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CDI
19,5
Structure, agency, and notions
of career success
A process-oriented, subjectively malleable
548 and localized approach
Received 15 January 2013 Fida Afiouni and Charlotte M. Karam
Revised 31 October 2013 Olayan School of Business, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
3 March 2014
12 April 2014
9 May 2014 Abstract
14 May 2014 Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore notions of career success from a process-oriented
Accepted 20 May 2014 perspective. The authors argue that success can be usefully conceptualized as a subjectively malleable
and localized construct that is continually (re)interpreted and (re)shaped through the interaction
between individual agency and macro-level structures.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs a qualitative methodology drawing on
32 in-depth semi-structured interviews with female academics from eight countries in the Arab Middle East.
Findings – Findings of this study provide an empirical validation of the suggested Career Success
Framework and moves toward an integrative model of objective and subjective career success criteria.
More specifically, the findings showed that women’s definitions of success are: first, localized in that
they capture considerations relating to predominant institutions in the region (i.e. family and gender
ideology); second, subjectively malleable in that they capture women’s agency embedded in specific
macro-level structures; and finally, process oriented in that they reflect a dynamic interaction between
the structure agency as well as the subsequent actions, strategies, and behaviors women adopt to
alleviate tension and reach their personal notions of career success.
Practical implications – The authors suggest that there may be value in customizing human resource
management policies in the region around the salience of family and community service. Moreover,
organizations can play a pivotal role in supporting women to work through the experienced tensions.
Examples of such support are mentoring programs, championing female role models, and designing
corporate social responsibility initiatives geared toward shifting mandated gender structures in the
region. Finally, the authors argue that organizations could benefit by supporting women’s atypical
patterns of career engagement to allow for interactions with wider circles of stakeholders such as the
community. This requires organizations to rethink their career success criteria to allow for the integration
of non-traditional elements of career.
Social implications – Adopting a more process-oriented view of career success avoids reification by
drawing attention to local macro-level structures as well as individual agency. It also suggests that
existing norms for how “success” is understood are only one element in a wider process of what it
means to be “successful”, thereby opening space for more diverse and localized conceptualizations.
Originality/value – This paper provides a more process-oriented consideration of career success,
highlighting the importance of understanding how perceived tensions shape an individual’s behaviors,
actions, and career strategies. The value of this contribution is that it allows us to better understand
the complex interaction of structure and agency in shaping an individual’s notions of career success.
Keywords Higher education, Gender, Qualitative research, Career success, Family,
Cross-cultural management, Structuration theory, Academic careers, Arab Middle East,
Career theory, Structure agency
Paper type Research paper

Career Development International

Vol. 19 No. 5, 2014 The authors would like to thank the University Research Board (DDF-118010-288805) at the
pp. 548-571 American University of Beirut for funding this research project. The authors would also like to
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1362-0436 thank the two anonymous reviewers and the Associate Editor Professor Julia Richardson for
DOI 10.1108/CDI-01-2013-0007 their constructive feedback and comments.
Introduction Structure,
Career success has been gaining attention in the career literature in recent years (Dries agency, and
et al., 2008; Dries, 2011; Heslin, 2005) with a notable interest in understanding gender
differences in how it is conceptualized (Dyke and Murphy, 2006; Kim, 2004; Lirio et al., notions of
2007; Mayrhofer et al., 2008; Valcour and Ladge, 2008). Career success has traditionally career success
been defined as “the experience of achieving goals that are personally meaningful
to the individual, rather than those set by parents, peers, an organization, or society” 549
(Mirvis and Hall, 1994, p. 366). More recent definitions describe career success
as “the accumulated positive work and psychological outcomes resulting from one’s
own experiences” (Seibert and Kraimer, 2001, p. 2). Since the special issue on
reconceptualizing career success (Gunz and Heslin, 2005) that called for more scholarly
attention to explore how it is understood as opposed to merely studying career success
antecedents, research on the topic has focussed on avoiding reification by paying
more attention to context (structure) and personal preferences (agency) (Dries,
2011; Ituma et al., 2011; Punnett et al., 2007). Moreover, much effort has been put
into operationalizing career success beyond the traditional objective/subjective
criteria such as self/other referent criteria (Heslin, 2003, 2005), personal/relational criteria
(Ituma et al., 2011), intrapersonal/interpersonal, and affect/achievement (Dries et al.,
2008). In sum, this recent shift in our conceptualization of career success reflects an
acknowledgement that it is better seen as a dynamic social construction than as an
objective reality (Dries et al., 2008) that is historically and culturally specific (Young
and Collin, 2004).
In the current paper, we embrace this trend and we propose that notions of career
success can be seen as localized, process-oriented, and subjectively malleable in that
they are constructed, (re)interpreted, and (re)shaped through the dynamic interaction of
an individual with the interface between possible structural misalignments. The
argument put forward in this paper builds on and expands Karam et al.’s (2013)
Parameter of Balance Framework and focusses on how individuals construct the
meaning of career success by focussing specifically on individual behaviors, actions,
and strategies at the interface of macro-level structural misalignments.
In the sections that follow we first begin with an overview of Karam et al.’s (2013)
framework and explicate our specific additions/adjustments. We then situate our
expanded framework within the broader literature on career success which, we argue,
enables a more process-oriented, localized, and subjectively malleable understanding of
career success. We then demonstrate the utility of our framework to empirically explore
notions of career success by drawing on a study of female academics in the Arab
Middle East. Finally, we reflect on the meaning of our results and discuss their
theoretical and practical implications.

Introducing Karam et al.’s (2013) theoretical framework

Karam et al.’s (2013) framework addresses the complexities of the multilevel and
dynamic nature of gender-related forces shaping women’s roles and responsibilities
and ultimately their respective behavioral patterns as working professionals. Although
a detailed explication of this theoretical framework is not our intent, it is important to
provide an overview of some of its key components in order to lay the groundwork for
our current work. Drawing from the work of Institutional and Structuration theorists
(e.g. Giddens, 1984; Scott, 2004), both the Parameter of Balance Framework (Karam
et al., 2013) and our current extension to a Career Success Framework allow for the
consideration of agency and structure within the lives of professional women, while
CDI simultaneously considering agency-structure interaction over time. Our Career Success
19,5 Framework, although building on Karam et al.’s (2013) model is distinct in three
different ways:
(1) the focal outcome of interest (i.e. balance vs success);
(2) the notion of misalignment (i.e. between mandated and modified structures vs
550 between variant mandated structures); and
(3) the conceptual refinement of the notion of agentic processes (i.e. efforts to
address a multitude of macro and idiosyncratic structures vs efforts to dissipate
a sense of tension due to misaligned macro-level structures).
Figure 1 is a pictorial depiction of our Career Success Framework. As can be noted,
there are three key grounding processes:
(1) the experience of tensions due to the misalignment of mandated structures
(i.e. localized realities);
(2) the emergence of agency and agentic processes to dissipate the experienced
tensions (i.e. subjective malleability); and
(3) the modification of structures through the emergence of idiosyncratic roles and
responsibilities (i.e. basis for the conceptualization of career success). We will
discuss each in turn.
Mandated structures, misalignment, and the experience of tensions
Macro-level mandated structures are external to the individual and associated with a
particular institution (see Scott, 2004). Karam et al. (2013) defined mandated structures
in terms of expected roles and responsibilities relating to social norms. For example,

Mandated Mandated
Structures: Structures:
Academic roles and Misalignment Gender-based roles
Part 1.
responsibilities and responsibilities
Localized
realities

Agency
With perceptions of
misaligment, an individual
engages in agentic process (i.e.
concerted actions, behaviors and
Process- Orientation

strategies) to dissipate the

Agentic Processes

experience of tension generated

by the misalignment.

