Intelligent Career Research Articles

Driving a career in Tehran: Experiences of female internet taxi drivers

This qualitative study explores the career experiences of 34 female internet taxi drivers (FTDs) in Tehran, the capital city of Iran, and responds to the call for international and contextual perspectives on careers. We adopt the intelligent career framework and the institutional logics perspective to understand the FTDs' career given their institutional context. First, we shed light on why (i.e., financial needs, flexibility, passion for driving, and social relationships), how (i.e., preferring female passengers, driving skills, navigation skills, becoming less feminine, accessing a car, and self-protection), and with whom (i.e., internet-based taxi company, passengers, family, and citizens) our participants work. Then, we illustrate that normative (e.g., traditional division of labor) and structural (e.g., economic hardship) forces constrain and drive why, how, and with whom the FTDs navigate their career. Our findings unpack an understudied career in an unconventional context and extend the boundaryless career perspective to examine nonprofessional independent contract workers.

Fitting in: Different Types of Person-Environment Fit as Drivers of Career Self-management in Kuwait

Contributing to emerging efforts to integrate the understudied career self-management (CSM) with person- environment fit research, this study aims to assess the unique effects of person-organization, person-coworkers and needs-supplies fits on employees’ deployment of career advancement strategies. A questionnaire was completed by 548 highly educated young Kuwaitis and self-initiated expatriates (Arab and South Asian) working in medium and large Kuwaiti organizations. The simultaneous effects of the three types of fits is assessed and the findings demonstrate that an increase in person-coworkers fit and decrease in person-organization and needs-supplies fits consistently encourage the deployment of career advancement strategies concerning accessing influential networks, self-promotion, competence building and psychological boundaryless. A relatively more robust effect of person-coworker fit has been detected. It is attributed to the Arab collectivistic culture and to the construct being a career competency and a contextual factor as per the “intelligent career” theory. Interventions should be mindful of the differential effects of different types of fit on CSM. Developing organizational ‘standards of fit’ and CSM skills are essential for individual career development and organizational success. The study provides unique information about the understudied constructs of CSM and person-environment fit in a traditional and high inequality Arab Middle Eastern country, and infers the causes of the inconsistent effects of contextual factors reported by previous studies. 

Is Protean Career Attitude Beneficial for Both Employees and Organizations? Investigating the Mediating Effects of Knowing Career Competencies.

The aim of this study was to investigate the direct and indirect effects of protean career attitude on subjective and objective career success representing personal outcomes and task performance reflecting an organizational outcome. Drawing on the intelligent career framework, three knowing career competencies, i.e., career insight (knowing why), networking (knowing whom), and career/job-related skills (knowing how), were hypothesized as mediators linking protean career attitude with its personal and organizational outcomes. Participants of the study were 241 faculty members and matched supervisors from five large public sector universities in Islamabad, Pakistan. Data were collected in two waves through a personally administered questionnaire and analyzed through covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM). Results showed that protean career attitude has direct positive impacts on subjective career success, objective career success, and task performance. Further, the mediating role of three knowing career competencies was partially supported. We contribute to the literature by proposing and testing a research model linking protean career attitude with its personal and organizational outcomes directly and indirectly through three ways of knowing. A number of practical implications along with future research directions are also discussed.

