Constructing a professional identity: how young female managers use role models.

Role models are often identified as important for aspiring managers as they seekinsights into how to develop themselves in their careers. There are, however,still few female role models at the top of companies. This project explores howyoung careerminded women use role models. It draws on previous research into howprofessionals experimented with their identity projections to become partners inUS professional service firms. In-depth interviews with ten young professionalwomen revealed that they actively draw on role models from different domains. Insome cases, the role models were personally known to the individual women,whilst in other cases, they were personally unknown to them. The women revealedthat they preferred to use the learning from external role models rather thanfocus on individual women from the top of their own professions. This researchadds richness to our understanding of young female managers’ use of role models,and contributes up-todate empirical evidence in a field which has been somewhatneglected in recent year