Modern Career Research Articles

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.

Los estudios de seguimiento de la población graduada como he rramienta para el cambio y la innovación en el currículo universitario: la experiencia de la Escuela de Administración Educativa de la Universidad de Costa Rica

This paper presents partial results of the research project titled Graduate Tracer Studies for the Education Science with Emphasis on Education Administration, which was carried out between 2003 and 2005. A general theoretical framework of this type of studies, relevant aspects about the historical-social development of modern careers, graduate profile, and the career in Education Administration at the University of Costa Rica. Partial results are presented on the opinion about the career of the graduates of the 2002 in Alajuela, in addition to the information analysis obtained through the focal group technique. Some conclusions are highlighted in relation to the advantages and limitations of the tracer studies for change and innovation of the college curriculum in general, and particularly, about the experience in using this tool in the Education Administration.

Boundaryless Careers: Bringing Back Boundaries

Boundaryless career theories are increasingly prominent in career studies and management studies, and provide a new ‘status quo’ concerning modern careers. This paper contextualizes the boundaryless careers literature within management studies, and evaluates its contributions, including broadening concepts of career and focusing interorganizational career phenomena. It acknowledges the considerable stimulus given to career studies by this literature, but also offers a critique based on five issues: inaccurate labelling; loose definitions; overemphasis on personal agency; the normalization of boundaryless careers; and poor empirical support for the claimed dominance of boundaryless careers. Because these problems render the boundaryless career concept increasingly obsolete as a ‘leading edge’ construct in career studies, we offer new directions for theory and research. In particular we re-examine the role of career boundaries, and suggest the development of new, boundary-focused careers scholarship based on boundary theory, to facilitate studies of the processes whereby career boundaries are created, and their effects in constraining, enabling and punctuating careers.

Career guidance and counselling in european documents

Traditionally understood careers, are now being opposed to the concept of modern careers which brings along a great number of changes in the process of carrer guidance and counseling. Career guidance and counseling thus becomes recognized as an instrument of change on a personal and social level. Also, the process is recognized as a lifelong process. The paper discusses the career guidance and counseling. in the terms of European documents. Research of European documents was conducted to examine the main characteristics of carrer guidance an counseling for adults, which are listed in these documents, more accurately, identification of the activies and the holders of career guidance and counseling, and also identification of the target groups which are included in the process. Identification of these aspects is recognized as an important resource in the understanding of the new tendencies in this area.

Recommendations for using computer‐assisted career guidance systems (CACGS) in career counseling practice

AbstractElectronically mediated vocational assessment and guidance tools have become prominent in modern career counseling, leaving many career development professionals with questions about the nature of the computerized tools available and how to effectively apply these technologies in practice. In this article, the authors describe the general characteristics of computer‐assisted career guidance systems (CACGS), review evidence of their effectiveness as compared to other career intervention modalities, briefly introduce a number of empirically supported systems, and provide practitioners with guidelines for appraising CACGS and using them successfully with clients. Recommendations address evaluation and selection of CACGS, development of appropriate strategies for incorporation of CACGS into counseling services, and matters of client education and ethical practice.

Revitalizing Educational Counseling: How Career Theory Can Inform a Forgotten Practice

Educational counseling has declined as a counseling specialization in the United States, although the need for this intervention persists and is being met by other providers. This article illustrates how career theories such as Holland’s RIASEC theory can inform a revitalized educational counseling practice in secondary and postsecondary settings. The theory suggests that six personality types—Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional—have varying relationships with one another and that they can be associated to the same six environmental areas to assess educational and vocational adjustment. Although educational counseling can be viewed as distinctive from mental health counseling and/or career counseling, modern career theories can inform the practice of educational counseling for the benefit of students and schools.