Deciding to lead: a qualitative study of women leaders in emergency medicine

BackgroundThe aim of this study is to highlight career paths of senior women leaders in academic emergency medicine (EM) to encourage younger women to pursue leadership.MethodsThis was a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with female EM leaders. We interviewed 22 recognized female leaders selected using criterion-based sampling and a standardized script of open-ended questions derived from the Intelligent Career Model. Questions were related to job purpose, skills, and networking. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and three trained reviewers analyzed transcripts following grounded theory principles and using Dedoose®. Researchers used an iterative process over several meetings to produce the final set of codes and themes.ResultsOur iterative process identified four themes: women leaders made an intentional decision to pursue opportunities to influence emergency medicine, women sought out natural mentors and sponsors to facilitate career development, women leaders intentionally planned their out of work life to support their leadership role, and an important focus for their work was to help others achieve excellence.ConclusionsOur study provides insights from senior female leaders in EM; supporting the value of women pursuing leadership. There is a widely acknowledged need to diversify leadership and support gender-specific needs to develop women leaders in medicine. Becoming a woman leader in EM means making intentional decisions and taking risks. Leaders found benefits in natural mentors and sponsors. Those relationships have power to change the trajectory of emerging women leaders by identifying and reinforcing potential. Work/life balance remains an area which requires intentional planning. Woman leaders encourage succession planning and corroborate the need for increasing the percentage of women leaders to benefit the organizational culture. Leadership in academic medicine is changing with reorientation of a largely autocratic, vertically oriented hierarchy into a more democratic, consensus-driven, and horizontally organized management structure which should complement the strengths women bring to the leadership table.

Careers in Cities: Improving Lives, Improving Communities

In this symposium, we present four examples of ways in which an exploration of interactions between careers and cities can enhance our understanding of both individual and institutional dynamics relevant to work and wellbeing. Setor, Joseph, and Chan present an empirical study which illustrates a technique for distinguishing career patterns, their differing prevalence in city and rural contexts, and the effect of these differences on career outcomes. Gill presents results of a longitudinal study of the emergence of a new innovation ecosystem, reflecting on tensions between economic priorities and acknowledgement of local place, culture, and identity in supporting entrepreneurs. Feltner, Pandzich, and Mitra explore ways in which entrepreneurs and a broader entrepreneurial ecosystem can contribute to individual and community wellbeing and urban renewal. Zikic and Voloshyna apply intelligent career theory to the transition faced by migrants as accumulated career capital is disrupted, and ways in which new host cities influence career reestablishment. Are the Career Patterns of City, Suburban and Rural Dwellers Different or Similar? Presenter: Tenace Kwaku Setor; U. Of Nebraska Omaha Presenter: Damien Joseph; Nanyang Technological U. Presenter: Kim Yin Chan; Nanyang Technological U. Understanding Discursive Agendas in City Efforts to Build Innovation Ecosystems Presenter: Rebecca Gill; Wake Forest U. Entrepreneurial Careers for Urban Resilience in Legacy Cities: Narratives from Detroit Presenter: Elizabeth-Ann Pandzich; Wayne State U. Presenter: Rahul Mitra; Wayne State U. Presenter: Dorothy Feltner; Wayne State U. New City, Foreign Career Competencies: Crafting New Pathways to Migrant Career Success? Presenter: Jelena Zikic; York U. Presenter: Viktoriya Voloshyna; York U., Canada

Intelligent career success: The case of distinguished academics

The purpose of this qualitative study is to contribute to the scholarship on career success within a boundaryless career context. Within the body of boundaryless careers research, we adopt the intelligent career framework to highlight success factors described by twenty-eight distinguished academics (DAs) and eight of their spouses to illustrate the DAs' approach to extreme success in academia. Our results further support the existence of six unidirectional links as well as further links between the framework's three “ways of knowing” that have not been thoroughly examined in the career success literature. Our findings have theoretical and practical implications for career scholars and practitioners.

Book Reviews

A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution — Reviewed by Glenn Suter The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2017 — Reviewed by Glenn Suter Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process — Reviewed by Glenn Suter The River of Consciousness — Reviewed by Glenn Suter An Intelligent Career: Taking Ownership of Your Work and Your Life — Reviewed by Nancy Judd

Development of a Web-based Intelligent Career Guidance System for Pre-Tertiary Science Students in Nigeria

