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Paper short abstract

This study examines how Japanese women managers narrate career turning points to construct professional identities and negotiate gendered norms. Analysis of 28 interviews revealed generational contrasts in framing agency and contingency, highlighting implications for institutional change.

Paper long abstract

This study aimed to investigate how Japanese women managers construct professional identities through narratives of career turning points and how these narratives reveal and challenge gendered organizational structures. Narrative interview research has provided strong evidence that “turning points” are crucial for understanding the construction of professional identities. Despite the legal framework established by the Equal Employment Opportunity Law (EEOL) in 1986, which prohibits discrimination based on gender at all stages of employment, substantial gender imbalances persist in Japanese corporations. For Japanese white-collar professional women working in such an environment, appropriate choices made at turning points are critical, but difficult to make because they have few role models to follow.

Drawing on 28 semi-structured interviews with white-collar professional Japanese women, this paper focuses on four long-tenured managers who have served in the same Japanese company for over two decades: two pioneers in their 50s who initiated their careers immediately following the enactment of the EEOL, and two successors in their 40s. Employing narrative analysis and thematic coding, this study identifies key turning points at the personal and organizational levels and examines how these were linguistically articulated from the perspectives of contingency, agency, and references to corporate culture and norms.

The findings demonstrate clear generational differences in how gender issues were perceived. Women in their 40s often narrated turning points (e.g., transfers, organizational reforms) as externally driven events, yet they framed these moments through a blend of contingency (“by chance”) and agency (“I wanted to try”), effectively constructing agentive self from imposed changes, even if they were gender-based transfers or inconveniences. Conversely, women in their 50s emphasized deliberate resistance to gender norms and critiques of rigid corporate systems, frequently adopting meta-narratives that expose systemic constraints.

This research holds significance in demonstrating how micro-level narrative practices intersect with macro-level institutional frameworks, thereby highlighting the importance of understanding generational differences through narrative analysis from turning-point perspectives. It further illustrates how entrenched gender norms are challenged and how such challenges are enacted.

Keywords: Japanese women managers, Career turning points, Narrative analysis, Gendered organizational norms, Generational differences