Objective Career Outcomes Research Articles

Weighing Down My Career: Exploring Body Fat’s Impact on Career Success and Sex’s Moderating Role

The CDC recognizes that much of the worldwide population is obese or overweight. However, the effects of body fat on a person’s workplace success, especially in the long term, are not well known. Further, we have relatively little insights into the dominant mechanisms by which obesity influences objective career outcomes. Aiming to understand if, how, and when employee body fat impacts career success over time, we challenge prior theory (i.e., stigma theory) and employ a novel medical perspective to suggest that an employee’s health - in the form of illnesses like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and joint issues - determines the relationship between employee obesity levels and long-term work success. Furthermore, we integrate research from evolutionary biology to further consider the moderating role of employee sex in the health process. Longitudinal results from a nationally representative, multi-wave sample (across 20 years) show that employee health -but not stigmatization or other explanations- mediates the negative relationship between employee body fat levels and objective career success. Moreover, findings revealed that employee sex did not moderate this indirect effect, indicating that the high body fat men and women equally experience adverse career effects due to the serious medical impairments they incur. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Adolescent vocational interests predict early career success: Two 12‐year longitudinal studies

AbstractVocational interests are relatively stable individual differences that can change across the lifespan. However, little is known about the importance of interest changes, relative to stable interest levels, for predicting career outcomes. This study assessed the long‐term predictive power of adolescent interest levels and interest growth for five career outcomes: degree attainment, occupational prestige, income, and career‐ and job‐satisfaction. The study used two 12‐year longitudinal samples (N1 = 485; N2 = 1290) with vocational interests measured across multiple waves from late adolescence to young adulthood. Results from both samples converged on three key findings. First, adolescents who showed better interest fit with their eventual vocation were more satisfied with their jobs over a decade later. Second, adolescent interests predicted objective career outcomes (i.e. degree attainment, occupational prestige, and income), revealing that early interests shaped educational and career choices. Third, interest changes were typically not associated with career outcomes, indicating that adolescent interest levels played a larger role. Together, these findings highlight the critical importance of childhood and adolescent interest development for guiding career trajectories and outcomes. We discuss implications for interest development theories, educational policies, and applied interventions.

What are the career implications of “seeing eye to eye”? Examining the role of leader–member exchange (LMX) agreement on employability and career outcomes

AbstractAre there career benefits to leaders and followers agreeing about the quality of their leader–member exchange (LMX) relationship? Is LMX disagreement always detrimental for a follower's career? Can the examination of LMX agreement as a substantive variable help us cast new light on some of the inconclusive findings of past research on LMX and career outcomes? These questions motivate our research. Using theories of social exchange and sponsorship, and responses from 967 leader–follower dyads of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) professionals in seven European countries, we examined the role of LMX agreement on subjective and objective career outcomes. After conducting polynomial regression combined with response surface analysis, we found that both follower‐rated and leader‐rated employability were higher when the leader agreed with the follower at a high level of LMX (vs. a low level of LMX). In case of disagreement, strong support was found for leader‐rated employability being higher when the leader's perceptions of LMX exceeded those of their follower. Furthermore, follower‐rated employability was found to mediate the relationship between LMX (dis)agreement and perceived career success, promotions, salary, and bonuses. Support was also found for the mediating role of leader‐rated employability in the case of perceived career success, promotions, and salary but not for bonuses. Our findings highlight the importance of LMX (dis)agreement for career outcomes and further point to the possibility of employability offering an alternative explanation for the mixed findings of past LMX–career research.