The traditional approach to career guidance is a manual method that is ineffective and inefficient. The electronic approach provides an effective and efficient career guidance. This research therefore developed a web-based intelligent career guidance system that assists pre-tertiary science students in Nigeria to independently choose a career path at anytime and anywhere with the use of computer system or mobile/smart phones as applicants seek admission into various fields of study in Nigerian Higher Institutions (Universities or Polytechnics). The intelligent system uses student-driven parameters such as favourite science subjects combination, career interest inventory analysis result, and intelligent quotient test result for career recommendation. The web-based intelligent system was designed and implemented with principle of a rule-based expert system using forward chaining algorithm, the client-side/interface pages (front-end) were designed using “Bootstrap 3” front-end framework that contains HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. For the back-end, XAMPP was used. The system was implemented and evaluated using 200 pre-tertiary science students; they took the career choice tests and provided their feedback for the evaluation of the system performance. The feedback shows that the recommended career by the system is 95% accurate and relevant, 70% satisfactory, and 80% adequacy of information on career guidance by the system.

Academicians’ Career Capital and Career Satisfaction: The Mediation Effect of Research Productivity

Most organizations in today's information economy are regarded as working with knowledge (Powell & Snellman, 2004) and employing knowledge workers (Horibe, 1999). In a knowledge economy, knowledge is produced and transformed into value through the contributions of research institutions (universities), industry, and government; universities, where knowledge is produced, establish the first leg of the tripod (Etzkowitz, 2003). Knowledge-producing institutions have a competitive advantage in their smart, creative, spirited, and lively academicians and their competences (Baldwin, 1990; De Janasz & Sullivan, 2004). Studies reveal that academic articles written by academicians and published in prestigious journals account for more than 50% of the variance in university ranking (Siemensa, Burtonb, Jensenb, & Mendoza, 2005). At present, which variables affect the research performance of academicians in universities and what role does research performance have in the relationship between these variables with career satisfaction are the questions that have come up.In answer to these questions using the competence-based career theory, which Arthur, Claman, and DeFillippi (1995) conceptualized as intelligent career, for its base, this study hypothesizes that career competence, or career capital, positively affects individual academicians' productivity and career satisfaction and that individual academic productivity will have a mediator effect on the relationship between career competence and individual career satisfaction. With the aim of empirically testing these hypotheses, as well as hypotheses that establish the subdimensions of these research questions, two field studies, including a pre-study, were carried out on academicians working for universities in Turkey.Career SatisfactionCareer satisfaction is a reflection of the internal attitudes of individuals towards their career and the developments in their career; it forms a subjective aspect of career success (Stebbins, 1970). In accordance with contemporary career approaches, knowledge workers give more importance to psychological career success, which is also known as career satisfaction (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996; Hall, 1996; Janasz & Sullivan, 2004). Career satisfaction, or psychological career success, emphasizes the individual over the organization and considers that the internal standards of an individual are formed through the perception of satisfaction as a function of their success in their social environment; it reveals to some extent an individual's level of happiness (Ballout, 2007). From this perspective, career satisfaction reveals an individual's quality of life.Contemporary Career Approach and Career CompetencesThe contemporary career approach has been widely studied through a theory first claimed by DeFillippi and Arthur (1994) as the competency-based career and later revised by Arthur et al. (1995) as the intelligent career. According to new career understanding, individuals need to be employable (Fugate, Kinicki, & Ashforth, 2004) to be able to realize their careers among different organizations. For this purpose, individuals improve their career competences by consciously investing in their careers while simultaneously performing their current duties (DeFillippi & Arthur, 1994; Erdogmuc & Aytekin, 2012; Tams & Arthur, 2010). These career competences generate career capital, which has value for both careerists and employers (Inkson & Arthur, 2001; Parker, Khapova, & Arthur, 2009).Existing literature related to career competence is concentrated on three main areas. The first of these is the research that aims to form the conceptual framework of career competences. In this field, what career competences can be investigated are, and numerous concepts are stated and defined. For instance, Jones and DeFillippi (1996) argued that careerists should have the competences of know-why, knowhow, know-whom, know-what, know-where, and know-when. …

