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AbstractThis article examines the impact of external jolts on professional women's careers. Although scholars have begun to address the role of context in career, little research has addressed the effects of unexpected and uncontrollable events. This is regrettable, particularly in the light of the current pandemic that appears to be impacting on us in hitherto unimaginable ways. We draw on the accounts of women professionals who appeared on the iconic BBC radio programme, Desert Island Discs. Our study culminates in two contributions: the first relates to the interplay of structure and agency in women's accounts of jolts and their response. The second argues that jolts trigger changes in the career imagination, and potentially in professional landscapes themselves.

Women who are both mothers and paid workers are often represented as facing intractable temporal conflicts ( Maher, 2009 ; Thompson, 1996 ) as they struggle to synchronize organizational work demands with family needs. Despite this, increasing numbers of women are entering the workplace, many of whom are setting up their own business with the intention of realizing the benefits of temporal flexibility that entrepreneurship supposedly bestows ( DeMartino and Barbato, 2003 ). In this article we examine the experiences of one particular subset of women entrepreneurs – those for whom starting a business coincides with having children. The article utilizes a qualitative methodology involving 20 interviews with women entrepreneurs. The metaphor of triage is employed to explore the ways in which women entrepreneurs allocate their time and how they experience the process of allocation. The article concludes by discussing how, although many of our interviewees found the experience of self-employment liberating, the time pressures that women face and the continued lack of value given to their contribution, both economically and socially, can create huge conflicts.

This research investigates how recent approaches to culture management have tacitly assimilated Merton's and Mayo's reformulations of Durkheim's theory of anomie.This reformulation legitimates an instrumental focus upon the need for 'experts' to regulate the means by which naturalized utilitarian ends are pursued by developing culture management practices that aim to (re)integrate the mal-socialized. In contrast to this technocratic approach, we explore how Durkheim's original formulation of anomie, far from accepting utilitarian ends as givens, articulated concerns about the unfettering of egoism he saw to be engendered by the classical liberal free market assumptions at the heart of utilitarianism. How this free market ethos, articulated by recent neoliberal discourses, guides the content and processes of post-bureaucratic culture management manoeuvres is then investigated. This article concludes by showing how, from Durkheim's stance, such managerial processes paradoxically serve to express and propagate the incidence of anomie. In stark contrast, as a means of re-establishing social cohesion as a bulwark against anomie whilst protecting individual freedoms, Durkheim's communitarian agenda emphasized the need to establish an organic solidarity, knowingly agreed by all on an equal basis, thereby potentially legitimating a more democratic approach to organizational governance that has contemporary relevance.

This article tells the story of Dave, a welfare rights advisor who worked his way up to be Assistant Director of Social Services in a Midlands local authority. Dave joined the public sector with a sense of calling and a belief that local government could create positive social change. Over the next 25 years, however, Dave's calling was increasingly challenged as his job and the context in which he worked were transformed. This article focuses on the ways in which Dave navigated the system in an attempt to 'keep the faith', before eventually taking early retirement.

This paper reports on an exploratory study examining women's views about and experiences of retirement. It has long been recognized that women's careers often follow a different path than men's due to the differential impact of family and domestic responsibilities and their relative underrepresentation at higher levels of organizations. However, many studies of retirement have implicitly assumed a conventional male career as the norm, where retirement is seen as marking a neat ending to continuous employment. This paper aims to present a richer understanding of women's retirement, utilizing contextual national data and qualitative analysis. The paper begins with a brief summary of literature looking at women's career development. We then explore the concept of retirement and consider current literature with regard to women's retirement. Following a brief discussion of our research approach, we provide some national context using quantitative data. We then discuss the qualitative findings, examining the areas of continuity and change that women experienced in retirement and exploring the factors that they felt enabled and constrained them.

AbstractIn this paper, we examine individuals' career migration across international borders. It is widely recognized that globalization has fundamental implications for the careers of people across geographical and cultural boundaries. However, our understanding of the interplay of migration, career development and national/cultural identities remains undeveloped within the extant literature. In this paper, we seek to offer insights into this relationship. Focusing on Indian scientists, an occupational group whose careers have long been associated with movement around the world, in this paper we examine these issues. Empirically, we examine three themes: why Indian scientists see international mobility as important in the development of their careers; continued links with India; and the interplay of national/cultural affiliation and respondents' career experiences. In light of our findings, in the discussion section we argue that considering Indian scientists as a career diaspora highlights three important features that in the main have received only limited attention in the extant literature: career as a social form and process; the notion of the scientific career as a cultural product; and the interrelationship of career and national/cultural affiliation as ongoing facets of individuals' identities as they develop diasporic careers.