Broadening our Sight on Workplace Flexibility to Include Under- Emphasized Perspectives

Workplace flexibility is ubiquitous in the 21st century. Research over the past 20 years has informed us that workplace flexibility such as telework, flextime, and reduced-load work are of increasing importance to employees’ well-being and organizational productivity. However, there are still gaps in the literature, hindering our understanding of workplace flexibility and its impact on employees and employers. For example, past research has overly focused on individual employee perspectives over other stakeholders such as co-workers and supervisors. Furthermore, studies have focused more on FWA adoption and worker attitudes rather than on implementation and objective career outcomes such as performance, promotions, or pay. Dependent variables such as team effectiveness, communication, wages, and promotion/career outcomes have been neglected in favor of commonly examined variables such as well-being and engagement. Well-aligned with the Academy of Management theme, the goal of this symposium is to “broaden our sight

Re-examining physician-scientist training through the prism of the discovery-invention cycle

The training of physician-scientists lies at the heart of future medical research. In this commentary, we apply Narayanamurti and Odumosu’s framework of the “discovery-invention cycle” to analyze the structure and outcomes of the integrated MD/PhD program. We argue that the linear model of “bench-to-bedside” research, which is also reflected in the present training of MD/PhDs, merits continual re-evaluation to capitalize on the richness of opportunities arising in clinical medicine. In addition to measuring objective career outcomes, as existing research has done, we suggest that detailed characterization of researchers’ efforts using both qualitative and quantitative techniques is necessary to understand if dual-degree training is being utilized. As an example, we propose that the application of machine learning and data science to corpora of biomedical literature and anonymized clinical data might allow us to see if there are objective “signatures” of research uniquely enabled by MD/PhD training. We close by proposing several hypotheses for shaping physician-scientist training, the relative merits of which could be assessed using the techniques proposed above. Our overarching message is the importance of deeply understanding individual career trajectories as well as characterizing organizational details and cultural nuances to drive new policy which shapes the future of the physician-scientist workforce.

Re-examining physician-scientist training through the prism of the discovery-invention cycle.

The training of physician-scientists lies at the heart of future medical research. In this commentary, we apply Narayanamurti and Odumosu's framework of the "discovery-invention cycle" to analyze the structure and outcomes of the integrated MD/PhD program. We argue that the linear model of "bench-to-bedside" research, which is also reflected in the present training of MD/PhDs, merits continual re-evaluation to capitalize on the richness of opportunities arising in clinical medicine. In addition to measuring objective career outcomes, as existing research has done, we suggest that detailed characterization of researchers' efforts using both qualitative and quantitative techniques is necessary to understand if dual-degree training is being utilized. As an example, we propose that the application of machine learning and data science to corpora of biomedical literature and anonymized clinical data might allow us to see if there are objective "signatures" of research uniquely enabled by MD/PhD training. We close by proposing several hypotheses for shaping physician-scientist training, the relative merits of which could be assessed using the techniques proposed above. Our overarching message is the importance of deeply understanding individual career trajectories as well as characterizing organizational details and cultural nuances to drive new policy which shapes the future of the physician-scientist workforce.

The Role of Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Agreement for Employability and Objective Career Outcomes

By utilizing social exchange and sponsorship theories, our paper adds to the literature that examines LMX agreement as a substantive variable and specifically examines its role for both subjective,...

Personality maturation among emerging adults and future career success

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of maturation processes – personality change and reflectivity as characterized by greater awareness to self and others – during emerging adulthood in predicting career success. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 205 of Israeli emerging adults was followed over a 12-year period. Participants completed measures of self-criticism at age 23 and 29, reflectivity at the age of 29 and subjective and objective career outcomes such as satisfaction with work and level of income at the age of 35. Hierarchical regressions determined the extent that decreases in self-criticism as well as greater reflectivity that predicted future career success. Findings The findings of this paper indicated that greater decreases in self-criticism were longitudinally associated with less frequent negative experiences at work and lesser tendency to have doubts about one’s career. Greater reflective capacity was longitudinally associated with a future higher income, greater career satisfaction and a stronger perception of one’s career as a means to implement inner interests. Research limitations/implications The results of this paper suggest that decreasing negative self-perception and enhancing awareness about self and others might facilitate a future career success. Originality/value This is among the first studies that demonstrate the role of personality maturation during emerging adulthood for future career success.