Towards a more integrated view of entrepreneurial careers

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to employ intelligent career theory to simultaneously explore the relationships between three types of entrepreneurial career capital (i.e. motivations, human, and social capital). It illustrates the interconnectedness of these three forms of capital as an important way to study entrepreneurial careers and provide a new lens for understanding both personal and venture success.Design/methodology/approach– This qualitative study of 22 in depth semi-structured interviews explores career stories of entrepreneurs in the high tech industry. The interviews focus on examining three aspects of their career, motivations to become an entrepreneur, ways of learning and developing their human and social capital. Interviews were transcribed and coded using grounded theory approach.Findings– The findings describe how entrepreneurial careers as simultaneously shaped by three types of career capital: motivations (knowing-why), knowledge (knowing-how), and relationships (knowing-whom). It also illustrates the accumulation of career capital as a continuous cycle of interrelationships between these three types of capital.Research limitations/implications– In sum, the findings add to the knowledge on entrepreneurial careers and the role that the three types of capital play in venture formation and success. It also points to the importance of a more integrated view of these careers, embedded in a web of motivational, social, and human capital.Practical implications– The study’s findings suggest that entrepreneurs should paid equal attention and nurture each form of career capital throughout their careers. It also has implications for entrepreneurship programs as well career advisers to.Originality/value– Prior entrepreneurship research has examined aspects of entrepreneur’s career capital (e.g. intentions, social, and human capital) typically in isolation from one another and little is known about their reinforcing relationships in entrepreneurial careers. This study provides novel insights for understanding the three types of career capital and the importance of this more integrated view in entrepreneurship education and career counseling.

Knowing More from Chinese Expatriates:Theoretical & Empirical Extensions to the Intelligent Career

This paper extends intelligent career theory to integrate the knowing - what, where and when elements with the established knowing- how, who and why aspects. We theorize the interrelationship betwe...

A Meta-Analysis on Effects of Human, Social, and Psychological Capital on Career Success in Chinese Business Organizations

Career success is defined as the positive psychological or work-related achievements one obtains through work experiences. For individuals, career success reflects the self-actualization of individuals. In an organization, employees' personal career success means the organization's making the best of its human resources and eventually contributing to its success. As career success is of concern not only to individuals but also to organizations, many researchers continue to identify the individual and organizational factors that facilitate employees' career success. At the individual level, demographic, social capital, human capital, motivational and work-family variables are possibly associated with career success. At the organizational level, organizational variables such as firm size, industry sector, organizational support and geographic location may also be related to career success. Though Chinese organizational researchers have identified many determinants of career success and some have qualitatively reviewed partially the related literature, no large-scale systematic attempt has been made to systematically summarize the existent literature. In order to quantitatively review the career success literature, we use meta-analysis which is of appropriate for several reasons. Firstly, meta-analysis is a quantitative review technique that can reduce the measurement error from sampling and unreliability in individual studies. Secondly, a critical review and synthesis of the related body of research can play an important role in theory development and building. Thirdly, as former scholars have already identified some factors that determined objective and subjective career success, it would, therefore, be theoretically valuable to review and compare the strength of predictors in determining the objective and subjective career success in order to guide future research and management practices. In this study, we use meta-analysis to examine the relative importance of three career competencies(i.e., human capital, social capital, and psychological capital) and their underlying mechanism of predicting career success. Four inclusion criteria were used to select individual studies for this. Firstly, we focused on studies with dependent variables including at least one kind of operationalizations such as promotion, salary or subjective career success. Secondly, participants had to be employees in Mainland China. Thirdly, correlations were reported in the study. Fourthly, if the same sample was repeatedly included in different studies, then only the study that including most number of variables would be used in the present study. According to the above four criteria, we identified 76 studies that covered 78 dependent samples and 21,570 employees. Based on the intelligent career framework, contest and sponsored mobility, the theory of market transition, and the imbedding perspective of social capital, we put forward our hypotheses. To test our hypotheses, we obtained a correlation matrix first through four steps(i.e., encoding, correcting for correlations, composition of correlations and calculation of effective seizes). Then, we utilized LISREL8.30 to test our hypotheses. The results showed:(1) human capital, social capital and psychological capital were positively related to objective and subjective career success;(2) while human capital could explain more variance of objective career success, psychological capital could explain more variance of subjective career success;(3) organization sponsorship partially mediated the relationship between human capital, social capital and career success; it also partially mediated the relationship between psychological capital and subjective career success. The relationship between psychological capital and objective career success was fully mediated through organization sponsorship;(4) psychological capital could predict better much better organization sponsorship. This study contributes to the career success literature. One major contribution is that our results reveal the differential effects of the three career competency on objective and subjective career success. This finding isimportant both to theoretical development and to the methodology of measuring career success. Secondly, we examined the underling mechanism on how human, social and psychological capital may affect career success. Thirdly, it is important to find the kind of criteria used by elites and its agents to give candidates sponsorship. This theoretical question is examined in the present study using meta-analysis. Our study also offers implications for managerial practices. First, managers should focus on developing subordinates' human, social and psychological capital. Second, individuals should be aware of the fact that career success does not only affect human, social and psychological capital, but also others sponsorship. Several limitations have been noted in the current study. First, potential moderators may exist in the relationships among the three career competencies and career success. But we have not examined the moderating effects. A third limitation of this study is that we have not been able to explore the synergy among the three career competencies by examining their interactions due to the limitation of meta-analysis. Third, like other meta-analyses that examine mediating process, the current meta-analysis has not included control variables in hypotheses testing because many studies have not provided correlations with these control variables.

