Making the Move or Keeping the Connection?Engineering Women as Managers

- An Australian Study

Melissa Marinelli15th International Conference for Women Engineers

and ScientistsAdelaide, July 2011

• Project Background • Research Question and Approach• Three Initial Themes• Conclusions and Next Steps

Overview

Women in Engineering are a persistent minority• Low rate of entry and poor retention• Contribute to lack of women in senior roles

Advancement to senior levels is labyrinthine (Eagly & Carli 2007)

• Women in Engineering do make it to senior positions

• Challenging, convoluted but achievable

Project Background

Title of Role “X” ManagerLead EngineerExecutive

Age 30 to early 50sYears of Managerial Experience

1 to 15 years

Industry Oil & Gas / Mining (5)Infrastructure (2)Utilities (1)

Family Status Married (7)Children (4)Children <5 years (3)

Initial Sample

5 minute version of life story

Current role

First manager / leader role

Gender and career

About your role

Getting there –

how and why?

What has

helped? What

hasn’t?

When?

What did it feel like?

What changed

?

In-depth Interviews

“Me as Manager”

Retaining a

Technical Link

Preliminary Analysis – Emerging Themes

• Essential background

“You have to understand what it is that you are managing if you want to be a manager, so you need a good technical grounding and a breadth of experience in the field I think” (P3)

Technical Competence

• “Street- Cred” I think that you need to have been able to have some experience to give you…in some area on the ground… to give you a bit of street-cred when you are talking to the people who you are looking after. (M2)

Technical Competence

• Safety Net– “The challenge for me has actually been on the

[Project Name] where I was out of core discipline and I didn’t have my technical skills to really fall back on and in terms of gaining credibility”. (M5)

“And I think that’s really important because they can be tough on you otherwise”. (M2)

Technical Competence

High Achiev

erPositioning for move to manager

Establish

Street Cred

Builld a Repputation

(Evetts 1998)Gain support of

followers

Safety Net

Security while settling into / acting out role of manager

Technical Competence

• I Do Technical Work Too

– “I do have some technical roles as well - I have to run projects, interface with clients, set other peoples tasks, review and check the work”. (P1)

Retaining the Technical Link

• I enjoy it!– “I do actually enjoy some of the technical

stuff and I do like having a bit of balance between the two roles”

But

– “Some of it’s my fault, in not being able to really let go of some of the technical stuff. Possibly I hold onto it a little bit too much” (P1)

Retaining the Technical Link

• A Necessary Career Strategy

– “After that I had a child… and took a year’s maternity leave, came back part-time and I guess [Company Name] have been pretty clear that they will not offer a management role on under four days a week. I only wanted to work three days a week so at that point I went back into a technical role” (M5)

Retaining the Technical Link

I do technical work

too!

Doing and Managing

I enjoy it!

Badawy (1982) “Professional

Loyal Technologist”

Necessary

Career Strateg

y

Oscillating between technical and managerial roles

Retaining the Technical Link

• Gradual mind shift

– “There is a mind shift and an experience shift that you need to undertake when you get into a management role” (P3)

– “Not by appointment. That sounds weird doesn’t it” (M4)

“Me as Manager”

• Engineer Identity

– I’d reached the top. I didn’t want to move into more of the business side. I’m still an engineer. I still do technical work even through I manage people (M1).

“Me as Manager”

•  Degrees of Adoption– “I always knew that I wasn’t going to

be a design engineer or anything like that” (P2)

 – “I always thought that my skills were

broader and I could bring more to the profession than just the technical skill” (M4)

“Me as Manager”

“I still try to not think of myself as a manager” (M1)

- Manager with 15 years of management experience

“Me as Manager”

Mind Shift,

Experience Shift

Engineering

IdentityStrong, of great

value

Adopting a New

Identity

Strongly influenced by the importance of technical expertise

“Me as Manager”

HIGHLIGHTS Significance of technical expertise

Ongoing connection with technical aspectsStrength of Engineer Identity

IMPLICATIONS Flexible job design – combining Tech + M/L

Part-time Management RolesMake Senior Technical Roles as important

NEXT STEPS Build on early analysis

Develop essence of the experienceImplications for policy and practice

Conclusion and Next Steps

Thank you

Extra

“How do women engineers transition into managers and leaders in technical

organisations?”• Understand the experience of transition to

manager and leader for women engineers.• Understand how management and leadership in

technical organisations is conceptualised.• Uncover factors that affect the transition to

manager and leader for women engineers.• Identify implications for policy and practice to

advance women in engineering.

