considered how extra effort needed to be expended for trust to be earned yet
experienced regular reminders that this trust could easily be revoked.
In a separate stream, the practitioners’ track focused on topics related to gender,
ethnicity, and enterprise development, primarily in the UK. Presenters discussed
such issues as the extent to which government initiatives surrounding equal
opportunities were filtered down and practiced at the level of small to medium
business, the relationship between female entrepreneurship and innovation, and
barriers facing BME entrepreneurs in accessing business support services.
Research presented in the Gender Equality in Medicine; Issues of
professionalism and exclusion, Gender equality and career progression within
Science, Engineering and Technology professions stream highlighted some
frustrations with XXX and the complexity of issues indicating that there is still
much more to be done to ensure that women’s pay, and career progression is
equal to their counterparts in these historically ‘masculine’ professions. Dhar-
Bhattacharjee’s work on the gender gap in the UK’s engineering industry
highlighted some of the issues underlying this. Dhar-Bhattacharjee suggests that
the reasons behind the gap are complex and interconnected, ranging from
blatant discrimination on the employer’s part , to the challenges of measurement
(e.g. including benefits such as a company car), and the fact that women may
receive lower pay and benefit packages because they are more likely to be
working reduced hours. However, Dhar-Bhattacharjee’s work did conclude on a
positive note, with participants employed in the public sector being more satisfied
as they perceive their grading systems as transparent. Moving into the world of
science, Connolly presented two papers that explored interconnecting issues.
The first paper provided insight into the first attempt to quantify the
disadvantages faced by women in academic science. The data highlighted that
amongst academic scientists there is a gender pay differential of £7,800. Most of
this can be accounted for by age, seniority, discipline, productivity, esteem,
domestic and workplace responsibilities, but a significant proportion remains
unexplained (19% in university and 30% in research institutes). The second
paper illustrated that even though women account for a growing proportion of the
labour market they still remain under-represented in top jobs across Europe and
the US. Connolly’s findings clearly indicate the continued existence of a glass
ceiling at different stages of the career development cycle such as the point of
promotion to the next grade. Yirmibesoglu’s paper explored the reasons behind
the high number of women physicians, compared to the small number that were
employed as surgeons. This author believes there is a need investigate
individual barriers to entry and change current organisational way of thinking and
working. Staying with the medical profession, Dr Maria Tsouroufli kept the
audience alert with her paper on the discourses of learning and gendered work.
Dr Maria Tsouroufli’s work illustrated how the masculine paradigm of medical
apprenticeship and medical culture reifies the emergence and performance of