Journal Of Vocational Behavior Research Articles

Structure of vocational interests in Serbia: Evaluation of the spherical model

To explore the structure of vocational interests in Serbia, 1063 participants of various age, education and gender completed the Serbian version of the Personal Globe Inventory [PGI, Tracey, T. (2002). Personal Globe Inventory: Measurement of the spherical model of interests and competence beliefs. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 6, 113–172]. The fit of Tracey’s octagonal and spherical models to the structure of correlations between Tracey’s eight and 18 type scales was evaluated, as was the fit of Holland’s hexagonal, Gati’s, Rounds–Tracey’s and Liu–Rounds’ models to the structure of correlations between RIASEC scales. Randomization test of hypothetical orders, multidimensional scaling with fixed coordinates and Myors’ test were used to assess the fit of models to the data. The results showed good fit of Tracey’s octagonal and spherical models to the data. Holland’s hexagonal model also fit the data very well, but the fit of Gati’s, Rounds–Tracey’s and Liu–Rounds’ models of relations between RIASEC types was either nonsignificant or very low.

Re-conceptualizing the past: Historical data in vocational interest research

Noteworthy progress has been made in the development of statistical models for evaluating the structure of vocational interests over the past three decades. It is proposed that historically significant interest datasets, when combined with modern structural methods of data analysis, provide an opportunity to re-examine the underlying assumptions of J.L. Holland’s [Holland, J. L. (1959). A theory of vocational choice. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 6, 35–45; Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices (3rd ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources] RIASEC model. To illustrate this potential, data obtained from J. P. Guilford’s study of interest structure were re-analyzed using modern circumplex and hierarchical clustering techniques to evaluate Holland’s and I. Gati’s [Gati, I. (1979). A hierarchical model for the structure of interests. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 15, 90–106; Gati, I. (1991). The structure of vocational interests. Psychological Bulletin, 109, 309–324] interest structures. Obtained results indicate that a circumplex model can be used to effectively represent the structure underlying Guilford’s interest measures. However, hierarchical clustering results suggest that Holland’s RIASEC types may not be the most effective categories for grouping specific interest measures into broader interest areas. The current findings provide support for the continued investigation of alternatives to Holland’s interest categories using modern measures of basic interests.

Training and Mentoring of Chemists: A Study of Gender Disparity

This study was conducted to compare women’s and men’s retrospective perceptions of the mentoring they received during their training and career development in chemistry. Participants were 455 graduates (135 women) who received doctoral degrees from 11 top US chemistry programs over a 5-year period (1988–1992). In 2003, graduates completed surveys of undergraduate, graduate, post-doctoral, and initial employment experiences. In line with Social Cognitive Career Theory (Lent et al., Journal of Vocational Behavior 45:79–122, 1994), which posits that perceptions of barriers can affect career decisions, results suggest that women perceived that they received less mentoring than men at the undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral levels of training, likely related to gender differences in eventual career success. Possible interventions at the individual and institutional levels are discussed.

Executive career management: Switching organizations and the boundaryless career

There has been little research examining executives who change jobs by specifically following these individuals both before and after their employer changes. By incorporating research on the boundaryless career [Arthur, M. B., & Rousseau, D. M. (Eds.). (1996). The boundaryless career: A new employment principle for a new organizational era. New York: Oxford University Press; Sullivan, S. E., & Arthur, M. B. (2006). The evolution of the boundaryless career concept: Examining physical and psychological mobility. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 69, 19–29] and applying Frank’s theory of relative standing (1985), this study examined factors that may cause executives to change jobs in the context of managing their careers. Our findings revealed that factors, such as age and compensation, were related to the likelihood of job movements as well as declining organizational health. Post-hoc analyses also indicated that executive job-changers received significantly greater increases in total compensation and were more likely to receive increases in organizational status.

