Explaining Women's Careers at a Dutch university: Model building as a method for knowledge elicitation in gender analysis

摘要

This paper presents model building as a means to study factors explaining the delay in Women's Careers at a Dutch university. The causal model is based on analysis of 43 interviews, ten focus groups and policy documents collected at the five faculties of a Dutch university. The five researchers involved in this analysis used model building to integrate their knowledge of the research material and reach a shared definition of relevant variables. Model building proves to support the qualitative analysis of gender processes by supporting the identification of main processes and showing the feedback processes at work. The model shows that Women's careers are stimulated by the presence of female academics at higher positions, while masculine norms and the lack of visibility of female academics slow down women's careers. By focusing on the role of image shaping about women's ambitions and performance, it fills in theoretical gaps identified in earlier research about gender processes in organizations.