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Abstract
The face of city management in the United States is overwhelmingly male. Research suggests two key, interrelated barriers to the career development of women executives like city managers: (1) the process of learning organizational culture and (2) a lack of access to informal networks. This is especially true for the complex environment of city management. This qualitative study used critical incident technique to identify and explore informal and incidental learning experiences that current women city managers in the southern United States with five or more years experience attribute as helping them develop their careers, navigate organizational culture, and achieve their city management positions. Research questions guiding this study were: (1) What is the nature of informal and incidental learning experiences that women city managers identify as critical to helping them initially decide to pursue city management as a career? (2) How do women city managers learn and navigate the organizational cultures of administration (bureaucracy), politics (elected officials), and the public? (3) What are some of the barriers faced by women city managers to succeeding in city management? Data analysis yielded two conclusions: (1) Social and experiential learning is central to women city manager's informal and incidental learning and career development. Their learning is dialectically shaped by the multiple social contexts of city management, which create a rich, complex learning environment, and (2) women city managers understand and value the continual learning required by their position, and tenaciously seek learning opportunities as a strategy to develop their careers and overcome barriers. This study builds upon representative bureaucracy and gender discourse in public administration by using the lens of organizational learning to provide understanding of how individual women city managers learn their way through career development. Findings provide support to Watkins, Marsick, and Fernndez de lava's (forthcoming) update of social context as distinct from the larger element of context, refining the Marsick et al. (2006) model of informal and incidental workplace learning. I propose multiple social contexts to further enhance the Watkins et al. (forthcoming) model, reflecting the administrative, political, and public social contexts in which women city managers learn and navigate.