Part 2.
Subjectively
malleable

Modified Structrues:

Part 3. Gender-based Academic

Figure 1.
Notions of career rolws and roles and
Career Success success responsibilities responsibilities
Framework
women are expected to constrain employment opportunities in favor of familial and Structure,
community obligations as a traditional gender role preference (Glass and Jacobs, 2005; agency, and
Read and Oslein, 2008). Deviation from these norms is often met with social sanctions.
For instance, employed women are characterized as deviant or bad mothers, because notions of
they defy the natural connection between motherhood and staying at home, while men career success
are sanctioned when they can no longer earn a family wage (Dillaway and Paré, 2008).
Another example can be seen in the work of Syed and Ali (2013) who suggest that in 551
the case of where a woman transgresses female Islamic modesty, she may experience
shame, fear, and guilt due to having violated the respective moral or cultural values.
Mandated structures are especially powerful because they can profoundly influence
one’s sense of self and of success. Reflecting on gender, for example, a girl learns in
childhood that the cultural prescription for femininity includes caregiving and
childrearing, these are then incorporated into her emerging and lasting schemas of
gender belief systems (Eagly and Koenig, 2006) and she might adjust her behaviors
and aspirations accordingly (Diekman and Eagly, 2000).
In our proposed Career Success Framework (see Figure 1), we suggest that each
woman is faced with the mandated structures of academia as well as the mandated
structures of gender ideology. Sometimes these multiple mandated structures are
congruent, and at other times they are misaligned (see Figure 1, part 1). When
misalignment between the variant mandated structures is experienced, a sense of
tension arises along with a desire and/or need to dissipate that tension. In effect, and as
will be discussed next, this desire/need is manifested in a sense of agency and the
resultant agentic processes.

Agency and the dissipation of tensions through agentic processes

Following the seminal work of early theorists such as Bourdieu (1990), Giddens (1968),
and Parsons (1937), we make a theoretical distinction between agency and agentic
process where, on the one hand, agency is used to refer to an individual’s capacity to
act and to make their own choices. Agentic processes, on the other hand, refer to an
individual’s capacity to act and to make their own choices within, or in interacting
with, the constraints of structure. Ultimately therefore by virtue of an individual’s
agency, and specifically through agentic processes, it is assumed that individuals have
the power/agency to shape and adjust their lived realities (Giddens, 1984).
Central to our Career Success Framework, therefore, is the idea that individuals
experience tensions due to misaligned mandated structures and that this prompts
individual agency, and in turn, the emergence of agentic processes. Through agentic
processes women can choose to engage in concerted actions, behaviors, and strategies
to address the misalignment and dissipate the experienced tensions (see Figure 1,
part 2). If women had no choice they would attempt to engage in the various aligned
or misaligned mandated roles and responsibilities consistently. However, due to their
having agency, women can choose to act in a manner that deviates from the mandated
roles and responsibilities. By enacting agency women may either first, conform to
mandated roles and responsibilities; second, shape, adjust, or reject mandated roles
and responsibilities; or finally, create alternate more idiosyncratically acceptable roles
and responsibilities. Therefore, as noted in Figure 1 (part 2), it is through agentic
processes that women shape, and are simultaneously shaped by, the interactions
between the misaligned contextual constraints and opportunities (e.g. mandated
structures derived from gender ideology and from academia as a profession) and their
own individual agency.
CDI Modified structures as idiosyncratic roles and responsibilities
19,5 ‘Modified structures’ are created by a person enacting his/her agentic processes in
order to dissipate the experienced tensions. We argue, based on our theoretical framing,
that it is these modified structures that are critically important to understanding the
complex, dynamic and localized nature of notions of career success. Therefore, as shown
in Figure 1, our framework suggests that an individual’s notions of career success are
552 inherently tied to the modified structures and essentially to the complex genesis of these
modifications.

