Women’s careers in the Arab Middle East Understanding institutional constraints to the boundaryless career view Fida Afiouni Olayan School of Business, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how women academics from the Arab Middle East enact their careers with reference to double-bounded contexts: academia as an institution encoding organizational career scripts and gender as another institution encoding specific gender roles. It is hoped that this cross-cultural perspective would broaden the understanding of careers beyond the economically advanced industrialized countries and better inform the current debate on the boundaryless career model. Design/methodology/approach – The study is qualitative and exploratory in nature. It draws on one-to-one interviews with 23 female academics in early, mid and late careers, working in research universities in the Arab Middle East region. Findings – The choice of academia as a profession is mainly driven by the subjective perception of an academic career as a calling, the lack of attractiveness of other career options in the region, and the appeal of the flexibility of academic work. Furthermore, the findings highlight both organizational (lack of mentoring and university support) and cultural factors (Islam, patriarchy, and family centrality) that shape/bind women’s careers choices and patterns allowing thus for a better understanding of local constraints to the boundaryless career view in the Arab Middle East context. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the boundaryless career theory development by addressing one of its major shortcomings, namely the lack of attention to context. It provides fresh insights from the Arab Middle East to the ongoing debate whether careers are boundaryless and subject to individual agency or whether careers are shaped by wider institutional factors and support existing calls in the literature to conceptualize careers at the intersection of several influencing factors. Keywords Higher education, Gender, Women, Qualitative research, Careers, Cross-cultural management, Work, Flexible working hours, Arab Middle East, Academic career, Boundaryless career, Career enactment Paper type Research paper Introduction The career literature has traditionally focussed on the organizational level of analysis and considered careers as the process by which organizations renew themselves, with a view of careers as structures and routes (Evetts, 1992; Gunz, 1989). Recently, the shift toward the contemporary career models has moved the level of analysis to individuals, and led to the conceptualization of careers in more subjective terms. The boundaryless career view (Arthur et al., 2005; Arthur and Rousseau, 1996; Sullivan and Arthur, 2006) has proved to be a remarkably popular contemporary career model (Pringle and Mallon, 2003). It places emphasis on the individual’s agency whereby individuals look for career opportunities beyond the boundary of a single employer. The boundaryless The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1362-0436.htm Received 12 May 2013 Revised 1 December 2013 17 February 2014 Accepted 24 February 2014 Career Development International Vol. 19 No. 3, 2014 pp. 314-336 r Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1362-0436 DOI 10.1108/CDI-05-2013-0061 The author would like to thank the University Research Board at the American University of Beirut for funding this research project (DDF-118010-288805). The author would also like to thank the Guest Editors and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. Appreciation also goes to Miss Yasmeen Makarem for her support during the revision process. 314 CDI 19,3