مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد پروژه های هویت زنان و ارزیابی آنها از کارفرمایان آینده در زمینه های فنی – الزویر ۲۰۱۸

۱- Identity projects of women in STEM

۲- Organizational identities and images as resources in job seekers’ identity projects

۳- Methodology

۴- Results

۵- Discussion

References

Abstract

In this paper, we take an identity project perspective on careers to explore how job seekers assess potential employers. Identity projects are individuals’ self-definitions in the light of their career development and personal aspirations and have the potential to further our understanding of careers. Drawing on focus group discussions of women seeking employment in STEM, we find four identity positioning strategies through which the women assess future employers. Our analysis illustrates the role of organizational images for shaping and realizing individuals’ identity projects. We contribute to research on identity projects by extending the concept’s focus to include job seekers as external organizational stakeholders and provide insight into their identity positioning. Furthermore, our study enhances the understanding of organizational image in the context of employee recruitment by outlining how individuals position themselves in relation to the organizational images they construct when reflecting on their identity projects and on the institutional context. Overall, we develop a more nuanced approach to understanding women’s interpretations of organizational identity claims (e.g., gender diversity claims) and thus extend current theorizing on recruiting women to STEM.

Identity projects of women in STEM

Within the broader academic interest in identity (Alvesson, Ashcraft, & Thomas, 2008; Cornelissen, Haslam, & Balmer, 2007; Pratt et al., 2016), current research increasingly discusses identity projects as “individuals’ definitions of their selves in the light of their ongoing development and imagined future” (Alvesson & Kärreman, 2007, p. 713). This line of research stresses that identity is a temporary outcome of individuals’ efforts to position themselves thus making identity an ongoing reflexive project of people rather than a static quality. Identity in this sense is understood as an on-going, life-long project and not an achievement (Mallett & Wapshott, 2012; Watson, 2008). Building on this perspective, careers can also be understood as individual identity projects (Alvesson & Kärreman, 2007; Grey, 1994). Career in this perspective is oriented towards meeting long-term, self-fulfillment goals of individuals (Grey, 1994). This longitudinal orientation links the individuals’ past, present, and future through the concept of career as “a vehicle for the self to ‘become’” (Grey, 1994, p. 481). The concept of identity projects it is crucial for understanding careers because work is a central aspect of people’s lives and this concept aims to capture how individuals make sense of their past and future. As identity projects unfold in ever more changing and ambiguous environments that provide plural, often equally legitimate motives for actors (also referred to as plural institutional logics or institutional pluralism, see Lok, 2010; Meyer & Hammerschmid, 2006), a multitude of cultural resources, or taken-for-granted values, norms, and beliefs, might serve as a toolkit for individuals to draw on in their identity projects (Rindova et al., 2011). This means that when individuals are answering the question “who am I?”, they consider and build on preestablished “social or ‘discursive personas’” (Watson, 2008, p. 123). Which resources actors use and how they use them depends on their past experiences and their present context (Rindova et al., 2011). Individuals’ identity projects are impacted if they belong to a group that is underrepresented and marginalized such as women in STEM (i.e., the professional and technical support occupations in computer science, mathematics, engineering, and the life and physical sciences, see also Langdon, McKittrick, Beede, Khan, & Doms, 2011). In the gendered environment of STEM, the masculine norms and continued dominance of men lead to unique ways in which women negotiate the professional aspects of their identities (Ely, 1994; Ibarra & Petriglieri, 2017). Kvande (1999) finds that women in engineering position themselves in reference to men and male norms in order to assimilate into the taken-for-granted values, norms, and beliefs of this institutional environment. Because STEM organizations are male dominated, she argues that women must “negotiate whether the meaning of gender should be sameness or difference from men”, thus, many women adopt a “sameness strategy” to be considered similar to their male coworkers (Kvande, 1999, p. 306).