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J Ö N K Ö P I N G I N T E R N A T I O N A L B U S I N E S S S C H O O LJÖNKÖPING UNIVERSITY

Female Career Development- The importance of networking

Bachelor Thesis within Business Administration

Author: Emilie Helmer

Therese Hjälmner

Fanny Stener

Tutor: Börje Boers

Jönköping January 2008

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Acknowledgements

There are a number of people who have contributed to this bachelor thesis whom we would like to express our appreciation to. The first one to acknowledge is our tutor, Börje Boers, who has provided us with support and guidance throughout the work. Thank you. Secondly, we would like to express our gratefulness to the five inspiring women who have taken their time and shared their individual life experiences with us. They have all provided this study with some very fruitful insights of what to expect throughout one’s career devel-opment.

Lena Apler, CEO, Collector AB

Charlotta Oom, Market Manager, Collector AB

Eva Halvarsson, CEO, Andra AP-fonden

Anne A Rosengren, CEO, Catella Corporate Finance

Susanne Jacobsson, Vice President of HR and Communications, Perstorp AB

At last, we would like to give a special thanks to all opposing groups for the valuable feed-back they have provided us with throughout the progress of the thesis.

Emilie Helmer, Therese Hjälmner & Fanny Stener

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Bachelor Thesis within Business AdministrationTitle: Female Career Development – The importance of networking

Authors: Emilie Helmer

Therese Hjälmner

Fanny Stener

Tutor: Börje Boers

Date: Jönköping, January 2009

Subject terms: Professional networking, glass ceiling, women in business, female leadership

Abstract

Past research reveals that fewer women than men possess top management positions and statistics imply that in Sweden only 24 percent of all board members are women (European Commission, 2008). Gender differences are even more obvious in the private sector and this is the reality facing today’s graduates, regardless of the fact that the number of female and males taking a business degree in Sweden is approximately the same (SCB, 2006).

The purpose of this study is to examine if networking can influence women’s career development. Networking and social capital is argued to be a vital tool for career development (Yukl, 2006), and former studies present information that men and women take advantage of their networks rather differently (Burke, Rothstein and Bristor, 1995). However, as the researchers approached the subject, supplementary factors for advancing up the corporate ladder were identified. Theories regarding female leadership, female career progression and the glass ceiling are therefore taken into consideration as vital factors for career development. In order to carry out this study a qualitative approach was chosen, and five business women were interviewed, all considered proficient of the subject.

The main conclusion derived from the interviews demonstrates that formal networks were less important than informal networks in order to overcome career obstacles and advance professionally. The networks that were considered most beneficial for the interviewees were the ones that evolved naturally and were reciprocal. Moreover, pure female networks were not considered as valuable as mixed networks since men more often possess access to important information than women. Having a mentor was considered vital at top positions since it provides support and further enhances information sharing. However, the results led to conclude that an additional key success factor for female career development was connected to leadership style; and having a transformational leadership style with transactional characteristics was concluded as most beneficial. Furthermore, the interviewees highlighted the importance of possessing the right personal traits and also to share the responsibilities for home and family life with one’s partner.

This study is assumed to be interesting for women in their career with ambitions to reach the top of the corporate ladder. It is also assumed to be interesting for network organisations to use as a benchmark tool.

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Kandidatuppsats i FöretagsekonomiTitel: Female Career Development – The importance of networking

Författare: Emilie Helmer

Therese Hjälmner

Fanny Stener

Handledare: Börje Boers

Datum: Jönköping, januari 2008

Ämnesord: Professional networking, glass ceiling, women in business, female leadership

Sammanfattning

Forskning visar att färre kvinnor än män innehar VD positioner inom svenskt näringsliv. Statistik pekar dessutom på att endast 24 procent kvinnor är representerade i företagsstyrelser i Sverige (European Commission, 2008). Den ojämna fördelningen mellan könen är mer påtaglig inom den privata sektorn, och detta trots att andelen män respektive kvinnor som tar ut examen vid Sveriges universitet är relativt lika (SCB, 2006).

Syftet med uppsatsen är att genom kvalitativa intervjuer undersöka huruvida nätverkande kan främja fler kvinnor att rekryteras till högre poster inom svenskt näringsliv. Tidigare studier antyder att män och kvinnor använder sig av sina nätverk på olika sätt. Det sägs att män generellt sett utnyttjar sina nätverk i rent professionellt syfte medan kvinnor primärt nätverkar för det sociala utbyte som det genererar (Burke, Rothstein and Bristor, 1995).Andra faktorer som anses påverka kvinnors utveckling i karriären har identifierats under resans gång och inkluderats i studien. Bland annat har teorier relaterande kvinnligt ledarskap, kvinnlig karriärsutveckling och glastaket tillämpats och analyserats tillsammans med resultaten från den empiriska studien. För att svara på studiens syfte och styrka analys och slutsats har fem högt uppsatta kvinnor inom svenskt näringsliv intervjuats.

Huvudslutsatsen är att formella nätverk inte har lika stort inflytande som informella nätverk vad gäller att överkomma hinder unders ens karriär och att avancera professionellt. De nätverk som hade störst betydelse för de intervjuade kvinnorna var de som hade uppkommit naturligt och var av ömsesidig karaktär. De intervjuade kvinnorna underströk dessutom betydelsen av att ha en mentor då man innehar en hög position, eftersom dessaofta kan bidra med stöd, öka informationsflödet och dela med sig av egna erfarenheter. Ytterligare en slutsats var att nätverk, där enbart kvinnor var aktiva, inte ansågs lika viktiga som nätverk där både kvinnor och män var delaktiga. Det framgick även vid intervjuerna att en viktig aspekt för att kunna avancera är förknippad med ens ledarskapstil. Att besitta en transformell ledarskapstil med influenser av transaktionella drag, ansågs vara mest framgångsrik enligt de intervjuade kvinnorna.

Den här studien antas intressant för kvinnor i karriären, med ambitionen att utvecklas och avancera karriärsmässigt. Den anses dessutom intressant för organiserade nätverk, som kan använda studien som en inspirationskälla för ytterligare utveckling och förbättring.

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Table of Contents

1 Introduction ............................................................................... 11.1 Background ............................................................................................11.2 Problem discussion ................................................................................21.3 Purpose ..................................................................................................3

2 Frame of reference.................................................................... 42.1 Women in business ................................................................................42.1.1 Female leadership ..................................................................................42.2 Female career development...................................................................52.2.1 Obstacles to female career development ...............................................62.2.2 The glass ceiling.....................................................................................72.2.3 How to overcome female career obstacles.............................................82.3 Networking .............................................................................................92.3.1 Networks ................................................................................................92.3.2 The importance of networking ..............................................................102.3.3 Female networks ..................................................................................112.3.4 Differences between how men and women network ............................122.4 Research questions..............................................................................13

3 Research approach and Method ............................................ 143.1 Research approach ..............................................................................143.1.1 Inductive vs deductive approach ..........................................................143.2 Method .................................................................................................153.2.1 Qualitative interviewing.........................................................................153.2.2 Data collection......................................................................................163.2.3 Delimitations.........................................................................................173.2.4 Choice of interviewees and interview setting........................................183.2.5 Data analysis........................................................................................183.3 Soundness of the study ........................................................................203.3.1 Reliability ..............................................................................................203.3.2 Validity..................................................................................................21

4 Results & Analysis.................................................................. 224.1 Women in business ..............................................................................224.1.1 Work experience...................................................................................234.1.2 Female leadership ................................................................................244.2 Female career development.................................................................264.2.1 Obstacles to female career development .............................................284.2.2 The glass ceiling...................................................................................304.2.3 How to overcome female career obstacles...........................................314.3 Networking ...........................................................................................334.3.1 Networks and network participation......................................................334.3.2 The importance of networking ..............................................................364.3.3 Female networks ..................................................................................384.3.4 Differences between how men and women network ............................39

5 End Remarks ........................................................................... 415.1 Conclusion............................................................................................41

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5.2 Discussion ............................................................................................425.3 Recommendation for further studies.....................................................42

References ................................................................................... 43

Appendices .................................................................................. 46Appendix 1 - Intervjumall...................................................................................46Appendix 2 - Interview template (english version).............................................47Appendix 3 - Summary of interview with Lena Apler .........................................48Appendix 4 - Summary of interview with Charlotta Oom ...................................50Appendix 5 - Summary of interview with Eva Halvarsson .................................52Appendix 6 - Summary of interview with Anne A Rosengren ............................55Appendix 7 - Summary of interview with Susanne Jacobsson ..........................57

Table of figures

Figure 2.1 The glass ceiling ................................................................................7

Helmer, Hjälmner & Stener, 2009

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1 IntroductionThis chapter will with a funnel approach guide the reader to the main purpose of the study. Beginning with the study’s background the reader will get an in-depth discussion about the main problem, this in order to recognise the relevance and importance of the research questions. The introduction reveals the inspiration be-hind the study.

1.1 BackgroundToday women account for more than half of university graduates in Europe (SCB, 2008).However, their success is not translated to the workplace. It remains a significant genderimbalance in positions of responsibility such that nearly nine out of 10 members of the Board of Directors of large companies are men. Women represent over 44 percent of all workers across Europe, although they are under represented in large organisations where men account for nearly 90 percent of the board members of leading companies (European Commission, 2008).

Women are still missing out at the top of the business world, and statistics reveal that management boards of the largest companies listed on the national stock exchange of EU member states include just one female representative for every ninth man (European Commission, 2008). The Scandinavian countries are in the forefront of having female representatives in corporate boards, where Norway has by far the highest representation of more than 34 percent. Sweden comes second, with 24 percent of women in corporate boards. Even in the countries where there is a comparatively high representation of women in corporate boards, it is however extremely rare for them to make it to the very top (European Commission, 2008).

In Sweden the number of females and males taking a business degree is approximately the same (SCB, 2008), yet figures show that plenty more men than women possess top positions in the business world. This difference is even more obvious in the private sector where figures published by the Statistic Central Bureau of Sweden indicate that less women than men are appointed to top positions (SCB, 2006). A surprising difference though is that men reach their first executive position much earlier in their career than their female competitors. However, when women finally have reached their first executive position, they climb the corporate ladder much quicker than men. An average of nine years for women to reach top management positions compared to men’s 14 years (Göransson, 2003). Until today, according to Bilimoria and Piderit (2007), academic journals have not properly addressed the reality that women in management and business face.

Other scholars furthermore acknowledge the increased significance of networking in order to reach desired career positions (DagensPs, 2006). Top managers’ networks usually consist of hundreds of people. Having large networks both inside and outside an organisation isargued to enhance a manager's job performance and career. The art of networking is an ongoing process for managers; new networks should be established since the organisation and the external environment change and old ones need to be maintained by keeping in touch and showing appreciation for favours received etc (Yukl, 2006). Former studies present information that men and women take advantage of their networks rather differently. While men usually have a more professional approach, women mostly utilisethem for social connections (Burke, Rothstein and Bristor, 1995).


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1.2 Problem discussionAccording to Powell & Graves (2003) one of the most fundamental signifiers of career success is advancement up the corporate ladder. Around the world, female managers are concentrated to lower management levels and hold positions with less authority compared with men. There are many studies conducted in order to find a solution for how todecrease the gap between men and women within the business world at top positions, butwith little progression. It does not seem to be a matter of time, nor a matter of personal preferences for women to close the gap and reach top positions. Neither do early sex differences in career patterns provide a sufficient explanation for why the top management positions are so heavily male intense. What is holding women from reaching top management positions has come to be known as the “glass ceiling”. According to this phenomenon, women are restricted access to top positions due to the fact that they are women. It is furthermore argued that women are not allowed to advance in the hierarchies as far as men with equivalent credentials (Powell & Graves, 2003). The first glance on the subject as such is that women’s advancement up the corporate ladder appears to be very different from men’s.

Researchers have tried to clarify the difference between men and women at top positions in the past and a number of different features have been touched upon in order to explain the lack of female top executives. The discussion around this has usually had two aspects. Thefirst explains this phenomenon by indicating that women in general do not have the desireto spend as much time as men on career development, they prioritise differently and allocate their time to other activities and duties. The other aspect shifts focus and designates that the lack of women at top positions is due to the disadvantages that women face in the business world, such as resistance and negative attitudes from colleagues, family and media (Masui, 2004).

Networking has turned out to be an issue that most CEO’s cannot disregard today, and professional networks have come to play a crucial role when maintaining business contacts(Yukl, 2006). Several leadership consultants acknowledge the importance of managing one’s networks in the right way. Networking is according to Lena Ehrlenfeldt, leadership consultant at Ledarna, a good way of managing one’s professional surroundings (Petersson, 2008).

There are many conflicting arguments and mixed attitudes regarding the art of how to network efficiently. Some say that in order for women to reach top positions, networking with men is essential (Dagens Nyheter, 2004). Yet, there are numerous pure female formal networks that have emerged in the last decade, attracting many women to join. One example of a female formal network is Ruter Dam and their mission statement is; “To encourage the appointment of more women managers to higher posts in major companies”(Ruter Dam, 2006). Interesting here is to find out whether or not the formal networks actually help women in their career progression; or if there are other tools that are more suitable for women to use in order to reach the executive posts? Women with some experience from the business world probably have objective and trustworthy input to shareregarding this issue.

Being a member in an acknowledged network usually has a great impact on one’s career. Female networks do not have any decisive power, according to Agneta Dreber, instead they only offer support (Dagens Nyheter, 2004). The studies that have been executed show that women network differently in comparison with men. There is a tendency for networking with peers only and not leveraging on their network contacts in order to


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progress in their career development (Atkinson, 2001). Göransson (2003) further criticisesthe pure female networks that exist today. She mentions that they can be efficient in the short run, though suggests that it is vital for women to rather belong to mixed networks, in order to become professionally successful. This primarily as a mixed network to a greater extent gives access to and consists of more important people that possess power in the business world.

What is already well known is that networks are vital and supportive in the business world in general, but it could furthermore be the case that pure female networks are harming rather than helping women to reach the top. If reality is precisely as researchers and other business people claim; that there actually exists a significant difference between how men and women exploit their networks and that men are better in utilising their networks, then maybe women should try to mix or at least do some benchmarking on how to network more efficient (Dagens Nyheter, 2004).

Much research has in the past been conducted to explain why there are fewer women than men at top positions in the business world (Drake & Solberg, 1995; Davidson & Burke, 2000; Powell & Graves, 2000; Masui, 2004; O’Neil and Bilimoria, 2005; Burke, 2007; Gatrell & Cooper, 2007; Meyerson & Fletcher, 2005). This study will through qualitative interviews examine how women utilise their networks and if the imbalance of women at top positions could be explained by the way they network. Expectantly this study will also reveal what important role one’s network plays in progressing throughout the career, and further what structure a network should have in order to help women enter top management positions. The study is assumed to be interesting for women with ambitions to reach the top of the corporate ladder, and also for network organisations to use as a benchmark tool.

1.3 PurposeThe purpose of this study is to analyse if networking can influence women’s career devel-opment.


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2 Frame of reference The theoretical framework will cover different aspects as we will both investigate the general managerial role and the importance of networks in the business world. It will focus on women’s role as a leader and the barriers they may encounter in their career development. The suitable theories found will be used foranalysing the empirical data and to reach conclusions for the subject matter.

2.1 Women in businessWomen and men face different realities along the path toward the executive suite. Accord-ing to a study conducted by O’Neil and Bilimoria (2005), three gender related issues were identified, which suggest that women in organisations face situations and realities when climbing the career ladder that are considerably different from men’s experiences (cited in Bilimoria, Godwin & Zelechowski, 2007). The arguments for the issues are presented be-low:

1. The first argument involves the persistent under representation of women at top positions, and the resulting in their continued lower status and stereotyping, which poses a threat to women’s career advancement.

2. The second issue discusses the inability of organisations to adjust work structures and success criterias. Women have different life and family responsibilities compared to men as primary care givers, and are hence influenced negatively in the prospect of advancement if the organisation does not adapt.

3. The third and also last issue reflects the fact that women hold a relational approach to career development that frequently shapes her career choices and also her pro-gression (O’Neil and Bilimoria, 2005, cited in: Bilimoria et al., 2007).

These three arguments are important to acknowledge in this thesis due to the fact that all the interviewees are women and hence an understanding of their position in the business world is of importance. It is also vital for this study to recognise that despite the increased recruitment of women they are still under represented as top managers.

2.1.1 Female leadership

There is an apparent increase in the hiring and promotion of female managers in the labour market today (Aaltio, Kyrö & Sundin, 2008). Davidson & Burke addressed this already in 2000 and stated that the reasons for this were several. Firstly, there are demographic causes like the growing need for diversity, but more important is the change of the managerial role. Task oriented and hierarchical leadership are traditional views on leadership and more organisations emphasise the importance of learning instead of control and want to enhance more decentralised decision making. The traits that are attractive for a manager are the abil-ity to share responsibility, develop and help others and to build connected networks of re-lationships. These traits are traditionally more considered to be feminine characteristics. It is important to acknowledge that feminine characteristics are not only related to the female gender, but instead to the different behavioural features connected to the gender (David-son & Burke, 2000).

Nonetheless, there is still a gender imbalance in the top hierarchy in organisations. This is evident even in organisations where the female professionals were considered to possess equal amount of social capital as the men. Whether the outcome is increased salary or ca-


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reer advancement, women are often considered to be disadvantaged (Aaltio et al., 2008). This argument is very interesting and if it mirrors reality then maybe women should see the increasing “need” of female traits at higher positions within the organisations as a benefit and helping tool in order to be promoted. What also could be shown is that even if these female traits are needed, women still do not get promoted, instead men possessing female traits do.

A study conducted by Rosener (2005) suggests that some similarities exist for male and fe-male leaders. However, differences between their leadership styles and how they influence their work force is still present. Male managers usually describe the job performance of their subordinates as series of transactions. They provide rewards for services submitted or punishment for insufficient performance. This type of leadership style is usually called transactional. Men are in general also more expected to use power and authority that comes from their organisational position. Women on the other hand, portray themselves with characteristics that describe a transformational leadership. They want to get subordinates to transform their own self interest into a common interest for the group. Features often re-lated to female leaders are interpersonal skills, hard work and personal contacts. Women are moreover argued to encourage shared power, information and participation from eve-ryone (Rosener, 2005).

