereotypes that they face across a number of job roles. Drawing on these positive experiences, the individual may counterbalance the negative impacts of the experiences of low performance or negative gender stereotypes in other settings. Extending career repertoires A change in the construct system can also occur when new constructs are created and added to our repertoire. These processes occur by completing the experience cycle and the creativity cycle. The experience cycle enables the person to put their new constructs/predictions to the test and confirm or disconfirm their predictions. For example, assertiveness (assertive versus not assertive) can be added to one's repertoire as a good alternative to constructs such as "aggressive versus passive" which did not enable sufficient scope for assertive behaviour in the past. If a prediction that assertive behaviour can lead to a desired result is confirmed, the construct would be added to the personal repertoire of constructs applied to the particular event. The creativity cycle takes the individual through stages of loose and tight construing and enables the formulation of new constructs, which can then be used and tested in the experience cycle. It can be argued that for the optimal functioning of an individual, the successful completion of these cycles is necessary. As we are faced with changing situations and reality, we constantly modify our construct system in a way that will enable us to form successful predictions about the events that surround us. Counselling interventions that can help change a person's construing on a certain subject, like, for example, gendered notion of professions, can involve guidance through the creativity and experience cycles with special attention devoted to expanding one's range of convenience or/and developing new constructs and testing them. This group of interventions would be exploration oriented and should result in greater self-confidence and hopefully some change in person's construing that will open new behavioural avenues for them. Different recipes for different levels of awareness Low differentiation (cognitive complexity) in construing of occupations has been linked to career choice characterised by high "ego development". Individuals with low cognitive complexity are also likely to make premature integrations with insufficient information. Holding rigid gendered assumptions about career choices, such as that women are poor scientists, when such essentialist beliefs are widely discredited by empirical evidence, is a sign that the person may have low cognitive complexity.
Therefore, clients like this should be assisted in career alternatives generation and provision of positive information related to their occupational choice. This should be followed by a validation of constructs related to occupations (through the experience cycle) which will strengthen the individual's integrative capacity. As mentioned before, people with high cognitive complexity are likely to choose jobs congruent with their personality styles. This is especially important when dealing with gender bias which can in?uence one's career choice and disturb this decision-making process. Achieving a situation of high differentiation and high integration should lead to more advanced identity development, improved distinctiveness of interests, greater decidedness and better self-efficacy. Vocational counselling should address the importance of the above issues in career choice decision-making process. Information as well as exploration oriented interventions through the application of PCP techniques such as the repertory grid interview can help us develop an understanding of the way in which clients interpret their experience. By doing so we can assist them in altering their vocational construing so that their career choice could be congruent with their potential and aspirations rather than with social limitations. The value of the repertory grid in management training and development has been recognised and is already utilised in some programmes of executive education (e.g. Jankowicz, 2001b). This technique is applied as a tool to aid decision making and change management processes, as well as a means for encouraging managers and management students to re?ect on and critically evaluate their own capabilities and talents. Although not directly used as a career counselling tool, it fulfils a similar function. Students attending such courses can identify their areas of excellence, develop talents and augment personal awareness through constructivist techniques. Considering the turbulent and unpredictable nature of the organizational environment in which senior and executive managers currently operate, the need for re?ective self-awareness of one's personal capabilities is ever-increasing, and with it the scope for the use of methods such as repertory grids, which have the potential to enhance these skills.
