Careers in context: An international study of career goals as mesostructure between societies' career‐related human potential and proactive career behaviour
University of Bamberg1, Athens University of Economics and Business2, University of Toronto3, University of San Andrés4, Waseda University5, VU University Amsterdam6, University of Tennessee7, Pan-Atlantic University8, Bocconi University9, University of Malawi10, University of Belgrade11, Dublin City University12, Northern Illinois University13, Hansung University14, University of Bath15, University of Victoria16, Toulouse Business School17, Cranfield University18, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven19, BI Norwegian Business School20, Donghua University21, University of Padua22, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts23, Boston University24, Macquarie University25, Istanbul University26, University of Ljubljana27, Kookmin University28, Simon Fraser University29, Indian Institute of Management Indore30, University of Salzburg31, University of Los Andes32, International Islamic University, Islamabad33, Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad34, University of Hamburg35, University of Vaasa36, York University37
TL;DR: In this paper, a survey of 17,986 employees from 27 countries, covering nine of GLOBE's 10 cultural clusters, and national statistical data was used to examine the relationship between societal context and actors' career goals (career mesostructure) and career behaviour (actions).
Abstract: Careers exist in a societal context that offers both constraints and opportunities for career actors. Whereas most studies focus on proximal individual and/or organisational‐level variables, we provide insights into how career goals and behaviours are understood and embedded in the more distal societal context. More specifically, we operationalise societal context using the career‐related human potential composite and aim to understand if and why career goals and behaviours vary between countries. Drawing on a model of career structuration and using multilevel mediation modelling, we draw on a survey of 17,986 employees from 27 countries, covering nine of GLOBE's 10 cultural clusters, and national statistical data to examine the relationship between societal context (macrostructure building the career‐opportunity structure) and actors' career goals (career mesostructure) and career behaviour (actions). We show that societal context in terms of societies' career‐related human potential composite is negatively associated with the importance given to financial achievements as a specific career mesostructure in a society that is positively related to individuals' proactive career behaviour. Our career mesostructure fully mediates the relationship between societal context and individuals' proactive career behaviour. In this way, we expand career theory's scope beyond occupation‐ and organisation‐related factors.
Citations
More filters
13 Jan 2010
TL;DR: The 2013 Human Development Index (HDI) as discussed by the authors covers 187 countries, the same number of countries as in 2012 and 2011, and is used to assess the human development of a country.
Abstract: How many countries are included in the 2013 HDI? The 2013 HDI covers 187 countries, the same number as in 2012 and 2011. Maintaining the same number of is the result of intensified efforts by the Human Development Report Office (HDRO) to work with international data providers and national statistical agencies to obtain required development indicators for the HDI which had been unavailable for some countries in previous years. For a full explanation of the results and methodology of the 2013HDI and other indexes in the 2014 Human Development Report, please see the Technical Notes 1-5. What does the HDI tell us? The HDI was created to emphasize that people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone. The HDI can also be used to question national policy choices, asking how two countries with the same level of GNI per capita can end up with different human development outcomes. For example, Malaysia has GNI per capita higher than Chile but life expectancy at birth is about 5 years shorter, mean years of schooling is shorter and expected years of schooling is 2.5 years shorter resulting in Chile having a much higher HDI value than the Malaysia. These striking contrasts can stimulate debate about government policy priorities. Did the HDI rankings change for many countries in 2013? Based on the consistent data series that were available on 15 November 2013, there are few countries with changed ranks between 2012 and 2013. The HDI values for 2012 and 2013 are given in Table 1 of Statistical Annex. The HDI trends since 1980 are given in Table 2. In this table we also provide the change in ranks between 2008 and 2013. We advise users of the HDR not to compare the results from different Reports, but to use the consistent data given in Table 2 of the latest report. The consistent data are based on the latest data revisions and are obtained using the same methodology. The effect of change in achievements (improvement or declining) in human development indicators of
265 citations
251 citations
177 citations
21 Jul 2021
TL;DR: The Gini coefficient as discussed by the authors is a more complete measure of income inequality, considering the entire income distribution, and it indicates that income inequality is rising overall, and that the increasing disparity of income in the U.S. over the past 30 years results from skill-biased technological change that has benefited higher-skilled workers.
Abstract: Between 1947 and 1974, income growth was distributed fairly evenly among households in various income groups. However, income inequality has increased over the past 30 or so years. Since the mid-1970s, real income growth for households at the 95th percentile of the distribution has grown at a pace nearly 3/2 times that of households at the 20th percentile. A similar pattern holds between men and women. The Gini coefficient (lower-left chart), a more complete measure of income inequality, considers the entire income distribution. It indicates that income inequality is rising overall. One explanation holds that the increasing disparity of income in the U.S. over the past 30 years results from skill-biased technological change that has benefited higher-skilled workers. The skill-biased hypothesis asserts that technology improvements boost the productivity (and hence the income) of skilled labor by more than it does the unskilled. Since the 1980s, demand for skilled labor has kept pace with the relatively greater supply of skilled workers (as estimated by the rising proportion of college-educated workers), exerting upward pressure on wages for higher-skilled workers. Since the early 1980s, the average real wage has risen roughly 30% for male college graduates and nearly 50% for males with a postgraduate degree. 0 25 50 75 100 125
167 citations
References
More filters
TL;DR: This paper examined the ways in which public sector research scientists make sense of and seek to develop their careers within their current organizational, policy, social and cultural contexts, and used the concept of career scripts to illustrate the dynamic interaction between these dimensions.
