CHER 28th Annual Conference
Reputation game and networking for academic careers – early career female scholars as
strategic and organic networkers
Track 3
Type of proposal: research paper
Bojana Culum, University of Rijeka, Croatia
Tatiana Fumasoli, University of Oslo, Norway
Terhi Nokkala, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Corresponding author: Tatiana Fumasoli
Corresponding author’s email: tatiana.fumasoli@arena.uio.no
Structured Abstract
Purpose of this paper
This paper investigates how academics perceive and practice networking in connection with
their career trajectories. By focusing on the “reputation game” it sheds light on how networking
shapes opportunities and constraints in career progress, and on how academics are able to
engage with networking. In Nokkala et al. (forthcoming), we explored academic networking
perceptions by focusing on early career women in social sciences and identified distinctive
rationales, attitudes to and practices of networking. Female early career academics acknowledge
that networking can be instrumental, at the same time they favour an organic approach, that is
networking serves multiple purposes: career objectives, research interests, personal
relationships, self-satisfaction. It systematically compares the networking strategies of
academics in eight European countries, across all disciplinary fields, in universities and
universities of applied sciences, between male and female, as well as junior and senior
academics
Design/methodology/approach
The conceptual framework of the article draws from theories of fields and of symbolic capital
(Bourdieu 1996/7, Bourdieu&Wacquant 1992, Fligstein&McAdam 2012). Bourdieu argues that
gender distinctions are socially constructed by both male and female, but that social conditions
and mechanisms framing ex ante our categories, are male-dominated (Bourdieu 1996/7, p. 199).
Furthermore, he argues that masculine action is always oriented towards prestige, whilst women
are traditionally excluded from the games of symbolic capital (ibid., p. 200). In our article, we
see academia as a reputation-based institution (Whitley 2003), where women are traditionally in
a minority and networking is a way to build reputation and prestige, and to exchange symbolic
capital (i.e. ‘reputation game’) (Burri 2008). We will focus on the participation of early career
female scholars in the reputation game and the implications for the academic field as well as for
their identity as ‘early career female scholars’. Comparisons will be conducted across the
countries, disciplines and types of higher education institutions.
We have generated a set of hypothesis on the networking strategies of early career women in
academia.
1. Early career women have two kinds of complementary networking strategies, and they
act as strategic as well as organic networkers. These two different roles carry different
types of agency as the individuals engage through the strategic or organic networker
roles to find space for themselves in the academic field.
2. The socialisation process affects how early career female scholars make sense of and
practise networking. That is, the more time spent in academia, the more women tend to
comply with the rules of the symbolic games.
3. The networking strategies of early career female scholars differ from those of early
career male scholars.
The EuroAC qualitative database will be used to examine the generated hypotheses (Fumasoli et
al. 2014). It comprises around 500 interview summaries with academic staff in Austria, Croatia,
Finland, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Romania, Switzerland. The interviews address governance,
careers, and professionalization and are coded by country, gender, career stages, type of higher
education institution and disciplinary field.
Research limitations/implications
This paper uses an institutional approach in that it contends that institutional and organized
settings affect actors’ behaviour. Our set of hypotheses is tested on a large qualitative database.
In the next step of our research we plan to analyse the EuroAC quantitative dataset, which
includes over 16’000 respondents in twelve European countries (Teichler&Höhle 2013). As
such, this paper is the second output of a mixed-methods research design.
Practical/social implications
Networking is nowadays considered one of the central activities in academia. Insights on
different ideas and practices of networking could provide policymakers and leadership with
additional empirical basis to formulate policies aimed at enhancing career trajectories of female
early career academics.
Originality
This paper uses theory of fields, and focuses on the strategic agency of female early career
academics in order to shed light on change and stability in higher education, on power relations
and on segmentation within the academic profession.
Empirically it profits from a huge dataset with hundreds of respondents in eight European
countries.
Keywords: networking, field, symbolic capital
References
Bourdieu,P. (1996). Masculine domination revisited. Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 189-203.
Bourdieu,P.&Wacquant,L. (1992). Towards a reflexive sociology. Oxford: Polity
Burri,R.V. (2008). Doing distinctions: boundary work and symbolic capital in radiology. Social
studies of science, 38(1), 35-62.
Fligstein,N.&McAdam,D. (2012) A theory of Fields. New York: Oxford University Press
Fumasoli,T., Goastellec,G.&Kehm,B. (eds.) (2014) Academic Work and Careers in Europe Trends, Challenges, Perspectives, Springer: Dordrecht.
Nokkala,T., Ćulum,B.&Fumasoli,T. (Forthcoming) “Early career women in academia: An
exploration of networking perceptions”; in: Eggins, H. (Ed.), The Changing Role of
Women in Higher Education, Springer: Dordrecht
Teichler,U.&Höhle,E.A. (2013) The Work Situation of the Academic Profession in Europe:
Findings of a Survey in Twelve Countries. Dordrecht: Springer
Whitley,R. (2003). Competition and pluralism in the public sciences: the impact of institutional
frameworks on the organisation of academic science. Research Policy, 32, 1015–1029
Acknowledgments
Cygnaeus Scholarly Fellowship 2015, aimed at promoting international publishing at the
Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä.
Biographical Details
Bojana Ćulum is Assistant Professor at the Department of Education, University of Rijeka. Her
research interests cover higher education and civil society, particularly the university third and
civic mission, university role in local community development and changes in academic
profession.
Tatiana Fumasoli is a post-doctoral researcher at ARENA, Centre for European Studies,
University of Oslo. Her research interests address multi-level governance in higher education
and research policy, and how strategic agency of social actors affects the Europe of Knowledge.
Terhi Nokkala is a Senior researcher at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research,
University of Jyväskylä. Her research focuses on the interplay between higher education policy,
technological developments, organisational parameters and networks, and individual
experiences in higher education.