Precursors of learning experiences in Social Cognitive Career Theory

This study extended the research on Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT; [Lent, R. W., Brown, S. D., & Hackett, G. (1994). Toward a unifying social cognitive theory of career and academic interest, choice, and performance. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 45, 79–122]) by examining the contributions of 3 person inputs (personality, gender, and conformity to gender role norms) to career-related learning experiences for each of Holland’s [Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3rd ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources] 6 RIASEC themes. Participants (144 female and 113 male college students) completed measures of personality, conformity to feminine and masculine role norms, and learning experiences for Holland’s RIASEC themes. Results of path analyses indicated that the combination of person inputs explained a significant proportion of variance in each of the RIASEC-based learning experiences. Results supported 9 of 13 hypothesized relations involving personality, and suggested that for some personality traits, the relation to RIASEC-based learning experiences is both direct and indirect, via conformity to gender role norms. Results also revealed that gender predicted learning experiences for 5 of the 6 Holland themes; however, 4 of those relations were partially or completely mediated by conformity to gender role norms. Finally, findings supported 5 of 12 hypothesized relations involving conformity to gender role norms, and suggested that gender role conformity may be most relevant to learning experiences in the Realistic and Social domains.

Employability during unemployment: Adaptability, career identity and human and social capital

Recently, Fugate et al. [Fugate, M., Kinicki, A. J., & Ashforth, B. E. (2004). Employability: A psycho-social construct, its dimensions, and applications. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 65(1), 14] defined employability as a psycho-social construct comprised of three dimensions: (i) adaptability; (ii) career identity; and (iii) human and social capital. The aim of the current paper was to empirically test Fugate et al.’s model in a sample of 416 unemployed Australians ( n = 126 for longitudinal sample). Specifically, this research explored employability in relation to three aspects of unemployment: (1) self-esteem during unemployment; (2) job search during unemployment; and (3) re-employment (at a 6-month follow-up). Overall, the results of this longitudinal study provide broad support for the psycho-social construct of employability and demonstrate its applicability to the unemployment context.

The fit of Holland’s RIASEC model to US occupations

Holland’s [Holland, J. L. (1959). A theory of occupational choice. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 6, 35–45; Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3rd ed.). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc.] RIASEC types were initially developed using a restricted range of occupational titles. Holland’s type classification system has been extended to encompass the full range of occupations in the US, using both statistical and expert rating methods. However, the extent that Holland’s classification model is sufficient to represent the full range of occupational interests has not been examined. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) was used to analyze college students’ (266 men, 572 women) interests in occupations representing approximately 85% of the US labor market. A two-dimensional MDS solution of the full set of occupations did not fit Holland’s model, but limiting the analysis to occupations used in Holland-based measures produced the expected RIASEC structure. In comparison, a three-dimensional solution included Prediger’s [Prediger, D. J. (1982). Dimensions underlying Holland’s hexagon: Missing link between interests and occupations? Journal of Vocational Behavior, 21, 259–287] dimensions (Things/People and Data/Ideas) consistent with Holland’s model, but also included prestige and sex-type dimensions that were not orthogonal to Prediger’s dimensions. These results demonstrate that the RIASEC types are not sufficient to represent the full range of occupational interests and are confounded with prestige and sex-type.

Organizational and client commitment among contracted employees: A replication and extension with temporary workers

This study replicates and extends Coyle-Shapiro and Morrow’s study (Coyle-Shapiro, J.A.-M., & Morrow, P.C. 2006. Organizational and client commitment among contracted employees. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 28, 416–431) of organizational and client commitment among contracted employees. Our study focuses on temporary workers rather than long-term contracted employees, and also finds that perceived organizational support (POS) from a client organization indeed relates to affective organizational commitment towards the client. However, this study further suggests that client POS also relates to continuance commitment towards the client as well as affective and continuance commitment towards the temporary agency. Finally, temporary workers’ desire to pursue temporary work relates to affective commitment towards the temporary agency, but continuance commitment to the temporary agency is related to a preference for permanent employment.

Racial/Ethnic Minority Vocational Research: A Content and Trend Analysis Across 36 Years

The authors examined 281 racial/ethnic minority (REM) career‐related studies published in the Journal of Vocational Behavior, The Career Development Quarterly (CDQ), the Journal of Career Assessment (JCA), and the Journal of Career Development between 1969 and 2004. Publication trends, article content and type, samples, and leading author and institutional contributors are reported. CDQ published the largest percentage of these articles (33.5%, n = 94), whereas JCA had the largest percentage (13%) of REM career articles relative to other articles it published during this time frame. There was an increase in the number of REM career articles being published across the years.

