12-Year longitudinal study linking within-person changes in work and family transitions and workplace injury risk

Introduction: Despite the rich tradition of research on predictors of workplace injury, most studies rely on cross-sectional, between-person designs. Furthermore, prior research has often overlooked the possibility that factors outside the work domain can influence the occurrence of actual injuries at work. To address these limitations, the current study examined the effects of work and family demands on the occurrence of workplace injury. Drawing on the intuition of the work-home resources model (W-HR), we investigated how within-person level changes in demands and resources from both domains influence work injuries over a 12-year period. Method: We used 12 years of longitudinal data (N = 7,820) to study the long-term within-person changes in work and family domains and to capture the event of low frequency incidence such as workplace injury. Specifically, we conducted multilevel analyses to study the links between within-person change in time and energy resources both in work and family domains and within-person change in the likelihood of experiencing a workplace injury. Results and conclusion: The findings showed that within-person changes in work hours, spousal work hours, income and number of children, were significantly associated with changes in the likelihood of experiencing a workplace injury. We conclude with a discussion of implications for theory and future research of workplace injuries. Practical application: The research provided useful insights on the intimate association between work and family domains in the context of safety management.     

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.     

Development of a new scale to measure subjective career success: A mixed‐methods study

Career success is a main focus of career scholars as well as organizational stakeholders. Historically, career success has been conceptualized and measured in an objective manner, mainly as salary, rank, or number of promotions. However, the changing nature of work has also necessitated a change in the way many employees view success, adding a more subjective component. Although there has been theoretical discussion and calls to develop a comprehensive measure of subjective career success, no contemporary comprehensive quantitative measure exists. The goal of this study was to create and validate a measure of subjective career success, titled the Subjective Career Success Inventory (SCSI). The SCSI includes 24 items that address subjective career success via eight dimensions. The scale was developed and validated through four phases of data collection, beginning with interviews and focus groups, followed by item sorting tasks, then item refinement through confirmatory factor analysis, and finally convergent and discriminant validity quantitative analysis. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How career orientation shapes the job satisfaction–turnover intention link

This study examined the impact of career orientation on the static and dynamic relationships between job satisfaction and turnover intention. Longitudinal data of 255 employees were collected at three waves of measurement 1 year apart. Results for career orientations as a moderator differed between the static and dynamic job satisfaction–turnover links. The static relationship was found to be similar and less negative for employees with independent and loyalty‐focused career orientations than for promotion‐focused and disengaged employees. Regarding the dynamic relationship between job satisfaction change and turnover intention change, however, independent and loyalty‐focused employees differed: An increase (decline) in job satisfaction was more strongly related to a decline (increase) in turnover intention for independent employees than for loyalty‐focused employees. These findings provide new insights into the differential dynamics involved in assessing work situations and responding to them based on different career aspirations and interests. Consequences for research and practice regarding more effective human resource management are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Proactive career behaviors and subjective career success: The moderating role of national culture

Although career proactivity has positive consequences for an individual's career success, studies mostly examine objective measures of success within single countries. This raises important questions about whether proactivity is equally beneficial for different aspects of subjective career success, and the extent to which these benefits extend across cultures. Drawing on Social Information Processing theory, we examined the relationship between proactive career behaviors and two aspects of subjective career success—financial success and work‐life balance—and the moderating role of national culture. We tested our hypotheses using multilevel analyses on a large‐scale sample of 11,892 employees from 22 countries covering nine of GLOBE's 10 cultural clusters. Although we found that proactive career behaviors were positively related to subjective financial success, this relationship was not significant for work‐life balance. Furthermore, career proactivity was relatively more important for subjective financial success in cultures with high in‐group collectivism, high power distance, and low uncertainty avoidance. For work‐life balance, career proactivity was relatively more important in cultures characterized by high in‐group collectivism and humane orientation. Our findings underline the need to treat subjective career success as a multidimensional construct and highlight the complex role of national culture in shaping the outcomes of career proactivity.     

Understanding organizational embeddedness and career success: Who and what you know

Integrating job embeddedness theory with the sponsored and contest mobility perspectives, we developed and tested a model linking organizational embeddedness with two indicators of career success within the organization (promotion and career satisfaction), via the mediating roles of employees' organizational sponsorship network and job-related human capital development. Data from 188 employees and their supervisors over a 1-year period showed that, after controlling for employees' initial levels of career satisfaction and job performance, only job-related human capital development transmitted the positive effects of organizational embeddedness on promotion and career satisfaction. Supplemental analyses revealed that organizational sponsorship network's positive effects on promotion and career satisfaction were transmitted indirectly, via job-related human capital development. Our findings illustrate the importance of integrating sponsored and contest mobility perspectives and contribute to research on organizational embeddedness by extending its outcomes to include career success within the organization and specifying the process through which organizational embeddedness is related to career success within the organization.     

