Men’s underrepresentation in the female-dominated domains of healthcare, early education, and the domestic sphere, or HEED roles, remains a persistent problem despite the fact that such careers often afford more job security and wage growth than blue-collar work. A growing body of evidence suggests that their lack of participation in HEED roles is not merely due to a skills mismatch, but rather an identity mismatch. I hypothesized that using descriptive and injunctive norms to reframe a stereotypically feminine career as more compatible with manhood could effectively reduce this identity mismatch. More specifically, I predicted that using a dynamic descriptive norm framing that highlighted the growing number of men taking on a female-dominated career and an injunctive norm framing that highlighted its compatibility with men’s gender rules would increase men’s interest in the occupation. Furthermore, I believed that such framings would be particularly effective among men who are highly communal and those who do not strongly endorse traditional male role norms. To test my predictions, 342 men took part in an online study in which they were assigned to read a newspaper article about a HEED role, nursing, that was designed to manipulate the perceived prevalence of male nurses and the job’s compatibility with male gender rules. Then, they completed a variety of measures designed to assess their interest in and perceptions of nursing and other HEED careers. Minimal support was found for my hypotheses, and I discuss limitations and future directions to shed light on these null results.

<p>Studiens syfte var att öka kunskapen kring hur några studie- och yrkesvägledare på grundskolan arbetar med vägledning av elever med ADHD och vilka kompetenser och resurser de kunde tänkas ha för att stötta väl underbyggda studie- och yrkesval. Kvalitativa intervjuer genomfördes och resultatet visar att respondenterna individanpassar vägledningen i hög grad, för elever med ADHD främst genom mer tid, studiebesök, medföljare, visualisering och empowerment. De använder ingen speciellt utarbetad vägledningsmetod för dessa elever men det visar sig att det vore välkommet med metodutveckling, vidareutbildning och utökat samarbete.</p> / <p>The aim of the study was to increase the knowledge of how some career counselors work with students with ADHD and what skills and resources they might have to support well-founded career choices. Qualitative interviews were accomplished and the result shows that the respondents personalized guidance to a large extent, for students with ADHD above all through more time, educational visits, accompanied by someone, visualization and empowerment. They use no specific guidance method for these students, but it turns out that it would be welcomed with method development, training and increased cooperation.</p>

<p>SUMMARY</p><p>Title: Inter(man)tional Assignments?</p><p>– A Study Concerning Women’s Possibilities to Work Abroad</p><p>Problem: How do women perceive their possibilities to obtain an international assignment?</p><p>Purpose: The main purpose with this study is to create an understanding for women’s possibilities to obtain an international assignment. To be able to achieve this and to obtain a more faceted picture two types of sectors have been examined; larger Swedish corporations within the Swedish business world and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. We will further elucidate how women within the two sectors may perhaps learn from each other’s experiences, this to create new knowledge regarding women on international assignments.</p><p>Theory: In this study concepts linked to the fields of culture, management and international business are included; more pecifically the areas of international assignments, gender based differences, female characteristics, the glass ceiling and networks. A second theory part has been added after the completion of the empirical data collection to create a better and broader foundation for our study. Dual-careers, male structures, male bonding and old boys’ networks are included in this part. The supplemented theories have been placed previous to our analysis.</p><p>Method: We have performed a qualitative study from a gender based perspective with a focus upon female expatriates. The study has an abductive approach and we relate to a hermeneutical epistemology. Telephone interviews have been performed with female respondents who currently possess and international assignment or previously been an expatriate.</p><p>Result: The result of our study shows that there is no clear-cut answer to how women perceive their possibilities to obtain a foreign assignment, since their experiences are complex and individual. However, the core of our answer to the research question distinguishes a few aspects which are common among the respondents. The major cause affecting women’s possibilities is the issue of dual-career couples. The spouse’s and family’s situation is the main reason for the lack of women in these assignments. Another aspect which appears to be of great importance is the lack of women in leading positions. More women are needed on each and every managerial level to allow more women to achieve higher positions. If this is accomplished there will be a larger pool of competent and skilled females to choose from when selecting expatriates. Even though we have studied two diverse sectors, the issues and problems for the women seem to be the same. Still, both sectors have something to learn from each other. First, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs should improve their recruitment process. Second, something the Swedish business world can learn from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs is to support their expatriates in a better way before and during their assignment abroad.</p>

