PhD Thesis Defense Presentation: Julie Nguyen
Ms. Julie Nguyen, a doctoral student at Â鶹AV in the Organizational Behaviour area will be presenting her thesis defense entitled:
Secondhand Social Capital and the Quest for Workplace Gender Equality
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Thursday, November 21, 2024, at 10:00 a.m.
(The defense will be conducted in Hybrid mode)
Student Committee Chair: Professor Lisa Cohen
Please note that the presentation will be conducted in Hybrid mode.
ABSTRACT
Our current understanding of how brokerage provides social capital is incomplete. While the processes through which network brokers reap rewards are well established, we know little about the outcomes of those connected to brokers, i.e., secondhand brokerage. This dissertation aims to explore how connections to network brokers impact individuals’ career sustainability, with a particular focus on whether this effect differs for women and men. Using large-scale digital trace data, I track the longitudinal collaboration networks of 571,851 filmmakers between 2000 and 2022 to investigate whether network contacts’ brokerage affects movie directors’ likelihood of continuing a directing career after their debut.
This dissertation unfolds in four chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the research questions, methodology, key findings, and implications for theory and practice, setting the stage for two subsequent empirical chapters.
Chapter 2 provides a review of the emerging work on secondhand brokerage, integrating various and sometimes conflicting theoretical views and empirical findings in this literature. This is followed by an empirical test examining whether the brokerage of filmmakers with whom directors collaborated influences their chances of sustaining a directing career over a decade. The results indicate that contacts’ brokerage, both at debut and throughout careers, strongly predicts directors’ career sustainability.
Chapter 3 examines connections to brokers as a potential factor in promoting women leaders’ career sustainability and narrowing the gender gap in leader dropout rates. Specifically, it explores whether the effect of contacts’ brokerage on directors’ career sustainability differs for men and women. The results reveal that both women and men benefit from connections with brokers. However, women directors benefit more from collaborating with brokers early in their careers, while men directors gain more from ongoing collaborations with brokers throughout their careers.
Chapter 4, the conclusion chapter, synthesizes the findings across both empirical papers, discusses their methodological limitations, and suggests future research directions.
Overall, this dissertation advances understanding of the broader implications of brokerage, not just on the few brokers but on the many individuals connected to them. Additionally, it underscores the implications of secondhand brokerage for workplace gender inequality.