Career Success According to New Graduates: Implications for Counseling and Management

Resumo Qualitative research on career success has been encouraged across different category of workers. This qualitative research sought to explore how do new graduates define career success and also highlight some implications for career counseling and Human Resources management. Sample included nine new graduates from two different regions of Brazil, divided in two focus groups. Discourse analysis based on interpretative repertoire approach was used for the data analyses. The graduates’ definitions emphasized both subjective (confidence in the future, career planning, professional identity construction, work adjustment, and satisfaction with the career path) and objective (work in the area of graduation with a good salary, financial independence, social recognition) career outcomes. The meanings identified in this study reinforced the multidimensional nature of the construct and also could help career counselors and human resources managers better plan their interventions contributing to new graduates’ career success during university-to-work transition.

The relationship of advocacy and mentorship with female accountants' career success

Despite being the majority of new graduates for three decades, female accountants have not proportionately risen to the top of corporations or public accounting firms. Mentoring has been championed as an important variable in women's advancement, yet to date no research has examined how mentoring may be associated with improved career success measures such as organizational level and salary attained by female accountants. This study utilizes survey responses from almost 900 female accountants to assess the relationship between having a mentor and objective career outcomes, as well as beliefs about future promotions. We consider whether career success outcomes and beliefs about future promotions differ based upon mentor origin, mentor gender and mentor functions provided. Results indicate that having a mentor is associated with greater career advancement outcomes. Relationships that are characterized by stronger career development functions are associated with a higher perceived likelihood of promotion, and having a male mentor is associated with higher compensation and higher organizational level. Informal mentoring relationships are also associated with higher compensation and organizational level, supporting findings of previous research that suggests benefits of formal mentoring relationships are somewhat limited.

How Situational Cues and Mindset Dynamics Shape Personality Effects on Career Outcomes

The substantial literature on dispositional antecedents of career success (e.g., extraversion and conscientiousness) implies that being low in career-facilitating traits may hamper people’s careers. We develop a cognitive-affective personality system theory about the role of situational cues, personality, and mindsets regarding the plasticity of one’s attributes in determining when this will occur and how the related dysfunctional dynamics may be mitigated. We draw on trait activation theory to describe how the interaction of situational cues, personality, and mindsets may trigger an array of cognitive-affective units within a cognitive-affective personality system that influence subjective and objective career outcomes. The contributions of this article are to offer the largely between-person careers literature a within-person account of when and why people experience subjective and objective career success as a function of their personalities, situational cues, prevailing mindsets, and career contexts. A theoretical account of how personality predicts subjective career outcomes more strongly than objective career outcomes is thereby provided. Our intent is to also extend trait activation theory by considering the cognitive and affective dynamics whereby personality traits and situational cues have their effects. The conditions under which mindsets are likely to shape career outcomes are outlined. Finally, implications for mindsets, personality, and career theory, research, and practice are discussed.

Subjective performance evaluations and employee careers

Employees who work in complex environments are often evaluated by their supervisors. Data on these evaluations promise to be valuable for analyzing career dynamics and human resources practices. However, existing literature on subjective evaluations is based on data from individual firms. Furthermore, how supervisors evaluate workers and how firms use these evaluations might vary substantially with context, precisely because these evaluations are subjective. Thus, little is known regarding whether findings from single-firm studies generalize to broader settings. We examine personnel data from six large companies and establish how subjective performance ratings correlate with objective career outcomes. We find many similarities across firms in how these ratings correlate with base pay, bonuses, promotions, demotions, separations, quits, and dismissals and cautiously propose these as empirical regularities.

Social Capital Effects on the Career and Development Outcomes of HR Professionals

HR professionals’ roles require them to be responsive to both employee needs and top management strategies. However, the need to respond to the often competing employee and strategic agendas makes relationship-building efforts challenging. This study examines the social capital characteristics of HR professionals and the impact on receipt of network benefits and career outcomes. Results indicate that HR professionals benefit from relationships with other HR professionals for career sponsorship and role-related benefits. However, it is contacts who are in higher positions or in other organizations that transfer the most influential benefits, which in turn relate to objective career outcomes. Few benefits are obtained from contacts in non-HR functions. The results illuminate relationship development opportunities for HR professionals

The impact of career customization on work outcomes: Boundary conditions of manager support and employee age

