Editorial: Introducing the new practitioner insights section at career development international

Citation

Harrison, J.A. and Donald, W.E. (2024), "Editorial: Introducing the new practitioner insights section at career development international", Career Development International, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 413-414. https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-08-2024-360

What is the new practitioner insights section?

Career Development International is a journal that studies careers throughout lifespans and in various contexts. We are pleased to introduce practitioner insight articles to recognize the practical aspects of career exploration and broaden our reach to include practitioners. Practitioner insights articles will feature shorter manuscripts demonstrating how career research can improve individual or organizational performance and extend to other domains of life.

Our new senior editor, Associate Professor William E. Donald (University of Southampton, UK and Donald Research & Consulting, UK), will lead the practitioner insights section of the journal. This exciting development is inspired by the call to reduce the research-practice gap by providing an outlet that directly impacts practitioners such as career counselors and organizational units focused on improving career access and mobility for their members. Again, we hope this new format will help enrich practitioners' lives and those interested in careers while simultaneously inspiring scholarly inquiry.

Why is a practitioner section suitable for CDI?

Theory and practice complement each other, but academic journals often focus on the impact of theory on practice rather than a meaningful commitment to showing how practice can have implications for research or provide advice and policy recommendations. Adopting a bidirectional approach can add value to CDI and broaden access to those individuals dealing with day-to-day career issues in various capacities, whether they are individuals themselves or representatives of organizations or other institutions.

How many articles will be featured in each volume?

The practitioner insights section will complement our regular research articles section. We plan to publish a maximum of seven practitioner articles per volume, which means one per issue. While maintaining our focus on scholarly inquiry, we are expanding our scope to include articles that can be useful to a broader audience and involve important stakeholders – practitioners.

Please note that practitioner articles will not be published via Gold Open Access (unless the author wishes to pay the respective fee or has a fee waiver agreement through their institution). However, authors can upload the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) to their institutional repository and/or personal website under the Green Open Access Agreement.

Guidance for authors and peer reviewers

Article structure and review process

Articles will be a maximum of 3,000 words, including the structured abstract, main body and references. You may also include 1 figure or table (which counts as 280 words of the 3,000 limit). We advise including 5–10 references, with at least half citing works in scholarly peer-reviewed journals published within the last 3–5 years. Submissions must be made via the Scholar One submission system, and all submissions will initially be desk-reviewed by the senior editor. Those deemed within the scope will then undergo double-blind peer review.

What we are looking for (and what we are not)

1. Articles must focus on guidance and insights for practitioners based on a program of research, or on a specific intervention and/or tool in which the practitioner has been directly involved. Therefore, conceptual, theoretical or literature review articles are unsuitable for this section and should be submitted to the relevant section of the journal instead. Articles co-authored between a practitioner and an academic are strongly encouraged.

2. Practitioner insights articles are not expected to make a theoretical contribution, although the insights may do so or inspire theoretical contributions from other scholars. However, a theoretical framework is expected to be applied to all practitioner submissions to show how guidance or the practical intervention and/or tool is grounded in an existing career theory.

3. We particularly welcome practitioner insights that provide new insights into delivering career development support to individuals or organizations in innovative ways. For an example, please see Donald and Straby (2024), published in this issue of Career Development International, who combine traditional narrative storytelling approaches with artificial intelligence’s innovative abilities to enable career development professionals to support individuals across their lifespan.

For further guidance

Please get in touch with Associate Professor William E. Donald, the Senior Editor of the Practitioner Insights section of Career Development International, at w.e.donald@gmail.com. He can provide you with a template and initial feedback on the suitability of your proposed article.