Risk-seeking Career Strategies and Women’s Career Success

Using the innovation literature in the field of strategy, we identify a four-fold typology of career strategies based on two types of risk-seeking by women stag (high formative, high transformative), guerrilla (high formative, low transformative), hare (low formative, high transformative), and ant (low formative, low transformative).The analysis suggests that women who pursue the “stag” and the “guerrilla” career strategies report significantly higher career success on both materialistic as well as psychological criteria. However, the least successful “ant” and “hare” career strategies are more dominant in the sample. Using the gender literature, we explore implications of the findings for further research and for career counseling.