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Mary Barrett

University of Wollongong, School of Management & Marketing, Faculty Member

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Mary Barrett, PhD is Professor of Management at the School of Management, Operations and Marketing at the University of Wollongong, Australia where she teaches general management, human resource management, business communication, and business research methods. Her research interests include business communication, family business, gender in management and entrepreneurship.

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Papers by Mary Barrett

Expertise and entrepreneurial decision-making in business start-up: evidence from Sri Lankan micro-entrepreneurs

This paper presents a study of effectuation (means driven) and causation (predictive) thinking be... more This paper presents a study of effectuation (means driven) and causation (predictive) thinking between 'expert' and 'non-expert' micro-entrepreneurs in business start-up. Entrepreneurs borrowing from a microfinance institute, that is micro-entrepreneurs, were categorised as 'nonexperts' if their main business-the longest managed enterprise-was their first business and 'experts' if it was not. Interview and survey data gathered highlighted that effectuation rather than causation were dominant during business start-up. In contrast to findings about entrepreneurial thinking in other contexts, this study found that 'experts' balanced effectuation and causation, while 'non-experts' used effectuation more. However, further studies are required to identify the extent to which these effects are due to the business being the entrepreneur's first ever business or due to the micro-entrepreneur's gender. (Abstract only.) Publication Detail...

Directing the Spotlight Elsewhere

Women in Family Business Leadership Roles

Building Their Own Stage

Women in Family Business Leadership Roles

Stumbling into the Spotlight

Women in Family Business Leadership Roles

Revisiting women’s entrepreneurship

International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, 2014

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to study women’s entrepreneurship from the family-firm cont... more Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to study women’s entrepreneurship from the family-firm context and radical subjectivist (RS) economics. While women’s entrepreneurship is a long-standing topic of research interest, there have been calls for more theory-oriented research and research which takes context factors in women’s entrepreneurship seriously. The paper responds to this by using an RS’s view of economics as a theoretical lens to consider women’s entrepreneurship in family firms.Design/methodology/approach– The paper briefly reviews the potential of the family-firm context for examining women’s entrepreneurship in a non-reductive fashion, then outlines radical subjectivism (RS). The three main elements of RS’s “entrepreneurial imagination” are explained, then linked with other theories of family-firm behaviour and applied to casework on women entrepreneurs in family firms.Findings– Each element of the entrepreneurial imagination, empathy, modularity and self-organization, g...

Accounting Firms?

Legislation in Australia since the 1980s has been designed to promote equal employment opportunit... more Legislation in Australia since the 1980s has been designed to promote equal employment opportunity for women and thus remove barriers to women reaching senior and managerial positions in organisations. This paper examines the position of professional women in legal and accounting firms. The majority of graduates in these professions are women but, using information submitted to the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workforce Agency, organisational statistics show little change in the numbers and proportion of women reaching partnership positions. equal opportunity, gender and work, professions

$Research paper thumbnail of Organisational Factors and IT Professionals\u27 View of Wireless Network Vulnerability Assessments$

Organisational Factors and IT Professionals\u27 View of Wireless Network Vulnerability Assessments

The paper reports on a survey-based study of Australian computer security professionals\u27 use o... more The paper reports on a survey-based study of Australian computer security professionals\u27 use of and opinions about two types of wireless vulnerability assessment (WNV A): wireless monitoring and penetration testing. An initially surprising finding was how little both types are used, despite the ease with which wireless networks can be attacked, and the lack of clear obstacles to using them. In the light of aspects of organisational culture, including decision-making style and professional identity, the survey findings become more explicable. Senior management, and even IT staff themselves, may still hold a traditional, \u27wired network\u27 view of their organisation. \u27Culture\u27 may also explain why lack of time and expertise (rather than lack of financial resources), and senior management\u27s discomfort with the idea of hacking into the network, mean neither wireless monitoring nor penetration testing is regularly used, even though wireless monitoring is fairly well unders...

