SUSTAINABILITY AS AN INFLUENCING FACTOR IN WOMEN'S ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY CAREERS: A QUALITATIVE STUDY IN THE GERMAN WIND POWER INDUSTRY

摘要

Previous studies have examined whether a commitment to social responsibility can increase the attractivenessof the Engineering and Technology (ET) field for women. Because female employees feel that in ET professions they are not living out social values that are important to them, they tend to leave ET-associated professions in the long-term. One area in which social responsibility plays a major role is sustainability, and, in the future, ET professions will have a large impact on sustainable developmentas described in the new sustainable development goals by the United Nations in 2015. In this paper we will introduce the concept of the Sustainably Utility Value (SyUV) based on the term Social Utility Value used by Watt and Richardson (2007), combining social and environmental aspects. Analyzing the data from 30 qualitative interviews with employees in the German wind power industry, we determine how SyUV and women's career choice in the field of ET interact, and even more importantly, how SyUV can foster long-term loyalty to an ET-associated profession. Using qualitative content analysis, we establish a typology of SyUV and Career Choice, developing five different types of sustainability-inclined individuals: The Sustainability Activist, the Sustainable Technology Enthusiast, the Sustainability Motivated Job Changer, the Sustainability Discoverer, and the Pure ET Fan. Our findings show that SyUV was of great significance for the employees interviewed when it came to their career choice, and that it was more significant for women than men. Finally, SyUV seems to especially strengthen women's persistency in the ET field in the long-term.