Skilled migrants' career capital as a source of competitive advantage: implications for strategic HRM

Skilled migrants (SMs) are an important source of labour force growth in today's knowledge economy in many parts of the world. Yet, management scholars have paid only scarce attention to understanding the potential strategic value of SMs' career capital and ways of attracting and integrating them into local organizations. This paper combines intelligent career theory and the resource-based view theory applied to diversity into a new and integrated framework defining ways that local employers may leverage on SM career capital. The framework addresses organizational competencies related to properly assessing organizational needs and readiness (organizational knowing-why) for SM workforce and then describing unique ways of properly attracting and integrating (knowing-how and knowing-whom related to SMs) this type of workforce into local organizations. Propositions for future research and, in particular, for further studying the role of HR in each of the three stages of the SM–employer relationship (i.e. understanding, attracting and integrating) are discussed. The paper also contributes to diversity literature by focusing on the less examined type of diversity, namely career capital diversity. Implications for future research and practice in this area are described.

Immigrant Professionalss Career Capital as a Source of Competitive Advantage: Implications for Strategic HRM

Immigrant professionals (IPs) are an important source of labour force growth in today’s knowledge economy in many parts of the world. Yet management scholars have paid only scare attention to understanding the potential strategic value of IP career capital and ways of attracting and integrating IPs into local organizations. This paper uses resource based view theory and intelligent career theory to provide a framework for understanding IP diversity and it outlines key stages for studying the relationship between IPs and local organizations. IPs’ career capital and associated challenges are described first. Secondly, the conceptual framework is presented that offers practical advice and examines the role of HR in understanding, attracting, and integrating IPs. Paper concludes with implications for future research and practice in this area.

Navigating careers intelligently in Professional Services Firms: What’s diversity got to do with it?

Our study contributes to understanding minority under-representation at the top of professional services firms. Applying the intelligent career competencies framework (knowing whom, knowing why and...

