Torn between individual aspirations and the family legacy – individual career development in family firms

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore individual career management by family members in the context of their family firms.Design/methodology/approachThe interpretative interview study of family members active in family businesses explores how this context affects the choice, planning, goals and development of family members' careers in their family business.FindingsThe authors find that career management in the family business setting focuses on fulfilling the family business goals rather than the personal goals of family members. Career management is rather reactive and less self-directed than current literature on career development recommends. Based on the results, the authors develop a process model for individual career management in the family business context.Originality/valueLittle is known about individual career management of family members in a family business context, as research on careers in family firms has so far focused mainly on transgenerational succession. The authors explore how in family firms, the trend towards self-directed, individual career planning is in tension with a commitment to the family business and its legacy.

What do we know about career and development? Insights from Career Development International at age 25

PurposeCareer Development International (CDI) is an established source of scientific research on careers and development. The journal reached its 25-years milestone in 2021. To commemorate the occasion, the article aims to provide a retrospective of the major trends, research constituents, thematic structure and key factors explaining the citation impact of CDI articles between 1996 and 2020.Design/methodology/approachThe article extracts bibliographic data of CDI from Scopus and uses that data in (1) a series of bibliometric analyses to explain the major trends, research constituents and thematic structure and (2) a negative binomial regression analysis to explain the key factors affecting the citation impact of CDI.FindingsThe article finds that CDI has progressed and contributed substantially to the scientific community since its inception 25 years ago. The contributions in CDI are mainly from America and Europe and can be organized around five major clusters, namely career development, work engagement, entrepreneurship career, career outcomes and career mentoring.Research limitations/implicationsThe article provides a rich overview of CDI, but the findings are limited to the accuracy and availability of bibliographic data of CDI from Scopus.Originality/valueThe article extends Akkermans and Kubasch's (2017) 5-years retrospection of major journals on career and development through a 25-years retrospection of CDI, and in doing so, the article provides a longer and more accurate representation of CDI's contributions to the extant literature on career and development.

Meta-analysis of the impact of cross-cultural training on adjustment, cultural intelligence, and job performance

PurposeThis research aims to provide an updated meta-analysis of cross-cultural training effectiveness through quantitatively reviewing the links between cross-cultural training and three outcomes: adjustment, cultural intelligence and job performance.Design/methodology/approachDrawing from 37 independent samples from 1991 through August 2021 involving a total of 7,040 trainees, the author adopt random-effects meta-analyses method to assess the relationships between cross-cultural training and three outcomes and examine potential moderators (i.e. training phase, training method and rating source) that influence these relationships.FindingsThe meta-analytical results mainly support our hypotheses. Cross-cultural training -adjustment exhibits a medium and significant positive effect, whereas cross-cultural training is positive significantly related to job performance and cultural intelligence of small effect sizes. Training method and data source significantly moderate the cross-cultural training's impact on cultural intelligence and performance correspondingly.Originality/valueThis study considers longitudinal statistics for measuring cross-cultural training effectiveness, breaking down the inadequacy of cross-sectional measurement and covers sub-dimensions of cross-cultural training outcomes to provide more comprehensive and advanced evidence of cross-cultural training effectiveness for the latest 30 years.

Exploring careers through a qualitative lens: an investigation and invitation

PurposeIn this paper, the authors investigate and celebrate the contributions that qualitative research has made to Career Development International (CDI) and careers scholarship over the past 25 years. The authors highlight the positive impact of understanding the “lived/emic experiences” of individual career actors using qualitative research designs and identify areas for future research.Design/methodology/approachThe authors employ multiple approaches in their investigation. The authors’ enquiry is part conceptual, part critical analysis and part bibliometric visualisation of qualitative papers published in CDI.FindingsThe authors identify the underlying ontological and epistemological assumptions of qualitative research, and the key tenets and contributions of qualitative research published in CDI. Their bibliometric analysis shows the interrelatedness and frequency of topics addressed by qualitative research and published in CDI, revealing areas for further research. While identifying some of the key criteria for rigor in qualitative research, the authors also engage with emerging calls to avoid rigid templates in how qualitative research is designed and implemented. In this regard, authors echo calls for “methodological bricolage” as an approach to qualitative research in the study of careers.Originality/valueThis is the first bibliographic and visual analysis of qualitative research published in a single journal. The authors offer this investigation as a way of looking back and as an invitation looking forward, encouraging further qualitative research in anticipation of future theoretical developments in career scholarship.

Forty years of political skill and will in organizations: a review, meta-theoretical framework and directions for future research

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review the scholarship on political skill and political will so that the authors might inspire future work that assesses these constructs individually and in tandem.Design/methodology/approachThe “political skill” and “political will” concepts were introduced about 40 years ago, but they only have been measured and produced empirical results much more recently. Since that time, substantial research results have demonstrated the important roles political skill and political will play in organizational behavior. This paper provides a comprehensive review of this research, draws conclusions from this work and provides a meta-theoretical framework of political skill and political will to guide future work in this area.FindingsScholarship in this area has developed quite rapidly for political skill, but less so for political will. The authors hope that recent developments in a political will can set the stage for scholars to create a theoretical and empirical balance between these two related constructs.Originality/valueThe authors corral the vast and widespread literature on political skill and will and distill the information for scholars and practitioners alike.

