{"id":1174,"date":"2019-03-11T10:26:41","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T10:26:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commodityconversations.com\/wordpress2\/?p=1174"},"modified":"2019-03-08T10:29:38","modified_gmt":"2019-03-08T10:29:38","slug":"smart-networking-for-women-in-commodities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commodityconversations.com\/wordpress2\/2019\/03\/11\/smart-networking-for-women-in-commodities\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart Networking for Women in Commodities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Three Strategies for Success<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Patr\u00edcia Lu\u00eds-Manso – Head of Sugar and Biofuels Analytics at S&P Global Platts <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women are underrepresented in the commodity trading\nbusiness, in particular in sugar trading. Amongst the top trading houses that\ncontrol 85 percent of the total sugar traded in the world, less than 10 percent\nof physical traders are women; and none of them holds a senior trading\nleadership position. This has led to me to ask whether differences in the way\nwomen and men develop and use their career networks could explain this\nunderrepresentation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Networks are\nessential to career development because they give access to information and\nknowledge, as well as to decision makers, influence, endorsement and\nreputation, emotional support and recognition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both male and female traders that I interviewed acknowledge that developing and nurturing career networks matter, and both invest in significant effort in doing so. Based on the interviews, I identified the structure of male and female traders\u2019 networks and their networking behaviours.  I concluded that career networks of men and women sugar traders are similar in terms of size and diversity. Moreover, female sugar traders tend to engage in networking behaviours to a similar extent (frequency) compared to their male colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, they\ndiffer in other aspects\u2014ways that may be deterring women from accessing and\nascending in this profession. Key differences refer to the proportion of\nhigh-status individuals and to the proportion of strong ties. Women sugar traders\u2019 networks tend to have\nless high-status individuals than men\u2019s and to have a lower proportion of strong\nties. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, even\nthough female sugar traders engage to a similar extent as their male colleagues\nin professional activities (conferences and seminars, for example), and in\ncommunity projects, other differences came to surface. First and foremost, female sugar traders engage in activities\nthat increase internal visibility less often than their male colleagues<\/strong>.\nThis could be going to lunch with their supervisor, or being on highly visible\ncommittees at work. Instead, women tend to engage more often than their male\ncolleagues in maintaining contacts and socializing activities.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on these\nfindings, how can women close the wide gap in the trading profession? I\nrecommend three strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STRATEGY ONE: Nurture strong ties to strategic partners. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Female sugar\ntraders\u2019 networks have a smaller proportion of very strong ties compared to a\nmale network. In today\u2019s highly connected world, weak ties may be less relevant\nfor career advancement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The intensity of\nthe relationship with other individuals in the network does matter enormously\nas a source of social capital. For career advancement, resources like\nendorsements, validations and sponsorships that come from emotionally strong\nties may prove more effective for female career advancement than access to novel\ninformation from weaker ties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STRATEGY TWO: Participate more\nin high-visibility activities. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other studies have\nhighlighted the fact that women need high visibility to build legitimacy.\nExcellent performance and solid human capital are necessary, yet not\nsufficient, conditions for women to advance to managerial and leadership\npositions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

STRATEGY THREE: Be more selective in terms of networking: quality over quantity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time is limited and women already engage in several networking behaviours. The key is to become more selective, and to think more about impact. This means that every time you participate in a network you should be prepare in advance to maximise impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note: These findings are based on my final project presented as part of the Diploma in Organizational Leadership from the Sa\u00efd Business School at the University of Oxford (October 2018) The title of the assignment was Social capital and career development: is there a gender gap? Evidence from the Sugar Trading industry<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three Strategies for Success By Patr\u00edcia Lu\u00eds-Manso – Head of Sugar and Biofuels Analytics at S&P Global Platts Women are underrepresented in the commodity trading business, in particular in sugar trading. Amongst the top trading houses that control 85 percent of the total sugar traded in the world, less than 10 percent of physical traders … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Smart Networking for Women in Commodities”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9fIT3-iW","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commodityconversations.com\/wordpress2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commodityconversations.com\/wordpress2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commodityconversations.com\/wordpress2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commodityconversations.com\/wordpress2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commodityconversations.com\/wordpress2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1174"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/commodityconversations.com\/wordpress2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1188,"href":"https:\/\/commodityconversations.com\/wordpress2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174\/revisions\/1188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commodityconversations.com\/wordpress2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commodityconversations.com\/wordpress2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commodityconversations.com\/wordpress2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}