My research

Open textbook research

My current research relates to lowering the cost of education and making learning more accessible to students. I have undertaken several projects to develop open education resources (OER’s) targeted at early entry business courses. My goal is to eliminate the cost of textbooks altogether for my students at least – and maybe for more!

I am currently gathering data from students and faculty as part of a research project to help build better more engaging learning platform content for students. We are also working with Junior Achievement of Nova Scotia and Mitacs to develop an OER textbook from the current rich history of local business stories available at this site. Creating an OER to share these amazing stories of great business leaders from our community is a privilege and something I don’t take lightly.

Career management research

My PhD research relates to careers and career management and is set in the context of the Canadian information technology sector.   My research is influenced by my business, my family, and my teaching – my life.  I have been active in the information technology sector throughout my career and IT remains a big part of my business.  As a human resource practitioner I have touched the careers of many men and women.  Important women in my life include my mother, my sister, my wife, and my daughter.  The career’s of my students are very important to me. It’s natural for me to connect these parts of my life and thus my research combines management, information technology, and the careers of men and women.  The following is an abstract of the dissertation which will be published soon. Fauteux Dissertation Presentation

This case study research compares the career histories of information and communications technology (ICT) executives from across Canada. In three geographic regions: east, central, and west, eight men and eight women participated in semistructured interviews that explored career experiences, including barriers and enablers to career advancement. Qualitative interview data for the 48 executives was coded in NVivo and analyzed to discover career advancement patterns across regions and gender. Although regional patterns did not emerge, the composite Canadian picture comparing the career experiences of ICT Canadian senior leaders exposes career advancement differences for men and women. No other studies were found that qualitatively explored the career stories of ICT men and women from across Canada.

The results of this research revealed 38 career influence themes among Canadian ICT executives categorized according to gender with a national pattern emerging but no substantial unique findings in any of the three regions. Careers were described in a manner consistent with Super’s Life-Career Rainbow model and provided support for Sullivan’s notion of a boundaryless career. A model of barriers and enablers to career advancement was developed. More barriers were encountered by women than men, and barriers were typically attributed to factors external to the individual where enablers were typically intrinsic in nature. 

Women have consistently been under-represented in the ICT sector (ICTC, 2013, 2016). Achieving gender balance in the ICT sector is widely acknowledged as contributing to improved business results for organizations and improved prosperity for economies (Trauth, Quesenberry, Huang, & McKnight, 2008). The goal of increasing gender balance also has a social justice dimension (Noon, 2007). Insights from this research are proposed to help individuals and organizations in the ICT sector, as well as institutions like universities, industry councils, and governments to advance more women and realize the business and social benefits of gender balance.

A full copy of my dissertation is available at the following link.  Previous to my dissertation, I wrote, What She Said, Barriers and Enablers to Career Advancement for Women in the Nova Scotia ICT Sector.  It describes the experiences of senior women ICT executives who worked at large Nova Scotia firms and was essentially phase one of my dissertation.  I was awarded honorable mention at the 2014 Dalhousie University in House Computer Science Conference for my research presentation.

Kaylea Difford who was a student of mine co-authored a research study for commercial use by www.irisbooth.com.  The work was funded by the National Research Council.  The study determined that individuals using an Iris Booth headshot as a LinkedIn profile picture experienced greater career progression than those who used a headshot photo from another source.  This link takes you to a summary of the research as conducted for Iris Booth.