Research Questions and Objectives

Manager and leader• An engineer in an organisational role extending beyond a

technical role.• Organisational role includes one or more of the leadership,

management and business responsibilities detailed in Engineers Australia EngExec competencies (EA 2006).

Transition to manager and leader• The process of moving from worker to manager and leader.• Encompasses a change in organisational role and evolution of

professional identity (Walsh & Gordon 2008).

Technical organisation• An organisation that employs engineers and operates within the

Australian and New Zealand Standard industry Classification (ANZSIC) industries listed in The Engineering Profession 2008 Statistical Overview (EA 2008).

Definition of Terms

• Women degree qualified engineers• Managers and leaders in technical

organisations in Australia• Minimum 12 months in role• Invitation via Engineers Australia

network• Criterion and snowball sampling

(Creswell 2007), progressive to saturation

Sample and

Recruitment

• Interviews - face to face in-depth semi structured

• Interview time / location to suit participants

• Based on phenomenological method (Moustakas 1994)

Data Collectio

n and Analysis

Research Approach

23 in-depth semi structured interviews, face to face

Perth, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, SydneyEach interview ~1 hour in length

Range of industries: resources, infrastructure / transport, defence

Variety of management and leadership rolesNew managers to senior executives

Project Status

Literature Review

Women and Work

Women and Non-traditional

Work

Women in Management and

Leadership

Transition to

Management and

Leadership

Management and

Leadership in

Engineering

Literature ReviewWomen and

Work•Career paths and models•Cabrera 2007•Hewlett & Luce 2008•Maniero & Sullivan 2008•Mavin 2001

•Retention and advancement

•Agars 2004•Burke & Vinnicome 2005•Kottke & Agars 2005

•Gender segregation•Cohen et al 1998•Preston & Whitehouse 2004

Women in Non-traditional Work• Attraction and retention• Bagilhole

2002• Bennet et al

1999• Blickenstaff

2005• Greed 2000• Hewlett et al

2008• Menches &

Abraham 2007

• Attraction & retention in engineering• CREW reports

– Mills et al 2008, Roberts & Ayre 2002

• Engineering culture Bastalich et al 2007, Gill et al 2005, 2008

• McIlwee & Robinson 1992

Women in M& L

• Predictive factors / managerial advancement• Marongiu &

Ekehammer 1999, 2000

• Tharenou 1994, 2001

• Blum 1994• Cohen et al

1998

• Leadership• Eagly & Carli

2007• Eagly &

Johannsen-Schmidt 2001

• Fletcher 2001• Rhode &

Kellerman 2007

Transition to M & L

• Predictive factors• Cohen et al

1998• Goodman et

al 2003• Nesbitt &

Seeger 2007

• Individual experience of transition• Lord 2007

M & L in Engineering

• Badaway 1992• Roberts &

Biddle 1994• Wearne 2004

Women in engineering

–

advancement

management & leadership

The experience

of becoming a manager and leader

Enquiry Framework

Methodology – Qualitative

Ontology - Constructivist

Epistemology - Interpretive

Theoretical Perspective -

Phenomenology

Theoretical Perspective –

Feminism

Ethical Process• Informing participants• Written consent prior to interviews• Provide copy of transcript to participants for review

Identified Issue - Participant Confidentiality• Exploring of experience may reveal sensitive

information• Researcher associated with local engineering

profession• Ensure participants cannot be identified post

interview

Ethics

Research Approach• In-depth semi structured interviews• Face to face• Interview time and location to suit

participants

Data Collection

• Based on phenomenological method (Moustakas 1994)

• Transcription

Data analysis

• Technical Grounding, Not Specific Tasks

“You have to understand what it is that you are managing if you want to be a manager, so you need good technical grounding and a breadth of experience in the field I think” (P3)

“The most important thing if you are managing something is to have some experience. But I don’t believe that you can only manage if you have done the task before”. (M2)

Technical Grounding

•  Feelings– “Obviously when you first start doing

it and every decision you make is like “oh my god am I doing the right thing” / Half the time I feel like I’m pulling stuff out of… you know…” (P1)

 – “I was thrilled. You felt good about

yourself. I certainly became more interested in work” (M2)

“Me as Manager”

“One of my favourite conundrums is how do you stay connected when the very fact of being a manager disconnects you from what you are managing? In other words, yesterday you were an engineer, today you are managing engineers, so you are no longer doing engineering, so how do you face that?”

– Henry Mintzberg, 2010

Facing the Disconnect

• How do they face it?① Still doing engineering② Think of themselves as engineers

first, and managers and leaders second.

“It’s a school of thought, rather than just a job title” (M4)

“Me as Manager”