Morrison and Von Glinow (1990) identified three broad classes of theoretical explanations for the differential attainment of women and men as leaders (cited in Dunn-Jensen & Stroh, 2007):

1. Women’s deficiencies as managers.

2. Structural discrimination.

3. Bias and stereotyping by the dominant group.

Research related to the first point, women’s deficiencies theory, has not supported the idea that there exist great differences between men and women’s abilities to manage top posi-tions. However, support to explain the specific phenomenon comes from research related to structural discrimination theory. Also, while much has been written about the effects of negative stereotypes, few have studied the role that the news, media but even more specifi-cally business press play in fostering negative stereotypes of females in the workplace (Mor-rison & Von Glinow, 1990, cited in: Dunn-Jensen & Stroh, 2007). In order to conduct this study, it is of importance to acknowledge theories that provides information about female leadership characteristics. This information will be valuable to consider when collecting and analysing the empirical findings.

2.2 Female career developmentAccording to research within the field of career development, women are argued to have the same possibilities as men to advance up the corporate ladder, particularly if women are entering the same occupations and are similar to men in ambitions and abilities. Women are assumed to have successful careers by following the male model and by sharing child and home responsibilities with their partner (Burke, 2007).

There is an increase in research supporting the notion of various models of career devel-opment for women and men. In a study conducted by Kirchmeyer (1998) including both objective and subjective measures of career success (income, organizational level and self-reported success), four types of career success determinants were identified (cited in Burke,


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2007). They were; firstly, human capital variables; secondly, gender roles; thirdly, supportive rela-tionships; and lastly family status variables. In her study, Kirchmeyer (1998) found support for all relationships with one exception for family status measure, which was found to have similar effects for women and men (Kirchmeyer, 1998, cited in: Burke, 2007).

Some light has furthermore been shed on the types of work experience likely to be asso-ciated with a female career development. Six crucial factors which contribute to a woman’s career progression were acknowledged in a study conducted by Morrison, White and Von Glinow (1987), they were; help from above; a track record of achievement; a desire to succeed; an ability to manage subordinates; a willingness to take career risks; and an ability to be tough, decisive and demand-ing (cited in Burke, 2007).

2.2.1 Obstacles to female career development

Obstacles to female career development and the glass ceiling phenomenon have in the past brought to light a number of interesting standpoints worth mentioning. First to acknowl-edge is the social resistance women at management positions face which is argued to cause stress and demotivation. Although both men and women experience stress at top manage-ment positions, women argue that they face additional stress related issues due to their gender. Discrimination is moreover mentioned as a conflict for career progress even though discrimination at the workplace is against all written laws (Gatrell & Cooper, 2007).

Theory discloses the fact that life responsibilities clash with the organisational structure. Women find it really hard reaching top positions in the business hierarchy, and approx-imately 70 percent of all women in dual earner couples report that they have to take a greater responsibility for child care than their male partners. The stressful dynamics that women face as work awaits twentyfour seven further hinder their path to the top. The arc-hetype of the ideal worker as someone who can devote all the hours in the day necessary to work, does not fit in with the real life of a woman (Bilimoria, et al., 2007). It is also argued that a woman with children is less work oriented than a man with children, which is an ad-ditional serious source of stress related to a highly work oriented woman. With such lack of progress for women in the workplace and opportunity for advancement in the hierarchy, the imbalance between women and men at top positions will resist (Gatrell & Cooper, 2007).

Based on relational preferences, a woman’s career may ebb and flow differently compared to the traditional male model, which is primarily focused on a linear career progression. As many women choose to have children, childbirth may hinder them from adapting a linear progression, hence making their path somewhat different from men’s. A woman is more likely to travel in and out of the organisational work sphere, and hence take longer time to reach the same organisational status as their male counterparts. However, research furthersuggests that during middle adulthood, women discover a renewed sense of purpose and increased energy for work (Bilimoria et al., 2007).

It is argued that the entry of women into top management positions is fully influenced by the structure of the decision making process and further by the liability of the decision makers. Therefore, having an unstructured decision making, allowing for biased decisions, will eventually lead to exclusion of the minority, in this case leaving women outside top management positions. Contradictory, the decision making for appointing lower level man-agement positions is more structured and based on objective qualifications that women can consciously acquire, e.g. education (Powell & Graves, 2003).


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In general, the informal barriers that prevent women from reaching top level positions are regarded to be multifaceted. Because of the continued prevalence of men at top positions, women are often excluded from informal networks and channels of communication and do not benefit from mentoring or having female role models. Furthermore, the corporate cul-ture demands ambition and continuous availability and since women often are limited by their family responsibilities they are frequently perceived as timid. Other potential barriers for women to reach top positions are discriminatory methods of selection, the lack of ca-reer planning, and also the macho behaviour of male colleagues (European Commission, 2008).

Theories regarding obstacles to women’s career development are important to provide in this thesis due to the fact that the study is conducted in order to see the importance of networks, a possible attribute to improve career development. By presenting theories on attributes that may explain stagnated career advancement, other possible career aids will be more evident as well.

2.2.2 The glass ceiling

A new career barrier was brought to light in 1986, known as the “the glass ceiling”, see fig-ure 2.1. It was The Wall Street Journal who first published this theory regarding that women appear to be blocked from advancing to senior leadership roles. An invisible barrier hinder-ing women to reach to a certain executive level, hence leaving them unable to access the very top positions. Ever since the discussion about this phenomenon emerged, efforts have been made in order to address the question and to realise which barriers and biases that have hindered career advancement for women. In the United States a particular commis-sion was appointed, The Glass Ceiling Commission, with its main purpose of identifying barriers and also to recommend strategies to eliminate discrimination at the highest levels of the organisation (Dunn-Jensen & Stroh, 2007).

Figure 2.1 The glass ceiling (Ahl, 2006).

According to Debra Meyerson and Joyce Fletcher (2005) the glass ceiling “is not a revolu-tion but a strategy of small wins – a series of incremental changes aimed at the subtle dis-criminatory forces that still reside in organisations” (Meyerson & Fletcher, 2005, p.69). In their research they not only acknowledge the fact that women are rare to find at top man-agement positions, but also that statistics suggest that as women approach the top of the corporate ladder, many leave due to frustration of the business climate. Their approach to the problem is to defeat it by the power of small gains, and as they see it, it is not the ceil-ing that is holding women back; it is the whole structure of the organisation in which they work: the foundation, the beams, the walls and the air (Meyerson & Fletcher, 2005). The glass ceiling is one obstacle to women’s career development that has gained much attention


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and has been discussed for a long time. What the researchers hope to find out is if the glass ceiling still exists for female managers in Sweden’s business life today and if one should consider it an obstacle or not. Moreover, if that is the case whether efficient networking could be the key for women to overcome this obstacle.

2.2.3 How to overcome female career obstacles

In order to become successful, women are argued to require support from people in stra-tegic position. They furthermore, need to be easy to get along with and they have to be able to adapt, to a greater extent than men. According to a study by Morrison et al. (1987) these factors related to developing good relationship with men in a male dominated environment are of utmost importance in order for women to overcome barriers to career development(cited in Burke, 2007). Women were also, more often than men, acquired to take career risks, be tough, have strong desires to succeed and have an impressive presence (Morrison et al., 1987, cited in: Burke, 2007). Morrison (1992) developed a model for career progres-sion which has a few assumptions; it assumes that all three elements are present in the same relative proportions over time, in order to sustain the development (cited in Burke, 2007). The components are defined as below;

“The Challenge of new situations and difficult goals prompts managers to learn the lessons and skills that will help them perform well at higher levels. Recognition includes acknowled-gement and rewards for achievement and the resources to continue achieving in the form of promotions, salary increases and awards. Support involves acceptance and understanding along with values that help managers incorporate their career into rich and rewarding lives” (Morrison, 1992, cited in: Burke, 2007, p. 118).

In past years, a greater amount of research have focused on women’s career development, and how women can break through the glass ceiling phenomenon earlier presented. Ac-cording to Burke (2007) three types of information is required to break the glass ceiling:

1. It is crucial to understand the obstacles women face in their career advancement.

2. It is further helpful to understand the career strategies that successful women use.

3. It is critical that CEOs have an accurate and complete understanding of all obstaclesand experiences by their female employees (Burke, 2007).

The question involving “how” women break the glass ceiling was appointed by Ragins, Townsend & Mattis (1998); they found in their research four career strategies that were central for women’s career progress (cited in Burke, 2007). These were:

1. Consistently exceeding performance expectations.

2. Developing a style with which men are comfortable.

3. Seeking difficult or high visibility assignments.

4. Having an influential mentor.

The study involved Fortune 1,000 CEOs in the Unites States, both male CEOs and femaleexecutives revealed their view as to what prevents women from advancing. The male CEOs recognised women’s lack of general management or experience, and also women not being in the work life pipeline long enough. The executive women on the other hand, had as their first factor male stereotyping and preconceptions, followed by the exclusion from influential networks (Ragins et al., 1998, cited in: Burke, 2007). By recognizing these as-pects in this thesis an understanding of the factors that may facilitate women’s career ad-


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vancement will be developed. Research states several vital aspects for the support necessary to professional progression and to provide these in this thesis is of importance even though networks is one of the aspects that will be investigated more in particular.

2.3 Networking “‘The right people, the right conversations, the right time” (Dulworth, 2008, p.47).

The subject chosen directs us to investigate networks as a phenomena itself, the history ofnetworking and how it has evolved during the years from a buzz word to more or less a mandatory tool to reach one’s desired post and to be able to advance further in one’s career. We will look into what kind of different networks that exist and how they function as such.

2.3.1 Networks

A neoclassical view on how to gain a job or a promotion has been described as the human capital theory. Human capital is the level of education, experience, intelligence, knowledge, skills etc that an individual possesses (Aaltio et al., 2008). An extension of human capital is the notion of social capital, the capital captured by social connections. Social capital is the vital asset that can be attained by the different actors, connections and resources that existin an individual’s network or group of which they are members. Moreover; social capital theory states that a person’s ability to interact in a network should be considered as a valu-able resource for that individual. The possession of that resource and the ability to use it will benefit the individual’s performance and actions in career advancement (Lin, 2002).

Social network theory describes social networks in terms of nodes and ties. The nodes are the actual actors in the network and the ties are the relationship between them. One view within social theory is that the actual relationship between the actors is more important than the attributes of the individuals. This indicates that human capital may be less vital than social capital in order to advance professionally (York University, 2005).

Whether or not social capital is considered to be of vital importance, networking is still said to be a significant issue for a successful career. It is described as a pattern of the ability to create relations with various people. It is the process of developing connections and also to maintain and establish these relationships. Networks can be informal or formal, social or economical and be developed both inside and outside an organisation. According to Davidson & Burke, networks are considered to be more valuable when people do not ex-pect anything from them. They give the advice to let the relationship evolve over time and let it establish before taking advantage of it, but also to be aware of the limits within one’snetwork (Davidson & Burke, 2000).

Networks could be viewed in many different ways. Both as a set of links that connect and interact different agents with each other or as a set of agents that adopt a similar behaviour to achieve different economic purposes (Cohendet, Llerena, Stahn & Umbhauer, 1998). A network will most likely enable a person to achieve better results and gain external expertise and later on use this as a resource essential to reach future success in one way or another. Simply put; a network is a tool for development on many different levels in many different ways (Näsman, 2003). Many different types of networks exist and one could distinguish them in different categories by their different structures, purposes and level of interdependence. One feature necessary for all various networks is that the relationship


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needs to be reciprocal, where both parties depend on each other (Tuimala, 1999).

A common way to distinguish networks is by adding the label formal respectively informal networks (Litwin, 1999). Individuals create networks for various reasons. It can consist of family and friends and come more by nature through friendship, being members of the same family, living in the same neighbourhood or sharing the same interests. This kind of social networks has little or no formal structure and is developed for social interests and togetherness. The network may evolve naturally or be developed for a particularly shared focus (Lin, 2002). However, a network can also consist of colleagues and business associates at work for professional motives and be more formal. In this type of network themembers bond in a more professional and business like way (Litwin, 1999).

Informal networks are a result of an individual’s own choice of relationships. This type of network may also be used to carry out work related tasks and/or for social benefits. Since individual actors may be surrounded in hierarchical situations and other networks, they bring together the interaction that contains their other personal and positional resources as well. Hence, networks sustain not only the individual interaction but also the interaction among other network patterns (Lin, 2002). To understand the reasoning behind interaction, three factors can be taken into consideration; interaction, sentiment and activity. The more individuals interact the more they share the same attitudes and the more they engage in similar activities. Likewise, interaction is mainly based on shared emotions. The principle ofhomophily is that “social interactions tend to take place among individuals with similar lifestyles and socioeconomic characteristics” (Lin, 2002, p.39). This indicates that not only do relationships imply shared sentiment but also similarities in resources among the actors (Lin, 2002).

Social capital research highlights two various conditions of network structures. Some researchers state that social capital arises in networks with close connections between the individuals. This network structure with strong ties provides the individuals with benefits and knowledge is transmitted quickly. Each contact is linked to one another and information rapidly reaches many nodes within the group. However other researchers argue that weak ties are more important due to the fact that strong ties are linked to the same social structure as the individual. The strong ties lead only to information within solid networks where the individuals only refer to each other. The information gained is most likely very similar since the members share the same information. Individuals who are embedded in strongly tied networks may not always obtain a better opportunity. Non solid networks can reach a wider range of nodes as sources of information that may not otherwise be as extensive in a network with a closed structure (Aalito et al, 2008).

The culture and power structure in an organisation determine the prospect to use informal organisational networks. Research states that an individual’s reputation in an organisation depends both on the person’s actual performance but also on his or her relationship with other colleagues (Davidson & Burke, 2000). Exploring the rationale behind networks in this study is necessary to gain an understanding of what networks are, and if they can help women in their career development. It moreover provides knowledge of how networks function and which network structures that are favoured among business women.

2.3.2 The importance of networking

Networking theories are closely intervened with social capital theories. The social capital is the resources embedded in an individual’s network. The definition of social capital is (Lin, 2002, p.19):


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“The investment in social relationships with expected return on the marketplace”.

The individual engage in interactions and networking in order to produce profit. Two per-spectives are acknowledged relative to whether the profit is accumulated for the group orfor the individual. Social capital utilised by individuals may access possibilities that promote their careers or preserve gains in expressive actions. Capital is said to be part of a process and hence social capital is the surplus that an individual can possess by engaging in rela-tionships (Lin, 2002).

Lin (2002) discusses four different reasons for why engagement in social networks can be of importance for an individual. Firstly, a network enhances the flow of information. An individual intervened in a network with social ties in strategic locations can gain informa-tion about opportunities and choices that otherwise would not be available for that person. The organisation may be alerted about the availability and interest of an otherwise unrec-ognised individual. That kind of information will enhance the organisation to recruit better individuals with a lower transaction cost. The individual will also easier find an organisation that can utilise that person’s skills, hence creating a win-win situation.

Secondly, the social ties that an individual possesses may influence the decision makers in an organisation. If people on strategic positions “puts in a word” for an individual, the probability that decision makers in an organisation take this into consideration are very likely. Thirdly, the importance of networks is that the social ties the individual possessesmay function as a reassurance for an organisation of his or her social credentials. It signifies the individual’s access to resources through relationships and indicates that the individual may provide additional resources and information that may be of value for the organisa-tion. Finally, the network can improve the reinforcement of the individual. Being recog-nised as an individual as well as a member of a group, not only provides emotional strength for the individual but also publicly acknowledge the person’s entitlement to resources (Lin, 2002).

These four elements; information, influence, social credentials and reinforcement explain why indi-viduals engage in networking to gain personal profit (Lin, 2002). To acknowledge the im-portance of networks and the research that has been conducted within the area is essentialin order to explore what function networks may fulfill for its members. This is vital for this thesis in order to provide an answer to the stated research purpose.

2.3.3 Female networks

Over the past 20 years an increasing number of female networks, both inside and outsideorganisations, have emerged. Female networks usually offer instrumental information, job opportunities, mentors and meetings with business contacts (Davidson & Burke, 2000).

A variety of female networks exist but usually they fall into three broad categories, which are (Davidson & Burke, 2000):

1. Professional and occupational networks. These are often formal and bring together women with similar business and professional qualifications. The purpose is to share information about the industry or profession and to provide career guidance.

2. In-company networks. These can be either formal or informal and bring together women that work within the same organisation. Some of these are only open to women at a certain level in the organisation, while others include all women in that particular organisation.


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3. The training group. This is a kind of support group that offer guidance for it’s mem-bers. This type of network can be formal or informal depending on what type of support it offers.

The distinction between the more instrumental network ties and those developed for social support is that instrumental ties result from the performance of a particular work role. So-cial support is the exchange between expressive ties and has a more informal structure. Nevertheless, they can be just as important for motivation, career development and infor-mation exchange. In fact, research indicates that informal networks that offer material, emotional and informational support are usually more vital for women than formal net-works (Davidson & Burke, 2000). Since female networks are examined in this thesis it is significant to state research about them in particular, which further will provide a deeper insight of their function.

2.3.4 Differences between how men and women network

It is rare to find men and women that are well integrated into each other’s networks, and hence argued that the informal male social systems serve to protect men’s status on the top and as the mechanism perpetuating the “old boys’ network”. These informal “old boys’ networks” serve men both inside and across organisations enhancing a sort of in-group fa-voritism among the male majority, leaving equally competent women outside their exclu-sive groups (Burke, 2007). Research conducted by Margaret Linehan (2001) furthermore designates that there still exist a lot of “old boy’s networks” in organisations where women not even are allowed to participate. The perception of “old boys’ networks” among female managers is that crucial information is exchanged and contacts are developed outside their reach. Research also suggests that the male managerial network maintain the negative atti-tudes towards female managers. Due to this, the outcome in general for the female manag-ers were lower salaries, missed career opportunities and occupational stress (Linehan, 2001).

Davidson & Burke (2000) also acknowledge this and state that one of the most common problems for women in the business world is their restricted access to informal organisa-tional networks. An effect due to this exclusion is the lack of resources that a network provides that may be critical for the individual’s career development and job effectiveness. The exclusion limits the knowledge about what is going on but it can also make it difficult to form alliances. If women are excluded from the formal networks it affects their ad-vancement for higher positions within the organisation. Moreover, the exclusion from the informal networks may create the consequence that they lack updated informal, though important, information (Davidson & Burke, 2000).

Men and women utilize their networks differently. Men in general network more homoge-nised, meaning that they prefer to establish connections with people similar to themselves in terms of career, education and personality. Their reasons to get involved in networks are often career based. Women employ networks mostly for social reasons and their networks are usually more differentiated (Drake & Solberg, 1995). Women are often as devoted as men to their network but their network may be less effective since they are not as well in-tegrated into the organisation as men. Female networks are important for women, how-ever, it can be even more vital to break the barriers to enter the male networks since men predominantly hold the most powerful positions in organisations (Linehan, 2001).