Drivers of freelance career success

SummaryRecent evidence shows that the frequently proclaimed collapse of the traditional career model is actually not supported by job tenure data. This paper argues that the observed stability of job tenure might be explained by an increasing number of shamrock organizations. This organizational form has three types of workers: core employees, professional freelancers, and routine workers. In such an organization, two very different career models coexist. The organization largely determines the career of the core employee, whereas the individual essentially shapes that of the professional freelancer. This paper studies extensively the career of this second group: the professional freelancer, a growing phenomenon in many developed countries but not yet the focus of many career studies. We develop a freelance career success model on basis of the intelligent career framework augmented by insights from literature on entrepreneurship. Data are from a web survey with responses from about 1600 independent professionals in the Netherlands, in combination with 51 in‐depth interviews. We provide two main contributions. First, we report findings from the first large‐scale quantitative study into freelance career success. Second, this study enhances our understanding of the success of the modern career by building bridges between career and entrepreneurship literatures. We conclude that the external environment in which an individual freelancer operates is the most important factor determining career success. The study therefore suggests that more work needs to be performed on the relationship between the environment and individual career success. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Branding international careers: An analysis of multinational corporations’ official wording

Summary This paper concentrates on the official website wordings of companies addressing international work and careers. To our knowledge we conducted the first study analysing large companies’ websites to explore their wordings, concepts and attraction mechanisms with respect to international mobility and global careers. The webpages of 67 German and French top companies listed in the DAX30 and CAC40 were investigated. The results show that 37 firms refer to international work on their websites but most focus on operational issues regarding international experience and expatriation rather than on global careers. Moreover, the target groups for international work differed between French and German companies. French MNCs pursued an elite approach concentrating on high-potential managers, young graduates and experienced managers. German firms focused on motivated individuals who wanted to build their skills and knowledge in a functional career approach. It seems that MNCs for both countries exported their national career systems. Lastly, the study presents organisational and individual benefits in terms of the intelligent career concept as highlighted on websites. The discussion shows that companies are focusing on exposing knowing-how and are neglecting knowing-whom and knowing-why benefits of international work. Academic, managerial and social implications are discussed and propositions are presented in the conclusions.

The importance of intelligent career and location considerations

Purpose – Research neglects the role that specific locations play in the decision process to accept international work. This paper aims to explore the career drivers of individuals working as expatriates in London (UK) and to focus on the relationships with specific location attributes.Design/methodology/approach – A total of 11 qualitative in‐depth interviews and 348 quantitative questionnaire responses are used to explore the importance of intelligent career considerations for working as an expatriate in London.Findings – A range of location‐specific factors and intelligent career considerations is identified and quantitatively assessed. The study depicts the links of perceived career factors and location‐specific drivers.Originality/value – Applying the intelligent careers framework, the research goes beyond the normally used broad national factors to explore career capital drivers that motivate individuals to go to a specific city location. In exploring the relatively neglected areas of knowing‐whom a...

The intelligent career framework as a basis for interdisciplinary inquiry

This paper examines how separate behavioral science disciplines can be brought together to more fully understand the dynamics of contemporary careers. We adopt one interdisciplinary framework – that of the “intelligent career” – and use it to examine how separate disciplinary approaches relate to one another. The intelligent career framework suggests careers unfold through three interdependent “ways of knowing” reflecting why, how and with whom people work. Breaking this framework down into six unidirectional links, we examine the contributions made by a variety of behavioral science approaches. Our review suggests that separate bodies of career-relevant theory reflect separate links from one way of knowing to another. We offer several lessons concerned with (a) the intelligent career framework; (b) evidence underlying separate theories; (c) differing definitions of career; (d) research methodologies; (e) time; and (f) interdependence among variables. We conclude with some ideas on how to better promote future interdisciplinary careers research.

Promoting employability in a “flat” world

T. L. Friedman (2005) described a “flat” world platform where competition and collaboration take place in real time among people all over the planet. Implications exist for people to assume responsibility for managing their own careers and ensuring their own security in a global economy. This article addresses those challenges from both the individual's and the career counselor's perspectives. It proposes the “intelligent career” framework—comprising 3 “ways of knowing” and interdependencies among them—as a helpful basis for effective career development. People can use the framework to navigate their careers in order to develop new skills, develop broader reputations, and in turn sustain employability.