Sustainable Career Research Articles

Sustainable Career Development: A new challenge in career counselling in the modern era

Sustainable Career Development constitutes an interdisciplinary research area in the field of counseling and career guidance that is based on Sustainable Development. In this context, the aim of the manuscript is to report the importance of providing career counselling to manage one's personal and professional growth and development in a sustainable approach. In the framework of this effort, we are presenting the Sustainable Career Development Scale and putting forward a number of implications for career intervention, which relate to sustainability in career.

Leadership of PhD-prepared nurses working in hospitals and its influence on career development: A qualitative study.

To explore leadership experiences and the influence of leadership on career development of PhD-prepared nurses working in hospitals. The Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) represents the highest level of education for a career in research and scholarship. PhD-prepared nurses have an important role in advancing the nursing discipline by conducting and implementing research finding. Given the rapidly changing health care environment, there is a clear need for PhD-prepared nurses with strong leadership competences. Currently, there is a dearth of studies exploring leadership of PhD-prepared nurses working in hospitals. A descriptive qualitative study. A purposive sample with PhD-prepared nurses employed at clinical departments was used. Twelve interviews were conducted with participants from seven hospitals. Perceptions towards leadership, leadership experiences, leadership barriers and the influence of leadership on career development were discussed. Interviews were thematically analysed. Reporting followed the COREQ guidelines. Three themes addressing leadership experiences were found: (1) "Leadership is needed for career development" describes how participants took initiative and received support from colleagues and mentors; (2) "Practicing leadership behaviours" describes leadership behaviours and feelings associated with leadership and (3) "Leadership influenced by the hospital setting" describes the working environment including struggling nursing research cultures and infrastructures with limited positions, managerial support and opportunities for collaboration. Although participants showed leadership to advance their careers, barriers related to working environment were found. Stakeholders should invest into opportunities to develop and utilise leadership competences and development of strong nursing research cultures and infrastructures with sustainable career frameworks and positions. There is a need for ongoing efforts to build strong leadership competences as well as nursing research cultures and infrastructures with career pathways and suitable positions for PhD-prepared nurses within hospitals to empower them to strengthen nursing.

Transitioning From Training to Breast Imaging Practice: Building an Academic Career.

Launching an academic career in breast imaging presents both challenges and opportunities for the newly graduated trainee. A strategic plan aligned with one's personal strengths and interests facilitates career success and professional satisfaction. Academic departments offer multiple tracks to accommodate diverse faculty goals. The specific requirements of various tracks vary across institutions. The clinician-educator track typically encourages a focus on medical education and educational scholarship. The clinician-investigator or clinician-scholar track supports original research and grant-funded clinical trials. Finally, the clinical and clinician-administrator tracks allow for emphasis on clinical program development and leadership. As definitions of scholarship broaden, many opportunities are accessible to demonstrate excellence in the traditional areas of clinical practice, education, and research, as well as the broader fields of leadership and administration. Departmental and national society resources that advance knowledge in one's chosen area of interest are available and should be explored. Mentorship and sponsorship can provide valuable insight into identifying such resources and devising a plan for sustainable career success and work-life integration.

Developing a sustainable career through discourse: a qualitative study on a group of Italian project managers

PurposeThe current study makes two main contributions: one theoretical and one methodological. First, it investigated the theoretical prepositions of career sustainability perspective, which appears particularly suitable for examining project managers' careers' dynamics and patterns, featured by explicit and recursive interactions between individual, temporal and contextual factors. Second, the study aimed to adopt a qualitative approach to this topic as to allow a deeper understanding of individual narratives about careers, highlighting underexplored issues and peculiarities that future research could further examine through quantitative methodologies.Design/methodology/approachProject managers' careers are still an under-researched topic, especially through qualitative methods. The study applied career sustainability theory to the realm of project management, moreover, adopting a socio-constructivist perspective. Participants were 50 Italian project managers who were involved through a narrative in-depth interview that focused on career and career success. Their answers were analyzed through thematic analysis of contents and diatextual analysis.FindingsResults showed that project managers' career could be a prototypical example of sustainable career, basically described in terms of four basic constitutive dimensions as follows: time frame, social space, agency and meaning. Implications for both future theoretical expansion of career sustainability theory and project managers' career management interventions were also discussed.Originality/valueThe originality of the paper could be found in the effort to adopt a socio-constructivist perspective to investigate the topic of career sustainability taking the exemplary case of project managers' career.