Since some research state that male networks may be better in order to facilitate one’s ca-reer it is vital to address the differences between men and women’s networks and their


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meaning. Women are often excluded from both informal and formal male networks and therefore several pure female networks have emerged recently.

2.4 Research questions

Which network structures appear to be most influential for female career advance-ment?

What additional key success factors are connected with female career development?


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3 Research approach and MethodThis section covers the fundamental areas of research approach and method. Discussions regarding the latter depend fully on the research questions defined in chapter 2.4, and it will result in the general plan of how the research questions eventually will be answered. The inductive approach chosen will moreover be argued for as well as the data collection method. The section ends with a crucial discussion regarding the soundness of the study.

3.1 Research approachChoosing the right research approach is in many circumstances of vital importance. Three important arguments for such exist, firstly, it enables the researcher to take a more informed decision about his/her research design, secondly, it will help to think about research approaches that will work for the researcher, and also those that will not. Thirdly, it is also argued that knowledge of the different research traditions enables the researcher to adapt the right design in order to cater for constraints (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2003).

There exist three different classifications of research purposes, all depending on how the researcher formulates the research questions. They are descriptive, explanatory or explora-tory. To start with, the purpose of this study generates an answer of explanatory nature. Explanatory studies wish to explain the relationship between variables (Saunders et al., 2003), and in this study the aim is to conclude if a relationship exists between female career development and networking.

To continue, the research questions defined in chapter 2.4 will generate answers of explora-tory nature. The main characteristic of exploratory studies is flexibility. When conducting such research one must be willing to change direction as a result for when new data appear and new insights occur. However as Adams and Schvaneveldt (1991) point out, exploratory research does not mean absence of direction to the enquiry. Instead, what it does mean is that the focus is initially broad and becomes progressively narrower as the research progresses (Saunders et al., 2003). This method was used since the researchers only possess little previous experience. As interviews and further research were conducted deeper in-sight within the subject helped the researchers gain better knowledge of how to gauge rele-vant information. A clearer path for how to progress was revealed and deeper knowledge about female career development was attained; helping the investigators reach answers.

3.1.1 Inductive vs deductive approach

There exist two different approaches; inductive respectively deductive approach. A deductive method, often referred to as a quantitative approach, takes a top down approach, moving from theory to data. An inductive method on the other hand, referred to as qualitative approach, takes a bottom up approach. First one collects data and then proceeds with developing theory as a result of the data analysis (Saunders et al., 2003).

The research approach of this study has more characteristics of an inductive study, ittherefore takes the form of a qualitative approach. The aim is to develop concepts, insights and understanding from patterns in the data, rather than collecting data to assess preconceived models, hypotheses, or theories (Taylor & Bogdan, 1984). Patterns in datareceived from the interviews were revealed when transcribing and analysing it through content analysis.


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Induction is particularly concerned with context, and therefore the study of a small sample is more appropriate than the study of a large one (Saunders et al., 2003). The aim of this thesis is to increase understanding of the relationship between the investigated variables; networking and female career development, and therefore the small sample is suitable since context is valued higher than quantity. Furthermore when conducting a qualitative study as in this case, there is no concern regarding the need to generalise.

Also, an inductive approach demands the need to have a flexible structure which permits changes of research emphasis (Mason, 2005). Therefore, it has been of importance in this study to remain open and adaptive to changes in the research design described in the next sub chapter.

3.2 MethodWhen conducting a qualitative study, as chosen in this case, it is essential to evaluate the underlying problem in order to determine the most preferable research method. Different types of qualitative research have similar characteristics and procedures, while they at occasion have differences in data collection (Holloway, 1997). A qualitative study could be conducted through either observation, interviewing or a survey research. When conducting an interview the researcher has the possibility to investigate more in detail, and personal reflections and comments from respondents are allowed (Burns, 2000); since this is what the researchers strive for this is also the chosen method.

3.2.1 Qualitative interviewing

As the authors of this study intend to acquire a deeper understanding regarding if networking can influence female career development, an interview strategy was chosen. The term qualitative interviewing is usually anticipated to refer to in-depth, semi-structured or loosely structured forms of interviewing. Core features common for most interviewing strategies are: interactional exchange of dialogue; a relatively informal style; a thematic, topic-centered, biographic or narrative approach; and a co-production involving both interviewer and researcher (Mason, 2005).

Interviewing can be divided into different categories depending on its structure; they can be unstructured (open-ended) to structured (Burns, 2000). For this specific study it was however suitable to take on an approach which represents a blend of the two spectrums, semi-structured interviews; a type of in-depth interview. Parts of the interview were given direction so that the content focused on the most vital parts of the study. This is argued to be critical due to the fact that the researchers wanted the interviewees to more freely speak about and explain their networking activities and career paths (Hancock, 2002). What was revealed was that questions already set by the researchers, Appendix 1, was discussed as a natural step during the interviews and interviewees more or less followed the semi-structure without influence from the researchers. A semi-structure is argued to be appropriate in order to gain more flexibility and to permit higher valid response from the interviewee’s perception of reality (Burns, 2000). It is also argued that when the study is carried out by more than one person, in order to ensure modicum of comparability of interviewing style, it is most likely that semi-structured interviewing style is most preferred (Bryman & Bell, 2007).

Funneling is the chosen interview approach in which the interviewer gradually guides the direction of the interview by starting with broad general questions, in this case e.g.


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concerning the specific interviewee’s work experience and leadership background. Focusprogressively proceeds on to the topic with narrower questions for the specific purpose, e.g. how the interviewee’s active networking has contributed to her advancement to top positions (Burns, 2000). Here it was vital to use the interview template in order to not wonder off to other stories, rather stick to the relevant information important for the study.

Using semi-structured interviews as the main method for data collection is in many circumstances advantageous, this essentially where there is a necessity to understand your research participants. It is assumed that managers are more likely to agree to be interviewed, rather than to complete a questionnaire, especially when the topic is seen as relevant and interesting for their current work (Saunders et al., 2003). The topic was intriguing and up-to-date for the interviewees since networking is often discussed in mediaand new networks continuously are started.

3.2.2 Data collection

The researchers have with hindsight realised that getting female executives to set aside one hour was rather difficult. It has been very hard to get hold of appropriate women and even harder to convince them to devote time for an interview. After multiple unsuccessful trials to get in contact with possible interviewees through female network organisations, the researchers realised that another strategy had to be implemented. Either the network organisations had a policy regarding keeping the members anonymous or contacted executives did not have the possibility to set aside time for an interview. Researchers instead had to look into their own networks in order to gain access to candidates to interview. This is of course one of the main reasons for the smaller sample size.

As the main purpose of this study is to generate an in-depth analysis, issues of representativeness are less important while the characteristics of the interviewees are of greater (Bryman & Bell, 2007). Therefore it can be concluded that the sample selection need not to be of probabilistic nature. The chosen form of non-probabilistic sample is the purposive sampling method. A purposive sample enables the researcher to use his or her own judgments to select cases that will best enable to answer the research questions and to reach the study’s main objectives (Saunders et al., 2003). A qualitative approach to data collection almost always involves direct interaction with individuals, in this case the interviewees and the researchers (Hancock, 2002). Qualitative data is used to obtain details of subjective experiences for a specific situation, therefore when carrying out a qualitative research the researcher is the main instrument of data collection (Clarke, 1999). As said, this is a time consuming method but beneficial as it leads to greater richness of data and deeper insight to the subject.

Semi-structured interviews are preferably used when the interviewees time is scarce (Hancock, 2002), suitable here since this study’s interviewees are busy women with tight schedules. The researchers realized that interviews were limited to one hour; something highly appreciated by the women and another reason for why the interviewees had time to participate in the study. The interviews were conducted at the women’s offices and the actual recorded interview material covered about 45 minutes for each interview.

The registration of the interviews was conducted by using a tape recorder. This to assure no important information was left out, and for the researchers to pay attention to what was said. According to Hancock (2002) notes taken by hand may confuse the interviewee whenscribbled down. Using a tape recorder is a way to diminish possible bias from dissimilar


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interpretations from the researchers; this since one can replay the interview in order to make sure no details are missed out.

In order to have the interviews in written version, transcribing was done. This process takes a lot of time and produces a lot of written text, a 30 minutes interview could take two and a half hours to transcribe and run to up to 20 pages. Tape analysis is another technique that can be used to cut down transcription time. Only important sections and key quotations are then documented. Problems with biased results are common when using this method (Hancock, 2002) and since the researchers for this study were fairly inexperienced within this research field all interviews carried out were transcribed in full.

Transcribing is moreover not only about transferring words from tape to the paper, but also to transfer the content e.g. how and what is actually said. One needs to analyse the tone and inflection to understand feelings and the meaning of what is communicated. One can detect both positive and negative range, certainty or uncertainty, enthusiasm or reluctance. These “feelings” can be hard to communicate through paper but is preferably done by using punctuation marks, underlining, emboldening etc (Hancock, 2002).

The data collected from semi-structured interviews is defined as primary data. This is the only source of primary data in this study due to the fact that it provided enough sufficient information for the purpose of the study. Additional data in this study is of secondary nature, collected from previous researchers, organisations, governments, or the like (Clarke, 1999).

3.2.3 Delimitations

The criteria differ somewhat between the interviewees since the first interviewee was asked to recommend three persons from her network and then, in order to decrease any possible bias, one additional interviewee was identified from another network. This to further add to the trustworthiness of the study and to broaden the perspective of the analysis.

The researchers for this study developed some restrictions for the first interviewee in order to receive valuable answers for the stated purpose. The criteria were the following; the first interviewee should be a woman aged 32-60. This since focus is on female networks and it is of importance that the woman has some work experience and has had the chance to have climbed the career ladder in order to fit the purpose of the study. She should fur-thermore be a CEO for ≥50 employees. Important was that she had a responsible role in the company and that she had advanced from an earlier position within the company or from previous employment. There was no relevancy in where this woman lived or where she came from. Also for the researchers to be able to connect the interviewee’s history from the business world with female networking the interviewee needed to be a part of at least one network.

The interviewee would, after the interview, present her chosen key persons from her net-works that have agreed to be interviewed. The researchers wanted these women, of course, to all be in the same age group as stated above in order to have some experience from the business world and they should all also be active in some type of networking, formal or in-formal, mixed or female. Whether they worked for private firms or not would not matter nor their positions at the organisations. Focus was rather to investigate how they have uti-lised their networks, especially if networking has helped the interviewee to reach her cur-rent and previous positions.


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3.2.4 Choice of interviewees and interview setting

It is said that the more receptive the researcher is, the better information can be attained (Saunders et al., 2003). There are also other aspects to ensure that good quality information is achieved. The interview should be rather informal to make the interviewee feel as part of a conversation rather than a question-and-answer setting. This can only be achieved by careful planning and a thought-through interview strategy (Hancock, 2002). This study’s first ambition was to base findings on one woman and her network contacts, three key persons in her closest network. This as qualitative data collection is very time consuming, a reason to why one has to narrow down the number of interviewees. Since all women interviewed were found to be from the same business sector a fifth interview was carried out. This fifth woman had no connection with the previous four.

The first interviewee, Lena Apler, was picked through the researchers own informal though distant network. The distance was important in order to exclude possible bias regarding personal connections. Though, choosing a woman whom the researchers had within their network made the interviewee more willing to set aside time and also made the interview less formal. The first interviewee was of course chosen based on set criteria, stated in chapter 3.2.3, and a random selection of the other three interviewees was then made by her, Lena Apler. She also based her selection on the same criteria. All recommended women were from Lena Apler’s closest and most frequently used networks. Interviews were conducted separately to make sure the interviewees would not be influenced by each other’s answers.

As a result, the recommended women were all situated in Gothenburg and was also working in the finance sector. Some of the interviewees had not only experiences from working both in other cities in Sweden and abroad, but also within other sectors previously in their career. Lena Apler presented the researchers to Charlotta Oom, who works within the same organisation as herself; this since she wanted the researchers to get insights from a younger woman with a different background than herself. Eva Halvarsson was selected since she was and still is working for the government, and has a huge professional network. Anne A Rosengren was chosen not only because of her great professional network but also since she was the founder of an informal network which Lena Apler also is active in. The fifth interviewee; Susanne Jacobsson was afterwards identified from another business setting, in order to decrease any possible bias from the previous four women’s relationshipties.

The researchers aim to gain a holistic view of the situation for women in today’s business life is assumed to be possible through these five interviews. The focus of the interviews was put on the women and how they have used their networks in order to advance professionally; what possible obstacles there are and how one’s networks can be of assistance when facing barriers throughout the carrier.

3.2.5 Data analysis

Quantitative data is analysed differently compared with qualitative data; the latter is analysed based on theory relevant for the study (Hancock, 2002). Therefore, an evaluation and comparison between theory and practice will be done. Collected data need to be honestly represented and objectivity is essential to reach a reliable analysis (Saunders et al., 2003).


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In this study the researchers chose to use constant comparative analysis during data collection. This is a process in which every interview is analysed before the next interview takes place. Doing this enables the researchers to gain important insights for future interviews; hence the initial interview may differ compared with later ones (Hancock, 2002). What happened in this study was that the prepared interview template appeared to be very suitable and few differences were made. The information revealed after each interview enriched the re-searchers to make more relevant evaluations of the interviews in order to draw more accu-rate conclusions.

Information attained needs to be coded in order for the researchers to recognise differenc-es and similarities in the data and to compare the content from the different interviews. The process used for analysing the information is called content analysis, and is a procedure for categorisation of verbal data which can be analysed on two levels; the basic and the higher level. The basic level only concerns what is said, pure descriptive and the higher lev-el is the interpretative level, with consideration to what was meant by the interviewee. Con-tent analysis is used to identify the important data and information from the transcripts from each interview and to reveal the hidden messages that can be important for every in-terview. This method includes some different steps presented as follows (Hancock, 2002);

1. Read through the transcript, when interesting/relevant information is found, make a note in the margin about the nature of the information.

2. Look through margin notes and make a list of the different types of information found.

3. Categorise each data item in a way that describes what it is about. Some categories might be used several times since several items might refer to the same topic. Ig-nore the fact that one might end up with a lot of categories; these can be reduced in a later stage.

4. Try to link the categories with each other. List the categories that can be linked as major categories and smaller categories as minor categories.

5. Compare and contrast the various categories, if they need to swop places, they might fit better under another category. Some items might fit within two categories.

6. Repeat step 1-5 with the rest of the transcripts. New categories will be revealed but finally one will run out of new categories and relevant and interesting information can be accommodated in existing categories.

7. Review all the categories and items once again to make sure that data is in the right category. If two or more categories seem to fit together these may form a majortheme in the research.

8. Go back to the original transcripts with the initial notes in the margins. Read through the text that was not highlighted at the time since it did not appear rele-vant. Reconsider if previously excluded information may be relevant and should be included under themes, major categories or minor categories.

Content analysis is a process where one continually needs to revise the data collected and review the categorisation of the data to make sure findings are a truthful and accurate ref-lection of the data (Hancock, 2002).


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The researchers highlighted important and frequently repeated words and phrasings. A pat-tern was revealed throughout the interviews and a document including key words presented in bullet points was conducted for each interview. These documents were then summarisedhandling both similarities and of course also pointing out differences between the inter-views. Categories were put as subheadings and key words were grouped under these. The coding template followed the outline of theories; hence the different categories and sub-headings are the following:

Women in business Work experience Leadership style

Female career development Obstacles The glass ceiling How to overcome obstacles

Networking The importance of networking Female networks Differences between how men and women network

This method is simply a way of indexing data attained to reach a better overview and facili-tate analysis. It reduces bias and is beneficial to the researcher as the method can take her/him, as Jennifer Mason describes it: “…beyond an impressionistic view based on the limitations of one’s own memory and the capacity to sort and organize in one’s head” (Ma-son, 2005 p. 152). The categories were many more when initially coded, and then narrowed down and linked together as similarities were discovered.

3.3 Soundness of the studyThe trustworthiness of the study needs to be addressed to further enable reliable and valid results. Since the interview template was conducted by the researchers themselves there are some issues to take into account to enhance the soundness of the study.

3.3.1 Reliability

The reliability of the study refers to the consistency of the measure of a concept (Bryman & Bell, 2007). The results of the study are presented in a way that enhances the credibility and trustworthiness of the study. Quotations are used to illustrate strong believes or opin-ions, this to strengthen important data and support analysis and conclusions. Links be-tween the different categories are made in order to demonstrate how themes and categories emerged and resulted in presented conclusions (Hancock, 2002). The interviews were all extremely interesting and inspiring, therefore the summaries were read by all researchers in order to make sure only relevant information was presented and that information was communicated in an unbiased way. All interviews were conducted using the same strategy and design to enhance the accuracy and reliability of attained results. Questions used in the interview template were revised several times to make sure all relevant subjects were cov-ered and that irrelevant questions were eliminated (Mason, 2005). To ensure that the inter-view template consisted of relevant questions a review was done by Börje Boers, the re-


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searcher’s tutor. He confirmed that the template was accurate and that researchers could progress with the interviews.

The sample group was enlarged towards the end and women from two different business sectors were interviewed resulting in having five different interviews representing five very diverse career stories that reflected entirely different experiences. The first two interviews included all three researchers participating, though finding a time slot for the final inter-views was harder resulting in researchers splitting up in two teams in order to manage to conduct the interviews before deadline. Since tape recorder was used no information was left out and all researchers were able to listen to all the interviews.

Researchers briefly explained the topic that was to be discussed in advance without sending out the interview template or mentioning any of the theories that was to be used. This in order for the interviewees to be prepared for what subject that was to be discussed, and still trying to reduce any possible bias to intervene.

Articles, previous theses and theories were studied throughout the process to gain deeperknowledge within the subject. Many female networks were contacted and new discussions regarding the topic were developed and increased the level of knowledge for the research-ers, enhancing credibility (Saunders et al., 2003).

3.3.2 Validity

Validity measures to what extent used data collection method accurately measures what is intended to be measured (Saunders et al., 2003). The researchers were throughout the investigation aware of the fact that no generalisation could be done, since sample group was too small. Though by careful selection of interviewees; all five being successful business women with huge networks, and the majority with work experiences from both abroad and cities in Sweden, validity should be considered high. The women carry different backgrounds and their current situations also differ. There are age differences, career path differences, family setting differences and difference of preferences when it comes to allocating time between private life and career etc, hence making the homogenous group more heterogeneous, and the small sample group impressively diverse.

The transcripts were sent out to all the interviewees in order to enable them to confirmthat the content corresponded to what was said and no mistakes or misconceptions were present. All five women have also agreed to have their names published in the study, giving further strength to the thesis. The researchers did also choose to analyse and code the in-terviews in Swedish. Interviewing material was not translated until the summaries weredone; the reason for this was to try to avoid any bias due to translation errors.