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Krishnan, H.A. and Park, D. (2005), "A few good women - on top management teams", Journal of Business Research, Vol. 58, pp. 1712-20. Kusku, F., Ozbilgin, M.F. and Ozkale, L. (2007), "Against the tide: gendered prejudice and ¨¨ ¨ ¨ disadvantage in engineering", Gender, Work and Organization, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 109-29. Lent, R.W., Brown, S.B. and Hackett, G. (2000), "Contextual supports and barriers to career choice: a social cognitive analysis", Journal of Counseling Psychology, Vol. 47 No. 1, pp. 3649. Liff, S. and Cameron, I. (1997), "Changing equality cultures to move beyond 'women's problems'", Gender, Work & Organization, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 35-46. Malach-Pines, A. and Kaspi-Baruch, O. (2007), "Culture and gender in the career choice of aspiring managers and entrepreneurs", in Ozbilgin, M.F. and Malach-Pines, A. (Eds), ¨ Career Choice in Management and Entrepreneurship: A Research Companion, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 51-74. Michie, S. and Nelson, D.L. (2006), "Barriers women face in information technology careers: self-efficacy, passion and gender biases", Women in Management Review, Vol. 21 No. 1, p. 10. Muldoon, O.T. and Reilly, J. (2003), "Career choice in nursing students: gendered constructs as psychological barriers", Journal of Advanced Nursing, Vol. 43 No. 1, pp. 93-100. Neimeyer, G.N. (1989), "Applications of repertory grid technique to vocational assessment", Journal of Counseling and Development, Vol. 67, pp. 585-9. Neimeyer, R.A., Anderson, A. and Stockton, L. (2000), "Snakes versus ladders: a validation of laddering technique as a measure of hierarchical structure", Journal of Constructivist Personal Psychology, Vol. 14, pp. 85-105. O¨ zbilgin, M.F., Kusku, F. and Erdogmus, N. (2005), "Explaining in?uences on career 'choice': ¨¨ ?¸ the case of MBA students", International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 16 No. 11, pp. 2000-28. Parker, A. (1981), "The meaning of attempted suicide to young parasuicides: a repertory grid study", British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 139, pp. 306-12. Ravenette, A.T. (1975), "Grid techniques for children", Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Vol. 16, pp. 79-83. Rubin, J. (1997), "Gender, equality and the culture of organizational assessment", Gender, Work & Organization, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 24-34. Six, B. and Eckes, T. (1991), "A closer look at the gender stereotypes", Sex Roles, Vol. 24 Nos 1/2, pp. 57-71. Smith, M., Hartley, J. and Stewart, B. (1978), "A case study of repertory grids used in vocational guidance", Journal of Occupational Guidance, Vol. 51, pp. 97-104. Stewart, V. and Stewart, A. (1982), Business Applications of Repertory Grid, McGraw-Hill, London. Stratton, T.D., McLaughlin, M.A., Witte, F.M., Fosson, S.E. and Nora, L.M. (2005), "Does students' exposure to gender discrimination and sexual harassment in medical school affect specialty choice and residency program selection?", Academic Medicine, Vol. 80 No. 4, pp. 400-8. Tokar, D.M. and Jome, L.M. (1998), "Masculinity, vocational interests, and career choice traditionally: evidence for a fully mediated model", Journal of Counseling Psychology, Vol. 45, pp. 424-35.
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Watt, H.M.G. and Eccles, J.S. (Eds) (2008), Gender and Occupational Outcomes: Longitudinal Assessment of Individual, Social, and Cultural In?uences, American Psychological Association Press, Washington, DC. Williams, C.M. and Subich, L.M. (2006), "The gendered nature of career related learning experiences: a social cognitive career theory perspective", Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 69, pp. 262-75. Winter, D.A. (1992), Personal Construct Psychology in Clinical Practice. Theory, Research and Applications, Routledge, London and New York, NY. Further reading Kirchmeyer, C. (2006), "The different effects of family on objective career success across gender: a test of alternative explanations", Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 68, pp. 323-46. Sansone, C., Isaac, J.D. and Morgan, C. (2001), "The role of interest in understanding the career choices of female and male college students", Sex Roles, Vol. 44 Nos 5/6, pp. 295-320. Sax, L.J. and Bryant, A.N. (2006), "The impact of college on sex-atypical career choices of men and women", Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 68, pp. 52-63.
doc_681563156.docx
Combat or fighting is a purposeful violent conflict meant to weaken, or establish dominance over the opposition, or to kill the opposition, or drive the opposition away from a location where it is not wanted or needed.