The extended late career phase – examining senior nursing professionals

PurposeBy relying on a sustainable career perspective and recent studies on senior employees’ late career phase, this study aims to examine senior (50+) nurses’ late career narratives in the context of extending retirement age. Given the current global nursing shortage, there is a pressing need to find ways on how to promote longer and sustainable careers in the health-care field. Yet, there is limited knowledge about the extended late career phase of senior nurses.Design/methodology/approachEmpirical data were derived from 22 interviews collected among senior (50+) nursing professionals working in a Finnish university hospital. The qualitative interview data were analysed using a narrative analysis method. As a result of the narrative analysis, four career narratives were constructed.FindingsThe findings demonstrated that senior nurses’ late career narratives differed in terms of late career aspirations, constraints, mobility and active agency of one’s own career. The identified career narratives indicate that the building blocks of sustainable late careers in the context of extending retirement age are diverse.Research limitations/implicationsThe qualitative interview data were restricted to senior nurses working in one university hospital. Interviews were conducted on site and some nurses were called away leaving some of the interviews shorter than expected.Practical implicationsTo support sustainable late careers requires that attention be based on the whole career ecosystem covering individual, organizational and societal aspects and how they are intertwined together.Originality/valueSo far, few studies have investigated the extended late career phase of senior employees in the context of a changing career landscape.

Menopause and Sustainable Career Outcomes: A Science Mapping Approach.

This paper provides a systematic review of the phenomenon of menopause at the workplace from a sustainable career perspective, by highlighting its major themes along with the evolution and tendencies observed in this field. A conceptual science mapping analysis based on co-word bibliographic networks was developed, using the SciMAT tool. From 1992 to 2020, 185 documents were retrieved from the Web of Science. In the first analyzed time span (1992–2002), postmenopausal women, health, and risk factors appeared to be the motor themes (well-developed and important for the structure of the discipline under focus), and disorder was an emerging or disappearing theme in the phenomenon under research. In the second studied period (2003–2013), risk and health were motor themes, menopausal symptoms was a basic or transversal theme (important for the discipline but not well-developed), coronary heart disease was a specialized theme (well-developed but less important for the structure of the research field), and postmenopausal women was an emerging or disappearing theme (both weakly developed and marginal to the field). In the third studied period (2014–2020), menopause, breast cancer, and menopausal symptoms were motor themes, Anxiety was a specialized theme and risk and body mass index were emerging or disappearing themes. Sustainability of women’s careers in the second half of life is of increasing importance given the increasing equal representation of men and women in working organizations, and the impact of the changing nature of work in the 21st century on older workers.

EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE TRACER STUDY TOWARDS SKILLS AND JOBS PERSPECTIVE

One indicator of a good education system is the existence of a system that is used to measure the output of education itself. Determination of measurements to determine the quality of graduates or alumni include the achievement of graduate competencies, the problems faced can be solved, the career achievements of graduates, as well as things that are either in alignment or not in harmony with the quality of alumni with the quality expected by the university. A good and intact education system has a loop-shaped educational system flow. The education system is the responsibility of universities to students, not ending when students have graduated from college, but also related to the career sustainability of graduates or alumni who are more ready to enter the community. College tracer study is one way to find out the role of alumni in society. Based on the characteristics of alumni or graduates of the Education Technology Study Program, the number of graduate data is 90 people and those who enter fill out questionnaires. Alumni or graduates who filled out the questionnaire were 90 people consisting of (70%) women and (30%) men. Alumni or graduates of the Education Technology Study Program have a study graduation time of 90%, meaning no more than 8 semesters, while 10% do not graduate on time, meaning more than 8 semesters. Alumni or graduates of the Education Technology Study Program overall average GPA of the highest respondents are respondents who have a GPA above 3.5. Alumni or graduates of the Education Technology Study Program show that the highest average employment status is respondents who work. Alumni or graduates of the Education Technology Study Program with the criteria for institutions/institutions/companies that graduates work show the highest average graduates work in private institutions/institutions/companies.

Significant Life Events and Career Sustainability: A Three-Wave Study

Over the last three decades, the professional landscape has changed, and career paths have become more plural, complex, and flexible, as well as less predictable. Consequently, career sustainability has become a major concern. Since the framework of sustainable careers captures the complexities of modern careers, we used it in the present study to understand how various types of significant life events (i.e., negative work events, negative nonwork events, positive work events, and positive nonwork events) hinder or foster career sustainability among 870 professionally active adults in Switzerland using a longitudinal design. We used repeated measures analysis of variance to study changes in health (i.e., self-rated health and stress at work), happiness (i.e., life satisfaction, quality of life, and job satisfaction), and productivity (i.e., employability and career prospects) by the type of significant life events over time, from 1 year before the event (T0) to 1 year after the event (T2). Results indicated that work events are important to consider when studying career sustainability as there is evidence for spillover effects from work to life. Specifically, experiencing positive work events seems to foster career sustainability, and these effects seem to be stronger than the negative effect of negative work or nonwork life events on health, happiness, and productivity.