With all this applied the researchers aim to maximise credibility and dependability, enabling the results and conclusions to be accurate and reliable and unbiased by the researchers (Bryman & Bell, 2007).


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4 Results & AnalysisThis fourth chapter of the study presents lucid patterns found through coding of the data. The chapter is structured according to the categories found in the data analysis, this in order to guide the researchers to-wards a trustworthy conclusion within the subject. A summary of each interview is furthermore provided asan appendix.

4.1 Women in businessThe purpose of this study is to analyse if networking can influence women’s career devel-opment. The authors have approached the purpose of this study by interviewing firstly four different women; which are related to each other through one main interviewee, Lena Ap-ler. Secondly, in addition the researchers chose to interview one additional woman, with no relationship to the previous four interviewees. The approach for this study was identified during a discussion with Börje Boers, who suggested it to be an interesting viewpoint to in-vestigate one woman’s network. However, as the results became too weak an additional in-terview had to be conducted. Moreover, once again consider while reading this chapter that no generalisations can be done since it is still a relatively narrow sample size.

The three arguments presented by O’Neil and Bilimoria (2005) discuss the fact that women and men face different realities in the business world due to their gender (cited in Bilimoria et al., 2007). Our interviewed women do not agree with the first argument that women due to underrepresentation face stereotyping and lower level of status. They all rather agree that being a woman provide an opportunity to stand out from the crowd, hence easier make a statement that sticks to people’s mind. The reason to why our women do not agree with theory could be that O’Neil and Bilimoria’s (2005) study is not done in Sweden on Swedish women. Since Swedish women, compared with many other countries both inside and out-side Europe, have an equal social status with men, they will not face stereotyping to the same extent. Even if women still are underrepresented at an executive level in the Swedish business world they are very equal when it comes to social status and being accepted as equal to the man.

Something that though is impossible to avoid is the actual fact that the woman is the only gender that can give birth; hence O’Neil and Bilimoria’s (2005) second issue is confirmed by the interviewees. Two of our women do not have children, and this could be a reason to why they made it to the top. One of the women, Anne A Rosengren, has three daughters but commented that it was a huge struggle and not an easy task to manage career and fami-ly life. Susanne Jacobsson also brought up the issues connected to being a career woman and balancing this with motherhood. Charlotta Oom is a mother of toddlers and therefore works part time. This implies that being a woman, or rather a mother, will lead to some ex-tra challenges to deal with, but should not be seen as impossible.

The third issue brought up by O’Neil and Bilimoria (2005) is that women are expected to hold a relational approach to career development (cited in Bilimoria et al., 2007), suggesting that women prefer to prioritise the family and their relationship to their partner to a greater extent compared with the men. This was, after this study, realised to be a personal trait ra-ther than a trait connected to the gender. All women interviewed were very determined and goal oriented. All the women agreed that leadership traits differ from person to person and that a woman can possess many typical “male traits” and vice versa for men. This has come to be a main interpretation for this study, that traits cannot be classified to gender; rather


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they are connected to the individual. The issue will be further elaborated in an upcoming sub chapter where leadership characteristics are discussed.

This first section of results and analysis will start with a short presentation of the inter-viewed women’s background; work experience and marital status. This is done in order to strengthen upcoming arguments in the analysis. Thereafter, the women’s various leadership characteristics will be interpreted and analysed.

4.1.1 Work experience

Lena Apler is the founder and CEO of Collector AB, an investment and finance company with 110 employees. 60 percent of their employees are women and the managerial body, consists of four men and two women, including Lena Apler. Lena Apler began her careerat SEB bank as a trainee. She advanced relatively fast and became a Bank Director within a couple of years. After 12 years at SEB, she was appointed by Den Norske Bank and later also by the French bank, Société Générale. Around 1992 she was appointed CEO by Nordbanken Intensive Care, later called Securum. Their task was to take care of all the hazardous loan facilities that Nordbanken created and it was a project established by the Swedish government. Lena Apler has a husband but no children.

Charlotta Oom is Market Manager at Collector and directly the manager for one person; the market coordinator. She started her career at Tv4, selling commercial time-slots. After her time at Tv4 she continued her career working with trade fairs, at a company called Ex-ponova. As a mother of two boys and married to a husband that works 100 percent, there is a lot of puzzling to do to make everything work. Charlotta Oom and her husband share the responsibilities at home, maybe not 50/50 but they try. Charlotta Oom currently works part time (75 – 80 percent) leaving her enough spare time to spend with family and friends.

Eva Halvarsson is the CEO of Andra AP-fonden; a Gothenburg based asset manager with 54 employees. 1/3 of the employees are women and 2/3 are men, and the managerial body consists of six persons excluding her; two women and four men. Eva Halvarsson has pre-viously been working for the Swedish government in various positions. She started her ca-reer at Skatteförvaltningen (the Swedish Tax Council) where she stayed for approximately 10 years before she progressed to one of the Government Offices of Sweden, The Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications. During her career at the Ministry of Enter-prise, Energy and Communications she served as manager for the state owned companies, which involved management of enterprises wholly or partly owned by the state. Eva Hal-varsson is married but have no children.

Anne A Rosengren is the CEO of Catella Corporate Finance, which is a subsidiary to a large Finance Group operating in 10 different countries. There are about 350 people em-ployed in the whole group, and 45 employees in Catella Corporate Finance. The distribu-tion of men and women at managerial positions is very unequal, with Anne A Rosengren as the only female CEO within the corporation. Anne A Rosengren was headhunted to Catel-la Corporate Finance in 2004; before that she was the CEO at SBC (Svenska Bos-tadsrättsCentrum AB). Anne A Rosengren is married and has three adult daughters.

Susanne Jacobsson is the Vice President Corporate Human Resources and Communica-tions at Perstorp AB. The Perstorp Group is world leader in several sectors of the specialty chemicals market and has approximately 3,000 employees. Susanne Jacobsson was head-hunted for her position and she is the only women on a managerial level today. The distri-bution is much more equal on the lower levels of the organisation; close to 50 percent are


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women. Susanne Jacobsson has previously worked for Telia AB and as a consultant. She is married and has two adult sons. Susanne Jacobsson is the fifth interviewee with no connec-tion to the previous four, whom was identified not from Lena Apler’s network but from the researchers’ own distant network.

4.1.2 Female leadership

To proceed, the various leadership styles are acknowledged and personal traits among the women identified. This is an important implication in the analysis since networking capa-bilities in isolation cannot be the one determinant factor for career development.

The ambition among the three CEOs (Lena Apler, Eva Halvarsson and Anne A Rosen-gren) is to keep their organisations as flat as possible, and to maintain a close and open re-lationship among the employees. A close relationship and open communication is also pri-oritised by both Charlotta Oom and Susanne Jacobsson as well. These “female” traits are, as Davidson & Burke (2000) discuss, becoming more and more attractive in organisations today. Task oriented and hierarchical leadership is a traditional view on leadership and more organisations emphasise the importance of learning instead of control and decentral-ised decision making. Statements from the women which emphasise that they prefer flat organisations are many; a couple will follow below.

As Anne A Rosengren said “I see myself as a leader, not a Chief Executive”, implies that she has a rather informal attitude towards her employees, and that she cares about the rela-tionship she establishes with them. Anne A Rosengren also stresses that she prefers a flat organisation due to the fact that she does not want to distance herself from her employees. A decreasing number of employees mean a tighter relationship with each individual, and precisely as she states; this is why she prefers her current position at Catella. Previously, at SBC, she had a much larger number of employees and it was then very hard to maintain the close relationship with the employees.

Eva Halvarsson also strives for relationship building. And according to her, closeness with the employees is of top priority. The overall impression among the women is that they re-gard themselves as coaches or sources for inspiration rather than superior authorities. This highlights the traits that Davidson & Burke (2000) find attractive for a modern manager; the ability to share responsibilities, develop and help others and to create strong networks. Susanne Jacobsson furthermore accentuates that she prefers close relationship with her employees in order to enhance understanding for each other’s work tasks and to create a more positive working environment. As an outcome, one can discuss whether these traits are only adaptive on the interviewed women, or if these preferences for flat organisations and relationship building could be seen as an overall desire for all female leaders. Maybe one could take it even one step further and discuss whether these traits are adaptive to all modern leaders, and then not only to female leaders. As all other things in society, mod-ernisation is crucial in order to keep up with competition; therefore one might conclude that this new leadership style of relationship building might be attractive for males to adapt as well. As the researchers will discuss in coming sections, many of the female traits are de-nied to be connected to gender only, and rather connected to the individual.

To proceed, transactional and transformational leadership, defined by Rosener (2005), has proved to be two different styles that the five interviewees possess simultaneously. The fact that all the women possess these traits is according to them one of the main reasons to why they have reached this far and become successful leaders. As the discussion above proves, traits connected to transformational leaders are identified among the respondents. All


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women agree that they, through experience, have developed their current management style. Their transformational leadership style has been an advantage when surrounded by men since it could be seen as a competitive advantage. A crucial factor though is that the transformational traits have to have some transactional influences in order to become suc-cessful. This can be reflected in the women’s attitudes towards their own management style today. Lena Apler states that she has changed her management style throughout her careerand that she nowadays is more straightforward when communicating. This implies a more transactional approach to the other transformational traits. It is according to the five inter-viewees helpful to speak louder and with more confidence in order to obtain more author-ity. As Lena Apler furthermore highlights; her strongest leadership traits are her purpose-fulness, goal orientation, her ability to be clear and straight forward and finally not afraid of failure.

As a final touch to the discussion regarding female and male leadership traits, it is interest-ing to emphasise the specific attributes which the interviewed women connect with male leaders. They characterise attributes such as straight forwardness, aggressiveness, result and task orientation, and being formal. Female leaders on the other hand are described by all of the women as more caring, better at balancing between soft values and results and to see the whole picture. Yet, female leaders are also described by them as individuals which put too much of a pressure on themselves. Building leadership stereotypes on traits as David-son & Burke (2000) acknowledge, prove not to be as convenient as concluding that traits are individual and not connected to a specific gender. As an example, Anne A Rosengren thinks that women are clearer and more aggressive when it comes to decision making. They tend to make sure that decisions made are 110 percent thought through she says. However being aggressive and straightforward were traits the women also appointed for men. This proves that many of the female and male traits are denied to be connected to gender only, and rather connected to the individual. It is more a question of adapting the right manage-ment style for the right context, and in the male dominated upper level of the career ladder, more male traits are argued to be needed. However, as modernisation is present; a blend of transformational and transactional leadership traits is assumed to be preferred.

Nonetheless, even though women adapt to the male model, Eva Halvarsson states that she believes that female leaders are treated different compared with male leaders. As an explicit example, she says that as a woman one is often perceived as the mother. This is something that Susanne Jacobsson also recognises. She mentions that some men at times speak to her as if they spoke to their mother. Eva Halvarsson’s and Susanne Jacobsson’s perception of reality strengthens Morrison and Von Glinow’s (1990) theory regarding the different at-tainment of women and men as leaders (cited in Dunn-Jensen & Stroh, 2007). A structural discrimination, leaving women with a belief that they have to accomplish more than their male counterparts, is confirmed by the example of women’s hesitation of delegating minor duties to their secretaries. Beyond the obvious, this could be interpreted that women are great listeners which easily adapt to new settings and business environments. Therefore the women in this analysis have been successful in their career advancement and also accepted by their surrounding male associates. However, it is the women themselves who set their limitations for how far they can reach. When Eva Halvarsson reflects upon her reality, her own perception is that that she cannot delegate as much work responsibility as men do. This only proves that even though women possess traits of transactional nature, their trans-formational traits are deeper and more embedded into their natural leadership style.


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4.2 Female career developmentAfter previous discussion, it is now time to analyse female career development in general. The different aspects which will be considered are obstacles to female career development, the glass ceiling, and finally how to overcome such obstacles. These discussions are very important before proceeding to analyse the attitudes towards networking for a couple of reasons. Firstly, in order to create a general overview of women’s perception of their own career progress possibilities; and secondly, to further develop an understanding for the fundamentals in the career ladder.

Burke (2007) states that women have the same possibilities as men to advance up the career ladder, particularly if they enter the same occupations and have similar ambitions and abili-ties as their male associates. For Lena Apler, being a woman at SEB bank was during her years an advantage since at that time the management team was eager to accentuate women. All the women have experiences from working within large enterprises where it in many instances can be considered easy to be foreseen; however according to the outcome of the interviews, all of them in some way or another point out that it has rather been the opposite. They all perceive, especially the three CEOs that they have received more atten-tion due to the fact that they have been hard working women, and during their early career also young and hungry for success.

The “male model” mentioned by Burke (2007) is also interpreted into the results. To begin with, Lena Apler and Eva Halvarsson do not have any children and are both CEOs. Se-condly, Anne A Rosengren has three adult daughters which she had shared responsibility for together with her husband during their childhood, she is furthermore a CEO; this is similar to Susanne Jacobsson’s situation, she has two adult sons and she stresses that her husband has shared the responsibility for them over the years. Thirdly, Charlotta Oom is a mother of toddlers and has made an active choice to pace down her career progression in order to have more time for family life. According to studies regarding various models of career progression for both women and men four types of career success determinants were identified by Kirchmeyer (1998), and “gender roles” as a career success determinant is here very evident (cited in Burke, 2007). First as Anne A Rosengren highlights in her inter-view, she would never have been where she is today if she had not shared family responsi-bilities with her husband during the crucial years in her early career. This is comparable with Susanne Jacobson’s perception; where she highlights the importance of support from her husband. Also Charlotta Oom reflects that gender roles matter. According to her, fami-ly life is top priority and therefore she has slowed down her career progression and as a re-sult works part time in order to devote more time for her family. Eva Halvarsson and Lena Apler do not have any children; hence they have not the same experience of gender roles when it comes to parenting.

All these five women prove, in different ways, that stereotyped gender roles are important key success determinants for one’s career. This is however nothing revolutionary. A com-mon fact even in Sweden, where equality between the genders is present and expected, is that women more often take a larger responsibility for the home. In order to reach the top of the career ladder, it is however not possible to do that, therefore it is only those women who sacrifice family life for career, or have shared responsibilities for home and children, that will reach the very top. Anne A Rosengren emphasises the importance of not sacrific-ing one’s career for staying home with the children. It is according to biology only physical-ly possible for women to give birth, it is however today possible to share maternity leave with one’s partner, or buy services needed; like a nanny and a maid. And as both Anne A Rosengren and Susanne Jacobsson stress, in order to reach the top, one has to do so.


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A study conducted by Morrison et al. (1987) emphasises additional factors associated with female career development (cited in Burke, 2007). The interviewees point out a number of characteristics which they argue is relevant for career development in the interviews. These characteristics do in many circumstances overlap with what Morrison et al, (1987) identify in their study (cited in Burke, 2007). Below is an in-depth analysis and interpretation of the result with theory.

“Help from above” was identified by Morrison et al. (1987) and this has according to the women interviewed been a key success factor during their careers (cited in Burke, 2007). They have all during their career progress found support from superiors both within their organisations as well as through their networks. Therefore the interpretation is that no mat-ter how tough, decisive and goal oriented you are as a leader, some kind of guidance and external support is needed from superiors. And as the women acknowledge, they would not be where they are today, if they would not have gotten the support they had through-out the crucial years of their career development.

The second factor identified by Morrison et al. (1987), “a track record of achievements”, is also a crucial aspect which the interviewees also discuss (cited in Burke, 2007). In order to be ac-knowledged within your business environment, you have to achieve something. But at the same time people have to recognise you for what you achieve. This means that it is not enough if you are a hard working woman; if nobody notices that you actually are devoted and hard working, you will never get any appraisal for what you have achieved. This is very interesting and many times men are associated with bragging over their achievements. But as this factor states, bragging might not be too bad at all. As a woman, you have to stand out and show results, and it is not until people recognise this that they will promote you. The interviewed women identified this by stating that women more often than men hesi-tate to express themselves in meetings, during conferences and such. However as they see it, this is a key success factor if one want to be acknowledged by others. All the women in-terviewed believe that they possess this factor since they have developed competencies which allow them to dare to stand out from the crowd and take risks. According to them, they have been promoted to higher positions throughout their career due to the fact that they have proved their dedication and been eager to show results.

“A desire to succeed”, “an ability to manage subordinates”, “a willingness to take career risks”, and “an ability to be tough, decisive and demanding” are additional factors identified by Morrison et al. (1987) associated with female career progression which are all connected to the personal traits discussed in previous sub section (cited in Burke, 2007). The first two factors “a de-sire to succeed” and “an ability to manage subordinates” are traits that easily can be trans-ferred to a woman. Even though men in general are argued to be more goal oriented, women often possess the same desire to reach the top once entering the career ladder. Also the ability to manage subordinates could be assumed to be in favour for women since they lead their workforce in a more transformational way than men. However once again this is argued not to be gender related, but as the results of our interviews show, all the womenemphasise the need to have a close relationship with their subordinates, and as one of them states, “a male CEO would most probably not know the name of all his employees’ child-ren, while I usually know the name of the entire families”. The latter factors, “a willingness to take career risks”, and the “ability to be tough, decisive and demanding”, are commonly identified with male CEOs. However, the women in this study once again emphasise that these are all traits which they possess and regard as crucial during their career development. According to them, there are no such thing as female and male traits, instead there are suc-cess stories identified which prove that it in reality is possible for women to reach the top


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of the career ladder by small adjustment to their leadership styles. However, as they see it, their leadership styles have rather been developed throughout the years with increased ex-perience, rather than referring it to adaption of the “male leadership model”.

4.2.1 Obstacles to female career development

It is now time to discuss the various obstacles that have been identified regarding female career development. The glass ceiling will be interpreted in a separate section following this one.

Theories conducted by Gatrell and Cooper (2007) state that women face additional stress at top management positions due to their gender. A deeper analysis regarding what obsta-cles that exist for female career development show that discrimination due to gender is nothing the interviewed women have faced. Yet, stress arising from patronising male col-leagues, and jealousy in general from subordinates at the same organisational level, are ex-periences these women have faced to some extent. The latter will be touched upon below, while patronising will be discussed in the section regarding the glass ceiling.