Case Study on Strategies for Combating Gendered Perceptions of Careers
Abstract
Purpose - Earlier work on career choice has identified that career choice involves gendered processes which lead to differentiated career outcomes for women and men. However, this literature remained anaemic in offering career counselling strategies for addressing the negative impacts of these processes. The paper aims to explore the creativity cycle and other tools derived from personal construct psychology (PCP) and other feminist literature as potential means for dissolving gendered perceptions of various professions and organisational practices. Design/methodology/approach - This is a conceptual paper. Findings - The paper argues that PCP can provide a theoretical and methodological framework for discussing how dichotomous and gender identified the perceptions of professions can be and how such perceptions might be challenged. Practical implications - This theory and its techniques allow us an exploration of the ?exibility of one's constructions system, which determines a person's ability to construe alternative views and to develop new ways of understanding oneself and others. Originality/value - The PCP's potential as a technique to combat gendered perceptions of a career is examined. Keywords Gender, Perception, Careers, Career guidance, Individual psychology Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction Other papers in this special issue draw on a cross-national study which reports findings of a questionnaire survey among MBA students and identifies marked gender differences in career choices of students in all of the countries under study. Gendered career choice is one of the root causes of persistent gender inequalities at work and in life. Re?ecting on the findings of the other papers in the special issue, we propose the use of a technique, repertory grids, for combating and addressing gender differences in career choice. Gender equality and diversity at work can make a positive contribution to organisational performance (Krishnan and Park, 2005; Gratton et al., 2007). Research on gender and professions has extensively documented negative impacts of gendered perceptions on career choice (Correll, 2001; Michie and Nelson, 2006; Kusku et al., 2007) ¨¨ as resilient to change over time, across sectors of employment and internationally (e.g. Watt and Eccles, 2008; Francis, 2002). Despite extensive documentation of the interplay between gender and career choices in this literature, identification of antecedents, correlates and consequences of gendered career choices does not translate directly into strategies for combating the negative consequences and root causes of gendered career choices. Indeed, there has
been insufficient interest in offering practical strategies for addressing the negative consequences of gendered perceptions on career choice. Often such strategies are presented as afterthoughts in "policy/practice implications" in research papers which document gendered nature of career choice. In this paper, we seek to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the potential of personal construct psychology in both revealing gendered perceptions and combating them. Negative consequences of gendered perceptions of careers Career is an overarching concept which refers to the totality of an individual's choices and experiences of work across time and situated settings. In a similar way, gender is the social construction of an individual's biological sex across time and in situated settings. As such, gender stereotyping has a multi-component nature (Six and Eckes, 1991). Gender relations are infused in every aspect of an individual's work and life experiences. Therefore, careers of individuals are imbued with different gender relations across life courses and institutional settings. Although gendered perceptions are not the sole arbiters of career choices, processes and outcomes, gendered perceptions play significant roles in career processes and outcomes of individuals. Forms of inequality and segregation based on gendered perceptions are often reported in the extant literature as important economic and social concerns. Therefore, combating gender inequities has been taken up as an important challenge of social and economic regulation in the past few decades. There have been considerable gains in the field of sex equality in advanced economies over the last century. However, this optimism does not apply across the board to all aspects of social and economic life. Research shows that occupational sex segregation, i.e. unequal representation of women and men across occupational groups (horizontal sex segregation) and across levels of occupational hierarchies (vertical sex segregation), has survived relatively unscathed over time (Anker, 2004). Despite some improvements in vertical sex segregation, as women started entering senior management roles in greater numbers across the world (Anker, 2004), it has long been recognized that horizontal sex segregation has proved unchanging. For example, Burke and Mattis (2007) demonstrated that women are worryingly under-represented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers across the world. The persistence of horizontal sex segregation presents a problematic situation as it provides the objective basis of gendered perceptions, which foster sex typing of jobs and professions. Gender segregation is also important because it colours the perception of a profession (Lent et al., 2000), which in turn may affect an individual's choice of a career. Gendered perceptions of professions affect the way women and men carve out careers and navigate their career choices, which requires policy and research attention if the negative consequences of gendered perceptions are to be tackled. However, studies in the field do not present a positive view and identify that organisations have ill-conceived tendencies to offer solutions which are unsophisticated and quick fix in nature (Rubin, 1997; Cockburn, 1991) or to adopt a deficit approach to combating inequality and gendered perceptions which assume that women should be fixed (trained or educated) as they lack the requisite forms of human capital (Eccles, 1986). There is also a tendency to assume that only men hold gendered perceptions of professions. Conversely, Fernandez et al. (2006) and Kusku et al. (2007) noted that both ´ ¨¨
