Early Career Women in Academia : An Exploration of Networking Perceptions

This chapter explores women’s networking perceptions by focusing on early career women in social sciences. Within an exploratory research design it asks how early career women define the early career stage in academia, what definitions, meanings and interpretations they give for networks and networking, how they construct the networking process and their ability to establish and/or join networks, as early career researchers and as women. Based on two group interviews with 12 participants, our findings show that early career women in academia favour networking with peers based on shared interests (organic networking). At the same time though, they challenge and step over the perceived gender divide, recognizing the increasing importance of strategic networking for one’s career. A balance between compliance to existing rules, i.e. networking with (male) seniors, and differentiation from traditional practices, i.e. networking with female colleagues in similar positions and challenging perceived ‘old boys clubs’ appears to be a common objective of our respondents. This shows that, while not challenging networking per se, early career women in academia are nonetheless aware of the ‘rules of the game’, which they address by enacting blended networking processes to reach both their objectives in terms of career, and their professional and personal satisfaction. A research agenda is proposed, which draws on the structure-agency nexus and calls for the broadening of the empirical sample in terms of types of respondents and of higher education institutions.