Search results

Breaking the Mold -- Contents -- Preface to the New Edition -- Preface to the First Edition -- 1. Introduction: The World We Live In -- Interlude I. Nancy Wright: Success? -- 2. Organizational Constraints: Defining the Road to Success -- 3. Individual Constraints: Occupational Demands on Private Life -- 4. Family as a Complicating Issue for Organizations -- Interlude II. Elizabeth Gray: Failure? -- 5. Rethinking Commitment and Time -- 6. Rethinking Equity and Control -- 7. Pathways to Change -- Interlude III. The Thompsons: Promise of Things to Come? -- 8. Envisioning the Future -- Notes

This article deals first with the temporal patterns of everyday career activities - time in careers - and then with the life-long career line - careers in time. In the former, it introduces the concept of grandmother time and uses telecommuting as an example. In the latter, it builds on the concept of a life-stage responsive career and uses the academic career as an example. The article argues that the accepted notions of time in both daily activities and the life course need serious modification if people are to be productive in the public professional-occupational world as well as in the private world of family and community.

Analysis of questionnaire data from 51 matched male/female pairs of engineers shows that even though these pairs are in very similar positions and share similar orientations to the role of work in their lives, the women have a more ambivalent attitude toward technical expertise. The reasons seem not to lie in complications stemming from women's multiple roles, but relate, rather, to the singular, more "masculine" way that technical work is defined. In managerial roles, in contrast, where criteria of effective performance are more difficult to specify, women seem to be engaged in new models which are associated with less ambivalence. Such diversity, it is argued, is useful for all employees, male and female.

As part of a larger res program, questionaires were admin'ed to a group of Scandinavian students shortly after their arrival in the US for a yr of study, & again shortly before their departure. On the basis of responses to a key item, 2 groups were distinguished: 'down-raters,' who showed a decrease in their perceptions of opportunities in their countries, & 'up-raters,' who showed an increase. Examination of other changes manifested by the 2 groups revealed 2 distinct patterns of change in nat'l image: the down-raters tended to show an increased differentiation, while the up-raters tended to change in a global, undifferentiated way. Down-raters approached the experience in a relatively open way: they were more actively motivated for the trip, more accepting of US patterns (though not uncritically), more likely to compare & explore diff's, more likely to become involved with US culture & people they met, & more likely to regard the experience as an opportunity for personal development. Up-raters manifested a relatively resistant approach to their US experiences: they were more likely to be entirely negative to US patterns, less likely to compare, more likely to adjust superficially & avoid personal involvement, more oriented toward work, & less oriented toward personal development & interpersonal relations. Changes in images of their own countries were congruent with these diff approaches to the experience. The study suggests some of the possible relationships between the nature of a person's experience in a foreign country, & the nature of the effects engendered by the trip on his image of his own country. AA.