What influences continuous employee development decisions?

Organizational changes have created a need for adaptable pre-trained workers and for employees to have more “protean” career paths and be involved in self-directed ongoing development [Hall & Mirvis, 1995. The new career contract: Developing the whole person at midlife and beyond. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 47(3), 269–289]. To help understand the processes involved in this development, a model of continuous employee development is proposed. This model integrates prior work from career development, training, and education literatures and builds on it by proposing factors that affect the occurrence of future development. Research supporting the model is reviewed and specific testable propositions derived from the variables in the model are given. Recommendations for scale usage in testing the model are also provided. Finally, the novel contributions of the model are highlighted, the practical implications of the model for organizations are outlined, and the role of the education system in these processes is discussed.

Research Productivity in Counseling Psychology

This article is an update and review of institutional research productivity in counseling psychology. Institutional research productivity is assessed by totaling credits for articles published from 1993 to 2002 in the following journals: Journal of Counseling Psychology, The Counseling Psychologist, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Journal of Counseling and Development, Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development , and Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology . Results show that the rankings of many programs have remained fairly stable over the years, while others have substantially changed. Additionally, two factors were found to represent the research productivity of institutions in the field. These results are discussed in terms of the identity of counseling psychology and research productivity.

Coping with Career Indecision: Differences between Four Career Choice Types

This study examined the applicability of Gianakos’ [1999. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 54, 244–258] typology of career choice—stable, conventional, multiple-trial and unstable—to emotional coping with career indecision. Three hundred-twenty (Men = 203, Women = 117) Korean undergraduates were classified into Gianakos’ four career choice types. The Coping with Career Indecision (CCI) scale was administered to measure the emotional coping ability. Results indicated that the stable and the unstable types, respectively, received the lowest and the highest scores on the CCI. Results also demonstrated that overall differences between the four types of career choice in CCI were significant, however, the differences between the conventional and the multiple-trial were not reliable. These findings suggest that consideration of emotional as well as cognitive variables needs to be considered in constructing an ideal typology of career choice.

Current Institutional Trends in Research Productivity in Counseling Psychology Journals

This study investigated institutional publication activity in counseling psychology journals for the 10-year period from 1993 to 2002. Four journals reported by counseling psychology training directors as prime publication outlets for the field of counseling psychology were used: Journal of Counseling Psychology, The Counseling Psychologist, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Journal of Counseling and Development. Comparisons with the most recent previous ranking study revealed that institutions in the top 20 remainedfairly stable. However, 13 of the top 40 institutions ranked in this study were not ranked in the previous top 40. Implications for the field are discussed, and suggestions for how to improve publication activity trend analyses are made.

Use of Theory-Driven Research in Counseling

Three major journals in counseling psychology were sampled from 1990 to 1999 to assess the percentage of quantitative, empirical articles that were theory driven. Only 43% of the studies utilized a theory or model, and 57% predicted the relation between the variables, with few studies specifying the strength of the relation. Studies sampled in the Journal of Counseling Psychology (63%) and the Journal of Vocational Behavior (65%) reported a significantly higher percentage of theory-driven research than the Journal of Counseling and Development (43%). A higher proportion of Journal of Counseling Psychology studies compared with Journal of Counseling and Development studies anchored findings to theory. Few studies replicated previous studies. This paucity implies that replication is underutilized by the field as a potentially fruitful way to substantiate empirical knowledge. A binary logistic regression was conducted to examine trends over time. No trends emerged. Suggestions for future implementation of theory and implications for counseling psychology as a field are offered.

Coping with Career Indecision: Differences between Four Career Choice Types

This study examined the applicability of Gianakos' [1999. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 54, 244-258] typology of career choice—stable, conventional, multiple-trial and unstable—to emotional coping with career indecision. Three hundred-twenty (Men = 203, Women = 117) Korean undergraduates were classified into Gianakos' four career choice types. The Coping with Career Indecision (CCI) scale was administered to measure the emotional coping ability. Results indicated that the stable and the unstable types, respectively, received the lowest and the highest scores on the CCI. Results also demonstrated that overall differences between the four types of career choice in CCI were significant, however, the differences between the conventional and the multiple-trial were not reliable. These findings suggest that consideration of emotional as well as cognitive variables needs to be considered in constructing an ideal typology of career choice.