Interaction Between Employee’s Interests and Attitude Towards Work as Well as Influence When Forming Career

With a constantly changing environment and an increasing competition, organizations face new challenges. In order to meet customers’ requirements and ensure the growth of activity and finance results, organizations are interested in quality improvement, in the increase of the quality of work as well as in the implementation of new technologies and modern working methods. The meeting of the above mentioned interests could be reached only by organizations having necessary competences, which are created by the workers of enterprises. The most important thing is that every employee should to the maximum open up his potential as well as effectively use personal and professional competences when striving to coordinate the objectives of an organization. At present, the importance of employee (as the most important factor of the activity of an organization) showed up in the development of management theory. Only properly motivated and able to meet his interests, an employee strives for better working results. Organizations face a number of problems connected with human resources management, they are as follows: how to attract necessary competitive employees and what measures should be taken in order to hold these employees; how to properly stimulate employees and what measures should be predicted for the meeting of employees’ interests. The limited resources and possibilities of organizations handicap the situation. In order to obtain optimal results the coordination of interests should be striven for. One of the possible interests of coordination measures can be the modern career system allowing clearing up personnel’s interests and integrating various possibilities, which coordinate interests. It is not so easy for organizations to evaluate employees’ interests. Employees’ interests are defined by a number of personal and demographical characteristics. Employees’ interests constantly change subjected to the social economic changes occurring in the environment. Interests expressed by the employees are determined by common orientations of individual and attitude towards work. The article considers the actual problem of the management science – formation of modern career on the ground of interest coordination. The question of the employee’s interests in modern career is analysed in the article written by Ciutiene, Sakalas and Neverauskas ”Influence of personnel interests on formation of modern career” (2007). In this article interests are analysed in the aspect of the attitude towards work, i.e. it was solved how interests forming employee’s career vary subject to the employee’s sacrifice in the name of his work. The carried out empirical research showed that employees, expressing different attitudes, motivate their main interests with different priorities. It only confirms that every employee is unique and an organization should create possibilities for the realization of individual interests. It should be noted that the differences of employees’ interests determined during the investigation should not be considered as typical in the context of today’s Lithuania subject to the indicated attitude towards work. The research should be carried out to a larger extent.

An integrative empirical approach to the predictors of self‐directed career management

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the effects of subjective career success, organizational learning climate, and the calling work orientation on the protean career.Design/methodology/approachFor this study employees of a Korean financial service company are encouraged to answer a web survey. To examine the hypotheses, structural equation modeling is used.FindingsThe results provide evidence of potential predictors of the protean career based on the empirical approach. Also, this study shows an integrative model for predictors of the protean career with the structural equation modeling method. All independent variables – subjective career success, the calling work orientation, and organizational learning climate – have a significant relationship with the protean career. Among the independent variables, the calling orientation has the strongest effect on the protean career.Research limitation/implicationThe generalization of the results may be limited to the research population. Also, as results are based entirely on cross‐sectional self‐report data, the causality of the findings cannot be confirmed.Originality/valueThe importance of the protean career concept has increased in the modern career context, underscoring the individual's self‐direction of career management. This study uses empirical evidence to examine the psychological and environmental predictors of the protean career.

Faye and the Fandom of a Chinese Diva

This article explores the fans of Chinese Cantopop diva Faye Wong, a pop icon often expropriated to project a new Asian femininity. Unlike earlier Cantopop stars, Faye's values, images and songs are anchored by the presumption that she is independent, unconventional, and contentious. This is precisely how she is able to create and provide expression and aspiration to a middle-class female fandom that have to reconcile family roles with her independent and modern career image. This article examines the process by which fans subtly appropriate Faye's persona and engage in independent trajectories and various struggles against existing cultural norms and gendered family values. Using ethnographic methods and in-depth interviews over a six-year period, the author identifies the dilemmas and social contradictions that these fans face in Chinese communities.

Editorial: Nursing on television: are we being served?

Editorial: Nursing on television: are we being served?

Implementing a clinical academic career pathway in nursing; criteria for success and challenges ahead

Abstract Following the United Kingdom Clinical Research Collaboration’s (UKCRC) (2007) recommendations on careers in clinical research, there has been growing anticipation in the United Kingdom about the real potential for establishing career pathways for nurses and allied health professionals that will enable them to combine a focus on both clinical and academic roles. However, it is recognized that the implementation of this initiative will require charting largely untested waters, with issues ranging from establishing joint University: health service employment contracts, to harmonizing clinical and research roles and ensuring sustainability of funding for clinical academic posts. This paper will outline the implementation of a pilot clinical academic career initiative, which has been modelled on the UKCRC framework. We will illuminate the processes and structures employed and reflect on the factors that appear critical to the successful establishment of a clinical academic career pathway. Additionally, our experience has enabled us to identify challenges that will need to be addressed by a range of stakeholders if clinical academic careers are to flourish and deliver their potential at a national level as a modern career option for nurses and allied health professionals.