$Research paper thumbnail of Women\u27s leadership journeys in family firms: preliminary results from a qualitative study$

Women\u27s leadership journeys in family firms: preliminary results from a qualitative study

The family business literature has thus far not devoted much attention to understanding female va... more The family business literature has thus far not devoted much attention to understanding female vantage points in family firms (e.g. Dumas, 1998; Sharma, 2004). Poza and Messer (2001) and Curimbaba (2002) describe the varying roles that women adopt, but without explaining why they adopt such roles. Our research examines the career progression of women leaders in family businesses, specifically how various roles allow them to progressively learn skills and competencies.In an earlier book (Moores and Barrett, 2002) we found that successful family firm CEOs encountered a series of unique paradoxes. Exploring, understanding and perhaps managing these paradoxes took them on a 1earningjoumey to leadership in which they progressively learnt business (Ll), learnt our business (L2, learnt to lead our business (L3), and learnt to let go our business (IA). Because the sample we used for that study did not include many female CEOs, our present study focuses on women in leadership roles in family...

$Research paper thumbnail of Revisiting women\u27s entrepreneurship: Insights from the family-firm context and radical subjectivist economics$

Revisiting women\u27s entrepreneurship: Insights from the family-firm context and radical subjectivist economics

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to study women\u27s entrepreneurship from the family-firm ... more Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to study women\u27s entrepreneurship from the family-firm context and radical subjectivist (RS) economics. While women\u27s entrepreneurship is a long-standing topic of research interest, there have been calls for more theory-oriented research and research which takes context factors in women\u27s entrepreneurship seriously. The paper responds to this by using an RS\u27s view of economics as a theoretical lens to consider women\u27s entrepreneurship in family firms. Design/methodology/approach - The paper briefly reviews the potential of the family-firm context for examining women\u27s entrepreneurship in a non-reductive fashion, then outlines radical subjectivism (RS). The three main elements of RS\u27s entrepreneurial imagination are explained, then linked with other theories of family-firm behaviour and applied to casework on women entrepreneurs in family firms. Findings - Each element of the entrepreneurial imagination, empathy, modularity ...

$Research paper thumbnail of Inside the \u27black box\u27: women accountants in small firms$

Inside the \u27black box\u27: women accountants in small firms

Research on women’s employment conditions has been based on the experiences of women in large org... more Research on women’s employment conditions has been based on the experiences of women in large organisations. There is little information about women’s employment and their employment conditions in small businesses. This paper is the first and preliminary analysis of a segment of the findings from a survey of CPA Australia members working in small firms. The paper reports on employment conditions that may assist women to combine paid work and family care responsibilities such as parental leave and family care leave, as well as part-time work. The research concludes that employment in small firms does not offer these conditions as extensively as large firms

A bibliometric analysis of person-organization fit research: significant features and contemporary trends

Management Review Quarterly

Person-organization (PO) fit is broadly defined as the compatibility between an individual and th... more Person-organization (PO) fit is broadly defined as the compatibility between an individual and their employing organization that occurs when the characteristics of the two entities are well matched. It is related to higher levels of organizational commitment, job satisfaction, job retention, organizational citizenship behaviours, and job performance. In recent years, there has been a significant and hastening increase in the number of journal articles published in which person-organization fit is a major feature of the study. This study documents the historical and contemporary nature of this field using bibliometric methods to provide an overview of PO fit research and to analyse contemporary trends. After screening, 887 refereed journal articles were surfaced in the Scopus database that featured PO fit. Descriptively, this study identifies leading journal articles, authors, countries, and collaborative networks. Analytically, the paper identifies and discusses major and emerging r...

