Current Career Literature

1986 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 263-266
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Melinde Coetzee ◽  
Dries Schreuder ◽  
Rebecca Tladinyane

Orientation: Organisations continue to focus on human resource initiatives for enhancingemployee commitment, satisfaction and engagement in order to gain a competitive edge in adynamic and fast-changing marketplace.Research purpose: The objective of the present study was to assess whether individuals’career anchors (measured by the career orientations inventory) significantly moderate therelationship between their work engagement (measured by the Utrecht work engagementscale) and job commitment (measured by the organisation-related commitment scale).Motivation for the study: Although the literature review suggests that people’s workengagement and job commitment may be influenced by their career anchors, there seems to bea paucity of research examining the interaction effects between these three variables.Research approach, design and method: A cross-sectional quantitative survey approach wasused. A non-probability purposive sample of adults (N = 318) employed in a human resourcecapacity in the South African service industry participated in the study. Stepwise hierarchicalmoderated regression analysis was performed to achieve the objective of the study.Main findings: The results showed that the work engagement-job commitment relationshipwas generally stronger for high career anchor preferences than for low career anchorpreferences.Practical/managerial implications: The results of the study can be useful when human resourceinterventions for enhancing employees’ engagement and commitment are developed.Contribution: The results of the study add new insights to the career literature by showing thatpeople’s career self-concepts (as reflected by their career anchors) are important to consider inenhancing their work engagement and job commitment.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Rita Blanco ◽  
Mariela N. Golik

PurposeThe career is a space where family and work lives amalgamate. The role of work for the individual, and the meaning of work within the culture, will determine the relevance of family. This study investigates CEOs' perception about conjugal family influence on career decisions, and it examines family factors.Design/methodology/approachThrough a qualitative study, 22 Latin American CEOs who work for multinational firms were interviewed in a semi-structured way.FindingsNot all career decisions were influenced by conjugal family. CEOs varied in the extent to which they considered their families when reflecting on their career decisions. Expatriation, joining or quitting an organization and change of area of work were found as those decisions perceived to be influenced by conjugal family. Family support, family structure and family demands and responsibilities were identified as the family factors involved. In spite of the role salience, family factors influenced some of CEOs' career decisions, in part, due to the cultural characteristics of the Latin American environment. The instrumental support of the extended family, as part of collectivist societies, was also evidenced.Practical implicationsA better understanding of the family influenced decisions and family factors involved may enhance individual career decision-making as well as organizational career management processes and public initiatives.Originality/valueThis study contributes to family and career literature, being the first one to explore the conjugal family influence upon CEOs' career decisions.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Donald ◽  
Melanie J. Ashleigh ◽  
Yehuda Baruch

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to understand how universities and organizations have responded to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of preparing university students and recent graduates to enter the global labor market, using the accounting, banking and finance sector as a case study. The two research questions are (1) How can university career services and organizations work individually and collaboratively to best develop early career talent following the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) What are the challenges that university career services and organizations face when working individually or collaboratively to develop early career talent following the COVID-19 pandemic?Design/methodology/approachThe data for thematic analysis comes from 36 semi-structured interviews with career advisors (CAs) (n = 19) and graduate recruiters (GRs) (n = 17).FindingsThis study offers some of the first findings on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to ensure that organizational behavior and career theory literature reflect the dramatically changing landscape in the university-to-work transition.Originality/valueTheoretically, our contribution comes from applying a framework of the career construction theory (CTT) within the context of a career ecosystem to understand the views of the intermediary, meso-level actors, which, to date, have lacked representation within career literature. Practically, we provide an insightful bridge between universities and organizations, offering opportunities for greater collaboration, and enhanced outcomes for all stakeholders.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-143
Author(s):  
Charles P Chen ◽  
Lindsay Morris

Within the diverse population of working women, those who experience pregnancy for the first time may face some particular challenges when it comes to their career development needs and issues. These include discrimination in the workplace, responding to social expectations and pressures, negotiating life roles, and evolving personal identities. This article discusses the major career problems encountered by this target group, both structurally and socially, with a focus on individual strategies to access personal agentic functioning and empower women facing these challenges. These workers are often overlooked in the career literature; yet, there is a range of career theories to draw upon to assist them in their needs. The application of the life-span, life-space career theory, and the narrative therapy approaches are explored in relation to the helping process. These two theoretical orientations were chosen as they address the particular challenges faced by pregnant women in the workplace, especially around negotiating life roles and an evolving personal identity. There is a need for a stronger understanding of these challenges and opportunities to support pregnant women as they seek vocational wellbeing, and how to tailor suitable, well-established career counselling strategies to meet their unique needs.


2020 ◽  
pp. 106907272097637
Author(s):  
Sari Z. Akmal ◽  
Peter A. Creed ◽  
Michelle Hood ◽  
Amanda Duffy

The 15-item Positive Career Goal Discrepancy Scale was developed to assess emerging adults’ appraisals of the extent to which their current career progress exceeds their set career goals. We generated 32 items based on a literature review, focus groups, and expert reviews, used EFA ( N = 244, M age 18.7 years; 65% women) to reduce the number of items, and CFA ( N = 254, M age 18.7 years; 68% women) to confirm the factor structure and demonstrate superior reliability at the total score level (ω reliability = .91). Validity testing demonstrated that the scale was distinct from a measure of negative career goal discrepancy and related, as expected, to constructs in the nomological net: correlated positively with career satisfaction and optimism, and negatively with negative career goal discrepancy. The scale is a useful addition to the career literature and is likely to stimulate research into positive career goal progress in young people.


2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 300-317 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minseo Kim ◽  
Terry A. Beehr

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential effects of empowering leadership on followers’ subjective career success through psychological empowerment, protean career orientation, and career commitment. Design/methodology/approach Full-time employees working in the USA were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Participants answered surveys at three separate points over a six-week period (n=261). Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping were used to verify the indirect effect of empowering leadership on career satisfaction controlling for common method variance and growth need strength. Findings Empowering leadership was positively related to followers’ subsequent psychological empowerment, which in turn predicted protean career attitudes and career commitment, but only career commitment had a significant relationship with career satisfaction. Research limitations/implications Empowering leadership behaviors focus on potentially career-enhancing factors, including providing followers with the confidence, inspiration, and authority to assume control of their work lives. Empowering leaders benefit their followers’ careers, and psychological empowerment and career commitment may be important mechanisms in the empowering leadership-career success relationship when their effects are considered simultaneously. Employees’ development of a protean career orientation has less direct effect on subjective career success than simple commitment to a career. Originality/value Empowering leadership has been overlooked in career literature. The findings advance the understanding of how empowering leader behaviors could help employees’ subjective career success in a serial mediation model. Additionally, the study empirically demonstrates that psychologically empowered employees are more likely to engage in protean career actions and navigate their own career goals.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 173-184
Author(s):  
Remya Lathabhavan

This longitudinal study explores the relationships between glass ceiling beliefs (i.e. denial, resilience, resignation, and acceptance) and the outcomes of work commitment and work turnover intention, mediated via work engagement, across two time waves. Using data collected from 400 women employees (mean age = 36.67 years) from the banking sector in India, the study found support for the mediating role of work engagement between glass ceiling beliefs and both work commitment and work turnover intention over time. Glass ceiling beliefs of denial and resilience were related positively to work engagement and commitment and related negatively to turnover intention over time. Resignation and acceptance were related negatively to work engagement and work commitment and related positively to work turnover intention over time. Apart from theoretical implications to the career literature, the organizational implications of this study include framing policies that focus on development of optimistic beliefs and transformation of pessimistic beliefs.


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