Career success in the literature: evidence supporting a process-oriented,

subjectively malleable, and localized perspective
Definitions of career success have traditionally measured objective success criteria
such as organizational advancement, pay level, and job status (Hall and Chandler, 2005;
Heslin, 2005). These are defined as directly observable and measurable factors that
can be verifiable by an impartial third party (Hughes, 1951). Yet, there has also been
a growing recognition of the importance of “subjective” success criteria (Heslin, 2005)
that are experienced by an individual and defined by his/her reactions to his or her
unfolding career experiences (Hughes, 1951). Subjective career success depends
heavily on an individual’s (re)construction of career success according to subjective
and individualized patterns (Mayrhofer et al., 2008) and refers to career satisfaction
about all aspects of career relevant to a specific individual (Dries et al., 2008). For
example, individuals might conceptualize subjective success as achieving work-life
balance (Dyke and Murphy, 2006; Ituma et al., 2011; Kim, 2004), a sense of fulfillment
(Ituma et al., 2011), or learning, growing, and being challenged (Lee et al., 2006), among
other things.
Applying a gender lens here may serve to demonstrate how notions of career
success are likely to be more process oriented and subjectively malleable. When
comparing the customary mandated structures for men with those mandated
structures tied to traditional careers, the alignment is clear. That is, the mandated
structures dictating male roles and responsibilities (e.g. being a successful provider,
a strong head of the family) are aligned with the mandated structures for most careers.
It is no surprise therefore that for many men in many societies the criteria for success
are centered on objective outcomes (Eddleston et al., 2004; Schneidhofer et al., 2012;
Sturges, 1999).
For women in some countries, on the other hand, it is often the case that the
customary gender mandated structures are misaligned with the mandated structures
for careers. For example, Syed and Ali (2013) found that Muslim women in Pakistan
face tensions resulting from the duality of display requirements imposed on them by
their societal and organizational contexts. Their workplace demands them to display
a strong, self-assured, and even aggressive personality in their jobs. In contrast, their
societal context – including religion, culture, and family – demands that they remain
out-of-the-way and humble (Syed and Ali, 2013). Similarly, Kamenou and Fearfull
(2006) have argued that there are often different sets of expectations at work and home
for ethnic minority women. At work, they have to be assertive, condent, and wholly
committed to the organization, while at the same time, they need to fulll community,
religious, and childcare demands at home which leads to tensions. In sum, and
although gender roles are beginning to converge, women are still thought to assume
the majority of family responsibilities despite their increasing work domain roles
which leads to experienced tensions (Michel et al., 2011).
 In response to being caught in this misalignment, women are therefore primed Structure,
into shaping (i.e. through agentic processes) what constitutes a successful career for agency, and
themselves (i.e. creating modified structures). This may explain findings in the career
literature which suggest that women tend to define success differently than men, whereby notions of
women see success mostly in terms of subjective dimensions such as self-development, career success
experiencing a sense of balance, positive work relationships, and helping others (Dyke and
Murphy, 2006; Lirio et al., 2007). Empirical data has also demonstrated that women, unlike 553
men, tend to construct and shape their notions of career and career success according
to their specific life experiences and personal demands (Briscoe and Finkelstein, 2009;
Cabrera, 2007; Hall and Moss, 1998). For example, Lirio et al. (2007) suggest that women’s
conceptions of success extend beyond career achievements to a more comprehensive range
of achievements and experiences such as having a balance between work and family and
a happy, healthy family among other things.
From this perspective, it is understandable that researchers have found that
marriage, family, and the work-family interface figures prominently in women’s
subjective definitions of career success (Dolan et al., 2011; Ituma et al., 2011; Khapova
and Korotov, 2007; Kim, 2004; Zhang and Wang, 2010) and that working through the
conflicting demands of family with the demands of work in an attempt to strive for
balance is a recurring theme underlying women’s notions of success (Dyke and
Murphy, 2006; Ezzedeen and Ritchy, 2009; Tu et al., 2006; Valcour and Ladge, 2008).
In the sections that follow, we turn to the empirical study at the center of this paper
and begin with an overview of the specific macro-level mandated structures relevant to
our research sample; that is, female academics in the Arab Middle East.

The misalignment of macro-level mandated structures of academia and

gender in the Arab Middle East
Academia as a profession and its mandated structures
Numerous studies have concluded that academia is a highly demanding profession
(Byers and Crocker, 2012; Morley et al., 2006; Probert, 2005; Roos and Gatta, 2009)
where academics are required to fulfil the demands of three fairly rigid roles relating to
teaching, research, and service/administration (Bailyn, 2008). While some scholars
have argued that academic careers fall within the “new career model” category (Baruch
and Hall, 2004), there is ample evidence to suggest that academia still reflects some of
the “old” career characteristics such as a stable hierarchical structure and a reasonably
clear path of upward mobility (Richardson and Zikic, 2007). This upward path relies on
fulfilling the roles and responsibilities of a “good” academic requiring individuals to
immerse themselves in research, and fulfil their teaching and service responsibilities,
while keeping outside interests, obligations or distractions to a minimum (Benschop
and Brouns, 2003). Indeed, the mandated structures of academia dictate research as
a first priority, long hours of work as a norm, and any career interruptions as a major
barrier for achieving tenure or promotion (Benschop and Brouns, 2003; Schroen et al.,
2004; Wilson and Nutley, 2003).
In the Arab Middle East context more specifically, the few studies conducted on
women in academia (Afiouni, 2014; Al-Gazali, 2013; Bashshur, 2007; Karam and
Afiouni, 2014) reflect similar structures with a heavy workload and multiple demands
in regards to teaching, research, and service. Moreover, all these authors relate a
bottom heavy distribution of women in academia, showing that they are greatly
outnumbered by men in high-level positions. Although access to higher education
has significantly increased for women, the number of women employed
CDI in higher education remains low in the Arab region. To illustrate, according to the
19,5 International Labor Organization, just 1 percent of Saudi Arabia’s researchers were
women in 2011. This low number is particularly surprising given that 65 percent of
the nation’s bachelor’s science degrees go to women. Similar patterns are evident in the
rest of the Arab Middle East.

554 Gender as an ideology in the Middle East and its mandated structures
Although the specific manifestations of gender ideology across the Arab Middle East
is quite varied (Karam and Jamali, 2013), the region has repeatedly ranked among the
worst in the world in terms of gender rights and equality (Hausmann et al., 2011;
Metcalfe, 2007; Moghadam, 2004). Karam and Afiouni (2014) using a gender-based
lens to examine macro-level contextual structures across 13 countries in the region
found that the most salient of these structures include: first, socioeconomic factors;
second, demographic factors; third, family networks and interpersonal connections;
fourth, government, legal frameworks, and legislation; fifth, Islam; sixth, patriarchy;
and finally, Urf (i.e. a custom in establishing a framework of acceptable norms
of behavior for any specific Muslim community). While there have been some
changes in these structures in recent years they continue to dictate stringent social
norms favoring a more traditional division of labor responsibilities (i.e. with women
required to perform more domestic duties than men) and therefore tend to further
anchor career choices and patterns in a gender-congruent manner (Karam and
Jamali, 2013).
The impact of gender structures in the Middle East can be seen in the level of female
economic participation that is among the lowest in the world; in 2011, the participation
of women in the global economy was estimated at 51.3 percent, with corresponding
rates in East Asia and the Pacific at 65.2 percent, South Asia at 31.3 percent, and
Latin America and the Caribbean at 53.7 percent. By stark contrast, a very modest
22.8 percent of Arab women participated in the national economies of the Arab region
(United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 2013). As a result, professional
macro-level structures in the region are often strongly gendered with women choosing
to pursue employment in the health, education, and social care sectors (Hutchings et al.,
2012; Metcalfe, 2008) and predominant conservative religious beliefs in the region
restricting women’s access to leadership positions and politics (Kassem, 2012; Miles,
2002). The underlying gender ideology here is clearly one of difference, where it values
the differential roles and perceived abilities of men and women (Metcalfe, 2008) and
the Qur’an is explicit in identifying the different but complementary roles of men and
women: “and the male is not like the female (Surah, Family of Imran 3:36).” A recurring
theme within this view is the “equal but different” identities of men and women
(Metcalfe, 2008).

Misalignment between academic and gender structures

Given the discussion above, it is clear that the macro-level structures associated with
academic vis-à-vis gender structures in the Arab Middle East are characterized by
potentially powerful misalignments which could result in feelings of tensions among
female academics. According to our proposed framework this misalignment and the
experience of tension prompts a woman’s agency and, in turn, the emergence of agentic
processes whereby she chooses to engage in concerted actions, behaviors, and
strategies to address the misalignment specifically. The notion of misalignment and
the emerging agentic processes is a central tenet of our proposed Career Success
Framework and will be the focus of the remainder of this paper. To this end, we seek to Structure,
answer two specific research questions: agency, and
RQ1. How does an academic woman in the Arab Middle East experience “localized notions of
mandated structures” and how does this experience prompt her to engage in career success
agentic processes?
555
RQ2. How does an academic woman’s personal agency interact with localized
mandated structures and how does this interaction shape her conceptualization
of career success?