$Research paper thumbnail of Fostering women\u27s entrepreneurial leadership in family firms: ten lessons$

Fostering women\u27s entrepreneurial leadership in family firms: ten lessons

Women\u27s potential to lead a firm - whether one started by a family member or a new venture of ... more Women\u27s potential to lead a firm - whether one started by a family member or a new venture of their own - is still not often enough acknowledged. With family firms acknowledged as the seeding grounds for the next generation of entrepreneurs, and with increasing attention in research and public policy to women\u27s entrepreneurship, it is important to understand the factors in family firms which help and hinder their women members\u27 leadership and entrepreneurship potential. This article, based on the authors\u27 book Women in Family Business Leadership Roles: Daughters on the Stage (Edward Elgar, 2009), presents ten lessons for family firms which arise from the experience of women in family firms

$Research paper thumbnail of Just don\u27t call me a feminist: senior and junior women managers\u27 perceptions of communication dilemmas at work$

Just don\u27t call me a feminist: senior and junior women managers\u27 perceptions of communication dilemmas at work

Barrett (2004) found senior women managers evaluated workplace communication strategiesdifferentl... more Barrett (2004) found senior women managers evaluated workplace communication strategiesdifferently according to whether they thought a man or a woman was using the strategy. Butorganisationally junior younger women often reject overt feminist standpoints and might evaluatethese strategies differently. To test this, 255 junior women managers evaluated strategies for the samedilemmas older women had. When evaluating strategies for short and medium term dilemmas (egbeing interrupted, getting credit for an idea), junior women managers evaluate less than older womenmanagers on the basis of the communicator\u27s gender. However with longer term dilemmas (eg gettingachievements noticed for promotion), junior women managers avoid some strategies they believe areeffective, and which they think men would use. Implications and limitations of these findings andfurther research possibilities are discussed

Theories to define and understand family firms

My earlier chapter in this volume on the four phases of learning in family firms relies on some i... more

Experiences of women entrepreneurs in family firms

Case study: Transfield and Tenex: endurance and weakness in two migrant family businesses in Australia

Transfield is one of Australia's most prominent construction companies. The name itself: &quo... more Transfield is one of Australia's most prominent construction companies. The name itself: "trans" meaning across and "field", which suggests open spaces, reflects the firm's origins as a venture founded by two Italian emigrants, Carlo Salteri and Franco Belgiorni-Nettis, who crossed huge distances to Australia before establishing their own firm.

The 4-L framework of family business leadership

The 4-L framework for learning family business leadership is a practical model based on empirical... more The 4-L framework for learning family business leadership is a practical model based on empirical research into the learning experiences of second or later generation family business owners who attained the CEO role in the family firm. The strength of this framework is that it takes account of: • The special characteristics of firms run primarily by blood-related members of a single family; • The paradoxes family firm leaders have to manage in combining two conventionally unrelated systems: business and family.

Companies keep slashing jobs, but new technologies won't replace good management

As technology improves, it's tempting for company executives to slash jobs that are "sta... more As technology improves, it's tempting for company executives to slash jobs that are "standard" and "routine", making them easy to automate. But research shows focusing on improving management practices will do more to improve companies' bottom lines. Disciplines Business Publication Details Barrett, M. (2018). Companies keep slashing jobs, but new technologies won't replace good management. The Conversation, 23 August 1-3. This journal article is available at Research Online: https://ro.uow.edu.au/buspapers/1483

Five tips to get the most out of your workday

Getting a lot done each day is about more than just having the right productivity tools and setup... more Getting a lot done each day is about more than just having the right productivity tools and setup. It’s about taking care of your body and mind, and this starts even outside of the workplace. We all need strategies for increasing productivity; here are five to get you started. Disciplines Business Publication Details Barrett, M. (2017). Five tips to get the most out of your workday. The Conversation, April 20 1-3. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/buspapers/1137

Advising a female leader in a family firm: a case study

Women do it differently, we're told, and this is true of many influential women in family fir... more Women do it differently, we're told, and this is true of many influential women in family firms. They often succeed by directing attention away from themselves, telegraphing moves to their partner typically the CEO to creating the change they know the firm needs. They change the firm because they have the CEO's trust rather than through displays of expertise, a visible presence, and a fancy job title. Disciplines Business Publication Details Barrett, M. (2016). Advising a female leader in a family firm: A case study. The Practitioner, 31 August 2016 1-4. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/buspapers/975 The evolution of the species: Advising a female leader in a family firm Women do it differently, we’re told, and this is true of many influential women in family firms. They often succeed by directing attention away from themselves, telegraphing moves to their partner – typically the CEO – to creating the change they know the firm needs....