Etnografisk fiktion

Ireland's strong literary tradition was created by writers from James Joyce to Seamus Heaney, and literature was a prominent part of the national cultural revival in the late 19th century. It was the poet Yeats who initiated what has been called the literary movement which had a political impact on Ireland's passage into independence. Irish literary theorist Declan Kiberd argues in his Inventing Ireland that it was with this literary movement that Ireland became a modern nation. Now the literary tradition is continued by an acclaimed generation of fiction writers. They tend to reflect on the sudden social change which the so called Celtic Tiger, the economic boom in the late 20th century brought to the Republic of Ireland. In my anthropological study of Irish literature, it was novels and short stories by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne (pronounced "Eilish Nee Gwivna" in English) that first pointed me to the concept of ethnographic fiction. The aim of this article is to explore how Ní Dhuibhne's writings on women and girls can be used as ethnography. This also evokes questions about the relationship between ethnography as a method and text on one hand and ethnography and fiction on the other. Ní Dhuibhne collects material for her fiction from the type of ethnographic observation and note taking which originates in anthropology and ethnology. With a doctorate in Irish folklore, she has an eye for ethnographic details especially the predicaments of women in Ireland who are trying to combine traditional family life with modern careers. This leads over to issues on Irish writers and their fiction in the world.

Probabilities and Possibilities: The Strategic Counseling Implications of the Chaos Theory of Careers

The chaos theory of careers emphasizes both stability and change in its account of career development. This article outlines counseling strategies derived from this emphasis in terms of convergent or probability thinking and emergent or possibility thinking. These 2 perspectives are characterized, and practical counseling strategy implications are provided. In addition, an illustrative technique example is described. The authors conclude that the challenges of modern career development demand the complementary and the interactive use of both probability and possibility thinking strategies.

Comparative Study of Student Support Services of AIOU and UKOU

This paper attempts to compare the availability, quality, similarities and differences of student support services in Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) and United Kingdom Open University (UKOU) and also to identify and enlist the deficiencies that AIOU students are facing in the student support services. The study found out that student support services of AIOU are quantitatively developing rapidly on the lines of UKOU. Though the regional campuses of both the institutions have almost the same status in the provision of student support service yet the UKOU students have better services in the guidance and counseling, modern communication facilities and career guidance. Moreover, there also exists Open University student association in UKOU. The conclusions led to the recommendation that AIOU regional campuses may be made independent like UKOU, counseling and guidance cell might be established at every regional campus, modern communication facilities like toll free, auto answer may be provided at AIOU regional campuses.

Borders of “the boundaryless career”

PurposeThe paper aims to examine the notion of the boundaryless career, arguing that the notion is problematic, and that simultaneous co‐existence of different types of careers makes both “new” and “old” types of careers possible.Design/methodology/approachThe approach is twofold: a theoretical argument, and a qualitative ethnographic study, involving observations and interviews.FindingsThe theoretical argument questions the underlying premise and promise of the notion of the boundaryless career, namely that modern careers amount to a higher level of personal freedom. This empirical study will serve to illustrate the co‐constitutive nature of different career stories.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is qualitative and thereby limited in the following way: it serves to give a deep understanding of the phenomena at hand, but is not easily generalizable. However, the methodology can inspire scholars to explore the findings observed in this paper.Practical implicationsThe idealization of the boundaryless career is problematic, as it poses problems to those concerned with the career. A more flexible ideal of careers would be preferable to researchers and organisational actors alike.Originality/valueThe paper gives a practical and empirical input to a debate that has been largely conceptual or generalized.

