\Strategising\" and the career development of women : a case study of a department in the Tasmanian Public Service"

While women form an increasing proportion of the Australian labour market, their experience of work is often reactive and characterised by 'drift'. To counteract this, women are advised by an ever increasing number of researchers, consultants and lay people to engage in long term planning and decision making, in sum, to both think and act strategically. The opportunity to think strategically, however, may not necessarily arise and may not necessarily result in the pursuit of particular strategies. The possibility and opportunity for women to strategise is dependant on their domestic circumstances both in their responsibilities and the degree of dependence. The way in which the two intersect affects the possibility of women actively strategising. A typology of such responses is developed showing that it is only under specific conditions that women will be able to 'strategise'. Under other conditions their responses may by characterised as 'tactising', 'routinising' or 'feminising'. This thesis therefore is specifically interested in the effects of domestic dependancy and responsibility on women's strategising and how this, in turn, affects the range and variety of strategies which they can pursue. In order to explore the proposed link between women's domestic arrangements and strategising, the thesis reports results from a study of a bureaucratic organisation, the Department of Community Services of the Tasmanian Public Service. Recent reforms have made it a friendly work environment for women such that, formally, they have the same opportunities as their male counterparts. However women's opportunity to strategise will be affected by their domestic circumstances. The empirical findings from this study are broadly consistent with the theoretical approach. Women with heavy domestic commitments, find it negatively affects the time and energy available for work in the public sphere, and respond by 'routinising'. By contrast, women relatively free of such responsibilities can devote time and effort to their occupational lives. They are free to engage in a range of 'occupational \strategies\"' in order to be occupationally mobile and to advance their careers."