These two questions adopt a process-oriented perspective that encourages exploration

of both localized mandated structures and agentic processes.

Methodology
The sample
A list of 234 private and public research-oriented universities generated by Karam and
Afiouni (2014) was used as a basis to randomly select three research universities from
each of the 13 Arab Middle Eastern countries (Litrell and Bertsch, 2013): Bahrain,
Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab
Emirates (UAE), Palestinian Territories, and Yemen. We then randomly selected six
female faculty names from each university’s web site faculty lists. A personalized
recruitment e-mail was sent to each woman. In total, 234 women were contacted, of
which we received a response rate of 13.7 percent. Therefore, the final sample
comprised 32 female faculty members from eight different Arab Middle Eastern
counties: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, and Qatar.
Table I summarizes the sample characteristics.

Data collection
A qualitative research design (Patton, 2002; Strauss and Corbin, 1994) employing
a series of semi-structured, in-depth interviews was adopted for this study. Each
interview opened with a general question asking: “You are now a professor at
a University. Can you tell me your story?” This was followed by five specific interview
questions designed to explore conceptualizations of success:
(1) “Please describe what success is for you?”.
(2) “Can you tell me a story which illustrates one of the most challenging periods
in your academic career?”.
(3) “Can you tell me a story which illustrates one of the most rewarding periods in
your academic career?”.
(4) “Please describe how easy or difficult it is for you at your university to have
a successful career?”.
(5) “If you could give three important pieces of advice to a new female faculty
member, what would they be?”.
These questions are a sub-set from a larger interview protocol designed to examine
work-life balance issues in female academics in the region.
All interviews were conducted in either English or Arabic according to the language
preference of the interviewee, with many women switching between both languages
CDI Marital Country of No. of Career
19,5 status Pseudonym residence children stage Career stage at marriage

Married Thuraya Egypt 1 Late Before joining academia

Ghinwa Jordan 4 Early Before joining academia
Rouaa Kuwait 3 Early Before joining academia
556 Nadwa Lebanon 2 Early Before joining academia
Loulwa Lebanon 2 Late After joining academia
Nabila Lebanon 1 Middle Before joining academia
Wajiha Lebanon 2 Middle After joining academia
Fatima Lebanon 2 Early Before joining academia
Amira Oman 3 Early Before joining academia
Nada Palestine 4 Early Before joining academia
Nadine Palestine 3 Early Before joining academia
Lina Palestine 1 Early Before joining academia
Hanin Palestine 2 Early Before joining academia
Wassila Palestine 2 Early Before joining academia
Asma Palestine 1 Middle Before joining academia
Leen Qatar 2 Early Before joining academia
Lama Qatar 4 Middle Before joining academia
Mounia Qatar 2 Early Before joining academia
Yasma Qatar 2 Early Before joining academia
Layal Qatar 1 Early Before joining academia
Single Leila Lebanon None Early Not applicable
Manal Lebanon None Late Not applicable
Maya Lebanon None Early Not applicable
Reya Lebanon None Late Not applicable
Sima Lebanon None Early Not applicable
Carla Lebanon None Late Not applicable
Lena Palestine None Early Not applicable
Sarah Palestine None Early Not applicable
Divorced Sabine Lebanon 2 Late Before joining academia
Yara Palestine 5 Early Before joining academia
Table I. Alia Qatar 1 Early Before joining academia
Sample characteristics Khadija Saudi Arabia None Early Before joining academia

during the interview. The interview were conducted either face-to-face or over Skype
and were audio-recorded and then transcribed capturing the original language
preference and/or switching of language (i.e. the Full Verbatim Version). Each
transcript was then translated into English (i.e. the English Verbatim Version).

Data analysis
Two broad cycles of analysis were undertaken in this study. The first was exploratory
using the full verbatim version of the interview transcript and done by hand. This
analysis was conducted in the original language(s) used and was completed by
bilingual researchers. The second analysis was confirmatory, used the English
verbatim version, and computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software QSR
NVivo 10. Both cycles required an iterative process. Due to page limitation constraints,
we focus our description of the analysis and our presentation of the results mainly on
the second cycle of confirmatory analysis with only brief reference to the first.
Initially, we approached the data analysis in the spirit of exploration and therefore
without any a priori analytic categories. Data was analyzed independently by two
analyzers and an exploratory template was developed that captured the themes and Structure,
categories obtained. These were then used as a basis to create “nodes” within the QSR agency, and
NVivo 10 software. These nodes were then used as a basis for the second cycle of
analysis and a fresh re-analysis of the data were done across each of the interview notions of
questions following the various components of the theoretical framework explicated career success
earlier to inform the organization of the themes and categories identified in the first
cycle. This process allowed for an intimate understanding of the data and ensured 557
a final set of themes that was data-driven but also structured along the components
of the theoretical framework.

Results
For ease of interpretation, the results are organized according to the three parts of our
theoretical framework (see Figure 1). Table II summarizes these results.

Theme and categories Sourcesa Referencesb

Ia. Mandated structures in academia

1. Expectations to engage in multiple roles (teaching, research and service) 10 11
2. Expectations to meet research requirements 7 9
3. Expectations to focus on teaching primarily 3 4
Ib. Mandated structures of gender ideology
1. Expectations to act according to preexisting social stereotypes that women
are inferior to men 23 53
2. Expectations to fulfill the complementary role of women in relation to men
derived from Islamic teachings 12 21
3. Expectations to give priority to traditional gender responsibilities over
academic work 6 11
4. Expectations not to violate geographic mobility restrictions 8 8
5. Expectation to become educated 7 7
6. Expectations to marry in late adolescence – early adulthood 4 5
7. Expectations to engage in social obligations 3 4
8. Expectations not to socialize with men 2 2
II. Evidence of misalignment and the subjective experience of tension 24 59
III. Agentic process
1. Set a strategy, stay focused and work hard 17 23
2. Believe in yourself and do not give up 11 18
3. Be vocal and stand for your rights 10 15
4. Develop yourself professionally 11 14
5. Be politically savvy and build a professional network 10 14
6. Empower other women 7 14
7. Be ethical and maintain your integrity 3 4
IVa. Modified structures (women’s own notions of success in academia)
1. To achieve self-set goals 22 43
2. To have a positive impact 15 30
3. To be recognized and appreciated by others 15 21
IVb. Modified structures (women’s own notions of success in life)
1. To raise successful children 9 11
2. To balance in order to not let the family suffer 8 10
3. To have a happy family and home 8 9
Notes: aThe “sources” column reflects the number of respondents who mentioned a given category. Table II.
b
The “references” column reflects the number of instances a given category was mentioned, as one Confirmatory thematic
category could have been mentioned several times by one single respondent template
CDI Our results suggest that the major components of the theoretical framework were
19,5 confirmed through our analysis, with the exception of agency as an “independent”
construct. In reference to the latter, it was very challenging to identify statements of
agency without an intimate interconnection with a specific instance of agentic process
and therefore our results retain a focus on the latter construct. In Table II, we list the
categories under each theme for which clear statements were identified.
558
Part 1: female academics and their experience of localized realities in the
Arab Middle East
Theme I: Evidence of mandated structures
The results of our analysis provide evidence for both the mandated structures of
academia and gender ideology, as well as evidence of the misalignment between the
two. Theme Ia – mandated structures of academia – included three categories relating
to teaching, research, and service (see Table II). Taken together, these three categories
represent the multiple demands placed on academic women, as illustrated by the
following quotes:
I have to do a lot of things: teach, research, community services, committees and
organizational work. I prepare for lectures, do paperwork, and mentor students. (Mounia,
Qatari, married).