Ticket to Ride: I-deals as a Strategic HR Tool for an Employable Work Force.

We describe how idiosyncratic deals (I-deals), in this case I-deals focused on workers’ employability enhancement, can serve as a powerful strategic HR tool for simultaneously meeting both the strategic goals of employers and the career goals of employees. Building on a sustainable career perspective, I-deals are interpreted as highly valuable, as they can help individual employees to more easily adapt to the fast-changing environments that nowadays characterize society and the labor market. After theoretical outlines on the concepts of I-deals and employability, we argue that I-deals can form the basis for integrative employment relationships aimed at employability enhancement. This article concludes with concrete recommendations for practice, indicating that in order to enable the sound use of I-deals as a strategic HR tool, organizations should discuss I-deals and employability openly through constructive dialogue. Moreover, examples for achieving this through specific practices, such as working with employability coaches and world cafés on employability, are described.

Making a Commitment to Your Future: Investigating the Effect of Career Exploration and Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy on the Relationship between Career Concern and Career Commitment

Career commitment refers to individuals’ dedication to their career; in the field of vocational psychology, career commitment is considered a vital factor for promoting a sustainable career. The current study examined a mediation model of career concern related to career commitment with career exploration and Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy (CDMSE) as two mediators. The participants were 1105 high school students (males = 594, females = 511) recruited from three main cities in Jiangsu Province, China. Results indicated that the hypotheses were all confirmed: the direct effect of career concern on career commitment was significant (β = 0.598, p < 0.001); the indirect effect of career concern on career commitment through career exploration and CDMSE was also significant (β = 0.255, p < 0.001); and career exploration and CDMSE mediated the relation from career concern to career commitment. Finally, the authors discussed the implications of the findings which could be applied to improve a high school student’s career commitment and the sustainability of career development. The limitations of the study and the future research needed to complement the current work are also discussed.

'You can make change happen': Experiences of emergency medicine leadership in the Pacific.

We sought to explore the activities, responsibilities and experience of leadership from Pacific emergency medicine (EM) doctors. Additionally, we explored knowledge, attitudes, leadership gaps and training insights for individual clinicians, and from a Pacific regional perspective. This was a qualitative study using in-depth, semi-structured interviews of invited Pacific EM doctors occupying a leadership role in their countries. Data were recorded, transcribed and triangulated with written field notes. Whole interviews and responses per topic were analysed using data-platform-based and manual methods. Inductive and deductive coding and thematic content analysis was performed in partnership with Pacific co-researchers to determine overall meaning. Monash University granted ethics approval. Twelve doctors participated (11 verbal, one written response), representing six different Pacific Island countries. Four key themes were identified which reflected both the individual agency of the Pacific EM doctors and how their experience was constituted by others; professional identity and style; nurturing relationships and building solidarity; growth through experience, education and challenge; and progress and precarity. Pacific EM leaders perform clinical, management, advocacy and education tasks, and build their capacity and resilience through leadership training. They have a strong desire for regional solidarity and networking. Pacific EM doctors embrace leadership in their home countries and collaborate to drive positive change, build teams and gain recognition. As pioneers and advocates for EM, they bear high responsibility and risk burnout. These findings can inform future targeted leadership training and contribute to building Pacific regional networks for career sustainability and specialty advancement.

Strategizing public-facing work within an academic career.

Most anthropological researchers will engage with the public at some stage of their career. Some develop strong skills in public-facing work, building bridges between local and global communities and the scientific enterprise. Anthropology and archaeology are unsustainable without such community support. Yet engagement work often goes unrecognized and unrewarded within academic institutions. We focus on ways to translate the value of public-facing work within academic career trajectories. We consider some of the challenges and benefits of such work for early career researchers and for senior researchers, and we provide guidance that will be helpful across a broad range of career objectives. This study employs narratives of both early career and senior anthropologists. Both early career and senior researchers report challenges and successes in building public-facing work. Pursuing public-facing work in ways that are recognized in academic settings can be challenging both in early career and senior settings. The advice in this paper can help individuals build strategies that will lead to sustainable engagement and career progress. Attaining a balance between research and public engagement benefits both the fields of anthropology and human biology.