Life Balance: How to Convert Professional Success into Personal HappinessLife Balance: How to Convert Professional Success into Personal Happiness, by Weiss Alan. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2003.

Academy of Management ReviewVol. 30, No. 1 Book ReviewsLife Balance: How to Convert Professional Success into Personal HappinessTammy D. AllenTammy D. Allen University of South Florida, Tampa.Published Online:1 Jan 2005https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2005.15281469AboutSectionsView articleView Full TextPDF/EPUB ToolsDownload CitationsAdd to favoritesTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail View articleAbstractA review is presented of the book “Life Balance: How to Convert Professional Success Into Personal Happiness,” by Alan Weiss.REFERENCESFriedman S. D. , Greenhaus J. H. 2000. Work and family: Allies or enemies? New York: Oxford University Press. Google ScholarGreenhaus J. H. , Collins K. M. , Shaw J. D. 2003. The relation between work-family balance and quality of life. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 63: 510–531. Google ScholarKofodimos J. 1993. Balancing act: How managers can integrate successful careers and fulfilling personal lives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Google ScholarFiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 30, No. 1 Permissions Metrics in the past 12 months History Published online 1 January 2005 Published in print 1 January 2005 Information© Academy of Management ReviewKeywordsBOOKS -- ReviewsSUCCESSNONFICTIONDownload PDF

The Next Decade in Vocational Psychology: Mission and Objectives

This article discusses the 10 separate analyses of vocational psychology's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that appear in this special issue, entitled “Vocational Psychology in the Next Decade.” After identifying points of convergence, attention turns to summarizing, in the form of a mission statement, what vocational psychologists seem intent on doing in the coming years. The mission for vocational psychology in the next decade concentrates on advancing scientific understanding of vocational behavior and providing information to shape career interventions and inform public policy. Eight objectives that aim to execute this mission are proposed and discussed. The article closes with a consideration of how the Journal of Vocational Behavior can implement strategies to realize the eight objectives and thus contribute to fulfilling vocational psychology's mission.

Impact of Adolescents' Perceived Self-Regulatory Efficacy on Familial Communication and Antisocial Conduct

The present study tested the hypothesis that perceived self-efficacy to resist peer pressure for high-risk activities is related to transgressive con- duct, both directly and through the mediation of open familial communi- cation. Adolescents rated their self-regulatory efficacy, openness of com- munication with parents, and their involvement in delinquent conduct and substance abuse. Results of structural equation modeling confirmed that a high sense of efficacy to ward off negative peer influences was accompanied by open communication with parents about activities out-

Multicultural Career Development: A Methodological Critique of 8 Years of Research in Three Leading Career Journals

A methodological critique was conducted of all full‐length articles highlighting American racial and ethnic minority groups or international populations appearing in the Journal of Employment Counseling, The Career Development Quarterly, and the Journal of Vocational Behavior from 1985 through 1992. The 68 quantitative, empirically based studies identified were examined for their theoretical bases, topical emphases, multicultural populations investigated, sample descriptions, sample sizes, geographic location of the samples, instrumentation, and statistical procedures used. The results are discussed in light of the criticisms of the general multicultural counseling research delineated in recent counseling literature.

A Comparison of the Content, Authors, and Institutions Represented in the Career Development Quarterly and the Journal of Vocational Behavior

The present study examined the content in the Career Development Quarterly ( CDQ) and the Journal of Vocational Behavior ( JVB) for a 20-year period. A total of 791 CDQ articles and 1062 JVB articles were classified into the substantive areas of career research and practice devised by Fitzgerald and Rounds (1989). Additionally, author, institutional affiliations, and leading contributors were examined. Results of the study identified two principal areas of research activity and publication for each journal. For CDQ, the two principal areas were "life-span perspectives on career development" and "career interventions." For JVB, the two principal areas were "the person-environment perspective on vocational choice" and "the assessment of vocational behavior." Together, these four areas accounted for 63.5% of the articles classified for both journals. Overall, content for both journals has remained relatively stable over the years. Additionally, very little overlap exists between the authors contributing to the journals, and only slightly more commonality is observed between the institutional affiliations of the two sets of authors.