Predictors of success in the era of the boundaryless career

The present study examines three classes of career competencies proposed as important predictors of success in the boundaryless career. Three criteria of career success were examined: perceived career satisfaction, perceived internal marketability, and perceived external marketability. Using data from 458 alumni from a large southeastern university, predictions were tested using partial correlations and dominance analysis. The results found support for the importance of ‘knowing why,’ ‘knowing whom,’ and ‘knowing how’ as suggested by previous theoretical work. The findings are discussed in reference to future research and theorizing on the boundaryless career. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Careers as repositories of knowledge: A new perspective on boundaryless careers

This paper argues for a reconceptualization of careers as repositories of knowledge. Careers are visualized as accumulation of information and knowledge rather than simply progressions of work experiences. This definition is considered in light of theories which characterize organizations as knowledge creators. The paper then applies this perspective to the emerging phenomenon of boundaryless careers and concludes that a knowledge perspective provides significant insight into the implications of such careers for individuals and organizations.     

From job-based to competency-based organizations

The efficacy of designing organizations around job structures is challenged. Although this approach has dominated the fields of organizational behavior and human resource management for decades, a number of forces have converged to suggest that a competency-based approach often is more appropriate. In the global competitive environment which large, complex organizations face, the competency-based approach and the capabilities that individuals need to acquire and develop should be the major focus. Reward systems, career tracks, selection systems, and the structure of organizations need to change to focus on competencies. The challenges and opportunities for research, theory, and practice development that a change to a competency-based approach raises are many and diverse. For example, new pay systems are needed, new selection systems are needed, indeed whole new concepts about what constitutes selection validity and career development are needed.     

Boundaryless careers,social capital,and knowledge management: Implications for organizational performance

The purpose of this paper is to critically assess the utilization of boundaryless careers in organizations through the lens of how they impact the formation and deployment of organizational social capital. We build a model of the positive and negative effects of boundaryless careers on social capital formation by proposing a more nuanced picture of boundaryless careers. We divide boundaryless careers into four types: internal psychological, internal enacted, external psychological and external enacted. Our model delineates the conditions under which different types of boundaryless careers affect the formation and deployment of organizational structural, relational and cognitive social capital and offer propositions based on our analysis. In addition we examine type of knowledge (exploratory or exploitative) pursued by the firm as a key moderator for the relationships we propose. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychological success and the boundaryless career

The boundaryless career could be a bane or boon to people's experience of psychological success. This paper describes the contours of the boundaryless career and then looks at how workers will have to deal with aging over several career cycles, integrate diverse experiences into their identities, and come to terms with new types of employer-employee relationships. This introduces the idea of finding psychological success in one's life work, encompassing not only a job and an organization, but also work as a spouse, parent, community member, and as a self-developer.     

Culture as an environmental context for careers

Cultural factors influence career patterns in a variety of ways. Societal, occupational, and organizational cultures influence the structure of the external career, prestige associated with given careers, the legitimacy of certain motives underlying careers, success criteria, the clarity of the career concept itself, and the importance attached to career versus family and self development. How career occupants view their careers and the degree of variation in such views within given societies, occupations, and organizations is also culturally patterned. Both managers and career researchers must become more familiar with these cultural influences.     

Organizational and population level learning as engines for career transitions

Building inductively on twenty-four in depth interviews, the authors argue that boundaryless organizations will alter both career theories and actual career mobility patterns. The paper illustrates how both organizational and population level learning can affect individual job transitions within and cross organizations. The three evolutionary learning steps of variation, selection and retention all remain important, but the impact of variation processes may increase. Boundaryless organizations will thus generate career patterns reflecting an underlying logic of organizational learning rather than producing simple atomistic exchange between unfettered actors.     

A longitudinal study of the relationship between career management and organizational commitment among graduates in the first ten years at work

This paper reports the findings of a two‐wave longitudinal study investigating relationships between organizational and individual career management activities and organizational commitment in the early years of graduate careers. Several hypotheses are tested and receive mixed support. High organizational commitment predicts the practice of career management activities by graduates to further their career within the organization while low commitment is closely associated with behaviour aimed at furthering the career outside the organization. Graduates who manage their own careers also receive more career management help from their employer. This suggests that there may be the potential for employers to create a ‘virtuous circle’ of career management in which individual and organizational activities complement each other. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Changing careers: the effects of social context