Gender and career success: A typology and analysis of dual paradigms

Despite women's advancements in the workplace, gender inequality persists. We classify and test two frameworks used to explain gender differences in career success: unequal attributes and unequal effects. The unequal attributes framework suggests that gender is related to other attributes, which result in unequal career outcomes for men and women (i.e., a mediated effect). The unequal effects framework suggests that even when men and women share the same attribute or circumstances, they are rewarded differently, such that individual attributes have unequal effects on career outcomes for men and women (i.e., a moderated effect). We collected survey data from a gender‐balanced sample of 394 business school alumni. Using structural equation modeling to test the unequal attributes framework, we found that work hours, career orientation, having a nonemployed spouse, and working in a predominantly female job were unequal attributes that explained gender differences in career success. Using multigroup path analysis to examine unequal effects, we found that being agentic, married, having children at home, and working in a predominantly female workplace had unequal effects in relation to career success for men and women. We find support for both models across three categories of career success antecedents (i.e., personal, family, and job attributes).     

Drivers of freelance career success

Recent 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.     

Are “job hoppers” trapped in hedonic treadmills? Effects of career orientations on newcomers' attitude trajectories

Joining a new organization to change jobs is an influential event in an employee's career. Thus, inter-organizational job changes have sparked growing scholarly interest, especially in the temporal dynamics involved in detaching from organizations and adapting to new ones. While it is widely accepted that employees adapt differently to job changes, the influence of employees' career orientations on changes in job attitudes has not yet been considered. This is surprising given that a key difference between self-centered and organization-centered career orientations is a positive attitude toward job changes. Building on hedonic adaptation, we examined how career orientations influence changes in job satisfaction and turnover intention throughout a job change. We compared self-centered and organization-centered employees using random coefficient modeling on two longitudinal data sets with voluntary job changers. Our results illustrate that self-centered career orientations foster a stronger decline in job satisfaction with the new employer, as well as a larger increase in turnover intention, than organization-centered career orientations. In contrast, employees with organization-centered career orientations experienced an upward trend in job satisfaction toward the end of the first year. Our findings offer important implications for research on the determinants of job attitude trajectories when individuals join a new organization.     

Maturation of work attitudes: Correlated change with big five personality traits and reciprocal effects over 15 years

As employees grow older, do their attitudes regarding work change over time? Can such long‐term changes be understood from a personality development perspective? The present study addressed these fundamental questions by tracking 504 young professionals' work attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction and work involvement) and Big Five personality traits over the first 15 years of their professional career. We specifically investigated whether trait changes drive peoples' changing attitudes, a mechanism we called maturation of work attitudes. Latent change models first indicated significant associations between traits and attitudes at the beginning of the career, and mean‐level changes in Big Five traits (i.e., increases in Agreeableness and Conscientiousness and decreases in Neuroticism) in the direction of greater functional maturity. Although no significant mean‐level changes in work attitudes were observed, results regarding correlated change indicated that variability in attitude change was related to variability in trait change and that this indeed signaled a maturational process. Finally, reciprocal effect estimates highlighted bidirectional relations between personality and attitudes over time. It is discussed how these results (i) provide a better understanding of potential age effects on work‐related attitudes and (ii) imply a revision of the traditional dispositional approach to attitudes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Some psychological consequences of striking: A six month,longitudinal study

The literature available on organizational psychology has largely neglected the issue of industrial conflict, and little is known about individual psychological effects of industrial conflict such as labour disputes and strikes. Psychological consequences of involvement in a strike were assessed in this research. Data were collected from 117 full-time, white collar union members immediately following a 22 day strike, and again two and six months later. Negatively perceived industrial relations events (e.g. 'strike or lockout', 'being involved in negotiations') were associated with marital adjustment, psychosomatic symptoms and a lack of psychological well-being on completion of the strike, and predicted unfavourable changes in psychological well-being over the next two and six months. A framework for understanding the negative effects of labour disputes and strikes is proposed, and the role of the organizational psychologist when such conflicts occur is considered.     

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.     

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.     

An experimental study of the interaction effects of incentive compensation,career ambition,and task attention on Chinese managers' strategic risk behaviors

Building on the person–pay interaction model, we developed and tested a model for the influence of managers' career ambition and task attention on their responses to incentive compensation under different conditions of firm performance. We argued that managers with greater career ambition and task attention will be more responsive to incentive compensation, thereby engaging in more strategic risk behaviors, such as strategic risk taking and strategic change. Results of our experiment using a managerial decision‐making game with a sample of Chinese managers partially supported this contingency perspective. Under the condition of performance decline, managers' career ambition only accentuated the positive relationship between incentive compensation and strategic change. By contrast, task attention strengthened the positive relationships between incentive compensation and both strategic risk taking and strategic change. However, under the condition of performance growth, neither managers' career ambition nor their task attention influenced their responses to incentive compensation. We discuss the implications for how organizational leaders can use incentive compensation to influence the strategic risk behaviors of managers. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relationship between protean career orientation and work–life balance: A resource perspective