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women and men hold gendered perceptions and suffer from negative consequences of gendered perceptions in choosing and pursuing their careers. Combating gendered perceptions is only a part of the complex and sophisticated set of strategies which should be adopted in order to address gendered inequalities at work. See, for example, Cockburn's (1991) short and long agendas of change for combating gendered inequalities at work, or Cornelius and Clapp's (2004) study, which proposed personal construct psychology in order to promote gender equality through re-conceptualisation of organisational learning. In order to formulate strategies for tackling gendered perceptions of professions, we focused on three important considerations: (1) promoting exposure to varied experiences and contexts; (2) increasing individual awareness of career alternatives; and (3) recognising cognitive and social background differences among individuals in design of interventions. We examined each of these strategies for combating gendered perceptions of a profession in turn.
Exposure to varied experiences and contexts Women and men experience sexist stereotypes and gendered perceptions in different ways. Experience of gender inequalities and stereotypes offers extensive opportunities for learning across different cultural contexts institutional settings at different points in their life courses. This learning may enable women and men to use strategies of coping which they have developed in one domain of their lives when they face gendered perceptions and stereotypes again in different settings. Gendered perceptions are commonplace across all aspects of an individual's career. Malach-Pines and Kapsi-Baruch (2007) suggest that gender differences in career choice are socially constructed. Drawing on a study across five countries (Israel, the UK, Turkey, Cyprus and Hungary) they show that cross-national variation is largely due to cultural differences in the social construction of gender and choice of careers in entrepreneurship and management. In a similar study, Gushue and Whitson (2006) suggest that both gender and ethnicity shape the career choices and experiences of Black and Latina girls. The authors call for career counsellors to be aware of the significance of context in understanding the way careers are gendered and ethnicised. Operating across varied contexts, with exposure to different forms of inequality, can help individuals develop capacities to recognise and tackle negative gendered assumptions more effectively. Exposure to different contexts can help them question the assumption that gendered perceptions are natural. We examine at the end of this paper how a repertory grids technique can be instrumental in exposing individuals to a wider repertoire of strategies for combating gendered perceptions. The density of the learning experience also leads to higher self-efficacy and outcome expectations (Williams and Subich, 2006). Therefore, varied and enriched learning experiences can help women and men develop their self-efficacy and build up confidence to expect better and more sophisticated career outcomes.
Increasing individual awareness of career alternatives Having an awareness of career alternatives is an important requisite for an individual to break vicious cycles of gendered perception and inequality. Muldoon and Reilly (2003) reveal that the availability of career alternatives has a significant impact on the career choice of students. Ozbilgin et al. (2005) propose that career choice has two ¨ conditions: (1) career choices are available for the individual; and (2) the individual can recognise these alternative choices. Therefore, career choice has both an external (objective) and an internal (subjective) component. Gender stereotyping of professions as well as gender discrimination tend to have a limiting impact on individual repertoires of career choices (Stratton et al., 2005). However, Tokar and Jome (1998) note that vocational interests may help individuals break free of traditional career paths which are congruent with their gender identities. Nevertheless, the process of sex typing creates job boundaries, which limit the career imagination of women and men. Therefore, in order for individuals to overcome gendered career choices, they need to have access to a wider range of alternatives and examples, and enhance their imagination and topography of career choices in ways that free them from traditional gender biases. Different recipes for different individuals One of the most important challenges facing efforts to combat gendered perceptions of professions is the difficulty in formulating strategies which can recognise and cater for individual requirements, when such initiatives often target groups. Reportedly, equality and diversity interventions suffer from several problems (Liff and Cameron, 1997). First, there are frequent reports of backlash. Second, some initiatives are considered "preaching to the converted", if they do not include participants from dominant groups in the organisation. Third and more importantly, equality interventions are not well received when they are designed in a way which does not recognise differences among individuals. Blanket interventions would be too unsophisticated to deal with complex and subtle differences in individual circumstances and choices. Therefore, any attempts to offer strategies for addressing gendered perceptions of careers should be receptive to individual differences. In the following section, we examine the suitability of the repertory grid technique to deliver on the three requirements, as described above, for tackling gendered perceptions of professions, through counselling, awareness and training interventions. The repertory grid technique in career counselling There are many methods of identifying how individuals carve out jobs, careers, and occupations for themselves and how they navigate their paths in their chosen fields and professions of work. Traditional career counselling interviews are one method of offering insight into individual strategies for job crafting and navigation. However, there are not many methods that provide an explicit definition of a person's preverbal or tacit knowledge of a career, as it is often difficult to describe. The repertory grid technique is unique in this respect. It enables the identification of the way in which a person construes a particular idea by attaching verbal and explicit symbols or meanings, which are termed "personal constructs", to that idea.