Expertise and entrepreneurial decision-making in business start-up: evidence from Sri Lankan micro-entrepreneurs

This paper presents a study of effectuation (means driven) and causation (predictive) thinking be... more This paper presents a study of effectuation (means driven) and causation (predictive) thinking between 'expert' and 'non-expert' micro-entrepreneurs in business start-up. Entrepreneurs borrowing from a microfinance institute, that is micro-entrepreneurs, were categorised as 'nonexperts' if their main business-the longest managed enterprise-was their first business and 'experts' if it was not. Interview and survey data gathered highlighted that effectuation rather than causation were dominant during business start-up. In contrast to findings about entrepreneurial thinking in other contexts, this study found that 'experts' balanced effectuation and causation, while 'non-experts' used effectuation more. However, further studies are required to identify the extent to which these effects are due to the business being the entrepreneur's first ever business or due to the micro-entrepreneur's gender. (Abstract only.) Publication Detail...

Directing the Spotlight Elsewhere

Women in Family Business Leadership Roles

Building Their Own Stage

Women in Family Business Leadership Roles

Stumbling into the Spotlight

Women in Family Business Leadership Roles

Revisiting women’s entrepreneurship

International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, 2014

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to study women’s entrepreneurship from the family-firm cont... more Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to study women’s entrepreneurship from the family-firm context and radical subjectivist (RS) economics. While women’s entrepreneurship is a long-standing topic of research interest, there have been calls for more theory-oriented research and research which takes context factors in women’s entrepreneurship seriously. The paper responds to this by using an RS’s view of economics as a theoretical lens to consider women’s entrepreneurship in family firms.Design/methodology/approach– The paper briefly reviews the potential of the family-firm context for examining women’s entrepreneurship in a non-reductive fashion, then outlines radical subjectivism (RS). The three main elements of RS’s “entrepreneurial imagination” are explained, then linked with other theories of family-firm behaviour and applied to casework on women entrepreneurs in family firms.Findings– Each element of the entrepreneurial imagination, empathy, modularity and self-organization, g...

Accounting Firms?

Legislation in Australia since the 1980s has been designed to promote equal employment opportunit... more Legislation in Australia since the 1980s has been designed to promote equal employment opportunity for women and thus remove barriers to women reaching senior and managerial positions in organisations. This paper examines the position of professional women in legal and accounting firms. The majority of graduates in these professions are women but, using information submitted to the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workforce Agency, organisational statistics show little change in the numbers and proportion of women reaching partnership positions. equal opportunity, gender and work, professions

$Research paper thumbnail of Organisational Factors and IT Professionals\u27 View of Wireless Network Vulnerability Assessments$

Organisational Factors and IT Professionals\u27 View of Wireless Network Vulnerability Assessments

The paper reports on a survey-based study of Australian computer security professionals\u27 use o... more The paper reports on a survey-based study of Australian computer security professionals\u27 use of and opinions about two types of wireless vulnerability assessment (WNV A): wireless monitoring and penetration testing. An initially surprising finding was how little both types are used, despite the ease with which wireless networks can be attacked, and the lack of clear obstacles to using them. In the light of aspects of organisational culture, including decision-making style and professional identity, the survey findings become more explicable. Senior management, and even IT staff themselves, may still hold a traditional, \u27wired network\u27 view of their organisation. \u27Culture\u27 may also explain why lack of time and expertise (rather than lack of financial resources), and senior management\u27s discomfort with the idea of hacking into the network, mean neither wireless monitoring nor penetration testing is regularly used, even though wireless monitoring is fairly well unders...