SummaryThe current paper investigated the longitudinal effects of mass career customization (MCC) on job attitudes and objective career outcomes of employees in a professional service firm in the Netherlands. On the basis of theory on individualization of career trajectories, it was expected that the possibility for employees to customize their careers would be positively related to their job attitudes and subsequent objective career success, as indicated by their levels of affective commitment, work engagement, and received salary and bonuses. However, these effects were expected to occur primarily under the combination of high manager support for implementation of career customization and, on the basis of lifespan theory, older workers, as customization fulfills their increased heterogeneous career preferences. A three‐wave longitudinal study largely showed support for the study hypotheses; the relation between MCC use and work engagement and subsequent career success was stronger for older workers who received support for MCC, whereas the relation between MCC use and commitment was negative for older workers who received low support. The study shows the benefits of career customization in organizations by showing the conditions under which these benefits will manifest. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Differential Risks and Returns of Citizenship Behaviorfor Women’s Career Outcomes

Viewed from the perspective of social exchange theory, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is a form of workplace exchange which can result in many career benefits. An underlying assumption of social exchange theory is that exchanges are balanced in the form of an equivalent quid pro quo exchange, which implies that parties benefit equally from the exchanges. Therefore, it seems that individuals who invest in OCB should receive the same returns on their OCB investment. From a social role perspective, however, women may get lower returns on their investment than men because more OCB is expected of them and because they are punished for not meeting OCB expectations. As such, women face more risk than men in entering into these social exchanges which can make OCB more costly for women in terms of time and opportunity costs, which may result in lower objective career outcomes. However, due to women’s relational orientation, they may actually receive higher returns on OCB in terms of subjective career ou...

Happiness as a Motivator

What motivates individuals to invest time and effort and overcome obstacles (i.e., strive for primary control) when pursuing important goals? We propose that positive affect predicts primary control striving for career and educational goals, and we explore the mediating role of control beliefs. In Study 1, positive affect predicted primary control striving for career goals in a two-wave longitudinal study of a U.S. sample. In Study 2, positive affect predicted primary control striving for career and educational goals and objective career outcomes in a six-wave longitudinal study of a German sample. Control beliefs partially mediated the longitudinal associations with primary control striving. Thus, when individuals experience positive affect, they become more motivated to invest time and effort, and overcome obstacles when pursuing their goals, in part because they believe they have more control over attaining their goals.

Subjective Performance Evaluations and Employee Careers

Firms commonly use supervisor ratings to evaluate employees when objective performance measures are unavailable. Supervisor ratings are subjective and data containing supervisor ratings typically stem from individual firm level data sets. For both these reasons, doubts persist on how useful such data are for evaluating theories in personnel economics and whether findings from such data generalize to the labor force at large. In this paper, we examine personnel data from six large companies and establish how subjective ratings, interpreted as ordinal rankings of employees within narrowly defined peer-groups, correlate with objective career outcomes. We find many similarities across firms in how subjective ratings correlate with earnings, base pay, bonuses, promotions, demotions, separations, quits and dismissals and cautiously propose these as empirical regularities.

The role of personality in employee developmental networks

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to integrate scholarship on personality, mentoring, developmental relationships, and social networks in delineating how employees with particular personality characteristics are more or less likely to be involved in four types of developmental networks.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews scholarship on personality characteristics and developmental relationships to identify a set of distinct personality characteristics proposed to be related to employees' tendencies to develop four types of developmental networks. These network types are defined based on high or low relationship strength and high or low relationship diversity in employee ties with others. We develop propositions delineating the nature of expected relationships of these personality characteristics with developmental network types.FindingsThe paper identifies five personality characteristics – interdependent/independent self‐construal, core self‐evaluations, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and extroversion/introversions – and explained how each should be related to employees' tendencies to develop the four types of developmental networks. These networks have been described as opportunistic, entrepreneurial, receptive, and traditional developmental networks, based upon the strength and the diversity of network relationships.Originality/valueThe paper suggests that personality variables are potentially valuable for understanding how individuals develop particular types of developmental relationships, an area that deserves more research attention. It is noted that developmental relationships have been shown to be related to both employees' objective career outcomes such as promotions and salary progress, and subjective outcomes such as career and job satisfaction.

