Career calling: women STEM graduates in the United Arab Emirates Linzi J. Kemp and Norita Ahmad School of Business Administration, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates Lucia Pappalardo Department of Business and Management College of Art of Sciences, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, and Alison Williams Department of Business and Management, Rochester Institute of Technology – Dubai Campus, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate career choices by female graduates from science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to determine factors that influenced their entry, abandonment or persistence of STEM careers. Design/methodology/approach – Life history narratives were collected from a sample group of employed citizens and expatriate women (all STEM graduates) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Content of interview transcripts was analyzed for emergent themes of influence on these participants career decisions. Findings – Four significant themes of calling were found: gift of intellect, belief in a faith, shared community and meaning of work. A typology of calling was constructed to reflect these themes influences on the entry, abandonment or persistence of women in a STEM career. Research limitations/implications – The results of this study were from a small sample of women in a particular country. The implication is to extend this study to a larger number of participants and to other countries to generalize the results. Practical implications – Insight into career decisions of female STEM graduates impacts on employee recruitment and retention policies within those professions. Originality/value – Research originality is evident, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, as this is the first study to explore the influence of calling for careers of STEM women working in the Middle East North Africa region. Keywords Gender, STEM, Calling, Meaningful work, Middle East North Africa region, Women’s careers, United Arab Emirates Paper type Research paper Introduction The concept of “calling” has previously been identified as significant in the careers of both women and men (Bunderson and Thompson, 2009; Dobrow and Tosti-Kharas, 2012). As well, calling has been studied to understand its influence on women’s careers in particular (Duffy et al., 2011; Duffy et al., 2014). Although relevant for career decisions and career behavior, there is no single definition of calling in appreciation of varying understandings to Women STEM graduates Received 16 November 2019 Revised 16 March 2020 2 April 2020 11 June 2020 Accepted 19 July 2020 Gender in Management: An International Journal © Emerald Publishing Limited 1754-2413 DOI 10.1108/GM-11-2019-0205 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1754-2413.htm