Studiens syfte var att öka kunskapen kring hur några studie- och yrkesvägledare på grundskolan arbetar med vägledning av elever med ADHD och vilka kompetenser och resurser de kunde tänkas ha för att stötta väl underbyggda studie- och yrkesval. Kvalitativa intervjuer genomfördes och resultatet visar att respondenterna individanpassar vägledningen i hög grad, för elever med ADHD främst genom mer tid, studiebesök, medföljare, visualisering och empowerment. De använder ingen speciellt utarbetad vägledningsmetod för dessa elever men det visar sig att det vore välkommet med metodutveckling, vidareutbildning och utökat samarbete. / The aim of the study was to increase the knowledge of how some career counselors work with students with ADHD and what skills and resources they might have to support well-founded career choices. Qualitative interviews were accomplished and the result shows that the respondents personalized guidance to a large extent, for students with ADHD above all through more time, educational visits, accompanied by someone, visualization and empowerment. They use no specific guidance method for these students, but it turns out that it would be welcomed with method development, training and increased cooperation.

SUMMARY Title: Inter(man)tional Assignments? – A Study Concerning Women’s Possibilities to Work Abroad Problem: How do women perceive their possibilities to obtain an international assignment? Purpose: The main purpose with this study is to create an understanding for women’s possibilities to obtain an international assignment. To be able to achieve this and to obtain a more faceted picture two types of sectors have been examined; larger Swedish corporations within the Swedish business world and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. We will further elucidate how women within the two sectors may perhaps learn from each other’s experiences, this to create new knowledge regarding women on international assignments. Theory: In this study concepts linked to the fields of culture, management and international business are included; more pecifically the areas of international assignments, gender based differences, female characteristics, the glass ceiling and networks. A second theory part has been added after the completion of the empirical data collection to create a better and broader foundation for our study. Dual-careers, male structures, male bonding and old boys’ networks are included in this part. The supplemented theories have been placed previous to our analysis. Method: We have performed a qualitative study from a gender based perspective with a focus upon female expatriates. The study has an abductive approach and we relate to a hermeneutical epistemology. Telephone interviews have been performed with female respondents who currently possess and international assignment or previously been an expatriate. Result: The result of our study shows that there is no clear-cut answer to how women perceive their possibilities to obtain a foreign assignment, since their experiences are complex and individual. However, the core of our answer to the research question distinguishes a few aspects which are common among the respondents. The major cause affecting women’s possibilities is the issue of dual-career couples. The spouse’s and family’s situation is the main reason for the lack of women in these assignments. Another aspect which appears to be of great importance is the lack of women in leading positions. More women are needed on each and every managerial level to allow more women to achieve higher positions. If this is accomplished there will be a larger pool of competent and skilled females to choose from when selecting expatriates. Even though we have studied two diverse sectors, the issues and problems for the women seem to be the same. Still, both sectors have something to learn from each other. First, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs should improve their recruitment process. Second, something the Swedish business world can learn from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs is to support their expatriates in a better way before and during their assignment abroad.