Sustainable person-environment fit and subjective career success: The moderating role of resilience

This study examined the relationship between person-environment fit and subjective career success (SCS), as well as the role of personal resilience in that relationship. A convenience sample of 742 employees from various sectors in South Africa (female = 55.3%; Afrikaans language speakers = 64.2%; financial = 23%, wholesale and trade = 15%, education = 10%, business consulting = 10%) participated in the study. The employees completed surveys on subjective career success, resilience, and person-environment fit. Multiple regression analyses results revealed person-environment fit and resilience significantly predict subjective career success. Specifically, personal resilience moderated the relationship between person-organisation fit and subjective career success by strengthening the relationship. Moreover, an increase in person-organisation fit was associated with an increase in SCS. Furthermore, for employees with higher levels of resilience, the increase in SCS was much sharper. The study’s findings suggest the importance of personal factors in the occupational thriving of employees in the contemporary workplace.

Developing strong transition‐focused IEPS using labour market data

Employment rates and post‐school transition outcomes for individuals with disabilities remain alarmingly low compared to peers without disabilities. Transition‐Focused Individualized Education Plans (TF‐IEPs) often centre on skills associated with employment experience opportunities that are immediately available to the individual with a disability. While the transition plans focus on the student's strengths and areas of interest, less attention is paid to the guidance and support a student might need in choosing a sustainable career. We contend that teams must develop transition plans with specific attention to projected labour market data. Using this information will ensure that we are preparing students with disabilities for long‐term success. This article describes how school teams can use an in‐depth labour market analysis to develop robust transition plans. These plans will prepare students for careers that will last far into the future.

Does age matter? Examining career commitment as a moderator in the relationship between age‐related HR/D practices and subjective career success for younger versus older academic staff

AbstractBuilding upon the job demands–resources framework and employing an interactionist perspective, the purpose of this scholarly work was to investigate the relationship between age‐related HR/D practices (being a contextual antecedent) and career commitment (being a personal antecedent), and the interaction between these two, on the one hand, and subjective career experiences, on the other hand. Moreover, elaborating on life‐span developmental theories and earlier empirical work on aging at work, this study also examined whether this relationship was moderated by age category (younger workers [<50 years] vs. their older counterparts [≥50 years]). An online self‐report questionnaire with thoroughly validated measures was distributed among academic staff employees (N = 139). The results partially supported the specific study assumptions. Concrete, age‐related HR/D practices add significantly to academics' subjective career success. Contradictory to our expectations, we could neither find a main effect of career commitment nor for its interaction with age‐related HR/D practices in the light of subjective career success. Results from the multigroup analyses indicate that, in reality, the above results may apply only to older academics (≥50 years). Possible explanations for this outcome are discussed. This study extends past career research by applying an interactionist perspective (context: age‐related HR/D practices; person: career commitment) approach for explaining subjectively experienced career success. The results of this scholarly work provide useful insights for protecting and further enhancing the sustainability of careers in academia, which is of upmost importance in nowadays' labor markets in this occupational sector.

A Preliminary Analysis of the Perception Gap between Employers and Vocational Students for Career Sustainability

(1) Background: Nowadays, technological advancement plays a key role in the economic uplift of developing countries, and it is paramount that the youth of these countries are well-equipped with both vocational and technical skills to bring about sustainability in their careers. (2) Methods: The present study aims to investigate the perception gap between vocational students and industrial employers with regard to employability skills. In this regard, data were collected from 683 vocational students from urban/rural areas studying in the public/private vocational institutions of a developing country. Similarly, 82 vocational employers were contacted about their perception of employability skills. A questionnaire comprising 20 questions was administered online to both students and employers for registering their responses. Data were analyzed with the help of descriptive statistics, interval plots, and an Ishikawa diagram. (3) Results: The findings reveal that vocational employers give maximum importance to interpersonal, technical, and entrepreneurial skills, while students perceive that their technical and computing skills are vital for sustainable careers. Similarly, the rural/public students showed minimum levels of competency in these skills as compared with their counterparts living in rural areas and studying in the private institutions. Furthermore, structured interviews were conducted with the concerned stakeholders to develop a remedial framework for the sustainable careers of these vocational students. (4) Conclusions: The results of the study not only bring sustainability to the vocational sector of developing countries, but to all those countries enjoying similar socioeconomic backgrounds.

An Understanding of Implicit Followership Toward New Employees' Self-Efficacy: The Mediating Role of Perceived Supervisor Support.