Despite the commonly held belief that a protean career orientation (PCO) enables employees to achieve more balance in their lives, little is known about the relationship between PCO and work–life balance. Using two waves of data collection separated by 2.5 years, this study examined the relationship between PCO and work–life balance among a sample of 367 college‐educated employees in the United States. Analysis was conducted to empirically distinguish PCO from conceptually related constructs, and structural equation modeling was used to examine the process that explains the linkage between PCO and balance. We found that PCO was positively related to work–life balance. We also found support for the role of several resources (social capital, psychological capital, and perceived employability) that explain the relationship between PCO and balance. In particular, PCO was associated with extensive career planning activities that were related to the accumulation of three forms of career capital—human capital, social capital, and psychological capital. In turn, social capital and psychological capital were associated with high employability, which was related to greater work–life balance for individuals who take a whole‐life perspective on their careers. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the findings and provide suggestions for future research. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is using work–life interface benefits a career‐limiting move? An examination of women,men, lone parents,and parents with partners

Using a large national sample based on Workplace and Employee Survey data collected by Statistics Canada in 2001 and 2002, we examined the effects of employee usage of seven organizational work–life interface benefits on promotions. Analysis predicted promotions in 2002 when number of promotions received by 2001 were controlled. The main effect of using work–life interface benefits on promotions was positive, indicating that using these benefits is not a career‐limiting move. Gender, presence of young children, and marital status interacted with the use of work–life interface benefits. Single parents benefitted less than other employees from using work–life interface options. Altogether, these findings suggest that the ongoing positive effects of conservation of time and energy resources for employees outweigh the initial short‐term negative effects of signaling and stigmatization. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relationships between career concerns and political tactics in organizations

The study examined the relationships between four career concerns (Personal Success, Organizational Involvement, Skill Development and Autonomy) and two categories of political tactics in organizations (Hierarchical Tactics and Networking Tactics) in a sample of management school alumni. Career concerns were not related to the employment of hierarchical tactics but were strongly related to the use of networking tactics. ‘External’ career concerns of personal success and organizational involvement were more strongly related to political behavior than ‘internal’ career concerns of skill development and autonomy. Organization size was significantly related to the use of hierarchical tactics but not to the use of networking tactics. Type of organization structure (mechanistic versus organic) did not have a direct effect on political behavior but moderated the relationships between career concerns and political tactics. These relationships were stronger in organic than in mechanistic organizations.     

Work–family conflicts of women in the Air Force: their influence on mental health and functioning

This paper examined the effects of work and family stressors and conflicts on Air Force women's mental health and functioning. We analyzed data from a 1993 survey of representative stratified samples of 525 Air Force women from the active duty reserve and guard forces. The analyses of the data are guided by the comprehensive model of work–family conflict that has been tested by Frone, Russell, and Cooper (1992) using a large representative community sample. Structural equation modeling analyses provided support for the work–family conflict model. The analyses also provided support for an extension of the model, which included the separate effects of marital and parental roles on mental health. The extended model demonstrated that job and parental stresses had direct effects on work–family conflicts and that job and marital distress and family–work conflict had an independent adverse effect on mental health. Whereas job and parental involvement had a beneficial effect on distress, they had an adverse effect on work–family conflicts. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is career management related to employee development and performance?

The career management process involves career exploration, development of career goals, and use of career strategies to obtain career goals. The relationship between different aspects of the career management process and employee development behavior and performance was examined in this study. Employees provided information concerning their personal characteristics, career management strategies, their manager's support for career development, and willingness to participate in development activities. Managers provided ratings of each employee's job performance and developmental behavior. Position, manager's support for development, environmental exploration, and distance from career goal explained significant variance in employees' willingness to participate in development activities and developmental behavior. Career management was not significantly related to performance ratings. Research and practical implications of the study findings are discussed.     

Me and us: differential relationships among goal‐setting training,efficacy and effectiveness at the individual and team level

Efficacy‐effectiveness relationships were examined for individual nurses and nursing teams who were either trained or untrained in goal‐setting. At the individual level, positive direct relationships were demonstrated between self‐efficacy and effectiveness, between training and subsequent self‐efficacy, and between training and effectiveness. Initial self‐efficacy also moderated the training‐effectiveness relationship. Nurses low in initial self‐efficacy realized greater effectiveness gains from the training than did nurses high in initial self‐efficacy. At the team level, group efficacy was related to effectiveness, and training was related to subsequent group efficacy, but training was not related to effectiveness, and there were no moderation effects for initial group efficacy. Collective cognition and behavioral plasticity are potential explanations for different effects at the individual and team level and avenues for theory development and future research. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.