$Research paper thumbnail of Women\u27s leadership journeys in family firms: preliminary results from a qualitative study$

Women\u27s leadership journeys in family firms: preliminary results from a qualitative study

The family business literature has thus far not devoted much attention to understanding female va... more The family business literature has thus far not devoted much attention to understanding female vantage points in family firms (e.g. Dumas, 1998; Sharma, 2004). Poza and Messer (2001) and Curimbaba (2002) describe the varying roles that women adopt, but without explaining why they adopt such roles. Our research examines the career progression of women leaders in family businesses, specifically how various roles allow them to progressively learn skills and competencies.In an earlier book (Moores and Barrett, 2002) we found that successful family firm CEOs encountered a series of unique paradoxes. Exploring, understanding and perhaps managing these paradoxes took them on a 1earningjoumey to leadership in which they progressively learnt business (Ll), learnt our business (L2, learnt to lead our business (L3), and learnt to let go our business (IA). Because the sample we used for that study did not include many female CEOs, our present study focuses on women in leadership roles in family...

$Research paper thumbnail of Revisiting women\u27s entrepreneurship: Insights from the family-firm context and radical subjectivist economics$

Revisiting women\u27s entrepreneurship: Insights from the family-firm context and radical subjectivist economics

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to study women\u27s entrepreneurship from the family-firm ... more Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to study women\u27s entrepreneurship from the family-firm context and radical subjectivist (RS) economics. While women\u27s entrepreneurship is a long-standing topic of research interest, there have been calls for more theory-oriented research and research which takes context factors in women\u27s entrepreneurship seriously. The paper responds to this by using an RS\u27s view of economics as a theoretical lens to consider women\u27s entrepreneurship in family firms. Design/methodology/approach - The paper briefly reviews the potential of the family-firm context for examining women\u27s entrepreneurship in a non-reductive fashion, then outlines radical subjectivism (RS). The three main elements of RS\u27s entrepreneurial imagination are explained, then linked with other theories of family-firm behaviour and applied to casework on women entrepreneurs in family firms. Findings - Each element of the entrepreneurial imagination, empathy, modularity ...

$Research paper thumbnail of Inside the \u27black box\u27: women accountants in small firms$

Inside the \u27black box\u27: women accountants in small firms

Research on women’s employment conditions has been based on the experiences of women in large org... more Research on women’s employment conditions has been based on the experiences of women in large organisations. There is little information about women’s employment and their employment conditions in small businesses. This paper is the first and preliminary analysis of a segment of the findings from a survey of CPA Australia members working in small firms. The paper reports on employment conditions that may assist women to combine paid work and family care responsibilities such as parental leave and family care leave, as well as part-time work. The research concludes that employment in small firms does not offer these conditions as extensively as large firms

A bibliometric analysis of person-organization fit research: significant features and contemporary trends

Management Review Quarterly

Person-organization (PO) fit is broadly defined as the compatibility between an individual and th... more Person-organization (PO) fit is broadly defined as the compatibility between an individual and their employing organization that occurs when the characteristics of the two entities are well matched. It is related to higher levels of organizational commitment, job satisfaction, job retention, organizational citizenship behaviours, and job performance. In recent years, there has been a significant and hastening increase in the number of journal articles published in which person-organization fit is a major feature of the study. This study documents the historical and contemporary nature of this field using bibliometric methods to provide an overview of PO fit research and to analyse contemporary trends. After screening, 887 refereed journal articles were surfaced in the Scopus database that featured PO fit. Descriptively, this study identifies leading journal articles, authors, countries, and collaborative networks. Analytically, the paper identifies and discusses major and emerging r...

$Research paper thumbnail of Fostering women\u27s entrepreneurial leadership in family firms: ten lessons$

Fostering women\u27s entrepreneurial leadership in family firms: ten lessons

Women\u27s potential to lead a firm - whether one started by a family member or a new venture of ... more Women\u27s potential to lead a firm - whether one started by a family member or a new venture of their own - is still not often enough acknowledged. With family firms acknowledged as the seeding grounds for the next generation of entrepreneurs, and with increasing attention in research and public policy to women\u27s entrepreneurship, it is important to understand the factors in family firms which help and hinder their women members\u27 leadership and entrepreneurship potential. This article, based on the authors\u27 book Women in Family Business Leadership Roles: Daughters on the Stage (Edward Elgar, 2009), presents ten lessons for family firms which arise from the experience of women in family firms