The general jealousy described above comes mainly from other women within the organi-sations, and most commonly from women in the same age and at the same organisational level. This is reflected in a couple of the interviews conducted, and the women repeatedly discussed the stress caused by being manager to other women. Eva Halvarsson reveals that during her early career she had more troubles with her female employees than her male. She reflects that her previous male colleagues, compared with her female colleagues, found it much easier to accept her as a manager when she got promoted. It was the women who yet again questioned her authority and ability to decide, not the men. This is interesting since women more often are said to encourage each other to aim for career progress, how-ever as above statements prove, this is not true at all times. Women are good at back stab-bing due to jealousy, and in many circumstances women at the same organisational level are also the ones hardest to deal with. However, this jealousy from women at the same organ-isational level is not mentioned by all of the interviewees, and it is important to once again acknowledge that generalisations cannot be done. Susanne Jacobsson instead mentions that she received negative attitudes from male colleagues when she worked as a consultant. They confronted her with arguments that she could not choose both motherhood and ca-reer and that she was not “normal” since her priority was rather to work than to stay at home with her children full time. The jealousy could be seen as individual interpretation from society rather than gender related. It may further be the case that it is highly restricted to certain industries, yet, it is a very interesting standpoint that had to be acknowledged for this study.

Moreover, according to Lena Apler, women have a tendency to take on the main responsi-bility for the home and family life which makes it harder for them to cope with the stress managers at top positions usually face. This had been especially noticeable in her career;she stresses the fact that after a certain level in the organisational hierarchy, women had a tendency to disappear, and she was more often left alone within an environment filled with male subordinates. She believes that the decrease of females climbing the corporate ladder was a direct effect of what usually is known as the career trap for many women; having too much responsibility for the home and family. However, for her, this was a positive thing. Lena Apler does not have any children, though has a husband who also has a career. Therefore during the crucial years when climbing the corporate ladder, she reflects that it in many situations was positive being one out of a few women, if not the only woman, still


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advancing up the career ladder. This since she therefore she stood out as a woman, and maybe more importantly, many of the women that left for maternity leave were very com-petent and if they would have stayed she assumes her career path would have been differ-ent. The competition among the women would have increased and Lena Apler would not have been as exclusive as she then was.

This discussion further aligns with Bilimoria et al.’s (2007) theory that the stressful dynam-ics which women face twenty-four-seven hinder their progression to the top. Lena Apler for example acknowledges all the competent women which left the ladder in an early stage in order to take responsibility for home and family. However, in this study two of the in-terviewees, Anne A Rosengren and Susanne Jacobsson proved to be an exception. For them it was not a decision to choose one or the other, instead they have proved it possible to manage both family life and career. However, as Anne A. Rosengren stresses, she would not have been able to do this if it was not for her husband and also the nanny they hired during the years when her daughters were toddlers. And even though the situation has worked out for her, feelings of guilt have been present throughout the years of her daugh-ters’ childhood, as well as negative attitudes from non-working women in her environment.Susanne Jacobsson also emphasises the importance of finding the right husband which is willing to share family responsibilities, and she furthermore stresses the fact that she has had both a nanny and a maid when her children were young. However, she continues by adding that if someone asks her sons they would probably claim that she has been away a lot and they might even say that she has been away too much at times when they were young. These statements, even though Anne A Rosengren as well as Susanne Jacobsson are regarded as extremely successful, reflect the many stressful dynamics females await having both family and home responsibilities and also represent social pressures that are, for many women, hard to cope with.

The obstacle created by having a subsequent family life is possible to overcome (Bilimoria et al., 2007), but only when one is willing to sacrifice family time for career. Otherwise, an-other way to manage family life, and perhaps more common than Anne A Rosengren’s, is to take time off and leave the labour market for maternity leave. This has been the reality for Charlotta Oom, which is currently working part time in order to get her family life to work out. This was the case also for Susanne Jacobsson who not only had two maternity leaves but also decided to take a leave of absence for two years and followed her husband to the USA. Based on these relational preferences, Bilimoria et al. (2007) argued that a woman’s career may ebb and flow differently compared to the traditional male model, which is primarily focused on linear career progression. Maternity leave during the crucial years in the beginning of one’s career is said to be hurtful for the overall ability to progress in the long run. All women interviewed agree on this; that in order to reach the top, there is no time to be away from the labour market. And in order to cope with both family life and career, one has to adapt the model as Anne A Rosengren as well as Susanne Jacobsson did, share responsibilities and consider hiring a nanny and a maid.

Additional obstacles to career development pointed out by the interviewees are: tough deadlines and tough business climate; trustworthiness issues; insecurity; fear of failing; and also the perfectionism pressure women face from society but maybe above all from them-selves. These are however highly personal obstacles which are more bound to the individu-al and not to the female gender itself.

The finance industry which four of the interviewees are operating in is a highly male domi-nated industry, maybe more male dominated than many other industries. Therefore as a further implication, it would be interesting to investigate whether above statements regard-


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ing career obstacles are overall impressions on the labour market or if it they are more bound to the finance industry. Finance companies are well known for their long working hours and career focus, and maybe it is only within such environments that maternity leave is not an option. This can moreover be one major implication important to consider throughout the analysis since the women in this study may be biased to their particular en-vironment when regarding what possible obstacles that exist.

4.2.2 The glass ceiling

Four of the women are very certain regarding that they have never faced what has come to be known as the glass ceiling. As Debra Meyerson and Joyce Fletcher (2005) recognise, it is not only rare to find women at top management positions, they also suggest that many women that approach the corporate ladder, jump off, due to frustration etc. However, four of the interviewees disagree with Meyerson and Fletcher’s (2005) theory; if hit, they say they never realised it. They believe that the glass ceiling probably exists, although only for those women who are insecure and expecting to face obstacles during their career devel-opment. This is reflected for example in Anne A Rosengren statement “if you do not see the glass ceiling it will not exist”. Susanne Jacobsson has on the other hand been con-fronted by the glass ceiling several times during her career and worked hard to break it. She has also been the one applying it. This was when she was requested to select a consultant to work with and she straight away chose a woman since she could easily identify herself with her. This is an interesting aspect since men may take the same approach when they appoint a new recruit etc and this behaviour is then reinforcing the glass ceiling. The glass ceiling then becomes much more obvious towards women since there are many more men on top positions today. The issue with few women on top positions could then be explained as is-sues connected to traditions that will change as more women reach top positions.

Although, as the glass ceiling is interpreted as “a series of incremental changes aimed at the subtle discriminatory forces that still reside in organizations” (Meyerson & Fletcher, 2005, p.69), one is not supposed to see it with the eye. Instead it is underlying facts which contri-bute to it as a whole, and due to this the five women actually identify an appearance of glass ceiling and also one setting in which they regard the glass ceiling to exist. First, theappearance of the glass ceiling could be illustrated as a feeling of being patronised by male subordinates from time to time. If women do not handle it in the right way and with a tough attitude, many will be frustrated and disappointed by such behavior, and indirectly allow for discrimination. Patronising may come from various sources, but Eva Halvarsson and Lena Apler both give one very explicit example of patronising that they have expe-rienced. Common among the interviewees is that they have turned this obstacle into a pos-sibility. An obstacle for them to overcome and challenge to prove to themselves and their environment that women are equally competitive to men. For them it has happened more than once that people at first sight presume that their male colleague possesses the position as the CEO and not themselves. It is according to Eva Halvarsson her strong personality and self confidence that have helped her to manage career obstacles and oversee such pa-tronising. Susanne Jacobsson also considers herself a fighter that prefers to prove people wrong rather than to let them win the fight. Lena Apler furthermore reflects over the fact that more women should challenge themselves and allow themselves to make mistakes and not be afraid of failure. She requests more bravery among women, and ends with conclud-ing that men usually are better than women on taking risks and that this “male trait” is sought after among women.


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Second, an environment in where the glass ceiling has been more tangible is according to all of the women within the Board of Directors. The structure of the decision making process when recruiting board members is seen as very unstructured and biased since the characteristics looked for are extremely narrow and hard to find among women. According to Eva Halvarsson who has worked with recruiting board members, the most desirable traits for board members are; >60 years of age, male, and preferably CEO’s of a listed company. Boards of Directors represent the business environment in which women are farthest behind men in gender representation. The decision making process that exists for such settings is not beneficial for the minority, and hence confirms Powell & Grave’s (2003) theory regarding how decision making have an impact on exclusion of the minority.

Also mentioned in theory are some additional sources of barriers, published by the Euro-pean Commission (2008), which serve to exclude women from top management positions. At least two out of the three sources of barriers are more than clearly emphasised by the five women. Firstly, in the interview with Charlotta Oom, Board of Directors are brought up to discussion. However she discusses it from another point of view, and talk about the well known phenomenon “quotation”. She has in a couple of settings felt that she was se-lected to be a board member just because they wanted female representation in the Board of Directors. This also proves the glass ceiling to exist since it in many circumstances is a common belief that women are needed to be quoted into the Board of Directors, rather than being recruited for their competence. This proves that the first source of barrier “dis-criminatory methods of selection” (European Commission, 2008) exists; it moreover strengthens the belief that Board of Directors is a closed environment where women often are excluded from.

Another obstacle touched upon is “the lack of career planning” (European Commission, 2008), which however is not classified as a barrier according to the interviewees. Yet, it is very hard to establish a trustworthy discussion from such small sample, but as Eva Hal-varsson describes her career, it can be confirmed that this barrier is not applicable at all times. She says that even though her career has been straightforward, it has not been planned. Her ambition as newly graduated was to become a specialist, and not a CEO. Her path towards the top has been anything but predictable, and this proves that even though women do not plan their way to the top they can end up there anyhow. The third source of barrier; “macho behaviour of male colleagues” (European Commission, 2008), is not touched upon in the interviews therefore no discussion can be done regarding the issue. The five women nevertheless describe their work environment as highly macho since there are over representation of men, but they never discuss it as a barrier.

Moreover, in general, informal obstacles are very powerful. An explicit example, which the women mention in the interviews are the “old boys’ networks” that serve as closed net-works which women find very hard to gain access to (Burke, 2007). Theory strengthens above statements, and mentions many informal barriers, hard for women to deal with, which is a direct effect of the prevalence of more men at top positions. However, these “old boys’ networks” will be further touched upon in the network section.

4.2.3 How to overcome female career obstacles

This section, which represents the last sub chapter of female career development, gives a final discussion regarding how women overcome career obstacles. It touches upon discus-sions regarding where women find support for career progress and also what is required in order to actually reach the top.


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Previously, it has been said that women are required to be in a certain way in order to reach the top of the career ladder. As Morrison et al. (1987) claim, in order to become a success-ful business woman, it is for example assumed that women need additional external sup-port compared with men, and that women also need to be easy to get along with (cited in Burke, 2007). The five women have in the interviews acknowledged personal traits com-monly associated with top managers; not to be said to be found common for male manag-ers, rather for today’s modern managers. Characteristics of both transformational and transactional leadership styles were apparent among the five women and distinguished as key success factors.

There are furthermore certain models for career progression developed which in many cir-cumstances can be vital for women to acknowledge. The first model discussed in this study is developed by Morrison in 1992 and distinguishes three components that females should acknowledge; the challenge, recognition and support (cited in Burke, 2007). According to her, it is first of all important for women to challenge themselves, to learn lessons and skills impor-tant at higher levels in the hierarchy (Morrison, 1992, cited in: Burke, 2007). This factor is moreover recognised by the five women as critical when competing with men in a male dominated environment. The results from the interviews show that as a woman you have to develop a courage which allows you to take more risks. It moreover shows that recogni-tion is an important aspect. Recognition in the form of promotion is experienced by the three CEOs, and all of them have at least once in their career been headhunted for specific positions. Headhunted or not, acknowledgements and rewards for achievement are critical factors in a woman’s career development and this combined with support are essential at least for the individual’s self confidence. Support as a critical factor will be further dis-cussed when talking about networking and the effects of belonging to a network.

According to Morrison (1992) the three factors, challenge, recognition, and support are assumed to be present in the same relative proportions over time in order to sustain career devel-opment (cited in Burke, 2007). This is also emphasised by the women; one factor does not exclude the other and they will throughout the career exist simultaneously. Without the support for example, one is not willing to take on the challenge; and without the challenge, one will not be recognised. Eva Halvarsson says in her interview that when she was offered the position as manager for a department within the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications, she at once sought support. Thoughts of insecurity led her to call a woman within her closest network; who instantly succeeded in convincing her to take on the new challenge.

The discussion regarding what supports female career development can be further intensi-fied, and another model applicable for female career advancement is presented by Burke (2007). In his model three types of information are discussed which he argues are vital for women to acknowledge during their career development. For this specific study in which the interviewees argue they have never faced the glass ceiling the first source of informa-tion is the only one possible to discuss. Burke (2007) claims that it is important for women to understand the obstacles that exist; yet, as the women state in their interviews, this is not a necessity. For them there are no visible obstacles. However, as a woman climbing the ca-reer ladder it can be assumed that one has to be aware of one’s limitations and also the fact that as a female top manager one will often be representing the minority. The results from the interviews show that these women who argue that the glass ceiling only exist for the “weak” have adapted a male model as leaders. This might be one main reason to their ig-norance of career barriers, and also their positive view of being minority in a male domi-nated industry. Regarding having awareness for limitations there is particularly one that


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women have to take into account, which in this study have proved to be of importance. Childbirth and maternity leave have been distinguished as a source of limitation for career progress; this as previously stated, in order to reach top position, no time is available for maternity leave.

Ragings et al. (1998) have furthermore developed three strategies central for women’s ca-reer development (cited in Burke, 2007). The interviewed women’s ambitions and personal-ity traits are well integrated with these strategies, and from the women’s statements in their interviews four key success factors have emerged; goal orientation, a management style which men are comfortable with, courage and increased risk taking, and finally a mentor re-lationship.

This section of the analysis has provided some important aspects for this study since the belief is that other factors other than networking also have an impact on female career de-velopment. Since women face a different reality in business life compared with men, this discussion has proved to be critical for multiple reasons. The first critical aspect of this sec-tion has been to distinguish that leadership traits are bound to the individual rather than to gender. This shows that women have the same possibility to assess positions for which men typically are assigned, yet this only as long as they acquire traits of both female and male nature. It has been argued that organisations are today looking for modern leaders; and a typical modern leader that possesses characteristics of both the transactional and transformational leadership style.

The second aspect in this section was to discuss female career progress in general; the bar-riers which women are argued to face when climbing the career ladder and also how they are argued to overcome the presented obstacles. Women are in this study argued to distin-guish themselves from men regarding these issues, and they are still extremely underrepre-sented at the top of the hierarchy. These implications among many more has further proved to be supporting aspects in a study which purpose is to analyse if networking influ-ence female career development.

4.3 NetworkingAs being touched upon previously in theory; networking, or a person’s social capital, should be considered as a valuable resource for career advancement (Lin, 2002). Lucid pat-terns have been revealed when summarising findings; some facts agree with theories pre-sented and some do, on the other hand, not agree with earlier researches and theories.

4.3.1 Networks and network participation

To start with, four of the interviewed women, excluding Eva Halvarsson, are currently or have in the past been active members of formal networks. All four, apart from Charlotta Oom, clearly state that these formal networks are less valuable than their informal net-works and membership in these formal networks does not come out of free will. It is rather what is expected from them; a forced membership that derives from the fact that these women possess enormous power and has great influence in the business world. Formalnetworks have several times asked Eva Halvarsson to become a member, but her impres-sion has been that the founders rather wanted her to join in order to have her name as a good reference and that she would not get as much out of the membership as one would like. And as Lin (2002) claims; individuals only engage in networking in order to create profit. Eva Halvarsson rather stresses informal professional networking that takes place in


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more unstructured settings. She also highlights the value networking brings to one’s profes-sional career. Susanne Jacobsson, a member of Ruter Dam since 1998, states that she does not really prioritise her formal network since she does not think that it is advantageous for her career development. This is an attitude that she shares with both Lena Apler and Anne A Rosengren which both are members of formal networks which they agree are way too time consuming. Their informal professional networks, as referred to here, are though something that they all regard as very rewarding and reciprocal. This discussion is further elaborated in the following section.

What Aaltio et al. (2008) state about the importance of human capital is acknowledged by all the interviewees. A large network implies valuable social capital. Hence all women inter-viewed hold this imperative resource. Also shown is what Aaltio et al.(2008) state about having the human capital, hence also the social capital becoming larger the more experi-ences and higher level of skills and education one possesses. All interviewees have had their networks developed throughout their careers and one could explain the fact that Charlotta Oom for example had a smaller network due to her younger age and her shorter career. Further elaborating on this is stating that social capital is more important than human capi-tal as claimed by York University (2005). What all women state is that without no social or personal exchange the network’s purpose fail and no reciprocal relationship can be estab-lished. A proof that mirrors the fact that formal networks fail their mission as presented with efficient networking as the lack of social capital becomes too evident and therefore networking and socialising become forced and members feel uncomfortable. The majority of the interviewees, everyone except Charlotta Oom, discussed this issue and argued this as being one of the main reasons for not setting off time for formal networking. Charlotta Oom was actually the only one who had a positive attitude to formal networking, all net-works though existing of both men and women. Nevertheless, the researchers had difficul-ties with deriving concrete results that showed that Charlotta Oom’s formal networks had helped with her career advancement. It was actually her informal network that had assisted her with reaching her currents positions both as a Market Manager at Collector but also as a board member at MIG, the formal network which she is active in.

All five interviewees possess personalities that could be seen as highly appreciated for cre-ating new relations and maintaining old ones, necessary according to Davidson & Burke (2000). The women interviewed are all open minded and positive who aim to create close relationships and open communications with people in their surroundings. The fact that they all are determined and goal oriented could probably also be recognised by others as an indication of professionalism and people will therefore get a serious impression initialising a good start for future networking.

What Cohendet et al. (1998) declare; “that networks should be viewed as a set of agents that adopt a similar behaviour to achieve different economic purposes” should be read with some carefulness. Simply adopting a similar behaviour is a form of networking but does not promise efficient networking in order to promote career advancement. The researchers would like to add that these agents will have to connect on a more personal level to reach the best results. And the three factors than Lin (2002) stresses as important; interaction, sentiment and activity is not sufficient to create and efficient networking environment.

These theories together with the empirical findings moreover reinforce what was stated above; and as Davidson & Burke (2000) furthermore acknowledge; the fact that a network usually becomes more valuable when people do not expect anything from each other and are established by personal relations could actually be seen as promoting informal network-ing. All five interviewees have experiences from this. This is something retrieved after con-


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ducting the interviews and analysing the interviewees’ opinions. They all, together with theories, agree that forced networking will not be as efficient as if networking comes natu-rally. The effect will instead most probably be the opposite and so the purpose falls, mean-ing networking will not be a tool in order to advance professionally. All interviewees bring for example up the issue with in-company networks where people obviously more or less adapt a similar behaviour, without necessarily creating a networking environment that would be beneficial for one’s career development up the corporate ladder. One can also take Anne A Rosengren’s and Susanne Jacobsson’s memberships in Rotary and Ruter Dam as examples. The members of these formal networks adapt a similar behaviour, but fail to connect on further levels hence the interviewees do not identify the benefits for network-ing with exclusively women just for the sake of doing so.