This paper investigates the social context in which career decisions are made. Results show that beyond individual‐level factors such as demographics and work history, individuals' decisions to change careers are socially embedded. Findings suggest that the greater the diversity of an individual's network of advisors, the greater the likelihood that an individual will change careers. In addition, this paper explores the mechanisms through which different subsets of advice relationships — instrumental versus psychosocial — affect the decision to change careers. Results show that the greater the diversity of an individual's set of instrumental relations, the greater the number of offers he or she receives during the job search process and, further, that the number of offers received is positively related to the likelihood of changing careers. The diversity of an individual's set of psychosocial relations was related to his or her confidence to overcome career obstacles. However, confidence was not, in turn, related to career change, counter to expectations. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Career communities: a preliminary exploration of member‐defined career support structures

This paper explores the concept of career communities: social structures that provide career support and frequently transcend the boundaries of any single organization. The theoretical background notes the convergence of a number of different perspectives from both career development and organization studies, pertaining to the social contextualization of careers. The methodology involved eliciting expressions of the (individual) subjective career from the members of three potential career communities, and then exploring (communal) inter‐subjective interpretations in focus groups. Our results suggest that career communities typically involve a hybrid of types rather than any one pure type. Preliminary support is found for the view that career communities facilitate career support, sensemaking and learning. The results invite further research into career communities and have implications for organizational behavior and human resource management, suggesting greater appreciation of the extra‐organizational as well as intra‐organizational communities in which careers develop. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Organizational career development is not dead: a case study on managing the new career during organizational change

New forms of careers have received increased attention in contemporary organizational research. A prominent focus in this research has been whether and how, in an increasingly unpredictable career environment, individuals are taking responsibility for their own career development. The implication is that career is becoming less central to organizational management practices. At the same time there is evidence that organizational changes typically described in this literature (such as delayering the organization in a quest for flexibility) have had a negative impact on career progress, resulting in resistance to change. The implication here is that career concerns are more central to organizational management practices. This in‐depth qualitative case study examines whether individuals do in fact take more responsibility for their career development during times of organizational change. We also examine whether this does indeed mean that the organization takes less responsibility for career management. Our data indicate that individuals are, in fact, taking more responsibility for their own careers. At the same time we found that the organization in our case study also became more actively involved in career development and management. However, this active approach did not resemble traditional top‐down career management and development. To us, the pattern of organizational and individual career development actions appear to constitute a kind of ‘organizational dance,’ a highly interactive mutual influence process, in which both parties are at once the agent and the target of career influence. Strengths and limitations of the study are discussed, as are directions for future research. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Long-term consequences of burnout: An exploratory study

The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between degree of burnout experienced during the first year of the career and career adaptation during the next decade. Subjects were 25 human service professionals originally working in the fields of public service law, public health nursing, high school teaching, or mental health. They were studied during the first year of their careers and again 12 years later. Early career burnout was assessed via ratings of interviews that were highly correlated with the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Career adaptation variables included career stability, work satisfaction, attitudes towards recipients, and flexibility as measured at the time of follow-up. Each of these variables was measured via interview ratings, a questionnaire, and ratings made hy confidants of the subjects. Results showed that subjects who were more burned-out early in their careers were less likely to change careers and more flexible in their approach to work as rated by confidants at the time of follow-up. The results suggest that early career burnout does not seem to lead to any significant, negative, long-term consequences. However, burnout occurring later in the career might have more serious long-term effects.     

Age grading: The implicit organizational timetable

The age distribution within an organization forms an implicit career timetable, and there is evidence that people use their perceptions of this timetable to determine whether their careers are on or off schedule. Questionnaire data were collected from managers (N = 488, 47 per cent) within a large electric utility. The results indicate that managers who see themselves as ‘behind time’ in their careers have more negative attitudes towards work than other managers, even when their perceptions of being ‘behind time’ are inaccurate. However, although these managers continue to have the most negative attitudes, differences between the on and off schedule managers are smaller when their position on the actual career timetable is controlled. Thus, work attitudes are influenced by both individual and demographic factors. Finally, the longer managers remain in the same job, the more likely they are to define themselves as ‘behind time’. This supports other research suggesting that lateral moves within organizations may be an important device for managing the normal -limitations of upward movement in managerial careers.     

Constellations and careers: toward understanding the effects of multiple developmental relationships

This paper examines the effects of individuals' primary and multiple developmental relationships in a longitudinal study of the careers of lawyers. By juxtaposing the effects of the primary developmental relationship with those of individuals' sets or ‘constellations’ of developmental relationships, the present study lends insight into if and when these two perspectives on mentoring yield different results regarding the effects of mentoring on protégé career outcomes. The findings from the present study show that while the quality of one's primary developer affects short‐term career outcomes such as work satisfaction and intentions to remain with one's firm, it is the composition and quality of an individual's entire constellation of developmental relationships that account for long‐run protégé career outcomes such as organizational retention and promotion. Further, results from the present study provide evidence that the constellation perspective explains greater variance with respect to protégé career outcomes than does the primary or more traditional perspective on mentoring. Implications for research on mentoring, developmental relationships, and careers are discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Managing the career deal: the psychological contract as a framework for understanding career management,organizational commitment and work behavior