$Research paper thumbnail of Just don\u27t call me a feminist: senior and junior women managers\u27 perceptions of communication dilemmas at work$

Just don\u27t call me a feminist: senior and junior women managers\u27 perceptions of communication dilemmas at work

Barrett (2004) found senior women managers evaluated workplace communication strategiesdifferentl... more Barrett (2004) found senior women managers evaluated workplace communication strategiesdifferently according to whether they thought a man or a woman was using the strategy. Butorganisationally junior younger women often reject overt feminist standpoints and might evaluatethese strategies differently. To test this, 255 junior women managers evaluated strategies for the samedilemmas older women had. When evaluating strategies for short and medium term dilemmas (egbeing interrupted, getting credit for an idea), junior women managers evaluate less than older womenmanagers on the basis of the communicator\u27s gender. However with longer term dilemmas (eg gettingachievements noticed for promotion), junior women managers avoid some strategies they believe areeffective, and which they think men would use. Implications and limitations of these findings andfurther research possibilities are discussed

Theories to define and understand family firms

My earlier chapter in this volume on the four phases of learning in family firms relies on some i... more

Experiences of women entrepreneurs in family firms

Case study: Transfield and Tenex: endurance and weakness in two migrant family businesses in Australia

Transfield is one of Australia's most prominent construction companies. The name itself: &quo... more Transfield is one of Australia's most prominent construction companies. The name itself: "trans" meaning across and "field", which suggests open spaces, reflects the firm's origins as a venture founded by two Italian emigrants, Carlo Salteri and Franco Belgiorni-Nettis, who crossed huge distances to Australia before establishing their own firm.

The 4-L framework of family business leadership

The 4-L framework for learning family business leadership is a practical model based on empirical... more The 4-L framework for learning family business leadership is a practical model based on empirical research into the learning experiences of second or later generation family business owners who attained the CEO role in the family firm. The strength of this framework is that it takes account of: • The special characteristics of firms run primarily by blood-related members of a single family; • The paradoxes family firm leaders have to manage in combining two conventionally unrelated systems: business and family.

Companies keep slashing jobs, but new technologies won't replace good management

As technology improves, it's tempting for company executives to slash jobs that are "sta... more As technology improves, it's tempting for company executives to slash jobs that are "standard" and "routine", making them easy to automate. But research shows focusing on improving management practices will do more to improve companies' bottom lines. Disciplines Business Publication Details Barrett, M. (2018). Companies keep slashing jobs, but new technologies won't replace good management. The Conversation, 23 August 1-3. This journal article is available at Research Online: https://ro.uow.edu.au/buspapers/1483

Five tips to get the most out of your workday

Getting a lot done each day is about more than just having the right productivity tools and setup... more Getting a lot done each day is about more than just having the right productivity tools and setup. It’s about taking care of your body and mind, and this starts even outside of the workplace. We all need strategies for increasing productivity; here are five to get you started. Disciplines Business Publication Details Barrett, M. (2017). Five tips to get the most out of your workday. The Conversation, April 20 1-3. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/buspapers/1137

Advising a female leader in a family firm: a case study

Women do it differently, we're told, and this is true of many influential women in family fir... more Women do it differently, we're told, and this is true of many influential women in family firms. They often succeed by directing attention away from themselves, telegraphing moves to their partner typically the CEO to creating the change they know the firm needs. They change the firm because they have the CEO's trust rather than through displays of expertise, a visible presence, and a fancy job title. Disciplines Business Publication Details Barrett, M. (2016). Advising a female leader in a family firm: A case study. The Practitioner, 31 August 2016 1-4. This journal article is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/buspapers/975 The evolution of the species: Advising a female leader in a family firm Women do it differently, we’re told, and this is true of many influential women in family firms. They often succeed by directing attention away from themselves, telegraphing moves to their partner – typically the CEO – to creating the change they know the firm needs....