Bristen av kvinnor på de högre positionerna inom ICA som i övrigt är en kvinnodominerad bransch utgör intresseområdet för denna uppsats. Vi vill med uppsatsen undersöka och belysa de erfarenheter som kvinnor på olika positioner inom organisationen har gällande deras möjligheter till karriär. Uppsatsen är en kvalitativ intervjustudie med en fenomenologisk teoretisk ansats som även stödjs av andra teorier gällande organisation och kön. Empirin som studiens resultat bygger på kommer från intervjuer med sju kvinnor på olika nivåer inom ICA. Resultatet i sin tur presenteras utifrån fem olika teman vilka belyser kvinnornas upplevelser gällande: Uppfattningar om organisationen, Jämställdhet, Rekrytering, Kompetensutveckling och karriär samt Hinder och möjligheter till karriär. Resultatet visar att kvinnornas levda erfarenheter gällande sina karriärmöjligheter inom organisationen skiljer sig åt, beroende på vilken position de besitter.  Ett flertal hinder urskiljs i resultatet, vilka kan vara möjliga anledningar till kvinnornas underrepresentation på de högre positionerna. / The lack of women in higher positions within ICA as for the rest is a female-dominated industry represents the area of interest for this essay. We want this paper to investigate and illuminate the experiences of women in various positions within the organization regarding their career opportunities. The essay is a qualitative study with a phenomenological theoretical approach which is also supported by other theories regarding organizations and gender. The empirical data that the study´s results are based on comes from interviews with seven women at different levels within ICA. The result in turn is presented based on five different themes which highlight women’s experiences regarding: Perceptions of the organization, Gender equality, Recruitment, Competence development and career and finally Barriers and opportunities for career. The results show that women’s lived experiences regarding their career opportunities within the organization differ, depending on the position they occupy. Several obstacles are identified in the results, which may be possible reasons to women’s under-representation in higher positions.

<p>In the current recessionary cycle in which individuals finds themselves, it is interesting to see whether organisations and individuals have changed their strategies or whether they pursued their tried and tested inherent mechanisms of recruitment/work selection. In recessionary times, organisations would usually have a bigger pool to select from whilst employees, in turn, would try to position themselves in a stable work environment. From an organisational perspective, organisations have also undergone major transitions such as downsizing, merges and acquisitions, right sizing, restructuring, and reengineering. These changes have a direct impact on employees&rsquo / level of motivation and job satisfaction (Ellison &amp / Schreuder, 2000). The concept of a traditional career that an employee occupies for a lifetime performing one type of work in an organisation no longer exists. Instead, employees now work for more than one organisation in their lifetime. These changes entail that employees need to be flexible and adaptive in making career decisions (Schreuder &amp / Coetzee, 2006). Career anchors can be operationalized as a representation of self- perceived talents, motives, values and abilities that guide employees to make career decisions. Schreuder and Coetzee (2006), are of the opinion that if employees are not familiar with their&nbsp / career anchors, they could find themselves trapped in work environments that are not satisfactory and would continually be questioning themselves. Suutari and Taka (2004) emphasize the fact that there needs to be a fit between the careers of employees and the work environment. If there is no fit between the career anchors of employees and the work environment then employees are likely to become dissatisfied which may result in a high turnover of staff with a corresponding low productivity rate. This study investigates and explores the phenomenon of career anchors based&nbsp / on Schein&rsquo / s 1978 career anchor theory and how these career anchors affect employees level of job satisfaction. The Career Anchor Inventory and the Job Descriptive Index were administered to a sample of 154 employees at a leading retail organisation who completed the questionnaires. The results of this research study indicate that there are significant relationships between biographical factors and career anchors as well as between biographical factors and job satisfaction and similarly between typology of career anchors and dimensions of job satisfaction.</p>