Publishing quantitative careers research: challenges and recommendations

Purpose This article aims to provide prospective authors guidelines that will hopefully enable them to submit more competitive manuscripts to journals publishing careers research.Design/methodology/approach Based on their experience as an author, reviewer and editorial team member, the authors identify the main criteria that a quantitative study must meet to be considered for publication in international peer-reviewed journals covering career-related topics. They emphasize the importance of contributing to the careers literature and of designing the study in accordance with the research question.Findings Manuscripts are rejected because they are insufficiently innovative, and/or because sample, instruments and design are not appropriate to answer the research question at hand. Cross-sectional designs cannot be used to answer questions of mediation but should not be discarded automatically since they can be used to address other types of questions, including questions about nesting, clustering of individuals into subgroups, and to some extent, even causality.Originality/value The manuscript provides an insight into the decision-making process of reviewers and editorial board members and includes recommendations on the use of cross-sectional data.

A state-of-the-art overview of job-crafting research: current trends and future research directions

PurposeIn celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of Career Development International, a state-of-the-art overview of recent trends in job-crafting research was conducted. Since job crafting was introduced twenty years ago as a type of proactive work behavior that employees engage in to adjust their jobs to their needs, skills, and preferences, research has evolved tremendously.Design/methodology/approachTo take stock of recent developments and to unravel the latest trends in the field, this overview encompasses job-crafting research published in the years 2016–2021. The overview portrays that recent contributions have matured the theoretical and empirical advancement of job-crafting research from three perspectives (i.e. individual, team and social).FindingsWhen looking at the job-crafting literature through these three perspectives, a total of six trends were uncovered that show that job-crafting research has moved to a more in-depth theory-testing approach; broadened its scope; examined team-level job crafting and social relationships; and focused on the impact of job crafting on others in the work environment and their evaluations and reactions to it.Originality/valueThe overview of recent trends within the job-crafting literature ends with a set of recommendations for how future research on job crafting could progress and create scientific impact for the coming years.

International backpackers' experiences of precarious visa-contingent farmwork

PurposeAustralia's agricultural industry has become highly dependent on young low-cost, overseas “working holiday” visa workers known as “backpackers”, who are notoriously subject to exploitative workplace practices. This study aimed to explore backpackers' experiences in terms of how job demands, job resources and personal resources influence their appraisals of working in agriculture.Design/methodology/approachIn-depth semi-structured interviews were used to explore the work experiences of N = 21 backpackers employed under the Australian Working Holiday visa (subclass 417). Data were analyzed by thematic analysis and organized in terms of job demands and resources.FindingsThis study revealed job demands commonly experienced by agricultural backpacker workers (e.g. precarity, physically strenuous work, low pay), and job resources (e.g. adequate training, feedback) and personal resources (e.g. attitude, language) that buffer the demands. The findings indicate that backpackers' appraisals of their experiences and performance decline when demands outweigh resources.Originality/valueThis study offers an emic perspective on the work of an understudied segment of the agricultural workforce. The findings have implications for improving work practices and policies aimed at attracting and retaining this important labor source in the future.

The hybrid career concept: creating hybrid career pathways

PurposeHybrid career has been discussed in the literature for some time but is still an emergent concept. The study investigated the careers of university professional staff working in universities in Australia and the UK to better understand the careers of this underresearched cohort of staff. The findings were used to extend the theory of the hybrid career.Design/methodology/approachA total of 139 career stories were collected via an open-ended question in an online survey. Inductive thematic analysis was used to create themes and theorise career pathways relevant to the participants' careers.FindingsIt was found that participants had a hybrid career orientation (HCO) based on their essential values and their reciprocal relationship with their employer. Four career pathways emerged from the data: intra-organisational advancement, inter-organisational advancement, work–life balance and dead end.Research limitations/implicationsThere is a need for future research to investigate the HCO, both to add depth to the understanding of careers for university professional staff in universities and to examine the hybrid concept in other settings.Practical implicationsIt is suggested that by grouping staff into career pathways, human resource practitioners could provide more targeted interventions to ensure that staff are motivated and productive for the benefit of the organisation.Originality/valueThe research has extended the concept of the hybrid career and discovered four career pathways relevant to university professional staff.

Development of career capital during expatriation: partners' perspectives

PurposeThe purpose of this qualitative study is to examine the effects of expatriation on the development of career capital among the partners of expatriates.Design/methodology/approachThe study draws on in-depth interviews with 30 Finnish partners of expatriates.FindingsThe results reflect the various learning experiences reported by partners of expatriates that developed their career capital during expatriation. The learning experiences related to the experience of living abroad itself and to the specific activities undertaken when abroad. The extent to which partners developed knowing-why, knowing-how and knowing-whom career capital was found to partly reflect their situation abroad as stay-at-home partners or as employees in less-demanding or more-demanding jobs. Though the experiences were developmental for all partners as have been reported among expatriates, the authors also identified several aspects in which partners' experiences differed from the typical developmental experiences of expatriates.Practical implicationsThe results also highlight the influence of initiative, an active role and career self-management skills in partners' career capital development.Originality/valueThis paper advances the understanding of how expatriation affects expatriate partners' career capital, a topic that has not previously been studied in-depth.