Social capital can help ambitious women reach top jobs

Washington: A recent study has revealed that professional women can get more benefit from a better understanding of how to build, maintain and use their social capital to succeed in reaching the top.

Researcher Natasha Abajian said that the access to social networks typically differs for men and for women. Usually, women have less access to networks typically associated with career progression. These networks or who you know and who knows you are responsible for a large percentage of career progression so limited access could be a barrier to women’s opportunities.

During the study, the researcher interviewed 12 women employed as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or Managing Director (MD) in the communications industry to explore their perceptions of social capital and how much they believed it was instrumental in helping their careers.

The results showed that the women perceived their social capital to have contributed to their appointments.

However, the findings of this study also revealed a difference in how the participants perceived their ability to build, maintain and use social capital and how they perceived women in general to do so.

Abajian said she believes that this phrase, by depicting a single obstacle at a high level, fails to account for the subtle inequalities that arise throughout a career journey.

The study was presented at the British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology annual conference in Nottingham. (ANI)