Under turbulent, boundaryless, and Internet age, the characteristics of career sustainability development have shifted from the perspective of development within the organization to the career development track of self-efficacy. New employees usually face the difficult stage of adapting to the new environment and establishing interpersonal relationships with new colleagues. When new employees enter an organization, they usually have different implicit followership cognitions. Previous studies have focused on the treatment of new employees by the organization and the leader, however, the implicit followership cognitive state of new employees has not been studied specifically. This research integrates employees' positive and negative implicit followership, perceived supervisor support, workplace friendship, and perceived self-efficacy into a research framework. This study used a questionnaire survey by an online professional survey website. A total of 394 valid questionnaires were collected. Structural equation model (SEM) analysis was carried out and according to the results, new employees' positive and negative implicit followership significantly affects perceived supervisor support. Furthermore, perceived supervisor support had a significant impact on perceived self-efficacy. Moreover, perceived supervisor support was found in a mediating role between the relationship of implicit followership theories and perceived self-efficacy. Finally, workplace friendship was found to be a significant moderator in the relationship between perceived supervisor support and perceived self-efficacy. Based on the research results, business managers are suggested to pay more attention to new employees' self-cognition of their job roles and enhance the self-efficacy of new employees in the entry stage.

Exploring Sustainable Measurements of Academic Research: How Do Faculty Members in Teaching-Oriented Universities of China Evaluate Good Research in Tourism and Hospitality?

Academic research contributes to the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs) of teaching-oriented universities in many ways, such as providing quality education, promoting the healthy and diverse development of academia, and satisfying the sustainable career development of faculty. In essence, research can facilitate knowledge advancement, dissemination, and innovation, while existing metrics are outcome-based, quantitatively measured, and have methodological and invalidity problems in achieving these orientations. This exploratory study adopted a qualitative research approach guided by constructivist grounded theory to explore the fundamental question of how to evaluate good research in tourism and hospitality. By conducting 32 in-depth interviews with full-time faculty members in 16 teaching-oriented universities in mainland China, the perceptions of good research were captured. The perceived measurements that evaluate good research were interpreted, including counting publications and research projects, citation analysis and peer review, contribution to teaching, contribution to societal service and industrial interaction, and building research teams. Finally, this study provided discussions about the orientations of academic research as well as authorships in research evaluation from the perspective of HEI sustainability.

Examining the Professional Quality of Experienced EFL Teachers for Their Sustainable Career Trajectories in Rural Areas in China

While there has been much research into teachers’ professional quality in general education, scant attention has been paid to the professional quality of EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers, especially those working in adverse areas, for their sustainable career trajectories. Drawing on Wu’s framework of EFL teachers’ professional quality, this study adopted a mixed-method study design to investigate the professional quality of experienced EFL teachers in China’s rural areas. A questionnaire was administered online to 367 Chinese EFL teachers from 15 high schools in the northeast part of China. Follow-up interviews were then conducted with four volunteers. The results of the exploratory factor analysis produced a two-module structure of teachers’ professional quality, addressing teacher beliefs and English language pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for their sustainable career development. The teacher belief module addresses beliefs about language teacher learning and development as well as beliefs about foreign language teaching and learning. The English language PCK module includes two subscales: English teaching capacity and English knowledge and skills. Descriptive analysis showed that these participants had high levels of professional quality. Possible explanations for the interpretations of EFL teachers’ professional quality are provided from the qualitative data. Based on the above findings, the paper offers some implications for sustaining EFL teacher development in the future.

Is it all about perception? A sustainability viewpoint on psychological capital and life well-being of management graduates

PurposeWell-being and employability are considered important indicators of a sustainable career that must be incorporated into the system at the beginning of a job. Hence, it is essential to explore the role of positive personal resources to improve young managers' well-being. The unending ambivalence in the academic environment and the job market is detrimental to management graduates' well-being. The study aims to look into the possible intervening methods to enhance the well-being of management students during difficult times.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional study was conducted among 212 management students from Kerala, India. Multi-stage random sampling was used to collect data. Structural equation modelling using IBM-AMOS was done to gain insights into the proposed relationships.FindingsThe results indicated that psychological capital had a significant impact on the well-being of management students. Both perceived employability and psychological capital are positively related to life well-being. And, perceived employability mediated the relationship between psychological capital and life well-being.Research limitations/implicationsThe theoretical contribution comes from the application of the broaden-and-build theory and resource caravans from the conservation of resource theory as a theoretical framework to understand the positive impact of developing psychological capital among university students. The practical contribution comes from identifying a need for universities to make their campus climate more supportive of the non-academic needs of students by supporting them to become more self-reliant and enhance their positive psychological resources. Developing psychological resources of perceived employability and psychological capital is quintessential to enhance life well-being and career sustainability of early careers talent.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first attempts to discern how psychological capital leads to an accumulation of psychological resources and life well-being in university students and graduates offering opportunities for career sustainability.