My university is not the easiest place to work. Expectations are high. The expectations keep
rising so you’re always trying to catch up, to keep up-to-date. (Maya, Lebanese, single).
The second theme (Theme Ib) – mandated structures of gender ideology – included
eight categories in total (see Table II). Indeed, the data clearly demonstrated the
salience of strong expectations concerning the fulfillment of specific gender-based roles
and responsibilities. Of the eight identified categories the first two were the most
salient; namely:
(1) expectations to act according to preexisting social stereotypes that women are
inferior to men; and
(2) expectations to fulfil the complementary role of women in relation to men
derived from Islamic teaching.
The following quotes illustrate this first category in that they suggest apprehension
within the university about having women in leadership positions:
Women never improve or get to higher positions. All the high positions are for men only. All
the Deans are men. We do have qualified women at our university and they can do a good job.
But it is like a veto against women here to get to higher positions [y] I think it is pure
discrimination [y] the way they look at women as inferior (Reya, Lebanese, single).

Here in the university no woman can be Dean. It always has to be a man. I may have all the
qualifications in the world but they don’t like to see a woman better than the men (Khadija,
Saudi, divorced).
The second category relating to women’s complementary role derived from Islamic
teachings is illustrated by the following quotes:
In our society we are not used to women engaging voluntarily in activities outside their
immediate families. You can “work” with your family or your husband as much as you
want -that’s fine. But doing something outside that circle is not familiar to our society
(Ghinwa, Jordanian, married).
 During my PhD work, I felt for some time that my marriage might be compromised. My Structure,
husband made it clear to me, giving me signals that: “you might finish your PhD but you
might not find me anymore (Nadine, Palestinian, married). agency, and
notions of
Theme II: evidence of misalignment and the subjective experience of tension career success
Our results show that the experience of tensions originated from the misalignment
of gender-related roles and responsibilities with the mandated academic roles. Below 559
we provide examples of: first, the difficulty of meeting academic expectations due to
mandated gender roles; and second, the difficulty of meeting gender expectation due
to mandated academic roles.
Difficulty of meeting academic expectations due to mandated gender roles. There
were a number of statements in which women appeared to place the gender-related
structures as central to their description of misalignment and therefore suggested that
these roles and responsibilities were the point of origin for their subjective experience
of the tension. For example, in the following quote, Leila describes how the general
expectation of women to act according to preexisting social stereotypes that women
are inferior to men (Theme Ib, Category 1) creates a misalignment with the
expectations to engage in service (Theme Ia, Category 1):
The big challenge is that I’m leading a new program so you have to let people around you
whether students, colleagues, staff, accept it, the idea of a woman in a leadership role (Leila,
Lebanese, single).
The following example suggests that the complementary role of women in relation to
men (Theme Ib, Category 2) creates a misalignment with the expectations to meet
research requirements (Theme Ia, Category 2):
The most difficult was to do research, to publish, and the maternity issue. I still find it
difficult to go to the field. I don’t do it as often as when I was single. I have to think of the girls,
I cannot go and leave them, like with my mother. Still the challenge now is to be organized
(Loulwa, Lebanese, married).
Difficulty of meeting gender expectations due to mandated academic roles. We identified
several statements in which the women appeared to place the academic roles and
responsibilities as the point of origin for their subjective experience of the tensions.
For example, in the following quote, Rouaa describes how professional expectations to
fulfil the multiple roles of academia (Theme Ia, Category 1) creates a misalignment
with the general expectation of women to give priority to traditional gender
responsibilities over academic work (Theme Ib, Category 3):
In building my academic career, it was like don’t forget your friends, you have to perform
all your social duties, don’t fall short of these with people. Also, I have these three children,
I don’t want them to be abandoned, I want to give them their time too. And I have to do the
research, so it is a lot of stress (Rouaa, Kuwaiti, married).
Furthermore, the following example suggests misalignment between the professional
expectation to meet research requirements such as conference travel (Theme Ia,
Category 2) and the gender-based expectation not to violate geographic mobility
restrictions (Theme Ib, Category 4):
There is always a conflict, for example there is always a problem with my husband when
I have to travel. My husband makes me feel guilty all the time that I abandon him (Nadine,
Palestinian, married).
CDI Part 2: agentic processes and subjective malleability through the interaction
19,5 between the agency of female academics and their localized realities
Our analysis of women’s interactions with mandated structures allowed us to identify
two relevant components: agentic process and modified structures. Each will be
discussed in turn.

560 Theme III: agentic process

Our results suggest a number of instances where a woman’s agency interacts with
gender-related and academic structures thereby shaping what career success means to
her. Seven categories were identified under this theme (see Table II). As suggested in our
theoretical framework, statements capturing agentic processes reflect a women’s will
to act (her agency) in response to misaligned mandated structures. In the following
quote for example, Wajiha describes her efforts to stay focussed and work hard
(Theme III, Category 1) despite the tension she experienced between the expectations to
fulfil localized gender-based roles and responsibilities (Theme II) and the expectations
to engage productively in the multiple academic roles (Theme Ia, Category 1):
The teaching load is huge, the administrative load is huge, and I had two children in the
process. So it’s not exactly easy. But I was very strategic in doing research, so I started by
turning my dissertation into papers rather than start a new project (Wajiha, Lebanese,
married).
The second form of agentic process identified involved believing in themselves and not
giving up. This form of agentic process was triggered by the tension caused by gender
discrimination (Theme Ib, Category 1) and the expectations to engage productively in
academia (Theme Ia, Category 1) as illustrated by the following quotes:
When a woman is in a masculine society, you need to prove yourself and show them that you
are not inferior, and that I am also an able academic (Yara, Palestinian, divorced).