Tuimala (1999) stated that in order for a network to be valuable the relationship needs to be reciprocal. Anne A Rosengren together with most of the other interviewees prove of this and one explicit example is selected from the interview with Anne A Rosengren where she explains the reason for why she started her informal network. It all started since Anne A Rosengren’s impression of formal networking was that meetings were stiff and member-ship was somewhat passive without resulting in any actual exchange, hence lacking a recip-rocal relationship. Members were told when and where to meet and Anne A Rosengren saw no reason to continue attending these meetings and instead decided to start her own network. This is a network that Lena Apler also is a member of and Eva Halvarsson has at-tended meetings as a personally invited guest. Networks similar to the one she founded are highly appreciated of all five women and also prioritised since they result in both a profes-sional and personal development. The network was established out of a growing need to exchange information in order to be kept updated, a reason to why these meetings are pri-oritised by the otherwise busy women.

Charlotta Oom is the only one who can give an explicit example of how one can create a reciprocal relationship with one’s networking contacts. With contacts at the business maga-zine “Passion for Business” she at times promotes successful business women as potential material for articles. When she does this she makes sure that the ones she promotes be-come aware of what she has done for them so that when Charlotta Oom needs a favor she can ask for it without any hustle.

The importance of the reciprocal relationship stressed by Tuimala (1999) is not obvious af-ter analysing the interviews but through reading between the lines one will come to a con-clusion that an obvious reciprocal relationship is not necessary. It is rather the fact of knowing or having the feeling that the different members of one’s network can be of assis-tance in the future. The interviewees’ networking actions have never been planned or driven with a determined purpose. They have instead evolved naturally and reciprocation is assumed to evolve in the same way without further expectations.

Another important remark is what Anne A Rosengren explained regarding her perception of how one’s network goes through different phases throughout life. Just like an individual goes through different phases in life, one’s network will evolve in line with this. This is a rather natural assumption since relations are usually developed in order to fulfil a certain purpose; social or professional. To be able to accomplish this, networks will be adapted to one’s life situation as well. Social interactions take place between people with common in-terests and lifestyles. This is visual in terms of how the interviewees network professionally today. The networks that the interviewees actually are active in include interaction mostly with people on the same hierarchical level. This statement agrees with Lin (2002) andclaims that “personal interactions tend to take place among individuals with similar life-


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styles and socioeconomic interests”. True especially if one networks in order to advance professionally. The informal network could therefore also have the label formal, as an in-formal network evolves into more formal settings. Further examples of how people enter or exit different phases throughout life, and thereafter exchange or update their networks is for examples showed when Anne A Rosengren was a mother of toddlers. Her female friends did not agree with the fact that she worked as much as she did, and frequently gave her bad conscious and made her feel guilt. Since Anne A Rosengren wanted to show that balancing family life and career was possible, she realised who her real friends were and ended the relationship with the ones that did not support her choice to work. Her network was therefore changed and updated to fit her current status. This is also in line with how Susanne Jacobsson acted when her male colleagues did not understand how she would be able to balance motherhood and career.

Conflicting network structures show that weak ties are more important than strong ties within networks and vice versa (Aaltio et al, 2008). When comparing this to what the five interviewed women said a conclusion can be made that weak ties are better in informal professional networks. This is based on the fact that all women had a feeling of being back-stabbed of their closer colleagues and especially their female colleagues throughout their career. The ones responsible for promoting them or the ones that have supported them in their progress have often been distant managers which they have had little or no personal relationship with. So in order to use networks to advance professionally it is probably pref-erable with weak ties than strong, since strong ties such as a closer personal relationship could create jealousy when career advancement opportunities appear. Moreover, weak ties within networks may provide the participants with information that would otherwise not be attainable for them. In too close groups no external input will be provided and limits the information flow. In order to prove that weak ties were preferred by the interviewees, when asked to mention three significant people during their career development, they all stated people outside their closest group as most vital.

4.3.2 The importance of networking

According to Lin (2002) a well established professional network with a reciprocal relation-ship between the members will lead to a massive information flow that is exchanged daily and little effort is needed for this to be implemented. Networking is a vital tool to maintain the quality of one’s social capital. An interesting fact is that the interviewees were not aware of the fact that their actions to maintain their social capital actually were to be labelled net-working. Susanne Jacobsson did not even considered herself as being headhunted for her current position at Perstorp AB since it was not actually the recruiter himself that contacted her, but rather the CEO that suggested her name for him. They all after some considera-tion realised that what they do or have done throughout their career is actually practising informal professional networking. All women show that their informal professional net-works have helped them in their career advancement. This is obvious since all five of the women have at some time during their careers been recruited through either contacts or headhunted for their current positions.

Anne A Rosengren gives an example of how one’s network is of great importance. She claims that at least 50 percent of her results at work are depending on her network con-tacts. It was not until she worked for Catella group in Stockholm that she realised how big and well established her network was in Gothenburg in comparison. There is no need for her to even explain who she is when she for example makes a phone call to any of the banks in Gothenburg. Anne A Rosengren explains that this is advantageous when making


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business and that it is something that begins to evolve early in one’s career. What Anne A Rosengren again acknowledge here is the increased information flow that comes with effi-cient networking, precisely what Lin (2002) discusses when defending how social networks can be of importance for an individual.

Susanne Jacobsson thinks that she has been too reluctant to active networking in the past, and adds that she today realises the importance of networking for one’s career develop-ment. Even though one can draw the conclusion that Susanne Jacobsson has taken advan-tage of her sometimes brief sometimes distant networking contacts during her career. The job at Telia became knowledgeable to her through networking at a seminar, and the ad-vancement within Telia as an organisation was also achieved through networking among many other factors.

Three out of five interviewees are Board members, something very rare for women to be. The researchers would here like to refer to what Lin (2002) states when it comes to the im-portance of having people with decision making power within the network. Individuals who are members of boards are argued to possess more power to influence decisions. This could be a reason for why these women are active board members in several Boards. They have most likely, because of their networks reached these positions and also due to the rea-son that they have networks existing of both men and women and furthermore due to their competences. As all the interviewed women said; “networking could be seen as an indirect shortcut to career climbing”. Important to add here is the fact that it is not networking in isolation that have made the interviewees reach their positions but other factors should also be considered and an elaboration on this is presented in the following chapter.

Lena Apler has reassessed the importance of networks and admits that it is vital to create relations with people in order to advance professionally. Connecting and building strongrelationships with companies, customers, new recruits etc are significant due to the fact that one then has a larger reference base. A reference can, in the business world, be seen as a key to locked doors and a strategy to gain information not accessible otherwise. This type of social capital is acknowledged by Lin (2002) as a third element for the importance of networking. Lena Apler also believes that the importance of networks has increased over the years since today’s communication methods are more mobile and much quicker than when she started her career. When asked about her career path and if networking has played an important role in her career development, she realises that she has been active in informal networks without being aware of it. Networks at SEB has helped her being no-ticed, and has further enhanced her possibilities for advancements within the organisation. She was often encouraged by people in her personal network to apply for higher positionswithin the organisation but also for jobs outside the SEB organisation. When asked to mention three important networking contacts Lena Apler mentions Mr V, the owner of YY since he operates mostly in Stockholm and can provide important information that would not otherwise be attainable for her. She also mentions Mrs G that operates in Goth-enburg, a board member of Collector, and also one of the eight women in her informal network. The third person she mentions as a valuable contact is Eva Halvarsson since she has important connections with the government as well as the business life. All these con-tacts cover areas that Lena Apler has less control and insight of leading her to attain infor-mation otherwise left out, a great example of how networking can be beneficial.

Charlotta Oom also states that her key network contacts are people with huge networks for her to use. She for example mentions Lena Apler, her manager. The board members at Collector are for example a great network to interact with since the members have very di-verse backgrounds and experiences. Also mentioned is Ms L, Manager at M. The motiva-


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tion for this choice was also due to the fact that Ms L has a huge network and knows many different kinds of people. Charlotta Oom also discusses the importance of promoting one-self in order to be seen and recognised. She thinks women should become more aggressive in promoting themselves in order to become better networkers. Charlotta Oom herself has been an active networker since high school. When Charlotta Oom mentions that women are being bad at promoting each other one cannot help but think that the pure female net-works might have to reconsider their structure and consider having mixed networks in or-der for the women benchmark to men’s way of networking and promoting each other.

Compared with the other four interviewees Charlotta Oom had a more limited network, and not as established contacts. Yet this could be explained by her age and also the fact that she has not been in the finance sector earlier. This may also be the case why she re-gards her formal network to be more significant than her informal. She has not yet estab-lished a rewarding informal one. Davidsson & Burke (2000) explain this by the fact that it is important for a network to evolve over time before one can take advantage of it.

Support is something that is mentioned by all the interviewees and support is something achieved throughout networking. Whether this regards personal support or professional support is of less importance. Without supporting family and friends one will as a woman have difficulties in advancing up the corporate ladder when becoming a mother. On the other hand without professional support from superiors and mentors women might have difficulties in ignoring the glass ceiling and face unnecessary obstacles on the way. Since both theories and empirical findings show a tendency for women to be less aggressive when it comes to career development, the support from different networks is of great value.

What Eva Halvarsson thinks has been very important for her during her career is that she has had several mentors, that according to her have been decisive key success factors. The importance of having someone outside one’s organisation to discuss things with on a deeper level in order to get an objective opinion is extremely good and is certainly helpful on any level of the career ladder. The importance of mentors is something that four of the interviewees highlight. Their mentors have all served as personal coaches to boost confi-dence, and exchange experiences with during their careers. This is another form of net-working that might not be comparable to regular networking but something that neither should be neglected nor left out in this study since interviewees frequently mentioned its importance for their career development up the corporate ladder.

4.3.3 Female networks

As focus for the study has been to examine which network structure that appears to be most influential for women’s career development the researchers have furthermore investi-gated professional networks (Davidsson & Burke, 2000). The empirical findings show that formal networks were of less importance for the interviewees’ career development there-fore focus is set on the informal networks that these women are active in.

As from the interviews it could be stated that all five women belong to “professional and occupational networks”, a label set by Davidson & Burke (2000). Though as stated earlier these networks existing of women with similar professional qualifications need to emerge from a need in order to be efficient. Pure formal professional networks, “forced”, could in-stead be seen as a source for inspiration rather than a powerful tool to help with career ad-vancement. The informal network that Anne A Rosengren started meets five to six times a year and its 10 core members, all women, can bring an additional guest to every meeting.


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Core members are from different segments of the business world in order to create diver-sity to the group. What is of importance here is that a reciprocal relationship is achieved since this is what is lacking in many of the formal female networks according to the inter-viewees. Also important is of course not only that they have a similar behaviour but that they also connect on a more personal level as well.

Another category mentioned by Davidson & Burke (2000) for female networks is the “in-company network”; a network that more or less is pure social and consists of colleagues. What the interviewees all have said though is that networking with close colleagues is not beneficial when climbing the career ladder. This type of network could then in order be seen as superficial rather than being efficient or beneficial for one’s career advancement.

The last category mentioned by Davidson & Burke (2000) is the “training group” said to be a network that supports and offers guidance to its members. The interviewees all mention the importance of the mentors they have had throughout their careers and one could view the mentors as a “training group”. This type of networking is then regarded as highly im-portant and a vital tool for women’s career development.

What could be extracted from the interviews is that the best way of networking is to have members from both genders since the male members are a link that gives the women ac-cess to unexplored worlds and settings and women then of course will do the same for the men. Lena Apler, together with all the other interviewees, explain this as crucial in order to create a good balance in the business world and the majority of the interviewees say that it is the men within their networks that have been the most supportive and encouraging throughout their careers. As Susanne Jacobsson mentioned concerning the irrelevance of pure female networking; “It is just as ridiculous as if having different networks depending on race. How could this be beneficial for one’s career development?” Blending sexes cre-ates a greater diversity and decreases the differences and obstacles that exist today resulting in a more positive attitude in today’s business world.

4.3.4 Differences between how men and women network

The differences between men and women’s networks that have been brought up in theo-ries are in this section clarified and compared with the interviewees own experiences. Burke (2007) highlights one network that is exclusively for men: it is the “old boys’ network”, a career obstacle for women that men are unaware of and this is the reason to why it still ex-ists. Boards are perfect examples where exclusion of women are present. The researchers for this study though connect this as an issue of generations after conducting and analysing the interviews. Today’s generation of Swedish women and men interact more from an early stage in life and as long as mixed networking is exercised the “old boys’ network” will hopefully be eliminated. What is important though for this to happen is to create a better awareness for the men in order for them to understand that this is an obvious obstacle for many women. As Anne A Rosengren explained “a lot of men do not understand me when I tell them I can’t join them when having meetings in the sauna”.

What Davidson & Burke (2000) state regarding women not having access to the informal networks on an organisational level is something that the majority of the interviewed women claimed to never have faced. The reason for this could be as stated several times before; thanks to the Swedish culture and social structure that promotes equality between genders. Another reason could also be that the women in this study all possess traits tradi-tionally considered as male and they are therefore more accepted by men. However, Su-sanne Jacobsson gives one example on how men exclusively networked from the time she


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went to Chalmers University. Many of the men were members of CS, a network founded for male students, where women were only welcome as dates. She continues to add that from personal experiences she knows that the members of that network still keep in touch which implies the strong and powerful ties such network hold throughout the years.

Lena Apler together with the rest of the interviewees argue that men network different compared with women. Men establish relationships usually through activities like sports; they go to hockey games and soccer games or they play golf together. They interviewees further have a theory that men are more willing to take advantage of their networks than women, they are not afraid to ask for favours etc. It may also be hard for people that are not part of their network to get access to the information, since men usually are resistant to share it with people who do not belong to the network. The interviewees base their reason-ing on the fact that men have a longer history of professional networking. Hence they would “know” how to utilise their networks more efficient than women. Susanne Jacobsson furthermore believes that women choose to network less. She claims that it is an active choice for how to allocate spare time, women more commonly prefer to spend their spare time with their family.

To conclude, the interviewees all agreed that women probably will continue to network dif-ferently compared with men. However, this should not be considered negative since it is simply just the fact that women socialise in a different way. The main distinction between how women and men network is that men more often do it purely with some result oriented intention behind it. They network for a reason e.g. with the intention or objective to increase the sales or to establish new business contacts, not said that women never do that. However, the way women network is argued to lead to the same results. But to en-hance and to reach the most efficient way of utilising one’s network there is a need for mixed networking; a network structure where one can share experiences, knowledge and expand current relationships.


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5 End Remarks

The study has now proceeded into its last chapter and here the main conclusions of the study are presented as well as a thoroughly discussion regarding trustworthiness and implications for further studies.

5.1 Conclusion

Female career development has proved to be an interesting research topic and has pro-vided the researchers with many important facts for future career planning. The two identi-fied research questions are answered below:

Which network structure appear to be most influential for female career advancement?

Based on the interviewee’s experiences formal networks are assumed to be less beneficial in order to advance professionally, and informal professional networks are instead assumed to be of vital importance in order to overcome career obstacles. Networks are in general said to be valuable when developed naturally; from a need and without expectations. Moreover, in order for a network to be valuable, the relationship has to be reciprocal; and as the find-ings of this study show the interviewees assume that informal networks provide more reci-procal relationships than formal. Also, pure female networks are not considered as attrac-tive as mixed networks. The interviewees agreed upon that men possess more power than women in general, and networking with both men and women was in many instances con-sidered more influential than networking with women only.

What additional key success factors are connected with female career development?

Firstly, an additional key success factor for women is to mix a transformational leadership style with some transactional characteristics. As leaders today adapt a modern style of lea-dership, the transformational characteristics are becoming more and more attractive. How-ever as one approaches the top of the career ladder, transactional characteristics such as courage, goal orientation and straight forwardness are needed. Possessing the right personal trait as a top manager was considered highly important; and women were argued to have to adapt to the male model in order to reach the top of the career ladder. Secondly, shared family responsibilities and a linear career path were supplementary critical aspects which were mentioned.

The purpose of this study is to analyse if networking can influence women’s career development.

The answers and results of the interviews have led the researchers to conclude that net-working does affect women’s career development. However as the results show, network-ing in isolation cannot be concluded as a key success factor. Additional factors which are mentioned in the second research question are needed in order for females to reach the top of the career ladder.

The interviewed women all highlight factors such as having help from higher management and mentoring as critical aspects for hindering career obstacles. Informal networks and mentors are assumed to be more important at top positions, since one requires support and information from people with similar life situations at that level. It is furthermore assumed that in order to use networks to advance professionally it is preferable with weak ties among the networkers rather than strong; this since strong ties such as having a close rela-tionship could create jealousy when career advancement opportunities appear.


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5.2 Discussion

This study has from conducting five semi-structured interviews reached previously stated conclusion. The qualitative approach was chosen since the researchers wished to study possible key success factors for female career advancement and in specific reveal whether or not networking can influence female career development. Focus has partly been to ex-amine the various network structures that exist; to observe the interviewees opinions about the emergence of formal female networks.

The interviewed women were identified from the researcher’s personal networks, and represented two different industries which both are highly male dominated. As stated in the method section, the initial plan was to have a larger sample size than five. However, the au-thors are satisfied with the results from the interviews since the five women were very knowledgeable and experienced.

There are however a couple of factors which decrease the trustworthiness of this study that have to be mentioned. Firstly, four out of five interviewees work within the same industry. This may create bias due to the fact that the interviewees become too homogeneous. How-ever, the interviewees have very different backgrounds and most of them have business ex-periences from several other sectors. A fifth interviewee, Susanne Jacobsson, was identified in order to decrease possible bias. Nevertheless, as a final remark, no patterns were found from the interviews indicating that a certain industry influences a woman’s perception of career development; all women perceived reality more or less the same. Another possible bias is the fact that four out of five interviewees are in the same age group. This is assumedsince past generations have not experienced the same representation of women in businesslife.

It may be assumed that as more women reach top positions, old traditions will be eliminat-ed and the gender distribution on top management levels will become more equal. The coming generations will probably not consider female top managers as rare; and will more naturally enagage in mixed networking.

5.3 Recommendation for further studies

For future studies it is recommended to go more in depth into networking in particular, and analyse the art behind networking in isolation. It has been assumed that women prefer networks that consist of both men and women and therefore the first recommendation for further studies will be to examine how men and women network individually and to dis-cern the differences between their utilisation of networks more thoroughly. This could be carried out by undertaking a comparison between a female network and a male network re-spectively.