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The repertory grid technique was developed by George Kelly as part of his well-elaborated theory of personal constructs (Kelly, 1955/1991). At the core of this theory lies a notion that individuals anticipate the world around them by using their own and unique set of bio-polar dimensions of meaning, so-called personal constructs. Constructs form patterns that enable us to chart our behaviour. They can be explicitly formulated or implicitly acted upon. However well or poorly formulated, our construct system can always be developed by increasing its repertory. By altering our construct system we can provide better fits between them and certain areas of our lives. Personal construct psychology offers a framework for tackling workplace inequality by focusing on what lies "below the surface" and making it visible (Cornelius, 2005, p. 213). It enables us to engage in a dialogue on issues that are not only personally sensitive but also potentially resistant to change. The strength of PCP as compared to traditional approaches focused on strategy or practices lies in the ability of this framework to tackle the breadth and the width of the problems behind workplace inequality. Personal construct psychology has the tools and techniques to access core features of an individual's construing at its disposal. Access to central and presumably important constructs is an aid to understanding of the personal meaning systems (Neimeyer et al., 2000). The repertory grid technique provides a means for identifying people's attitudes or beliefs (see Stewart and Stewart, 1982), not through the lenses of the researcher but through the personal construct of the research participant. Practical applications of the repertory grid The repertory grid interview can play a central role in our attempt to make sense of the respondent's construing of the world. The technique became popular among constructivist psychologists as a convenient means of accessing the features of a person's meaning system and has since been applied extensively in environmental and architectural design, career counselling and business applications (Jankowicz, 1990; Neimeyer et al., 2000; Stewart and Stewart, 1982). Business applications of the repertory grid have been especially prominent in knowledge management. Grids offer a sophisticated tool for tacit knowledge elicitation and clarification of some aspects of it. The conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge though the use of grids has attracted a lot of managerial attention (Jankowicz, 2001a). The repertory grid technique is also widely used in human resource management (HRM) (Jankowicz, 1990), where it can aid performance appraisal, job evaluation, training design or general job analysis. It is the ability of this technique to elicit knowledge at a very specific level that enables us to analyse the difference between behaviours that lead to success or effectiveness in organisations as opposed to those that fail. Grids can also be used in team building and climate setting, where a mutually important topic from a managerial point of view is analysed by means of group examination and exchange of constructs used by team members. This application of the technique is also linked to organisational development applications. These interventions take place at all levels of the organisation starting from an individual level, where grids are used in coaching or vocational guidance, to group level, which can be enhanced by team development or group goal setting, to organisational and process applications. Interventions at the organisational level range from those focusing on organisational structure, design and culture to management and functional
processes such as marketing, planning, decision-making and the development of expert systems. Vocational guidance through the repertory grid interview has resulted in a significant body of work (Edmonds, 1979; Davies, 1985; Cochran, 1987; Neimeyer, 1989). By using jobs as elements on the grid we can elicit counselling clients' constructs, which they use to differentiate between occupations (for examples, see Neimeyer, 1989; Smith et al., 1978). The elements can be provided by an interviewer or chosen together with the interviewee. For the purposes of overcoming gender bias they should contain jobs that are strongly gendered such as, for example, a manager, a pilot, engineer or nurse, as well as jobs that are relatively gender neutral, for example, an office worker. It is important to note that these occupations should provide our interviewee with a variety of elements. Following construct elicitation this type of a grid will help us define client's vocational construct system, in particular its content, structure and responsiveness to change (Neimeyer, 1989). The analysis can also reveal the level of construct system differentiation related to the maturity of one's vocational development and possible dilemmas linked to a particular occupational choice. We can enrich the process of grid interview and add a dimension of gender to it by using Honey's (1979) technique. This provides a person with an overall construct, for example, "male versus female" that is then used to capture the interviewee's process of construing around the subject summarised under the supplied