Women’s Careers at the Start of the 21st Century: Patterns and Paradoxes

In this article we assess the extant literature on women’s careers appearing in selected career, management and psychology journals from 1990 to the present to determine what is currently known about the state of women’s careers at the dawn of the 21st century. Based on this review, we identify four patterns that cumulatively contribute to the current state of the literature on women’s careers: women’s careers are embedded in women’s larger-life contexts, families and careers are central to women’s lives, women’s career paths reflect a wide range and variety of patterns, and human and social capital are critical factors for women’s careers. We also identify paradoxes that highlight the disconnection between organizational practice and scholarly research associated with each of the identified patterns. Our overall conclusion is that male-defined constructions of work and career success continue to dominate organizational research and practice. We provide direction for a research agenda on women’s careers that addresses the development of integrative career theories relevant for women’s contemporary lives in hopes of providing fresh avenues for conceptualizing career success for women. Propositions are identified for more strongly connecting career scholarship to organizational practice in support of women’s continued career advancement.     

Portfolio Choice in the Presence of Background Risk

In this paper, we focus on how the presence of background risks – from sources such as labour and entrepreneurial income – influences portfolio allocations. This interaction is explored in a theoretical model that is calibrated using cross-sectional data from a variety of sources. The model is shown to be consistent with some but not all aspects of cross-sectional observations of portfolio holdings. The paper also provides a survey of the extensive theoretical and empirical literature on portfolio choice.     

New development: COVID-19 as an accelerator of digital transformation in public service delivery

ABSTRACT

In an unexpected circumstance, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, public service delivery cannot be suspended, but must be delivered online, relying on the available digital technology. Social media, specifically, have been widely used to reach a broader portion of the population. This article discusses the digital acceleration that governments and organizations are now facing. The focus is on Italian state museums, which have been pushed for years to adopt digital tools to increase participation. This article highlights three main dilemmas in service delivery: user engagement; planning and control; and costs. The three dilemmas show the social and organizational challenges connected to digital transformation, underlining the issues that organizations will have to face in the future and not just in an emergency such as COVID-19.     

New development: The application of incomplete contract theory to documenting Social Impact Bonds

ABSTRACT

Nobel laureate Oliver Hart’s work in developing a theory of incomplete contracting is relevant to explaining the evolution of the pay for success contracts that undergird Social Impact Bonds (SIBs). By its very nature, a pay for success contract that supports a SIB is likely to be functionally incomplete in that it is unable to describe and differentiate in the initial contract all relevant future states of the world in which the contract is to operate. Navigating this incomplete world can be particularly challenging when it comes to government contracting for quality outcomes in social services. Accordingly, Hart’s incomplete contracting framework can help us to think more clearly about how to document a pay for success contract that best supports a SIB transaction.     

On the approximation of utility functions for faculty teaching assignments

A number of mathematical programming models have been proposed for generating faculty teaching assignments. Usually these models attempt to maximize the sum of the faculty members' utilities for the courses in the assignments. This paper demonstrates that the use of course utilities ignores important interaction effects in the determination of a faculty member's utility for a teaching schedule. As a result, solutions generated by the models can be far from optimal if the true objective of the scheduler is to maximize faculty utilities for their teaching schedules.     

Strategic human resource management and firm effectiveness in industries experiencing decline

Unstable economic conditions, in conjunction with other external and internal influences, have prompted attempts to understand the nature of organizational decline. While a number of issues have been carefully considered in recent theory and research, little effort has been made to consider the implications of human resource management practices for firms in declining industries. The present study examined human resource practices in three industries that experienced decline, and investigated the relationship of organizational performance with effective human resource management.     

A profile of recent doctoral graduates in accounting: Some guidance in what to expect

This article reports results of a survey of recent accounting doctoral graduates (1985 and 1986). The study profiles the graduates by summarizing their academic skills, background, and other personal information. It also summarizes the dollars and time successful graduates invested in earning doctoral degrees. Candidates, on average, completed all requirements within 5 years. Those candidates who spent the majority of their time at the institution where they studied were able to finish sooner. Candidates who chose to leave ABD took more time to finish their dissertations. Graduates of “higher-tier” schools were more likely to be employed by AACSB and doctoral-granting programs and to receive higher salaries.