Research on international work experiences has to a great extent focused on an international assignment as a single event, and on how to optimize it from the organization’s perspective. This thesis addresses individuals’ subjective experiences of international work experiences and focuses on individuals with global careers, who see working abroad as a major element of their careers, involving several international assignments or international work experiences. With the recognition that individuals will work abroad on their own initiative a differentiation is made between repeat expatriates; expatriates with at least two international assignments for the same company, and international itinerants; working abroad for at least two different companies. The main purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of global careers through applying an identity construction perspective on narratives of global careerists’ working lives. To address this purpose the global careerists’ identity construction processes are explored, and their career orientation, their identification with the organization and career, and country and culture are considered more directly. An important sub-purpose of this thesis is to make a comparison of repeat expatriates and international itinerants, in terms of their identity construction and identifications. An individual’s identity, or sense of self, is seen as constructed in social interaction, encompassing dualities such as both differentiation from and identification with others. This thesis addresses social identities as part of an individual’s identity construction in the transition in social, cultural and organizational context that an international work experience involves. The approach taken is that the increased understanding aimed for can be reached through narratives. Interviews were made with twenty Swedish global careerists. Each interview was constructed as a narrative and structured according to elements of narratives to construct aggregate narratives of repeat expatriates and international itinerants. The narratives were analyzed and comparison of repeat expatriates and international itinerants was made. The findings in this thesis show that all the global careerists in this study have experienced shifts in their identities and identity reconstruction in the course of their careers. External circumstances such as the type of location, the time abroad, and if the work abroad is perceived as temporary, is important to the global careerists’ identity construction.The findings illustrate that there are differences in repeat expatriates’ and international itinerants’ career orientations, in their identifications with the organizations they work for, with their careers and with what they do. The two types of global careerists differ in how they identify with their home country and culture and the countries and cultures they live in. The repeat expatriates and international itinerants also show different patterns in their identity construction.

The current study explores the effects of gender on salary negotiation behaviors and expectancies and the relationship between these variables and starting salary outcomes. College students from a variety of different majors were surveyed prior to and then approximately two to four months after graduation. Though there was no gender difference in final salary or difference between initial and final salary offer, men reported using more aggressive and active salary negotiation behaviors. The results also suggest that men may have felt more empowered in the salary negotiation context. They expected higher salaries than women did, anticipated less discomfort and believed themselves to be less emotional in the salary negotiation context. In addition, males and females both considered stereotypically masculine traits as more effective in the negotiation context than stereotypically feminine traits and this difference was even larger for women than it was for men. Despite the above findings, the absence of gender differences in starting salary outcomes may have been caused by the perception that salary was non-negotiable, as few participants in this study made counteroffers. Future studies are needed to expand the number of field studies on gender differences in salary negotiation and to examine the variables above using a more diverse sample.

University students experience a range of life events whilst studying. Extensive research has established that university life events (events that are synonymous with studying) can be associated with student dropout from university. However, less is known about what university life events are experienced collectively by student ‘persisters’ (individuals who do not dropout). This study therefore sought to establish when persisters reported (and how they perceived) experiencing university life events. Between-group differences amongst students were considered. Life events have been attributed to personal change which can manifest in a number of ways, including change in career and professionalism. Understanding the associations between life events and career/professional development could serve to enhance the support that a university could provide to students in these areas. Consequently whether/when university life events were associated with students’ career thoughtfulness, decidedness and professionalism was addressed. An Interpretivist epistemological orientation was assumed and a comparative case study design was employed (involving three data collection phases). Phase one (pilot work) employed interviews and repertory grids to identify the range of events that student persisters might experience whilst studying at university; tentative between-group differences were considered. Based upon pilot work findings, three instruments were constructed, piloted and validated (phase two).These instruments addressed 1) university life event experiences; 2) career thoughtfulness and decidedness; and 3) professionalism status. Phase three (main study) involved administering the instruments quasi-longitudinally to students from two fundamentally different courses (‘professional’ (associated with a very well-defined career route and emphasis on specific professional development) and ‘generalist’ (associated with a more open-ended career route and less prescribed professional development)) at the start and end of the academic year. Result accuracy was checked through follow-up interviews with lecturers. III Trends were established between student groups in terms of what university life events were experienced and how these were perceived. Differences in reporting were found based on year group, course type and time of the academic year. Based on collective data, experiences most synonymous with specific stages of studying on a professional or generalist course were identified and are discussed. Different life events were found to be associated with enhanced or reduced career thoughtfulness, decidedness and professionalism throughout the academic year. Findings were considered holistically and an overview of how life events are associated with these areas was presented. Follow-up interviews overwhelmingly supported questionnaire findings. Explanations for findings and result applicability were considered. Suggestions for future work and recommendations are presented.