construct. Honey's technique offers an opportunity to clarify the picture of one's construing of a certain topic and its relation to a specific construct. It can give us a clearer picture of the relationship between all constructs elicited during the interview and a supplied construct that is of a particular interest or importance to the interviewee and a researcher. Key elements of the repertory grid in career counselling The repertory grid is a generic but highly ?exible technique with a great variety of applications (Winter, 1992). As an interview method it is relatively complex and requires considerable skill in order to be tailored to the needs of the interviewee. There is a vast amount of literature exemplifying different designs of the grid according to the requirements of the interview (see Boxer, 1981; Parker, 1981; Ravenette, 1975; Smith et al., 1978). In this section we will focus on the elements of the grid that have a particular relevance to career counselling and therefore should receive special attention at the stages of interview design and analysis. Grid content According to Kelly (1955/1991), the content of one's constructs presents the richest source of data that we can obtain from the repertory grid interview. Although the repertory grid technique involves filling in a record sheet with an interviewee in order to define the relationship between elements and constructs, the accent of inquiry is to listen closely to the respondent. For this reason, the term "repertory grid interview" should not evoke the connotations people have with traditional questionnaires and psychometric tests as used in psychology. The construct elicitation process can already reveal some differences in the level of clarity an interviewee has regarding certain constructs. The role of a counsellor is to
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pick up those differences and use them when describing the grid. The number of constructs we can elicit during the procedure varies greatly. However, the more meaningful the process is to the interviewee, the more likely it is to provide constructs on the topic. Additionally, the grid is likely to illustrate the constructs that the interviewee has an interest and/or some expertise in, has to confront in his/her work, and has thought about before (Jankowicz, 2004, p. 81). An interesting and powerful aspect of the grid lies in the bi-polar nature of the constructs that are elicited. It is of great importance to pay attention to both poles of the construct, as the full meaning of one's construct can be fully understood only by taking its contrast into account. By reading both poles we can examine not only the behaviour the person chooses to engage in, but also the behaviour that the interviewee is rejecting (Fransella, 1995, pp. 57-8). It is therefore possible to understand not only the gendering of the career choice, but also the gendering of the way certain career choices are rejected. Diversity and recurring themes of one's constructs are another aspect that can be useful to look at. They can give some insights into alternative constructs that the person has available for a particular element. Recurring themes or constructs clusters can be used in order to understand individual's unique occupational outlook (Neimeyer, 1989). One particular advantage of this attribute of the repertory grid technique is that it makes it possible to read the depth and breadth of an individual's career choice and identify implications of these variations by gender. Grid structure The personal construct system of an individual consists of constructs at various levels of cognitive awareness. At the lowest level of cognitive awareness, there are the preverbal constructs. They represent the constructs that might be used by an individual despite not having a verbal or word symbol attached to it. They can be brought to life either in a person's behaviour or by verbalisation. Making the preverbal construct more explicit with the help of the repertory grid technique enables an individual to verbalise the construct that might have otherwise remained at a low level of awareness and not fully understood (Jankowicz, 2001a). After the level of preverbal constructs, there are the subordinate and then superordinate constructs. The subordinate constructs such as "monotonous versus interesting" or "people oriented versus technology oriented" are relatively easy to elicit and the repertory grid interview can assist us in our attempt to make sense of respondents' construing of the world. The last level of the construct system is filled by superordinate constructs that are of fundamental importance: core constructs such as "right versus wrong" or "dependence versus freedom". An awareness of them is essential for understanding theworld of another human being, or of ourselves (Hinkle, 1965, p. 34; cited in Neimeyer et al., 2000). Their elicitation can be difficult, however. There is a tool that can aid the accessing of people's superordinate constructs. The laddering technique, introduced by Hinkle (1965), represents a convenient means of exploring core features of a person's meaning system. The laddering technique is particularly helpful for identifying constructs that are tacit or more difficult to articulate verbally than the subordinate constructs.