Abstract: This paper examines the ways in which public sector research scientists make sense of and seek to develop their careers within their current organizational, policy, social and cultural contexts. It argues that to access such understandings, both structure and agency and the relationship between them need to be considered. Using empirical evidence from research in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, this paper further develops Barley's (1989) structuration model of career. It highlights the diverse (and frequently intersecting) institutional contexts in which research scientists seek to develop their careers, and their characteristic modes of engagement with such contexts, and utilizes the concept of career scripts to illustrate the dynamic interaction between these dimensions.
133 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a synthesis of theoretical statements on the determinants of socio-econimic achievement with bureaucratic (internal) labor markets and an empirical examination of the reultant predictions.
Abstract: This paper present a synthesis of theoretical statements on the determinants of socioeconimic achievement with bureaucratic (internal) labor markets and an empirical examination of the reultant predictions. The study focuses on careers in the U.S. civil service from 1963 to 1977, using official personnel records on a 1% sample of whitecollar federal employees, along with secondary survey data. The career is viewed as an outcome not only of individual attributes but also of both organizational and historical contexts. The empirical strategy used to disentangle the individual, organizational, and historical effects is cohort analysis. Five successive entering cohorts are differentiated, and for each a model of socioeconomic achievement is estimated which corporates key characteristics of bureaucratic labor markets not heretofore considered in such models. The considerable power of the model to account for variations in occupational prestige and salary supports a Weberian view of bureaucratic labor markets a...
126 citations
"Careers in context: An internationa..." refers background in this paper
...But as has often been pointed out, careers are contextually embedded and located at the intersection of societal- and individual-level phenomena (Barley, 1989; Grandjean, 1981)....
[...]
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a specific view on careers, which highlights why career rules still exist in the country and why individuals do not always have the means or the will to escape those mechanisms.
Abstract: What is the reality of contemporary careers? Have individuals become masters of their professional destiny? While the ‘new career literature’ puts forward the figure of an individual free to invent his/her career (the ‘free actor model’), this article shows that the changes purported to affect careers are less radical than they seem. Despite a weakening of environments, discriminating career mechanisms are still imposed on cadres, at least in France. Because individuals do not always have the means or the will to escape those mechanisms, ‘external clues’ continue to mark careers more than the new career literature supposes. To account for the realities observed in France, this paper proposes a specific view on careers, which highlights why career rules still exist in the country.
125 citations
Additional excerpts
...Barley's concept of career scripts as mediating structures has generated considerable interest in the careers literature (e.g., Arthur, Inkson, & Pringle, 1999; Cappellen & Janssens, 2010; Dany, 2003; Duberley, Cohen, & Mallon, 2006; Duberley, Mallon, & Cohen, 2006; Jacobson & Aaltio-Marjosola, 2001; Laudel et al., 2019; Vough, Bataille, Noh, & Lee, 2015)....
[...]
...…structures has generated considerable interest in the careers literature (e.g., Arthur, Inkson, & Pringle, 1999; Cappellen & Janssens, 2010; Dany, 2003; Duberley, Cohen, & Mallon, 2006; Duberley, Mallon, & Cohen, 2006; Jacobson & Aaltio-Marjosola, 2001; Laudel et al., 2019; Vough,…...
[...]
TL;DR: In the United States, familiar legal doctrine provides a shortcut to the specification of civil rights, but the bases of the constitutional rights are too various to be a reliable guide to an independently designated category ofCivil rights.
Abstract: For all the discussion and debate about civil rights, it is striking how little attention is given initially to the question of what civil rights are. There is no well-understood principle of inclusion or exclusion that defines the category. Nor is there an agreed list of civil rights, except perhaps a very short, avowedly nonexhaustive one, with rather imprecise entries. Yet, if the extension of the category of civil rights is uncertain, its significance is not. All agree that it is a principal task of government to protect civil rights, so much so, indeed, that a failure to protect them usually is regarded as outweighing substantial achievements of other kinds. But a right does not count as a civil right just because it is valuable or valued. Some of the rights most often asserted as civil rights reflect practical interests of their possessors considerably less than other actual or potential rights not so identified.In the United States, familiar legal doctrine provides a shortcut to the specification of civil rights. They are whatever is embraced by the provisions of the federal Civil Rights Acts: the right to vote, fair housing, equal employment opportunity, and so forth. That path, however, is not adequate for the present purpose. For the most part, the statutes refer explicitly or implicitly to federal constitutional rights, and the collective reference to them as civil rights is unexplained. The bases of the constitutional rights are too various to be a reliable guide to an independently designated category of civil rights.
114 citations
"Careers in context: An internationa..." refers background in this paper
..., protection from discrimination) provide the means to secure “civil economic rights” associated with employment or pay (Diamond, 2015; Shin, 2013)....
[...]
TL;DR: The authors argue that small group cultures are a means through which colleagues and co-workers share embedded and powerful self-referential meanings that shape ongoing organizational activity, and argue for a group-level approach to organizations that emphasizes the local production of knowledge and structure.
Abstract: Drawing on sociological conceptions of interaction, small groups, and group cultures, we argue that organizational studies benefits from a meso-analysis of everyday life. Small group cultures are a means through which colleagues and co-workers share embedded and powerful self-referential meanings that shape ongoing organizational activity. Through this perspective we argue for a group-level approach to organizations that emphasizes the local production of knowledge and structure. Drawing upon ethnographic research on field offices of the US National Weather Service, we emphasize the importance of shared awareness and memory, performance, and differentiation, building on a vibrant group culture in which workers collaborate and challenge each other. In conclusion we examine connections and differences among the group culture approach, and related approaches that emphasize inhabited institutions, institutional logics, institutional work, and organizational culture.
109 citations
"Careers in context: An internationa..." refers methods in this paper
...We show how conceptualising the link between macrostructure and action within societies using the related concept of mesostructures (Fine & Hallett, 2014; Maines, 1982; Strauss, 1978) helps provide useful conceptual clarity....
[...]