Career Advancement for Women in the UK Military- Opportunities, Risks and Responses to Gain Acceptance

The number of females holding senior posts in the United Kingdom’s military is around 1% compared to an average of around 30% in the rest of government.  This paper reports on a study which sought to examine why the rate was so low using an entrepreneurial lens.  As there is a paucity of research on female entrepreneurship in the public sectors and none in the UK military, this study helps to provide some fresh insights into an issue which to date appears to have been intractable.

Using entrepreneurial literature, a model was developed to research the potential barriers faced by female officers in the UK military when seeking promotion to the most senior ranks. The model was designed to examine the relationships between institutional and individual determinants in relation to promotional outcomes. These determinants included structure and agency, social capital, homophily, support and how women deploy a series of other strategies to accommodate institutional and network orientated logics and norms to gain promotion acceptability.

Semi- structured interviews were used to gather data from 48 female officers and a sample of 5 male officers over a four month period in 2013.  Candidates were drawn from a stratified sample at the senior ranks. The overall research paradigm was critical realist. All interviews were recorded and transcribed and then analysed using Miles and Huberman qualitative methodology for coding and analysis of data.

The findings from these interviews demonstrated that the interplay between structure and agency played a major role in determining promotion.  Factors such as emotional support, conflict resolution, reputation and legitimacy also determined the contextual social capital perceived to be necessary for promotion by deeply embedded bespoke male networks.

The originality of this research is in the use of an entrepreneurial framework to examine promotion within a government agency.