A woman should be self-confident, not arrogant but self-confident. She should know that
what she has achieved is not something easy, especially in the Arab World (Alia, Qatari,
divorced).
The third type of agentic process involved the women taking a stand in favor of their
rights and being vocal about it. In the following quote for example, Sima describes her
personal resolve and efforts to raise her voice (Theme III, Category 3) despite the
tension she experienced concerning the expectations to behave in an inferior or in a
complementary manner (Theme Ib, Categories, 1 and 2):
As a woman, it wasn’t easy to give my opinion. I didn’t let that affect me. I was very shy at
first so they took advantage. So I changed. Now I don’t allow them to take advantage. Males
here don’t even consider your opinions and thoughts despite your level of expertise (Sima,
Lebanese, single).
The fourth type of agentic process involved developing themselves professionally.
Examples of this category often described behaviors to overcome the tensions caused
by expectations to give priority to gender responsibilities (Theme Ib, Category 3) and
the expectations to meet rigorous research requirements (Theme Ia, Category 2).
For example, Hanin describes the challenge she faced in taking her research leave and
meeting her childrearing responsibilities:
I always try to seize the opportunity to learn something new or have a new research project.
Even when my children were young I went to Europe in the summer of 1993 to do research.
 I also took a sabbatical which was successful for me. I went to the States. In 2003, I took my Structure,
children to the US and worked on research in there. It was a good experience, despite what
society thinks (Hanin, Palestinian, married). agency, and
notions of
The final three types of agentic processes identified include specific actions that
women engaged in to dissipate more generalized tensions that they experienced in career success
their day-to-day encounters including efforts to be politically savvy and build a
professional network (Theme III, Category 5); to empower other women (Theme III, 561
Category 6); and to always act ethical and maintain integrity (Theme III, Category 7).
It is interesting to note that the behaviors falling within these categories were noted by
women when they were asked to provide advice to junior female academics, as
exemplified in the following quotes:
[Be Politically Savvy and Build a Professional Network]
It’s very important to be a part of the network because this is how she will get support from
females or males even in the university (Lina, Palestinian, married).

[Empower Other Women]

I have interactions with female faculty not just inside my discipline but across disciplines as
well. I talk a lot with different female faculty to encourage them and give them all the support
at hand (Ghinwa, Jordanian, married).

[Be Ethical and Maintain your Integrity]

Because eyes are on us, we cannot afford to mess up. You have to be ethical all the way.
You have to do it right, work very hard, above normal (Rouaa, Kuwaiti, married).

Theme IV: modified structures reflecting women’s notions of success

Based on our model, modified structures are the by-product of structure-agency
interactions. We were careful to maintain a process-oriented perspective when
searching for, and ultimately labeling the relevant categories constituting this fifth
theme. Our analysis identified two sets of modified structures. The first set represents
women’s own notions of success in academia while the second set represents women’s
own notions of success in life (see Table II).
Modified structures pertaining to the notions of success in academia. In total, 22 of
the women conveyed stories of success that revolved around pursuing and reaching
their personal goals as exemplified by the quote below:
My goal was to be a professor, I wanted to teach in a university, that’s basically what I want.
I want to do research that I like, I want to see my students actually apply what I have taught
them when they go out and work, so to me success is what you want your goals to be
(Thuraya, Egyptian, married).

With regards to the second category, having a positive impact, many of the descriptions
of success referred to the positive (both direct and indirect) impact of their actions on
students, colleagues, community members, as the following two quotes demonstrate:
Every time I make a difference in a student’s life or a patient’s life, that’s success to me. I came
to University in 1977 during the most difficult times of war which probably nurtured that
sense of responsibility in me (Fatima, Lebanese, married).

Success is when a person looks around and sees that their work has been fruitful, and it had
a positive impact on the people around them. It’s not only my success; it’s the success of the
people I deal with (Yara, Palestinian, divorced).
CDI An additional category of modified roles and responsibilities within the notions of
19,5 success in academia had to do with being recognized and appreciated by others, as
captured in the following quotes:
Success is to be recognized in your field, when you make a contribution for society and the
academic field (Nadine, Palestinian, married).

562 Turning our attention to the second set of modified structures, namely women’s own
notions of success in life, we note that women consider themselves successful when
they have raised successful children, have a happy family and home, and experience
a sense of balance and fulfillment from not letting the family suffer while pursuing
career success as illustrated by the quotes below:
[Balancing in order to Not Let the Family Suffer]
I think success is balance between priorities in life. I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of
glass and rubber balls. In your life you juggle these balls, and you don’t let fall the glass balls and
you let fall the rubber balls. So the glass balls for me are family, work, and human relationships
in my life. And the rubber balls I can let fall and catch again (Nadwa, Lebanese, married).

[Having a Happy Family and Home]

Success I think it’s just to have a good family life [y] If some people are successful in their
work but not at home, this is not success at all. They’re never there for the family and the
house becomes run by maids and so on (Leen, Qatari, married).

[Raising successful children]

Success for me is that I actually have three children. And just to be there for them and never
abandon them, I never left them. I was always there (Rouaa, Kuwaiti, married).

Discussion
Taken together, our results and the extension of Karam et al.’s (2013) theoretical
framework put forth in this paper, suggest a particular conceptualization of career success
based on a process-oriented, subjectively malleable, and localized perspective. We argue
that adopting this perspective allows us to develop an interconnected and more complex
understanding of how notions of career success are constructed through the interaction of
an individuals’ agency with his/her context. In what follows, we reflect on the implications
of our findings on several fronts: first, staying close to our results, we consider what
we have learned concerning the notions of career success specific to our sample and
how these findings can add value to the career success literature more generally. We then
conclude with practical implications and some reflections on how the proposed framework
can be useful to better understand career phenomena in cross-cultural setting.

