Browsing by Author "Riordan, Sarah"

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    Career psychology factors as antecedents of career success of women academics in South Africa
    (2007) Riordan, Sarah; Louw-Potgieter, Joha
    The difference in career success among male and female academics is welldocumented and a number of qualitative studies have offered explanations about the challenges faced by women academics. This study provided an empirical investigation into the relationship between selected career psychology variables and the career success of women academics in South Africa. This research employed organisational theory to explain career success. The impact of work centrality, motivation, career anchors and self-efficacy on career success was examined. Care-giving responsibility was included as a moderating variable on work centrality. The examination of career theory and the testing of these particular career variables in relation to the career success of academic women have not been conducted before in South Africa. Other studies in the field have typically been qualitative in nature or have focused on explanations why women are often unsuccessful in academia. Those few studies that address success amongst academic women have been conducted outside of South Africa and thus offer findings from a different context. This study builds on this previous body of knowledge by examining the constructs empirically.
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    A qualitative investigation into the relationship between the early career expectations, and experiences, of graduate engineers in a South African utility organisation
    (2001) Riordan, Sarah; Goodman, Suki
    This research examines the relationship between the work expectations, and experiences, of graduate engineers during their early career period. The theories of organisational socialisation, reality shock and work adjustment define the context in which this research is located. Qualitative data were obtained through in-depth interviews with sixteen subjects with less than five years work experience, employed in a utility organisation in the Western Cape. Results indicate that subjects experience significant incongruence between their expectations of work and work experiences. Through a process of qualitative data analysis three major themes were identified where incongruence was experienced, namely, content of work, context of work and general career issues. The results are interpreted and discussed in light of existing research in the field of Organisational Psychology