Structure, agency, and notions of career success

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore notions of career success from a process-oriented perspective. The authors argue that success can be usefully conceptualized as a subjectively malleable and localized construct that is continually (re)interpreted and (re)shaped through the interaction between individual agency and macro-level structures. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs a qualitative methodology drawing on 32 in-depth semi-structured interviews with female academics from eight countries in the Arab Middle East. Findings – Findings of this study provide an empirical validation of the suggested Career Success Framework and moves toward an integrative model of objective and subjective career success criteria. More specifically, the findings showed that women's definitions of success are: first, localized in that they capture considerations relating to predominant institutions in the region (i.e. family and gender ideology); second, subjectively malleable in that they capture women's agency embedded in specific macro-level structures; and finally, process oriented in that they reflect a dynamic interaction between the structure agency as well as the subsequent actions, strategies, and behaviors women adopt to alleviate tension and reach their personal notions of career success. Practical implications – The authors suggest that there may be value in customizing human resource management policies in the region around the salience of family and community service. Moreover, organizations can play a pivotal role in supporting women to work through the experienced tensions. Examples of such support are mentoring programs, championing female role models, and designing corporate social responsibility initiatives geared toward shifting mandated gender structures in the region. Finally, the authors argue that organizations could benefit by supporting women's atypical patterns of career engagement to allow for interactions with wider circles of stakeholders such as the community. This requires organizations to rethink their career success criteria to allow for the integration of non-traditional elements of career. Social implications – Adopting a more process-oriented view of career success avoids reification by drawing attention to local macro-level structures as well as individual agency. It also suggests that existing norms for how “success” is understood are only one element in a wider process of what it means to be “successful”, thereby opening space for more diverse and localized conceptualizations. Originality/value – This paper provides a more process-oriented consideration of career success, highlighting the importance of understanding how perceived tensions shape an individual's behaviors, actions, and career strategies. The value of this contribution is that it allows us to better understand the complex interaction of structure and agency in shaping an individual's notions of career success.