Unveiling Gender Differences - Students’ Socialization Behaviour and Social Networks : A Qualitative Study at Three Elite Business Schools in Sweden

Sammanfattning: Inequalities among top positions in the business sector are prominent and have been shown to partly be explained by social networks, which are prone to be built already during college. Social networks are a vital part of one’s socialization process, where gender and socialization, as well as gender and social networks within the fields of business, are insufficiently explored. Thus, the purpose of this study is to increase understanding of how students, in the context of elite business schools, think and act regarding their socialization process, and thus social networks. Further, we aim to explore the role of gender in these respects. To fulfil our purpose, we applied a qualitative research design by analysing 19 interviews. Our study shows that students have different patterns of socialization behaviour. These can be viewed as a scale, ranging from being extremely social to barely having friends at school, where male students make up the majority on both extremes and female students the majority in the middle. Students positioned towards the social end of the scale could benefit the most in their future careers, which both might help explain existing inequalities and give an opportunity to act for change.