Career development of women owner managers of small construction firms in the UK: experiences and self-concepts

Gender (in)balance in construction remains problematic. It is widely claimed that the problem exacerbates occupational segregation and skills shortages, stifles innovation and productivity, and limits progress towards a more inclusive industry. These concerns have fuelled a body of research that investigates women’s career experiences. Existing narratives often tell a story of women facing significant gender-related challenges, which pose limitations to their career progression and opportunities to reach leadership roles. This has often been found to contribute to the ongoing women’s underrepresentation to the detriment of the industry. The research has tended to focus on women in employee roles within large organisations, yet 98% of UK construction businesses are small firms. There is a growing number of small construction firms that are owned and managed by women. In particular, very little is known about women’s motivations to become owner-managers, or the career trajectories and decisions that led them to this career path, or how they perceive their experiences and the roles they perform within their firms. The lack of understanding of how women owner-managers journey through their careers presents the risk of initiatives generated to balance gender representation being primarily based on the experiences of women in different employment and organisational contexts. As a result, women owner-managers remain comparatively hidden from prevailing scholarly and industry debates. To address this issue, the thesis investigates the career development of women owner-managers of small construction firms in the UK through the self-concepts (perceptions of own self) they articulate to describe their experiences. Self-concepts specifically assist to understand individuals’ motivations, sense of belonging, actions and decision making. Applying self-categorisation theory (SCT), the research examines the individual and social self-concepts women articulate to make sense of their career development, from their entry into construction to their current roles as owner-managers. Using interpretative methods, the data collection involved two phases: 16 semi-structured interviews and two group interviews. A total of 19 participants took part in the research. The insights from fieldwork to an extent, contest the prevailing portrayals of women’s careers in construction as constrained. Participants frequently described relatively structured trajectories characterised by an early identification of construction as a viable profession, followed by an often planned linear progression, persistence through challenges and a transition into business ownership to obtain greater flexibility and autonomy. Women owner-managers leaned toward framing their careers through agentic, idiosyncratic, relational and affective individual self-concepts. Participants frequently described themselves as agentic individuals making deliberate career choices in accordance with their idiosyncratic views while valuing the relational and affective aspects of their roles. Their perceptions of their careers were also articulated through the social self-concepts of nationality, ethnicity, age, family firm, civil status, motherhood, gender, occupation and small firms. Among these, occupation and small firms emerged as the most salient in how participants made sense of their career development. The study presents ‘small firm’ as a social self-concept that contributes to gaining a better understanding of women’s differentiated experiences as owner managers. In showing how small firms and their occupations are embedded in these women’s identities, this thesis contributes to revealing aspects of their careers and identities that they consider to be relevant, as opposed to accounts that primarily frame women’s careers in construction through external barriers. Gender and its related challenges were acknowledged but perceived to be secondary to other career experiences and self-concepts. The application of SCT to a previously underexplored group supports the value of examining self-concepts to enable interpretations of career development and, in doing so, contributes to the construction management and women’s business ownership literature. The research reflects on practice by identifying areas where career support may be strengthened, alongside industry and academic initiatives aimed at the attraction and retention, informed by the experience of women owner-managers of small construction firms.