Washington and Lee University

Networking Opportunities

A review of research has shown that women face disadvantages in the workplace due to their gender. The glass ceiling and stereotypes inhibit them from forming effective networks, compounding the difficulty to succeed at a corporate level. Thus, I submit that males and females do not simply exhibit different types of networking behavior�structural barriers prevent female networking from being as successful and effective as male networking. Specifically, women in the workplace suffer from a lack of networking opportunities, a lack of female role models in senior positions, and a low perception of procedural justice; I plan to investigate how these three factors differ between the genders. In particular, I would like to examine how networking operates within a university setting. Rarely studied, the academic environment provides a unique opportunity to observe the effectiveness of networks due to its highly politicized atmosphere and the fact that most objectives can only be achieved through the usage of a Soft Hierarchy, or lines of influence outside of the formal organizational hierarchy (Stewart, 2006).