There are two structural grid measures that are especially relevant to occupational counselling: (1) differentiation; and (2) ordination. Differentiation is the number of different constructs used by the person, known as the level of differentiation or cognitive complexity (Winter, 1992). This measure illustrates how multidimensional one's construing of behaviour is and it is more closely linked to personality trait theories than the personal construct psychology (Fransella and Bannister, 1977). However, it can be a very useful dimension of one's grid. According to Bodden (1970; cited in Winter, 1992) the higher the complexity level of people's occupational construing, the more likely they are to make a vocational choice congruent with their personality style. Furthermore, the judgement of "liked occupations" is less cognitively complex than that of "disliked occupations". Ordination assesses the extent to which interviewees can integrate their constructions by using superordinate constructs representing core values and beliefs (Winter, 1992). It is based on the assumption that one's construct system is organised in hierarchical manner and at the bottom, or the core, of this system lie our core values or superordinate constructs that govern our behaviour. Responsiveness to change The repertory grid technique has the potential to prioritise personal values by means of the resistance to change (RTC) technique (Fransella and Bannister, 1977). It enables us to identify where, in any subsequent intervention, change may be possible, and where it would be resisted, since the values at stake, for example freedom or independence, are too central and might not be open to argument. It is arguable whether the RTC phenomenon is a useful process (Jankowicz, 1996). Fransella (1995) suggested that the term "resistance" could be replaced with the more positive term "persistence". According to personal construct theory, the person resisting change does so only in the eyes of those expecting this change to happen. Hence, we should perceive this phenomenon as a matter of choosing not to change rather than that of resistance. Coming from this perspective, we might want to consider what kind of status quo people are actually trying to maintain by choosing not to change (Fransella, 1995, p. 83). Career choice interventions for career counselling We propose three specific interventions through which personal construct psychology may be used in order to combat the negative effects of gendered perceptions on career choices. Exposure to varied experiences and contexts The construct system of every individual is in a process of constant change as we engage in experiments that test our predictions of reality. The validation or invalidation of our predictions in?uences the shape of our construct system. Each construct has a limited number of situations that it can be applied to. These situations are termed the "range of convenience" of a construct. One of the ways in which we change our perception of reality is by extending the range of convenience of our
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constructs, for example, making them apply to more events. This aspect can be especially important in increasing self-esteem. For example, a woman who performs very well in a female-only environment but finds herself intimidated by men and thus less effective in a mixed or male-dominated environment can try to extend her range of convenience by trying to apply constructs that enable her good performance in situations or environments she currently finds difficult. This applies equally to men who hold and are exposed to negative and positive gendered assumptions in their job roles. Organisational opportunities for rotation through which individuals can test their competences across a number of job roles can help break some of these negative gendered assumptions, allowing for greater interaction between women and men across the organisation. Such varied exposure can help the individual find strength in their higher achievements or the positive gender stereotypes that they face across a number of job roles. Drawing on these positive experiences, the individual may counterbalance the negative impacts of the experiences of low performance or negative gender stereotypes in other settings. Extending career repertoires A change in the construct system can also occur when new constructs are created and added to our repertoire. These processes occur by completing the experience cycle and the creativity cycle. The experience cycle enables the person to put their new constructs/predictions to the test and confirm or disconfirm their predictions. For example, assertiveness (assertive versus not assertive) can be added to one's repertoire as a good alternative to constructs such as "aggressive versus passive" which did not enable sufficient scope for assertive behaviour in the past. If a prediction that assertive behaviour can lead to a desired result is confirmed, the construct would be added to the personal repertoire of constructs applied to the particular event. The creativity cycle takes the