Career success as a localized and subjectively malleable process accounting for both
structure and agency
Our research with this specific population of women in the Arab Middle East helps to
demonstrate the complexity of career success as a localized and subjectively malleable
process that accounts for structure and agency, as well as the interaction between
the two. In terms of localization, we found that notions of career success are tied to
sociocultural patterns. For example, the presence of family within notions of career
success for women in our sample mirrors the current mandated structures in
which they are embedded, reflecting the findings of previous research highlighting
the importance of family as a predominant institution in the region (Afiouni, 2014;
Karam and Afiouni, 2014; Moghadam, 2004). Interpreted in this light, the salience of Structure,
the family and/or the ingroup in the region, helps understand the prevalence of roles agency, and
and responsibilities tied to the specific subthemes (i.e. “helping or caring for others,”
“having positive impact,” “raising successful children,” “balancing in order to not let notions of
the family suffer” and “to have a happy family and home”) found in our analysis of career success
women’s conceptualizations of career success.
Furthermore, what adds to the complexity of career success is the dynamic and 563
evolving nature of such conceptualizations (i.e. process-orientation). This is the how of
the process – how specific notions of success emerge and how they change. Taken
holistically, our results suggest that if the data from each woman is mapped along the
components of the framework, then the shaping of this woman’s idiosyncratic
conceptualization of success can be better understood as a process. To this end, Figures 2
and 3 map the success process for two women randomly drawn from our sample.
Figure 2 maps the process for a Lebanese Associate Professor who is married with two
children. Figure 3 maps the process for a Qatari Associate Professor who is married with
four children.
The process maps presented above show that in the Middle East women’s journeys
to success are rich and varied despite similarities in mandated structures. Reflecting on
these variations, the notion of subjective malleability becomes particularly important
to consider and reinforces the need to study both structure and agency and the
interaction between the two, as opposed to structure or agency.

Career success as an integrated model

Career success has traditionally been operationalized along the objective/subjective
and self-referent/other referent dimensions (Heslin, 2003, 2005). Recently, authors have
started to develop multidimensional models of career success (Dries et al., 2008) and
begun to study the interaction between objective and subjective dimensions (Abele
and Spurk, 2009). Results of our study move toward an integrative model of career
success, whereby we argue that it is often too simplistic to categorize personal
perceptions of success in preset categories given the complex and dynamic notions
of career success. Take, for example, the category of “achieving self-set goals.”
If presented as an objective success criterion, one is tempted to assume that this
involves, say, publishing or getting promoted. However, for many of the women in our
sample this category captured broader, more complex, and more subjective notions
involving efforts targeting both the public and private sphere and the resolution of
misalignment between the two.
Another example to support our argument may occur when women’s notions of
career success conflate “the self” and “other” such that they include others’ successes
(e.g. the success of their children and their students) as part of their own career
success. An example of this drawn from our data concerns the modified structures
falling in the category of having a positive impact. Having a positive impact could
be seen as both objective (e.g. when the impact is within the university structure
and part of the “service” role of an academic) and as subjective (e.g. when this
impact goes beyond the call of duty and encompasses the community development,
touching people’s lives, etc.). This, therefore, suggests a move toward an integrative
model of objective and subjective career success criteria that better captures
a process-oriented, localized, and subjectively malleable understanding of career
success as opposed to a merely static description of objective and subjective
dimensions.
CDI Mandated academic
Experienced tension due to misalignment
Mandated
gender-based
19,5 structures
structures
The teaching load is The teaching load is huge, the administrative load is For many people the fact that I
huge, the huge, and I had two children in the process, so it’s work is perceived as not so great
administrative load is not exactly easy. for the kids.
huge.
Last spring was like hell on earth. I had taken on too My mother-in-law doesn’t live
564 They say research,
research, research as a
many things. It happened that I had a student with
serious psychological health disorder, and the
here but when she comes here
sometimes-I hear a lot of “are
basis for promotion. university is not set up for that. It was really,really, you doing this thing extra or is
really, hard to deal with that student. During the this required from you?” because
Things get much same time, my son was diagnosed at the hospital you’re taking over the time that
harder when you make with a horrible disease. And as I was preparing for an you should be spending with the
promotion because the international conference and dealing with all the lack children. You get that from a lot
administrative work of administrative support that you get in this place. I of people.
multiplies. was also teaching nine credits instead of six, so last
spring I was ready to go to a mental asylum myself,
it was really, really hard. My husband and I often say that
also we need a wife.

All the big talks in our department are at 6 p.m. for Lebanon is a very patriarchal
any mother, between 6 and 7 that’s dinner time and society. I don’t think that I’m
going to bed, so I miss most of talks. And we tried singled out as a woman and I
many times to say can’t we do them at lunch break think that there’s increasing
instead of after courses are over, and we’re told that support, but there could be much
we would miss all the professionals, who often don’t more. Daycare for children would
come anyways, but that’s what we’re told. be one good thing […] there’s a lot
of discrimination against women.

Agentic processes
I was actually strategic, you have to be strategic to make it [...] But I was very strategic in doing research, so I started
by turning my dissertation into papers rather than start a new project.

Socially, we live on campus, so most of our friends are faculty members so it’s normal for us to be two people
working. People around us appreciate the fact that we have that. So the social bubble in which I am,serves me really
well, so I tend to stay within it and the less I venture out the more comfortable it is.

When I joined and I had my son, maternity was 40 days and there was of course no alleviation of your load. So what
I did, I was teaching my course, instead of twice a week three times a week to make up for the time that I was going
to be on leave.

And then I realized that I’d say “no” more often, and then I organized my schedule to keep the flexibility in cases
where I really need to be away.

I delegate anything the children can’t get involved with. So now if I cook at home, I cook things that are simple
enough that the kids enjoy doing or something that has pastry that they can make or they can pour something. This is
what I say to friends. So if you’re going to have to tell your kids to go out of the kitchen because you’re chopping an
onion, don’t chop the onion.

Figure 2. Career success based on modified structures

The process of career Everything I’m not doing right now, having a balanced life, not being stressed out all the time because you’re giving
success for a Lebanese more time to one thing than the other. For me that would be what I aim at. It would be to be able to, on the one hand,
Associate Professor, publish what I’m writing and get them to influence the public realm in Lebanon, when you do my type of research
married with two kids that’s what you do. And do it in a way that you’re not going crazy, trying to juggle all these things that you have to
do. I think I say five times a day that working moms is a crazy,suicidal idea […] on good days, I say it five times.

Practical implications
As the social psychologist Kurt Lewin once proclaimed: “There is nothing so practical
as a good theory” (Lewin, 1951, p. 169). In line with this sentiment, we outline some of
the main practical implication of our findings by progressing through the various parts
of our model. The first part of the model leads us to consider the importance of
organizational policies taking into account the local salient mandated structures. This,
in effect, reiterates the importance of work-life balance policies that are culturally
 Mandated academic
structures
Experienced tension due to
misalignment
Mandated gender-based
structures
Structure,
I am Associate Professor in mental When I applied for a scholarship from the
agency, and
health studies. The journey wasn’t
very easy.First of all, I am a wife and
university, the dean was a man, and I’m
sorry to say, he did everything he can to
notions of
a mother, and I have four children. stall me from getting an education. Even career success
though later on we went on working
When I came back from together, yet I felt they all had
Throughout my education, which was
abroad after I had just
completed my PhD, they
not an easy phase, my daughter was discrimination against women. They always
said they prefer males in the department,
565
an infant-toddler and I was pregnant. It
put in front of us (my and that annoyed me.
was the true suffering of a woman. I
female colleague and I) a
was studying and raising children at
lot of obstacles when we
the same time. With four kids around, I know there was a lot of discrimination, but
wanted to join the
I got my Bachelor, Master, and PhD the roles women were playing did not make
department. They told us if
degrees. sense, and sometimes very underrated.
we wanted to be Assistant
Professors we had to have
publications. But we had It was not all sunshine here in the You are going to hear this from a lot of
just finished our PhDs. University at all. It was full of female professors: if you Google us you will
hardships. I don’t want to say this, but find a lot of our achievements online, but
I have to: it was hard for me because I come to the University, we are not treated
was a woman in charge and males the way we deserve. This has a hurtful
didn’t like to have a female leader psychological effect if a woman is not
over them. acknowledged or rewarded for her work.

