Search results

Existing research has established that women drop out of engineering careers in part because of a dissatisfaction with their career development, but women's understanding of career development in engineering has been as yet largely unexplored. This paper aims to explore female engineers' experiences of navigating their careers and their perceptions of barriers to career development, through the lens of the intelligent career framework (ICF).

The in-depth interviews of this study were conducted with female engineers in the UK and analysed using template analysis.

The authors identified three structural barriers that participants felt hinder women's career development in engineering: (1) promotions are more likely to be given to people who are widely known – more often men; (2) promotions are more likely to be given to people on whom high status is conferred in this context – more often men and (3) promotions are more likely to be given to people who conform to the ideal worker ideology – more often men. The women also offered a series of counter-narratives in which they reframed the behaviour they witnessed as something other than sexism.

The findings highlight the significant and systemic bias against women's career development through gender stereotypes in workplaces and an implicitly gendered organisation that hinders the development of the three competencies needed for career advancement. The authors describe a range of counter-narratives that the participants use to help them to make sense of their experiences. Finally, the authors illustrate the application of the intelligent career framework (ICF) as a lens to view the career development culture of an organisation.

Every year several thousand female cadets participate in the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) in the UK, but little is known about the impact that this experience has on the subsequent employability of the female cadets. This study aimed to understand the perceptions of academic teenage girls from one all-female unit of their participation in CCF and the personal benefit or otherwise in relation to their ultimate employability.

This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews to explore the experiences of 10 young women who had participated in CCF for at least three years. Data were analysed using a thematic analysis.

Participants were effusive about the transformative effects of CCF in relation to personal confidence, recognising transferable skills and raising personal aspiration, all key elements to employability, particularly for women. They also considered they had gained future workplace advantage having had opportunity to trial leadership strategies in mixed gender teams, an experience unavailable elsewhere to them. Loyalty to the contingent pervaded every discussion and the importance of team goals, although this level of selfless commitment may be detrimental to employability, subsuming their personal interests to the greater good.

Research into the benefit or otherwise of teenage girls' extra-curricular activities is scarce, and this is the first study, to the authors' knowledge, that explores the perceptions of the impact their time in CCF had on their graduate employability skills.

The impact of appearance on career development is well-documented. We know with some certainty that those blessed with good looks, a sense of style and a winning smile have an advantage at all stages of the job application process, and throughout their careers, with the most aesthetically pleasing being more likely to be given jobs, higher salaries and promotions (Baert & Decuypere, 2014; Toledano, 2013). What then should those who offer career advice make of this? Should career advisers, coaches, HR professionals and line managers be advising their clients and employees on how to improve their looks? At one level, the answer to this question seems obvious: if the advisers know it can make a difference, of course they should try to help their clients to look more professional or better appropriate for the role, to give them every chance of success in their chosen field. But on closer inspection, this assumption is fraught with challenges. How far should the practitioners go? How can one give advice without causing offence? And most crucially, how could this tacit support of an arguably unfair and superficial value system be justified? In this chapter, I will explore some of these issues, drawing on research conducted with career advisers, counsellors and coaches and will offer some practical guidelines for all those who might find themselves tempted to offer advice.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Researchers from the UK found three major barriers to women’s promotion in engineering: They were: Promotions come to those who are widely known, to those who have a higher status and to those who conform to the ideal worker ideology. In all three categories they are more likely to be men.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Total hip replacement is a common and expensive procedure. Any attempt to shorten the length of hospital stay safely is desirable. Proposes a scoring system specifically designed for this patient population, to determine the optimal timing of safe discharge and post‐acute care placement. Discusses its implications for the quality of patient care.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and shed light on the following questions: What is an author? Is it a person who writes? Or, is it, in information, an iconic taxonomic designation (some might say a “classification”) for a group of writings that are recognized by the public in some particular way? What does it mean when a search engine, or catalog, asks a user to enter the name of an author? And how does that accord with the manner in which the data have been entered in association with the names of the entities identified with the concept of authorship?

The authors use several cases as bases of phenomenological discourse analysis, combining as best the authors can components of eidetic bracketing (a Husserlian technique for isolating noetic reduction) with Foucauldian discourse analysis. The two approaches are not sympathetic or together cogent, so the authors present them instead as alternative explanations alongside empirical evidence. In this way the authors are able to isolate components of iconic “authorship” and then subsequently engage them in discourse.

An “author” is an iconic name associated with a class of works. An “author” is a role in public discourse between a set of works and the culture that consumes them. An “author” is a role in cultural sublimation, or a power broker in deabstemiation. An “author” is last, if ever, a person responsible for the intellectual content of a published work. The library catalog’s attribution of “author” is at odds with the Foucauldian discursive comprehension of the role of an “author.”

One of the main assets of this paper is the combination of Foucauldian discourse analysis with phenomenological analysis for the study of the “author.” The authors turned to Foucauldian discourse analysis to discover the loci of power in the interactions of the public with the named authorial entities. The authors also looked to phenomenological analysis to consider the lived experience of users who encounter the same named authorial entities. The study of the “author” in this combined way facilitated the revelation of new aspects of the role of authorship in search engines and library catalogs.

This paper aims to develop a framework to assist the identification of robust adaptation options that account for uncertainty in future climate change impacts for the water sector.

The water evaluation and planning (WEAP) tool, is to identify future water resource vulnerability in the Glore sub‐catchment within the Moy catchment in the West of Ireland. Where water stress is evident, a detailed hydrological modelling approach is developed to enable an assessment of the robustness to uncertainty of future adaptation decisions. WEAP is coupled with a rainfall runoff model (hydrological simulation model), and forced using climate scenarios, statistically downscaled from three global climate models to account for the key sources of uncertainty. While hydrological models are widely applied, they are subject to uncertainties derived from model structure and the parameterisation of the catchment. Here, random sampling of key parameters is employed to incorporate uncertainty from the hydrological modelling process. Behavioural parameter sets are used to generate multiple future streamflow series to determine where the bounds within future hydrological regimes may lie and the ranges within which future adaptation policy pathways need to function.

This framework allows the identification of adaptation options that are robust to uncertainty in future simulations.

Future research will focus on the development of more site‐specific adaptation options including soft and hard adaptation strategies. This approach will be applied to multiple water resource regions within Ireland.

A robust adaptation assessment decreases the risk of expensive and/or mal‐adaptations in a critical sector for society, the economy and the aquatic environment.