individual through stages of loose and tight construing and enables the formulation of new constructs, which can then be used and tested in the experience cycle. It can be argued that for the optimal functioning of an individual, the successful completion of these cycles is necessary. As we are faced with changing situations and reality, we constantly modify our construct system in a way that will enable us to form successful predictions about the events that surround us. Counselling interventions that can help change a person's construing on a certain subject, like, for example, gendered notion of professions, can involve guidance through the creativity and experience cycles with special attention devoted to expanding one's range of convenience or/and developing new constructs and testing them. This group of interventions would be exploration oriented and should result in greater self-confidence and hopefully some change in person's construing that will open new behavioural avenues for them. Different recipes for different levels of awareness Low differentiation (cognitive complexity) in construing of occupations has been linked to career choice characterised by high "ego development". Individuals with low cognitive complexity are also likely to make premature integrations with insufficient information. Holding rigid gendered assumptions about career choices, such as that women are poor scientists, when such essentialist beliefs are widely discredited by empirical evidence, is a sign that the person may have low cognitive complexity.
Therefore, clients like this should be assisted in career alternatives generation and provision of positive information related to their occupational choice. This should be followed by a validation of constructs related to occupations (through the experience cycle) which will strengthen the individual's integrative capacity. As mentioned before, people with high cognitive complexity are likely to choose jobs congruent with their personality styles. This is especially important when dealing with gender bias which can in?uence one's career choice and disturb this decision-making process. Achieving a situation of high differentiation and high integration should lead to more advanced identity development, improved distinctiveness of interests, greater decidedness and better self-efficacy. Vocational counselling should address the importance of the above issues in career choice decision-making process. Information as well as exploration oriented interventions through the application of PCP techniques such as the repertory grid interview can help us develop an understanding of the way in which clients interpret their experience. By doing so we can assist them in altering their vocational construing so that their career choice could be congruent with their potential and aspirations rather than with social limitations. The value of the repertory grid in management training and development has been recognised and is already utilised in some programmes of executive education (e.g. Jankowicz, 2001b). This technique is applied as a tool to aid decision making and change management processes, as well as a means for encouraging managers and management students to re?ect on and critically evaluate their own capabilities and talents. Although not directly used as a career counselling tool, it fulfils a similar function. Students attending such courses can identify their areas of excellence, develop talents and augment personal awareness through constructivist techniques. Considering the turbulent and unpredictable nature of the organizational environment in which senior and executive managers currently operate, the need for re?ective self-awareness of one's personal capabilities is ever-increasing, and with it the scope for the use of methods such as repertory grids, which have the potential to enhance these skills.
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Watt, H.M.G. and Eccles, J.S. (Eds) (2008), Gender and Occupational Outcomes: Longitudinal Assessment of Individual, Social, and Cultural In?uences, American Psychological Association Press, Washington, DC. Williams, C.M. and Subich, L.M. (2006), "The gendered nature of career related learning experiences: a social cognitive career theory perspective", Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 69, pp. 262-75. Winter, D.A. (1992), Personal Construct Psychology in Clinical Practice. Theory, Research and Applications, Routledge, London and New York, NY. Further reading Kirchmeyer, C. (2006), "The different effects of family on objective career success across gender: a test of alternative explanations", Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 68, pp. 323-46. Sansone, C., Isaac, J.D. and Morgan, C. (2001), "The role of interest in understanding the career choices of female and male college students", Sex Roles, Vol. 44 Nos 5/6, pp. 295-320. Sax, L.J. and Bryant, A.N. (2006), "The impact of college on sex-atypical career choices of men and women", Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 68, pp. 52-63.
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