Agentic processes

In five years, I did a lot of things. It was like I knew what I was capable of, and I wanted to invest them into the
community and schools. So I went on doing some workshops, some for students and other for teachers, like how to
deal with students who had learning disabilities. I also learned through academia that anytime I mess up, it gives me
more motivation to reach my goal.

Career success based on modified structures

Success for me is achievement, irrespective of what the job is. Any goal set and reached could be an achievement,
and that in reality is success. I was elected to be on the board of the Council for Special Children. I consider this to Figure 3.
be one of my greatest achievements. It was an honor. Moreover, one of the greatest things I’m proud of is raising my The process of career
children. I had to create a balance between my family and work, and I did that to a great extent. I have four children
thank God. Two of them have graduated from international universities with high ranks. I am happier with their success for a Qatari
success than mine. They tell me your daughter is 25 years old and not married yet, I tell them she is pursuing her Associate Professor,
goals and her life and she will reach them. married with four kids

customized to both professional and sociocultural realities (see Karam and Afiouni,
2014). For example, in our sample of Arab Middle Eastern universities, human resource
management policies should be centered on the salience of family and community
service. In other Arab universities there may be value in customizing the policies to
reflect local salient institutions such as religion in Islamic States (e.g. HR policies which
appear to accommodate local Islamic duties such as a Hajj leave policies). In other
professional settings outside academia, such as banking (characterized by inflexible
and long work hours), policies may need to be customized differently to help meet this
context’s unique demands.
The second part of the model leads us to consider how organizations can support
women to work through the experienced tensions emerging from misalignment. This
can be done, practically, through mentoring relationships. Indeed, research has found
that those women who have a positive mentoring relationships do better in their
careers than those without such relationships. Okurame (2007), for example, found that
women with mentors gain reflective power, feedback, and access to resources that
others without mentors are unable to secure. In academia, mentoring has long been
demonstrated to help increase research productivity and promotion prospects
CDI (Gardiner et al., 2007). Mentoring in the Arab Middle Eastern universities is
19,5 particularly important due to the visible lack of such programs (Afiouni, 2014). Beyond
mentoring, Kattara (2005) suggests that identifying female role models in the Arab
world is essential to providing enhanced career prospects for women in the region.
Additionally, there is recent research that suggests the utility of designing corporate
social responsibility initiatives geared toward shifting mandated gender structures.
566 Karam and Jamali (2013) argue that organizations can play a pivotal role in shaping
and shifting the patriarchal gender institution to be more accommodating to women
pursuing successful careers in the Middle Eastern formal economies.
The third part of the model leads us to consider how organizations can support
women’s atypical patterns of career engagement to allow for interactions with wider
circles of stakeholders such as the community. In this sense, the success criteria can be
expanded to include considerations of community impact and other value creations
(see Porter and Kramer, 2002). In sum, organizations could gain by rethinking their
career success criteria to allow for the integration of non-traditional elements (see
Evetts, 1992).

Conclusions and avenues for further research

In this paper, we have developed both theoretical and empirical arguments for the
importance of considering career success as a localized and subjectively malleable
process that accounts for both structure and agency, as well as the interaction between
the two. We have also suggested that categorizing success into static dimensions such
as objective and subjective criteria is overly reductionist as it prevents from capturing
the complexity and dynamic notions of career success. Our results therefore push
toward an integrative model of career success.
We call on career scholars to further expand and apply our model to other
socio-cultural and professional contexts for a better understanding of individuals’
conceptualizations of success in various contexts. We therefore add our voice to current
calls in the literature to further highlight the importance of local realities and cultural
life patterns in shaping and explaining cross-cultural differences in how success
is understood and experienced (Dries, 2011; Lirio et al., 2007; Punnett et al., 2007).
We believe that by applying our model to other socio-cultural and professional
contexts, researchers can capture a localized (reflecting predominant institutions),
subjectively malleable (reflecting individual’s agency), and process-oriented (reflecting
the dynamic interaction between the two) understanding of individuals’ conceptualizations
of success.
Beyond our contribution to the career success literature as discussed above, this
paper contributes to the career literature more broadly by providing insights to the
ongoing structure-agency debate. Adapting this model to investigate other career
related phenomena will allow linking the individual to the organization and to the
wider changing social world (Duberley et al., 2006). We therefore call on career scholars
to adapt our model to investigate career phenomena in cross-cultural settings.

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About the authors

Fida Afiouni is an Assistant Professor of Human Resource Management at the Olayan School of
Business, American University of Beirut, Lebanon. She obtained her PhD in human resource
management and industrial relations from the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and was
the recipient of the Sharjah Prize for the best doctoral thesis in administrative sciences in the
Arab world for the year 2005. Her current research focusses on the interplay of HRM, careers,
and gender in the Arab Middle East with a particular interest in identifying best HRM practices
in the region, HR policies in support of women’s career development, as well as individuals’
chosen career patterns and conceptualizations of career success. Her publications have appeared
in several outlets, the most recent being in Career Development International, The International
Journal of Human Resource Management and Women Studies International Forum. Assistant
Professor Fida Afiouni is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]
Dr Charlotte M. Karam is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the
Olayan School of Business, American University of Beirut, Lebanon. Her research adopts a
cross-cultural perspective to broadly examine responsible engagement within developing and
emerging economies. At the individual level of analysis she explores the boundaries of
responsible engagement at work. This involves studies which examine, for example, Structure,
gender-related career dynamics. At the organizational level her work attempts to explore how
organizations can engage responsibly and the drivers of such engagement (e.g. HR policy
agency, and
development), as well as toward the community/society at large (e.g. gendering CSR; activist notions of
CSR). Most of her research is examined within a multi-level contextual framework which career success
considers factors relating to societal culture, socio-economic development, and political stability.
Her publications have appeared in Journal of International Management, International Journal 571
of Intercultural Relations, Business and Society, International Journal of Human Resource
Management, International Journal of Conflict Management, Asia Pacific Journal of
Management, and Business Ethics Quarterly.

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