The influence of personal skills development and coping self-efficacy on the affective occupational commitment of women in STEM fields

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-10-2021-0264
• Published date: 30 August 2022
• Date: 30 August 2022
• Pages: 173-192
• Subject Matter: HR & organizational behaviour,Employment law,Diversity,equality,inclusion
• Author: Lama Blaique,Ashly H. Pinnington,Husam-Aldin Al-Malkawi,Hazem Aldabbas

The influence of personal skills

development and coping self-

efficacy on the affective

occupational commitment of

women in STEM fields

Lama Blaique

University of Balamand Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Ashly H. Pinnington

School of Business, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

Husam-Aldin Al-Malkawi

School of Business, The British University in Dubai,

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and

Hazem Aldabbas

The British University in Dubai, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Abstract

Purpose –Despite continuing under-representation of women in science, technology, engineering and

mathematics (STEM) fields, the literature still falls short on identifying and explaining the factors that could

contribute to women’s persistence and commitment. The purpose of this research is to identify cognitive and

behavioral factors that will support the occupational commitment of women in STEM.

Design/methodology/approach –Quantitative analysis is based on a questionnaire survey of 375 women

working in STEM in the Middle East region. Multiple regression and bootstrapping methods were employed in

the analysis of the data.

Findings –The results support the following hypotheses: personal skills development has a positive impact

on affective occupational commitment and coping self-efficacy, and coping self-efficacy mediates the

relationship between personal skills development and affective occupational commitment.

Originality/value –This study adds insights on the dynamic approaches adopted by women in STEM fields

to overcome occupational career challenges by testing several internal drivers, coping self-efficacy and

personal learning.

Keywords Coping self-efficacy, Affective occupational commitment, Personal learning, Social cognitive

career theory, Women in STEM

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Recent statistics in the US show that 74% of science, technology, engineering and

mathematics (STEM) employees are males while 26% are females (Martinez and Christnacht,

2021;Munoz-Boudet, 2017). An UNESCO report (2019) showed similar levels of

representation where women constitute less than 35% of the student body in majors

within engineering, manufacturing and construction in many Midde East countries. The

shortage of maths and science professionals threatens attempts to respond to the vast

technical and scientific challenges taking place across the world. Foreclosed and limited

STEM educational and occupational opportunities for any specific group of individuals

results in a waste of talent and potential limitations to scientific discoveries and innovation

(Neilsen et al., 2018). Consequently, policies and initiatives have been implemented in various

The influence

of personal

skills

development

173

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm

Received 10 October 2021

Revised 21 February 2022

30 June 2022

Accepted 10 August 2022

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 42 No. 2, 2023

pp. 173-192

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-10-2021-0264

countries to increase the recruitment of qualified individuals in STEM majors and jobs.

Developing a larger and more diversified talent pool of women working in STEM industries is

likely to improve their economic prospects since STEM jobs pay women more compared to

many occupations in other sectors (Munoz-Boudet, 2017) (see Figure 1).

This research aims to investigate and test the psychological and social factors affecting

women’s commitment to remain in STEM fields. Previous research has concentrated on

increasing the number of women who choose to study STEM majors at various educational

levels (Kemp and Zhao, 2016;Wang et al., 2021). Statistics from different countries indicate an

increase in the percentage of females graduating with STEM majors which has led some

scholars to conclude that recent interventions in the education system have been successful in

attracting females to study these subjects and consequently helping them to graduate.

However, graduate females are not persisting with their careers in these fields (Hoffman and

Friedman, 2018) According to the literature, females and ethnic and racial minoritized groups

are drastically underrepresented in STEM, especially in technical areas such as computer

science and biomedical research (Neilsen et al., 2018).

Researchers have identified several factors that may be leading to the ‘leaky pipeline’of

women in STEM fields, such as the existence of an unfriendly environment, which includes

condescension, poor acco mmodation for family oblig ations, and sexual harassmen t

(Charlesworth and Banaji, 2019;Duguet et al., 2018;Miner et al., 2018). Davila Dos Santos

et al. (2020) conducted a research study on 2,922 Spanish students, both girls and boys who

attended a STEM workshop. They stress the need for systemic changes that would motivate

increased female participation in STEM careers by tackling gender discrimination and

moving towards better gender equality in society. In their recent systematic review, Makarem

and Wang (2020) indicate that women’s career experience in STEM is largely impacted by

personal characteristics such as self-efficacy. Women also tend to be influenced by contextual

factors such as organizational practices and/or social networks. Makarem and Wang (2020)

call for broadening the research focus in order to comprehend more clearly the changing

dynamics and complexity of the career landscape for STEM women by including theories of

career development that link careers to environmental factors (e.g. social context, systems,

agency, and power). While several countries have successfully implemented many initiatives

to reduce gender inequality in STEM fields, progress towards gender parity is still slow

(Casad et al., 2021;Miner et al., 2018). Therefore, several gaps still endure in the literature.

First, it remains unclear to what extent learning experiences can affect self-efficacy and

ultimately women’s career decisions regarding, for example, commitment to their STEM

occupations (Brown and Lent, 2019). Second, the literature on women in STEM from the lens

of the Career Self-Management Model (CSMM) has so far been linked to only a few

developmental tasks (Brown and Lent, 2019). With technological developments drastically

Figure 1.

Conceptual framework

EDI

42,2

174