Also, another issue which has been touched upon as a result from the interviews is the im-portance of mentoring. Having a mentor is assumed to be a key success factor for career development, and analysing mentor relationships could be interesting in order to demon-strate which possible benefits that may be created for both the mentor and novice.


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Appendices

Appendix 1 - IntervjumallArbetsrelaterade frågor:

1. Hur fick du din nuvarande position?2. Hur många anställda har ditt företag?3. Hur många är du direkt chef över?4. Är fördelningen av kvinnor respektive män på chefspositioner lika?

a. Varför tror du situationen ser ut som den gör?Fritid:

1. Hur ser din typiska arbetsdag ut?2. Anser du att du spenderar tillräckligt med tid med din familj/vänner?

Frågor angående kvinnor i karriären:1. Vilka positiva bemötanden har du fått gällande dina karriärsval?

a. Från vem har dessa bemötanden kommit?2. Vilka motgångar/fördomar har du stött på under din karriär?

a. Från vem har dessa fördomar kommit?3. Har du stött på det så kallade glastaket?

a. Hur påtagligt var det under din karriärsklättring?b. Hur påverkade det dig mentalt?c. Hur tog du dig förbi det?

Frågor angående ledarskap:

1. Vilka är dina tre starkaste egenskaper som ledare?2. Anser du att det finns skillnader mellan män och kvinnors ledarskap?

Frågor angående nätverkande:

1. Hur länge har du varit medlem i ett professionellt nätverk?2. Vilken struktur har nätverket?

a. Bara kvinnor eller en blandning?b. Formella/informella?c. Hur många medlemmar har nätverket?d. Hur ofta träffas ni? e. Hur mycket tid åsidosätter du till nätverkande under en månad?

3. I vilket ändamål använder du dig av ditt nätverk? 4. Anser du att du idag utnyttjar ditt nätverk till fullo?5. Hur viktigt anser du att det är att vara en bra och framgångsrik nätverkare för att

avancera karriärsmässigt?6. Tror du män och kvinnor nätverkar annorlunda?7. Vilka tre personer anser du vara dina viktigaste nätverkskontakter?

a. Motivera.


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Appendix 2 - Interview template (english version)Work related questions:

1. How did you get your current position?2. How many employees does your company have?3. How many are you directly manager for?4. Is the distribution of men and women on managerial positions equal?

a. Why do you think the situation is like this?Spare time:

1. How is your normal working day structured?2. Would you say that you spend enough time with your family and friends?

Women in business:1. What positive attitudes have you met regarding your career choices?

a. From whom have you received these?2. What obstacles/negative attitudes have you met during your career?

a. From whom have you received these, in what way?3. Have you ever faced the glass ceiling?

a. How obvious was it during your career?b. Did it affect you psychologically?c. How did you manage to overcome the obstacles?

Leadership:

1. What are your three strongest traits as a leader?2. Would you say that there are differences between men and women as leaders?

Networking:

1. For how long have you been a member of a professional network?2. What structure does the network have?

a. Women only or mixed?b. Formal/Informal?c. Number of members? d. How often do you meet? e. How much time do you spend on networking each month?

3. For what reasons do you use your networks? 4. Would you say that you utilise your network to the fullest today?5. How important do you think it is to be a successful networker in order to advance

professionally?6. Do you think men and women network differently?7. Who are your three most important network contacts?

a. Motivate.


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Appendix 3 - Summary of interview with Lena AplerLena Apler is the founder and CEO of Collector AB, an investment and finance company with 110 employees. 60 percent of their employees are women and the managerial body, consists of four men and two women, including Lena Apler. The company is operatingwithin Scandinavia and Germany and their head office is in Gothenburg, Sweden. Lena Apler began her career at SEB bank as a trainee. She advanced relatively fast and became a bank director within a couple of years. After 12 years at SEB, she was appointed by the Norske Bank and later also by the French bank, Société Générale. Around 1992 she was appointed by Nordbanken Intensive Care, later called Securum. Their task was to take care of all the hazardous loan facilities that Nordbanken created and it was a project established by the Swedish government.

Lena Apler states that she has been very positively received during her career development. In SEB bank she felt that it often was an advantage to be a woman since she was employed in a time when the management team was eager to accentuate women. She also felt that due to the lack of women that were willing to put a lot of time and effort on their career development, at that time, she got a lot of support and attention. She also highlights the fact that many women disappear from the labour market a couple of years to have children and it can sometimes be hard for them to catch up career wise again after that period. Women in general also have the tendency to take more responsibility for the home and family life which makes them unable to work as much as men do. This had been especially noticeable in Lena Apler’s career; she stresses the fact that after a certain level in the organ-isational hierarchy, women had a tendency to disappear, and she was more often left alone within an environment filled with male subordinates. She believes that the decrease of fe-males climbing the corporate ladder was a direct effect of what usually is known as the ca-reer trap for many females; having too much responsibility for one’s home and family.

Lena Apler really emphasises the fact that it is of importance to attract attention on the la-bour market. Managers will not observe someone that only sits at one’s desk and work really hard. She thinks that some women are too craven, one have to challenge one self and apply for jobs even though one is not completely sure he or she will get it. Men are much better at that she says; they can undertake things even if they are only 70 percentsure, while women have to be 110 percent sure before they execute. The negative aspects with being a woman in the business world can be, according to Lena Apler, that sometimes at meeting and such; it can be hard to be taken seriously, especially if one is young as well. She noticed a tendency to be neglected, comments she made was not noticed. However, she decided to change her behaviour, she raised her voiced, gained better confidence etc, and she learned that small changes as such could actually make a difference. She has never experienced that a man was appointed to a position which she believed herself to be more suitable for. However, with colleagues she could sometimes feel that they did not encour-age her as much as her superiors did, since there is always a bit of grudging between col-leagues at the same level.

To continue the discussion, Lena Apler declares she is familiar with the expression theglass ceiling, however, she does not associate it with her own career development. As a tough and sharp business woman, Lena Apler says that the glass ceiling is only visible for those women who expect its existence. It is visible for those who, on one hand, work hard and have complex tasks, but on the other hand, allow for bad exposure from the surround-ing environment. She encourages more women to challenge themselves and allow them to make mistakes; she makes inquiries about more bravery among women. Men are usually less afraid of making mistakes and express themselves differently compared to women.


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Lena Apler believes that she has developed her management style and that she nowadays is more straightforward in her language. It is helpful to speak louder and with more confi-dence in order to get more authority. She does not think that differences between men and women’s leaderships skills exist, instead she thinks it depends more on the individual’s per-sonality. She believes that her most important leadership skills are that she is goal oriented, brave and clear.

Lena Apler is a member of two female networks, one informal and one formal. The one that contributes most, both to her professional and social life, is her informal network. It consists of eight women that meet every third month and has developed from a need. Her informal network is really important to her and she really prioritises to come to all their gatherings. They discuss both professional and personal matters and that enables her to gain information and updates about the business environment. They are all allowed to bring a person every time they meet. Due to that, not only relations between the eightwomen involved in the networks are established, but also connections to people outside the network as well. The members have in general similar positions as Lena Apler.

The formal network was something that she felt she could not reject when she got the of-fer to become a member. She thinks it is hard to find time for it and she does not partici-pate in all their meetings. Her formal networks are pure female; however, she thinks that the other members differ from her in terms of career. The purpose is to act as business an-gels and to support new entrepreneurs. She is a bit sceptic to pure female networks since the mentality can be too much of a feministic approach. Instead she believes that a mixture may be the best solution, both in networks and at the working place.

Lena Apler has reassessed the importance of networks and admits that it is vital to create relations with people in order to advance professionally. Connecting and building solid re-lationships with companies, customers, new recruits etc are significant due to the fact that one then has a reference. A simple reference can, in the business world, be seen as a key to locked doors and gain information not accessible otherwise. She also believes that the im-portance of networks has increased over the years since the present communication meth-ods are more mobile and much quicker than when she started her career. She does not think that women are more afraid than men to take advantage of their networks but she thinks they network differently. Men establish relationships usually through activities like sports; they go to hockey games and soccer games or they play golf together. She further has a theory that men are more willing to take advantage of their networks than women, they are not afraid to ask for favours etc. It may also be hard for people that are not in-volved in their network to get access the same information, since men usually are more re-sistant to share it with people who do not belong to the network. Lena Apler bases her rea-soning on the fact that men have a longer history of professional networking. Hence they would “know” how to utilize their networks more efficient than women.

When asked about her career path and to what extent networking has played a positive roleaccording to her, she realises that she has been active in informal networks without being aware of it. Networks at SEB has helped her being noticed and enhanced her possibilities for advancements within the organisation. She was often suggested and encouraged, by people in her personal network, to apply for higher positions within the organisation but also for jobs outside the SEB organisation. When asked to mention three important net-working contacts Lena Apler mentions Mr V, the owner of YY since he operates mostly in Stockholm and can provide important information that would not otherwise be attainable for her. She also mentions Mrs G that operates in Gothenburg, a board member of Collec-tor and also one of the eight women in her informal network. The third person she men-


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tions as a valuable contact, without preferences, is Eva Halvarsson since she has important connections with the government as well as the business life.

Appendix 4 - Summary of interview with Charlotta OomCharlotta Oom is currently Market Manager at Collector and started her career at Tv4, sell-ing commercial time-slots. During her time at university she realised that finance and fig-ures was not really her cup of tea, but she loved marketing and sales. After graduating with a master in marketing she started at Tv4 and faced an extremely tough school but one that gave her great experience, since she was the only one in the team who had studied at the university and also the only woman. After her time at Tv4 she started working with trade fairs and other projects as such, at a company called Exponova.

This job, according to Charlotta Oom, was very interesting since she got the opportunity towork with so many different companies and people. She started at Exponova right before the IT-boom, when times were amasing and companies had billions to spend and every-body at the IT companies were young and happy. The fact that she had the opportunity to face both an IT-boom and an IT-crash gave her distance to how volatile the business world can be. The first thing that companies cut down during a recession is attending fairs since it takes a lot of resources like money, time and staff. Natural consequences to this were that Exponova was facing some really tough times. After being on maternity leave for the second time, whilst many her colleagues had to leave the company since Exponova went bankrupt she decided that she wanted to do something else.

Charlotta Oom did not have a clear idea of what, but she knew that she wanted to work somewhere where she liked the colleagues and her manager; this was of utterly importance. Her sister in law was a neighbour to Charlotta Oom’s current manager, Lena Apler, and she had told the sister in law that her company was in need of a Market Manager at the Go-thenburg office. Charlotta Oom is today working at Collector, her third year now, and still extremely happy with the job. Her position has always been Market Manager and she is di-rectly the manager for one person; the market coordinator. Since Charlotta Oom often is involved in many different projects the whole time, her role as a Market Manager gives her diverse responsibilities depending on current project.

As a mother of two boys and married to a husband that works 100 percent, there is a lot of puzzling to do to make everything work. Her husband is responsible for the children in the morning. Charlotta Oom will therefore be at the office at about eight o’ clock in the morn-ing and her day finishes at three pm. There might be two or three days a week when her husband will have to pick up the children from school. Charlotta Oom and her husband share the responsibilities at home, maybe not 50/50 but they try. The reason for this is thather husband, works 100 percent and Charlotta Oom does not. This is something they have agreed on since her husband so badly want to work that much, and has nothing to do with the fact that her husband earns more money than her, according to Charlotta Oom. It is ra-ther the fact that she would never want her children to stay at the daycare center until six o’ clock pm, whilst her husband easily could have them there from early morning to late even-ing. Charlotta Oom currently works part time (75 – 80 percent) leaving her enough spare time to spend with family and friends. She makes sure, that if she spends more time at work or gets heavier work load, that she get paid for every hour extra spent at the office.

Charlotta Oom has not really met any resistance or negative attitudes for being a woman in her position during her career. The only situation she can think of is if men have personal


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problems working leading to having problems with women in general. She says that the companies where she has been working have had really good policies etc regarding the pos-sibility to work part time: “It has been okay as long as I have done my job they do not carehow much time I spend per week”. Charlotta Oom says that her family has played an im-portant role throughout her career and life. Her parents have always pushed her in the right direction and supported her and her career decisions. They have shaped her to become a girl that does not take no for an answer, and one that knows that she has the possibility to do whatever she wants to do. She says that she is a person that sees possibilities instead of problems. Charlotta Oom would also say that her husband plays an important role in this. Communication is important, and Charlotta Oom and her husband always agree on how to share the responsibilities at home in order to balance everyday life. If Charlotta Oom had no choice but to work more, her husband would have to be the one spending more time at home with the children, something that he most definitely would do, according to Charlot-ta Oom.

We asked her about the glass ceiling, but she said that it was not something she had faced in her career. Rather that she ones felt that she was picked out to be a board member be-cause of quotation. This is not the fact at Collector where she also is a member of the board, Lena Apler (CEO at Collector) recruits on competence and competence only, when the issue is brought up during the interview.

When Charlotta Oom describes herself as a leader she uses the words; dedicated, curious and perceptive. She also claims that there are great differences between male and female leadership. She says that women care a lot more and value soft values rather than results and figures. Men are more focused on results and not how to reach them in the most effi-cient way. Women are better at putting these two together and make them work; soft- and hard ware.

As a member of two professional networks, MIG and Next and Now, Charlotta Oomspends quite some time networking on a professional level. Both these networks are mixed, (e.g. male and female members). We focused on MIG, where Charlotta Oom is a member of the board. MIG has 1,300 members and has meetings at least once a week; CharlottaOom attends twice a month. MIG arrange seminars and lunch meetings which are very in-teresting and developing both professional and personal. The reason to why Charlotta Oom became a member of the board was through recommendations from current mem-bers of the board.

Charlotta Oom gave some examples on how she uses her network. She has for example promoted successful business women to the business magazine ‘Passion for Business’ as potential material for articles. And when she does this she makes sure that the ones she promotes become aware of what she has done for them so that when Charlotta Oom needs a favour she can ask for it without any hustle. Otherwise Charlotta Oom thinks that women or people in general, are pretty bad at promoting each other, being egoistic is much more common. She thinks women should become louder and more aggressive in promot-ing themselves.

Being a good networker is vital for one’s career, she has been a member of several net-works the whole time, since high school until today. She thinks that there is a great differ-ence in how men and women network. Women do it more because it is fun and a nice and social activity while men are more focused on the real intentions for networking. They want to see results and they network for a reason e.g. with the intention or goal to increase the sales or to make sure you get someone’s number etc.


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When asked about her key networking contacts Charlotta Oom mentioned Lena Apler, her manager. The reason for this was that Lena Apler herself had such a great network both professionally and personally leaving Charlotta Oom with a huge network to contact. The board members at Collector are for example a great forum to network since the members have very diverse backgrounds and experiences. Also mentioned is Ms L, Manager at M. The motivation for this choice was also due to the fact that Ms L has a huge network.

Appendix 5 - Summary of interview with Eva HalvarssonEva Halvarsson is the CEO of Andra AP-fonden, which is a Gothenburg based asset man-ager, with main task to secure tomorrow’s pensions. Headhunted as such, with the position she has today, she leads a firm within the private sector, which mission is given by the Government; a very complex situation which necessitates more thought-through reflec-tions.

It has been three years since she started to work for Andra AP-fonden and her manage-ment team consist of six persons excluding her; two women and four men. In total there are 54 employees working at Andra AP-fonden, and Eva Halvarsson believes that the dis-tribution of women and men is reflected in her management group, 1/3 women and 2/3 men. In general the finance industry is very male dominated she further stresses, and more women are desired.

Eva Halvarsson has previously been working for the Swedish government in various posi-tions. She started her career at Skatteförvaltningen (the Swedish Tax Council) where she stayed for approximately 10 years before she progressed to one of the Government Offices of Sweden, The Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications. During her career at the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications she served as manager for the state owned companies, which involved management of enterprises wholly or partly owned by the state. When she reflects over her professional career with regards to her present po-sition, she stresses the fact that her background is unique compared to corresponding CEO’s in other finance organisations. Eva Halvarsson has a theory that she was not as-signed as CEO for Andra AP-fonden due to her special competences, rather since the per-sons recruiting her were looking for a strong leader and also a leader who would under-stand the fundamentals behind the organisation’s mission.

As mentioned above, the finance industry is highly male dominated and more women are desired to enter. Theories and myths regarding why there are so few women within this in-dustry are hard to weigh against each other and Eva Halvarsson does not want to make any statements regarding the issue. However, she stresses the fact that in general it is very con-venient to walk the same walk as previous alike, and therefore both men and women con-tribute to the prevalence of over representation of men within this industry. However, re-garding the myth that women are more risk averse than men, she claims that this saying might be more comfortable to agree with rather than to question.

As a CEO Eva Halvarsson reveals that she, personally, has a need to be close to her em-ployees. Especially after Lehman Brothers bankruptcy she stresses the need of being inte-grated with the employees and furthermore emphasises the need to physically be at the of-fice. All in all, as a CEO there are still much time put for operational duties, and not as much for long term strategic planning, which is something she asks for. She moreover asksfor more time to travel, as the situation is today, especially with the financial crises in mind, there is no time to be away from office. However, as she points out, appointing more time


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for travelling would be beneficial for her organisation as a whole. Regarding the question if she believes that she devotes too much time at work, she argues that she is good at finding a balance. She emphasises quality work rather than quantity work and think it is wrong that people many times are gauged and rewarded on how much time they devote for work rather than what they actually achieve. Eva Halvarsson has a husband that also works full time but no children.

Eva Halvarsson thinks she has been received with kindness by her surrounding environ-ment, and the fact that she actually is a woman has strengthened her position and attention by others. In her early career she was often acknowledged as the youngest, and that to-gether with being a women has for her only been positive. However, a crucial key successfactor that she stresses is having the correct attitude for people within your business envi-ronment. In her previous organisations, especially when she served for the Ministry of En-terprise, Energy and Communications, Eva Halvarsson admits that she met a lot of high positioned and authoritative persons, and it was important for her to not get too impressed by their titles, instead rather focus on what people actually accomplished. This attitude to others she says has been very important for her development, and here she notices a great difference between the private and public sector. Within the private sector one is judged depending on salary, while in the public sector there are other incentives. After working in the public sector, letting salary reflect capability becomes extremely irrelevant she says.