This paper reports the findings of a study that investigated the relationship between different kinds of career management activities, the psychological contract, and outcomes of psychological contract fulfillment. The study tested a series of linked hypotheses which propose that individual career management behavior is associated with the experience of organizational career management help, which is related to fulfillment of the psychological contract. Fulfillment of the psychological contract in turn is linked to organizational commitment and is associated with behaviors at work, including absenteeism, turnover, and independent ratings of job performance. The findings provide some support for these proposed links. As a result, the paper makes four contributions to the psychological contract and careers literature: first, it shows that both individual and organizational career management behaviors are linked to psychological contract fulfillment; second, organizational career management help is associated with affective commitment and job performance; third, psychological contract fulfillment plays a key role in mediating the relationship between career management help and such attitudes and behaviors; and fourth, organizational commitment may mediate between psychological contract fulfillment and individual career management behavior aimed at furthering the career outside the organization. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stayers versus movers: Social capital and early career imprinting among young professionals

We investigate what interfirm career mobility patterns would emerge if individuals are motivated by the job rewards they obtain as a function of their experience in organizations. We articulate two career strategies that individuals employ to navigate their early careers—commitment to a single employer and “job hopping” between different employers. Each strategy generates social capital (an individual's structure of social relations) but of a different kind. Embeddedness in the same organization over time develops a strong local identity and reputation within the firm. Boundary spanning through experience in different organizations creates opportunities for connecting people and ideas and for knowledge transfer between firms. We posit and present evidence that the choice between these two strategies is conditioned by social experience at the onset of one's career—the length of tenure with the first employer—which sorts individuals into “stayers” and “movers.”     

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

The 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.     

Relationships between psychological contract breach and employee well‐being and career‐related behavior: The role of occupational future time perspective

Relationships between psychological contract breach and employee well‐being and career‐related behavior cannot sufficiently be explained by social exchange and reciprocity theories, yet the alternative mechanisms underlying these associations are currently not well understood. Based on the psychological contract perspective on careers, the goal of this study was to examine indirect effects of psychological contract breach on emotional engagement, emotional exhaustion, and career‐related behavior through two dimensions of occupational future time perspective (i.e., focus on opportunities and focus on limitations). Data came from 405 employees in Australia, who responded to three surveys across 12 months. Results showed that psychological contract breach had indirect effects on emotional engagement and exhaustion through focus on opportunities and focus on limitations, respectively, and on career‐related behavior through focus on opportunities. Another mechanism, psychological contract violation, was only related to employees' organizational deviance. These findings highlight the important role of occupational future time perspective dimensions as employees' evaluations of future career‐related opportunities and limitations. These evaluations may change in response to psychological contract breach and, in turn, might impact on employee well‐being and career‐related behavior.     

Development and validation of an objective intra‐organizational career success measure for managers

This study aimed to develop and validate a new objective measure of intra‐organizational career success, that is the Managerial Career Success Measure (MCSM). Although there has been a recent emphasis in the careers literature on the subjective career, there is still a need for a valid operationalization of ‘traditional’, objective career success as this construct is still considered relevant by many occupational and national groups; furthermore, many studies continue to use objective career success as a (dependent) variable. With regard to content validity, it appears that the measure that was developed incorporates some elements of the commonly used measures of objective career success (i.e. managerial level, number of promotions, salary and salary progression) while steering clear of some of the issues with each of them separately. Concurrent and discriminant validity were explored by analysing data from three empirical studies that were carried out in a large heterogeneous managerial population (N = 1101). Results indicate that the MCSM displays higher levels of content and construct validity than do other, commonly used measures of objective career success. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How retirees work: predictors of different types of bridge employment

Employment after retirement, known as bridge employment, is expected to occur more frequently because the baby boom generation will increase the number of retirees. Little is known about which employees will obtain which type of bridge employment when they retire, even though it has important implications. The present study examined work‐related attitudes, job characteristics, and work‐related accomplishments of 171 retirees in order to predict whether they would fully retire or take one of two types of bridge jobs after retirement: Career‐consistent bridge jobs or bridge jobs in fields different from their original career. Continuity theory of retirement helped predict post‐retirement employment type. Retirees who had skills specifically related to their career job were more likely to work in a career‐related bridge job than either to fully retire or to take a bridge job that was not related to their careers; retirees who formerly held career jobs with intrinsically motivating job characteristics were more likely to take a career‐related bridge job than to retire fully, and retirees who had experienced work strain in their career job were more likely to take a bridge job not related to their former career than to take a career bridge job. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.