A quantitative review of mentoring research: Test of a model

Over the past 25 years, numerous researchers have studied the effects of mentoring on work outcomes. However, several reviewers have noted that many of the observed relationships between mentoring and its outcomes are potentially spurious. To summarize this widely dispersed literature, a quantitative research synthesis was conducted focused on estimating multivariate analytical paths between mentoring and several career outcomes, while holding constant correlates of mentoring including demographics, human capital, and core self-evaluations. The results demonstrate that mentoring does have substantial effects on job and career satisfaction after holding these covariates constant; yet factors such as core self-evaluations, tenure, and education have stronger effects on objective career outcomes. Potential future directions to enrich the study of mentoring and career success are described.

EXTREME SUBJECTIVE CAREER SUCCESS: A NEW INTEGRATED VIEW OF HAVING A CALLING.

This article develops a better understanding of an extreme form of subjective career success that transcends any particular job or organizational context: having a calling. I review the existing literature on having a calling and related constructs, put forth a new, integrated typology for having a calling, and suggest directions for future research. Beginning their work in the late 1930s to 1950s, the pioneers of career theory—known as the Chicago School—developed the notion that careers are comprised of both objective and subjective elements. In spite of this early, broad vision of careers, recent career research has been relatively limited in scope. Of the careers articles published in major interdisciplinary journals between 1980 and 1994, more than 75% focused on objective perspectives (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996: 8). Within the last several years, there has been a call for research that includes not only the subjective viewpoint of careers (e.g., Barley, 1989; Derr & Laurent, 1989; Hall,2002; Hall & Chandler, Working paper), but also the extension of career research beyond the boundaries of single organizations (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996). There are some notable streams of work, however, that attempt to address these limitations in careers research. Conceptualizations of subjective career outcomes and the relationship between subjective and objective career outcomes have begun to be examined (e.g., Hall & Chandler, Working paper; Heslin, Working paper; Nicholson & Andrews, Working paper), though with conflicting findings (e.g., whether subjective outcomes lead to objective outcomes, or vice versa). In terms of specific forms that subjective outcomes might take, Hall observed that careers have shifted away from being organizational to being protean, a form of career in which individuals are self-directed toward the goal of achieving psychological success—a subjectively defined measure (Hall, 1976; Hall & Mirvis, 1996; Hall, 2002). Hall’s notion of psychological success builds on Shepard’s view that human potential is realized only through following the “path with a heart,” and defining success as a “life fully worth living” (Shepard, 1984). Other researchers have examined what might be experienced by those enacting a protean career or following their path with a heart, such as work engagement (Kahn, 1990; May et al., 1999), flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990), and intrinsic motivation (Amabile et al., 1994). To understand the complexities of psychological success—its characteristics or form, the nature of experiencing it, what its consequences are, etc.—I argue that it is important to focus on exemplars of this phenomenon. Given the implicit prescriptive assumption in this area of research and in the popular press that high subjective success is something to which we should all aspire, this paper will enter this discussion by examining the highly positive end of the spectrum. What is this extreme type of subjective career experience? It fits with the traditional 2 notion of what it means to pursue one’s vocation, or to pursue one’s calling. Weiss and colleagues, in their work on calling and leadership, comment on the rising importance of this area of research: “A new interest in the idea of vocation and calling—even though these terms may not be used—is emerging as people search for more humane and meaningful ways to understand their work lives” (Weiss et al., 2003: 6). Several other researchers have made forays into developing ideas about having a calling (e.g., Wrzesniewski et al., 1997; Gardner et al., 2000; Hall & Chandler, Working paper). Naturally, there is considerable overlap in how researchers have treated the sense of calling and related concepts. As yet, though, there is no synthesis of these views or an attempt to understand the range of implications of having a calling. In particular, these implications of having a calling are generally assumed to be positive. I suggest here, however, that there might also be a dark side to having a calling. Thus, this paper will explore various facets of having a calling, which can be viewed as an extreme form of subjective career success. First, I will offer a brief review of the existing literature on having a calling and related constructs.i Then, I will put forth a new, integrated typology for having a calling. Lastly, I will suggest directions for future research, including examining the consequences of having a calling—both positive and negative.