CAREER TYPOLOGIES OF WOMEN MANAGERS AND ENTREPRENEURS

Abstract

In recent years women have made considerable progress in management and self‐employment. However, there has been little attempt to develop a career development perspective of women which may assist their further advance in the workforce or to help them overcome inhibiting factors preventing them from achieving career goals. Two Australian studies suggest that managerial women reveal a number of career patterns depending on whether they are organisationally or entrepreneurially inclined. For instance, organisational (enterprise) women managers can be divided into self‐made and professional groupings, with further distinguishing career patterns. Entrepreneurial/self‐employed women exhibit another variety of career patterns according to the nature of the business entity they have chosen to operate. The results suggest that there is great heterogeneity in the range of managerial careers for women, and that this heterogeneity has more to do with contextual factors than gender‐specific issues.