Influence of Personnel Interests on Formation of Modern Career

An increase of employees role in organization is determined by the set of changes of activity environment. Restructuring of the country‘s economy, perfection of technology, development of information society, changes in structure of organizations, globalization and internationalization make organizations change the attitude to the personnel. An increasing role of employee inside organization changes a standing attitude to employee‘s training, motivation, demand satisfaction and forces to look for the new possibilities to satisfy personnel interests. Modern career formation could be considered as complex measures that ensure coordination of interests of personnel and organization. Career integrates a set of partial possibilities of personnel interests satisfaction (motivation system, innovative methods of work organization, planning of individual career for all employees in organization, etc.). Modern organizations supporting a model of modern career are being formed under the influence of up-to-date changes. Therefore in order to realize a modern career model effectively we primailly need to research the interests of organization‘s personnel. The performed research showed that employees highlight the social psychological interests more than material ones. The results of the research proved that the tendencies of personnel interests in Lithuanian organizations are close to those of western countries. Judging on results of the research, appropriate measures of interests satisfaction should be applied in the enterprises. It should be noted that personnel interests profile formed during the investigation can‘t be considered a typical interests profile of employees of Lithuania. This requires research of a wider extent.

The Butterfly Model of Careers: Illustrating How Planning and Chance Can Be Integrated in the Careers of Secondary School Students

Simple matching models of decision making are no longer sufficient as a basis for career counselling and education. The challenge for contemporary careers advisers is how to communicate some of the complexities of modern career development to their students; in particular, the apparently contradictory relationship between the need for planning and the influence of unplanned events. Deriving from the Chaos Theory of Careers, this paper outlines a practical technique currently being used in the secondary school context that illustrates how both planning and contingency can be linked, understood and utilised in career decision making. The implementation of the Butterfly Model of Careers is outlined in detail to enable others in the career counselling field to be able to use it as well.

Sublimity and skepticism in Montaigne and Milton

Traditional approaches to understanding sublimity and skepticism have often asserted the primacy and importance of one concept over the other. In Sublimity and Skepticism in Montaigne and Milton, however, David Sedley argues that literary and philosophical notions of skepticism and sublimity, in fact, simultaneously developed and influenced one another. He illuminates this theory with carefully chosen selections from two eccentric, yet typical, Renaissance writers: Montaigne and Milton. Examining the text of Montaigne's Journal de voyage and Essais, and Milton's Comus and Paradise Lost, Sedley exposes the Renaissance impulse behind the modern career of sublimity. Sedley's work will be of particular interest to intellectual historians, literary theorists and philosophers.

Career Competencies for the Modern Career

Career development gains new meaning in the context of employability demands in a knowledge economy. In this context, increased mobility, a dynamic work environment, and an increased level of career support from employers are seen as characteristics of a modern career. All of these characteristics put emphasis on individual and self-management in career development. This article presents the results of an empirical study that addressed the general question as to which competencies employees need to possess to realize career self-management. In a survey of 1,579 employees (51% response) in 16 Dutch companies, 6 career factors and competencies of career self-management prove to be relevant for career development: career development ability, reflection on capacities, reflection on motives, work exploration, career control, and networking. Among the explanatory variables that are considered, mobility perspective and career support at work and private life appear to be associated most strongly (statistical significance at .01) with career competencies.

General practice as seen through the eyes of general practice trainees: A qualitative study

Objective. To explore the perceptions of general practice trainees regarding their discipline and to compare these spontaneously expressed views with recently proposed definitions of general practice. Material and methods. A qualitative focus-group study was conducted in one Belgian and two French medical schools. Twenty-eight trainees took part (16 from Belgium and 12 from France). The transcripts were analysed by the immersion crystallization method. Results. The participants in this study seemed prepared to take on the many responsibilities outlined in various definitions of general practice, but feared personal commitment to accessibility and continuous care. Being skilled clinicians and patients’ advocates formed their “raison d’être” in the healthcare system. They were reluctant to act as gatekeepers within the system, a role that might jeopardize their advocacy function for their patients. They mentioned the lack of appeal of entrepreneurship aspect of practice. Participants reported that training settings typically offer traditional models of practice, which sometimes led them to feel estranged from a profession that they felt needs reorganization. Conclusions. Participants’ descriptions generally coincided with official definitions of general practitioners’ tasks, except for practice management and gate-keeping aspects. They were willing to accept the burden of general practice as long as responsibility could be shared and as long as there was freedom for flexible progress along a modern career track.