To continue the discussion regarding above issue, Eva Halvarsson shed further light for women struggling today, this since the under representation of women has come to be a highly discussed topic in today’s media. However, there are a couple of situations where she has felt overlooked and disregarded, this especially in her work within various Board of Directors. Even though she dislikes generalising, Committees have proved to be clusters where men still have trouble cooperating with females. Even though discriminating words not have been spoken out loud, small subtle things have contributed to this feeling of ex-clusion. Details such that no one refers to your statements, or praises you for your thoughts, both belong to the dictatorial language men often practice within Committees. Eva Halvarsson mentions that she within such settings, experienced situations in which she felt that men was patronising her. One explicit example is when people at first sight pre-sume that someone else than her is the CEO. Again, they never said it out loud she says, it is the intonation and body language that talk. However, as she states, success is when you can cope with such situations and it has always helped her to know that in the end of the day she will still be as powerful as yesterday.

When the glass ceiling is brought up, Eva Halvarsson begins to strongly claim that she has not been confronted by it. Her career has been straight forward, but at the same time un-planned. When reflecting over her professional career she does not feel that she has been restrained at any time, instead as she sees it, she stood out from the crowd due to the fact that she actually was a hard working woman. However, after deeper reflection, she actually adds that there are situations within which the glass ceiling has been extraordinary visible. And once again, Committees are brought to discussion. Eva Halvarsson has been included in Governmental Committees which have been in charge of recruiting people for Board of Directors of listed firms; and within such processes she can clearly point out indications of the glass ceiling. There are well developed templates regarding which persons that belong to the category of suited board members she says. Key success criteria in such surround-ings she mention are; CEO for a listed company, male, and above 60 years old. These competencies are preferred, however as she stresses diversity is a key success factor, and in


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the future a mix of backgrounds and experiences are needed to gain an elastic and forefront discussion.

To sum up, Eva Halvarsson has not personally faced the glass ceiling; instead she stresses the feeling of being patronised in various business settings. It is her strong personality and self confidence that have helped her to manage through her career and oversee such resis-tance. Regarding self confidence, in general, she believes that men have better than women. Also in order for a woman to raise her voice during a business conference, much more courage is needed. Women always believe that their arguments need to be 100 percent true in order for them to open their mouth; however sometimes it is just as important to be heard, she adds. It is more often personal pressures that form such barriers, and in the long run she stresses the fact to just overcome your fear and start to perform.

As a leader Eva Halvarsson underlines three characteristics which she believes are her main strengths; dedication, having fun at work, and being goal oriented. Regarding if she believes there are differences between how men and women act as leaders, she emphasises that she has a belief that female leaders are treated different than male leaders. As an explicit exam-ple, she says that as a woman you are often perceived as a mother. People expect you to do things which they would never expect from a man. For example she says, that even though you have a secretary, your consciousness do not let you delegate too much work, and ask for minor things such as coffee, paper copies, etc. Furthermore, Eva Halvarsson says that she has been especially characterised by her first management position in which she be-came manager over her previous colleagues. In that situation, her male colleagues were theeasiest to cope with, and they were also the first to accept her new position. The women on the other hand, tried to test her capabilities and decisive power in her new leading position. This she thinks, even though it is a highly personal characteristic, has reflected her position as leader throughout her career. At times when she has to confront women, she thinks that she in many instances over exaggerate and put too much emphasis how things will be per-ceived instead of the real issue at hand.

We proceed with discussing networking and the importance of being a good networker and very early Eva Halvarsson declares that she is not a member of any formal network. How-ever, she wants to acknowledge that she has not been strategic in her career planning, and instead focused on relationship building with people which she find interesting. Yet, she continues, in order to be tactic, networking has proved to be beneficial for others. It has though been an active choice from her side, to choose not to integrate too much in various networks. Her position has given her access to networks which she of course argues that she has been involved in.

Eva Halvarsson’s lack of network involvement is a direct effect from lack of time, since networking is very time consuming. Also, she thinks it is more useful to meet people dur-ing unstructured occasions, such as dinner parties or lunch settings. Nonetheless, she thinks networking is very important and believes that her career would be different if she had been more engaged to such settings. During her career she has received many propos-als to be part of up coming networks, but many times she has refused engagement due to the fact that she in many instances felt that it was more her name the founders were look-ing for, and not her competencies. However, her amasing network of business people have helped and supported her throughout her career. Eva Halvarsson also stresses the benefits of having a mentor, a personal coach. During her career she has had a number of coaches and this she argues has been a decisive key success factor. As she distinguishes, it is impor-tant to have someone outside your organisation to have deeper discussions with; someone who can stay objective and share his or her personal knowledge.


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Appendix 6 - Summary of interview with Anne A RosengrenAnne A Rosengren is today CEO at Catella Corporate Finance and is very happy with her position at a smaller consulting firm rather than being the CEO for a team of 40 – 45 people as previous at SBC (Svenska BostadsrättsCentrum AB). Having a smaller number of employees gives her the chance and possibility to work more integrated in the firm and be part of the working process rather than spending time on administrative tasks. Her own perception of herself is that she is not really a Human Resource person, she loves business and that is where she wants to spend her time and energy. Having too many employees to ‘control’ creates a distance between oneself and the actual core business; everyday processes at the organisation. That is what Anne A Rosengren loves, so decreasing number of employees to manage when starting at Catella was really interesting and uplifting for her.Anne A Rosengren got the job as CEO at Catella through contacts, she got the job offered directly from Catella, but she is not sure exactly who recommended her. Catella is part of a large Finance Group operating in 10 different countries. There are about 350 people em-ployed in the whole group and 45 people in Catella Corporate Finance.

When asked about the distribution of managerial positions between men and women with-in the company, Anne A Rosengren explained that she was the only woman at top position. There was one other woman working with HR, who started about three months ago. The reason for this is pretty natural since there are not a lot of women active in the finance world, especially not in her age and not working in the private sector. Women in such set-tings are though increasing she adds and one can see that there is a steady increase of fe-males within the age group 25-30 years in the industry.

A normal day for Anne A Rosengren is to be at the office around 8 am and then leaving at around 6.30 pm. She spends at least one day per week in Stockholm and then one day out of office somewhere else, but three days in the office in Gothenburg. A quick calculation leads her to the result that she works around 50 hrs per week. She recognises that she has enough spare time for herself, family and friends. And she loves her job so does not com-plain over too much work load etc.

When talking about what different attitudes that her surroundings have had during her ca-reer she mentions more positive than negative attitudes. Female hard working colleagues give you a lot of positive feedback and encouragement. It is rather the women that do not work that give you negative credentials. They are very keen on telling you what a bad mother you are and how you are mistreating your family, marriage and friends. Men in gen-eral never show any negative attitudes. Older men can at times be very surprised of the re-sults a young woman can perform, but never in a negative way. If there are negative atti-tudes from people in the business world it comes from the women in your own age, same gender and age. There is jealousy of course, but today’s life is not easy and it gets worse just as it gets better. Anne A Rosengren takes the pressure that comes from society about al-ways being perfect today as an example; women should look like Barbie dolls, and then be manipulative and sexy at the same time as women have to be as good, if not better, and smarter than their male colleagues.

The toughest or most difficult time during Anne A Rosengren’s career was when she got her children. She was on maternity leave with the first child and spent a lot of time at home in Gothenburg taking care of the baby herself since her husband worked in Stockholm at that time. So a second child was not something natural, there was some persuasion for her husband to do. Anne A Rosengren was home for the first four months and then her and her husband worked every other day until she was finished breast feeding her second


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daughter. After that they both started working 80 percent, then 90 percent and finally 100 percent. A lot of Anne A Rosengren’s friends gave her a guilty conscience and told her she was a bad mother to leave her child like she did. The fact that her daughter actually spent time with her father did not seem to matter. Her husband was instead told “what a good father he was or that I was too dominant and hard on him”, she adds.

Anne A Rosengren chose to change friends and ignore the negative attitudes that she faced, it was the only choice for her not to feel too much guilt. She was determined to make it work; to have a family and career. One thing that her parents told her and that she later told her daughters was: “You can meet whoever you want to; the only requirement is for you to like and love him, because you are the one to support yourself that is not some-thing he should do!” She also points out that the only big conflict for women in their ca-reer development is the family-and-children phase in life. This is where it is so important to have supporting family, parents, in-laws and friends to make it work. It is impossible both psychologically and practical to manage everything yourself.

When bringing up the glass ceiling phenomena Anne A Rosengren says that she has never faced it. “If you do not see the glass ceiling it will not exist”. She would rather say that be-ing a woman has been something positive since she has been a different and new element in the finance world throughout her career. A lonely bird that lives by her own rules and creates limits for what to do, someone that stands out from the crowd but in a good way. “A lot of people know and recognise me, and I have a hard time to just reminisce the face”. Since it is about 90 percent men in the finance world, it is easy and of great impor-tance to make a statement and show the men your competence and willingness to success.

Anne A Rosengren describes herself as inspiring, not judging and positive. The big differ-ence between men and women as leaders, according to Anne A Rosengren, is that women more naturally mix private and business. This will lead to a more relaxed working environ-ment and a positive atmosphere within the organisation. Women also have more patience than men in general. She also thinks that women are clearer and more aggressive when it comes to decision making. They tend to make sure that decisions made are 110 percent thought-through.

As for today Anne A Rosengren is not a member of a professional network. She has been a member of several earlier; Rotary, Handelskammaren and Close. But since they gave her lit-tle in return in terms of both professional and personal development, she stopped attend-ing meetings. She felt as a passive member, a school class that was told when to meet and what to say and how to act. Membership is often expensive so she felt that it was just a waste of time for her. Anne A Rosengren has instead created her own network; that grew out of own initiatives. They will be 10 women that meet on a regular basis about five to six times a year. It is women from different segments of the business world that together will create a much diversified unit where important topics can be discussed and both personal and professional issues will be covered in order for everyone to develop and exchange ex-periences in order to support each other. The meetings will not at all be formal, this is just for fun. It is kind of a closed group in order to make everyone feel comfortable in bringing up private topics as well.

Anne A Rosengren says that her private network changes with the different phases in life. The reason behind this is the fact that people might be in the same phase when they meet, but then they might exit/enter another phase at different times, thus new network contacts is found. One’s network is of great importance; Anne A Rosengren claims that at least 50 percent of her results are depending on her network contacts. When she worked for Catella


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group in Stockholm she realised how big and well established her network was in Gothen-burg in comparison. There is no need for her to even explain who she is when she makes for example a phone call to one of the banks in Gothenburg. Anne A Rosengren explains that this is of great advantage when making business and that is something that starts early in one’s career, when one starts university.

Regarding the question about female and male networking Anne A Rosengren sees great differences. Men do an activity when they network. Women sit and chat, or simply call it networking. She does not think that male or female network can be compared though. They exist for different reasons according to Anne A Rosengren. Some problems can sur-face when she is the only woman invited to networking events where the majority is men, such a “sauna networking”. Her male colleagues do not really realise that until she men-tions it. And when she suggests meeting over a glass of wine there is some resistance to it since that is no real “activity” to “hide” the networking behind. Anne A Rosengren though thinks that we should rather see the possibilities instead of the barriers that come with the fact that women and men are different.

Some important persons throughout her career have been two male colleagues that she worked together with early in her career. They were rather acting like mentors than net-work contacts and gave her confidence, great experience and a feeling that “nothing is im-possible” for her to implement when faced with obstacles or problems.

As a conclusion and wrap up Anne A Rosengren says that it is the rough times early in her life and career that got her to the current position. She made the right choices when she faced cross-roads in life, and even if times were tough she does not regret a single choice made. She has always been very dedicated to her work and a different choice like for exam-ple working part time would not have been right for her. She had a nanny and a maid, sold the car and bought a bike to make things work financially for some years. The effort paid off some years later in multiple ways, and her family today has great contact. Anne Al-mlund Rosengren proofs that a woman can have both a successful career and family.

Appendix 7 - Summary of interview with Susanne JacobssonSusanne Jacobsson is until the end of January 2009, the Vice President of HR and Com-munications at Perstorp AB. The Perstorp Group is world leader in several sectors of the specialty chemicals market and have more than 3,000 employees worldwide. Susanne Ja-cobsson is directly manager over 18 people; she was headhunted for her position and is to-day the only woman on a managerial level within Perstorp. Previous employers are among many, Telia; a position she also got through contacts and informal networking. Susanne Ja-cobsson is married and has two adult sons.

The distribution between men and women are much more equal on the lower levels within Perstorp, close to 50/50. Susanne Jacobsson has no fair explanation for why there is low representation of women at managerial positions; in fact the gender distribution was close to equal during her years at Chalmers University. Today’s current situation is probably due to traditions, she says; this industry is dominated by men creating a male environment which is extremely conservative.

Susanne Jacobsson spends two to three days a week in Perstorp which is situated in the northern part of Skåne. The initial plan was for her to work two days in Stenungsund where Perstorp has a production plant, since this is much closer to where she lives. How-ever, the situation today leaves her spending not more than one day a month in Stenung-


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sund. When asked if there is enough time left to spend with family and friends she hesi-tates; yes she says at first, since taking this job was my own choice, but then again no, since this is one of the reasons for why I am leaving my position at Perstorp in January. Com-muting to Skåne and frequent travelling to Europe is not possible in the long run,she adds. Susanne Jacobsson continues with saying that if one would ask her sons, they would most certainly claim that their mother has been away too much from time to time.

Susanne Jacobson prefers not to speak about her professional life with her friends. The majority of her friends do not really understand her choice to work as much as she does and negative attitudes can at times appear. Her family and close friends have always been supportive and proud of her career choices, and the negative attitudes are rather her feeling of being alien compared with everyone else. The situation was different at Chalmers where the majority of friends were men; eight out of a group of 10. The feeling of being an “out-sider” surfaced when she spent time with her friends outside Chalmers. They did not really understand her education and her male friends could not really accept that she studied more advanced subjects and aimed for a higher salary when graduated. This is probably still the reason to why she chooses not to speak about her job and career with friends, and pre-ferably spend time with friends that are in the same situation as her; her sister and her old friend Ms C from her time at Chalmers.

The worst attitudes faced came from her male colleagues when she was working as a con-sultant. This was when returning from a short maternity leave from after having her second son. Her colleagues were in the same situation; same age and parents to toddlers, only dif-ference that their wives were home with the children. Her colleagues could not understand her when she said that she rather wanted to work in Gothenburg than far off in Asia. They confronted her with arguments such as one could not combine career and family life, and that normal women wanted to be at home with their babies, hence Susanne Jacobsson was not normal in their eyes. Susanne Jacobsson had no sympathy for their attitudes and de-cided to leave her position. She then started to work at Telia where she was highly appre-ciated and encouraged.

Balancing both family and career demands a lot of puzzling, but her answer to how to manage this is to marry the right man. Susanne Jacobsson’s husband has been very suppor-tive and positive to sharing responsibilities. Other reasons for making everyday life func-tion is to have a nanny and a maid. They have had a nanny who still is seen as her sons’ older sister. She does not understand the women that choose to work part time and spend their spare time cleaning, instead of buying these services. When Susanne Jacobsson’s hus-band was offered a job in the States in the beginning of the 90’s, Susanne Jacobsson de-cided to take leave of absence for two years. She first expected it to be really difficult to do a comeback after such a long time off, but it only took her a month to feel comfortable in her old position. There were not many women at managerial level, an advantage since it was easy to be noticed. She came back after the recession and many of her colleagues were tired and lacking energy and the atmosphere was somewhat depressed. Susanne Jacobsson says that she could not have picked a better time for coming back; full of energy, happy and enthusiastic; her career spun off like never before. Everybody wanted her to join their department or project.

When asked about the glass ceiling she confirms that it has been very obvious throughout her entire career. Even if Telia was very encouraging with a dominant woman as CEO the glass ceiling was and still is unavoidable. This becomes extremely obvious with men that have private problematic relationships to women or especially with their mothers. They just cannot have a professional relation to a woman, which makes communication difficult and


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the glass ceiling appears. She also admits that she once became a victim to the glass ceiling phenomenon, but as being the one applying it. She was together with her male colleagues requested to pick a consultant to work with. A couple of consultants were standing in front of them, only two being female, and she at once chose one of the women. She realised what she had done straight away. She selected the woman since it was someone she could identify herself with, someone that mirrored herself a couple of years ago. Her theory is that this is what men and women do and that they do it without further consideration. They feel a certain connection, a security with someone that reminds them of when they were young. Susanne Jacobsson moreover says that her opinion is that the best male man-agers are the ones with adult daughters. They can mirror themselves in women through their daughters and know that women are equally good as men.

The glass ceiling has made Susanne Jacobsson disappointed many times, and she under-stands that a lot of women give up the fight to reach the top. The worst critique is the one from your family and friends when they accuse you for being someone that neglects your children. Susanne Jacobsson managed this critique thanks to her supportive husband who always has been there for her, telling her to ignore unfair critique. Susanne Jacobsson could be seen as a fighter that prefers to prove people wrong rather than let them win the fight. She also adds that it is important to never become bitter; women that face the glass ceiling should rather try to understand and handle the situation right. Susanne Jacobsson cites one of her old managers: “When we have as many stupid women at the top as we have men to-day, we have reached equality”. Susanne Jacobsson gives this as an example that women need to prove so much more than their male colleagues.

When describing herself as a leader Susanne Jacobsson underlines traits as; quick analysis leading to quick decision making, respect and empathy i.e. she values a close relationship with her employees. And last but not least her personality; being positive and energetic creates a positive environment at work. The differences between male and female leader-ship is something she rather connects with personalities. She argues that one develops cer-tain traits depending on experiences from previous authoritarian role models. One trait that she regards as very feminine though is that women more often see the whole picture and men are more focused on results.

Susanne Jacobsson is a member of the formal network Ruter Dam since 1998. She attends maybe once a year since she does not really find the time for the formal active networking, and does not prioritise it since she does not regard it as beneficial for her career develop-ment. Susanne Jacobsson prefers mixed networks, where both men and women are wel-come and can exchange experiences. She also finds informal networking very important and developing; where socialising is less forced and comes more naturally. People tend to understand each other better and an effortless support is achieved. There is a natural flow of both professional and social exchange when networking is not forced.

However Susanne Jacobsson admits that she wishes she would have been better at net-working. One of her theories to why women are less efficient at networking professionally is that the spare time outside the office is allocated to family life. The difference between men and women’s networking was noticed already at university. The boy’s were members in CS; a network for the male students at Chalmers and women were only welcome as an invited date. The members from that time still keep in contact through different groups. Men bond in a different way and their networks, such as the “old boy’s networks”, are much stronger than their female equivalence. On the other hand she actually thanks the fact that she is a woman since this has made her stand out from the crowd throughout her entire career.

female career development - diva portalhj.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:158016/fulltext01.pdf ·...

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