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1 – 10 of 688Naimatullah Shah, Safia Bano, Ummi Naiemah Saraih, Nadia A. Abdelmegeed Abdelwahed and Bahadur Ali Soomro
In the digital age, the development of students’ career intentions requires serious concentration since these are associated with the students’ future employment and, ultimately…
Abstract
Purpose
In the digital age, the development of students’ career intentions requires serious concentration since these are associated with the students’ future employment and, ultimately, their survival. This study attempted to demonstrate in Pakistan’s Higher Educational Institutes (HEIs) the role of soft skills towards the students' career development (CD) and their future career intentions (CI).
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the researchers used a quantitative approach and a questionnaire to collect the data from the surveyed participants. Finally, the researchers based this study’s findings on 392 useable samples.
Findings
By employing the structural equation model (SEM), this study’s findings show that soft skills, such as Creative Self-Efficacy (CSE), Problem-Solving Confidence (PSC) and Teamwork (TW) have a positive and significant effect on CD and CI. However, while Critical thinking and Creativity (CRC) has a positive and significant effect on CD, it has no effect on CI. In addition, this study’s findings confirm, also, that CD has a positive and significant effect on CI.
Practical implications
This study’s findings assist policymakers and university administrators to understand the importance of soft skills in creating CD and CI. These promote the development of employability skills and fulfill its part in preparing graduates for the unpredictable job market. This study’s findings help, also, to develop logical reasoning in making decisions and in dealing with complex organizational issues.
Originality/value
In a practical way, in Pakistan, this study’s findings confirm the role of soft skills towards students' CD and CI.
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Maria Rita Blanco and Mariela N. Golik
The career is a space where family and work lives amalgamate. The role of work for the individual, and the meaning of work within the culture, will determine the relevance of…
Abstract
Purpose
The career is a space where family and work lives amalgamate. The role of work for the individual, and the meaning of work within the culture, will determine the relevance of family. This study investigates CEOs' perception about conjugal family influence on career decisions, and it examines family factors.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a qualitative study, 22 Latin American CEOs who work for multinational firms were interviewed in a semi-structured way.
Findings
Not all career decisions were influenced by conjugal family. CEOs varied in the extent to which they considered their families when reflecting on their career decisions. Expatriation, joining or quitting an organization and change of area of work were found as those decisions perceived to be influenced by conjugal family. Family support, family structure and family demands and responsibilities were identified as the family factors involved. In spite of the role salience, family factors influenced some of CEOs' career decisions, in part, due to the cultural characteristics of the Latin American environment. The instrumental support of the extended family, as part of collectivist societies, was also evidenced.
Practical implications
A better understanding of the family influenced decisions and family factors involved may enhance individual career decision-making as well as organizational career management processes and public initiatives.
Originality/value
This study contributes to family and career literature, being the first one to explore the conjugal family influence upon CEOs' career decisions.
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Seema Das, Sumi Jha and Sumita Datta
This study aims to explore the career transition process of women professionals when they return to the workplace after a break and re-integrate with their career aspirations.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the career transition process of women professionals when they return to the workplace after a break and re-integrate with their career aspirations.
Design/methodology/approach
This research used a qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews for data collection. All 20 women participants have returned to their careers after a break.
Findings
The data analysis reveals women’s career transition and re-integration process into the workplace after a career break. Supervisory support, work–life balance practices, role models, coworker support and career success emerged as factors enabling successful transition. The employing organisations’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring strategy emerged as an important mechanism for re-entry.
Originality/value
Although previous research has studied women professionals returning after a break, the “transition process” that enables re-entry is missing.
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Vrinda Khattar and Upasna A. Agarwal
The purpose of this article is to understand how women develop entrepreneurship as a career identity through women's various life stages. Using a life story approach, the authors…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to understand how women develop entrepreneurship as a career identity through women's various life stages. Using a life story approach, the authors study the formation of Indian businesswomen's entrepreneurial identity in businesswomen's unique socio-cultural context.
Design/methodology/approach
The study drew upon 15 semi-structured interviews with practicing women entrepreneurs using a qualitative methodology. Gioia methodology was used to systematically analyze the data for theory building.
Findings
The narratives of the Indian women entrepreneurs indicate that Indian women's entrepreneurial identity was a developmental process influenced by various episodes in different life stages-childhood, adolescence, marriage and motherhood. Life episodes influenced the creation and enactment of this entrepreneurial identity, which led to the emergence of entrepreneurship as a career choice.
Research limitations/implications
The study's retrospective design may have raised concerns involving memory recall. The open-ended questions gave the participants the freedom to recount the life episodes that influenced the participants the most and may have partly mitigated this concern.
Originality/value
Prior studies have focused on specific life stages of women entrepreneurs, without taking a holistic life-story view, thereby missing out on how career identity is formed as a result of life episodes. Using the developmental psychology approach, the authors provide a nuanced and holistic lens to understanding women's entrepreneurship.
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Work-Based Learning (WBL) is a form of practical learning that is still rare, yet upcoming in academic education. It differs mainly from classical approaches because work…
Abstract
Purpose
Work-Based Learning (WBL) is a form of practical learning that is still rare, yet upcoming in academic education. It differs mainly from classical approaches because work experience forms a key curriculum element. To enable WBL, a cultural change in academic landscape seems required, which depends on views and support of academic staff.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors carried out a case study, in which the authors interviewed 20 Dutch science professors to examine their vision on the master track Science, Business and Policy (SBP), a WBL program offered for over 15 years.
Findings
Generally professors are positive about its added value and recommend the track, especially for students with career ambitions outside academia. WBL is perceived to have a positive contribution to academic level. Professors indicated that for academic skills development, compared with a traditional master's program, SBP is evaluated neutral to positive.
Originality/value
Altogether the current climate at the university of Groningen towards WBL seems predominantly positive. The educational change towards a solid inclusion of WBL in the regular curriculum seems supported by one of the key players, the professors. This track could thereby be an example for other WBL programs worldwide.
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Asif Hussain Samo, Moomal Baig Bughio, Quratulain Nazeer Ahmed, Muzafar Ali Shah and Shafique Ahmed
The literature on leadership is quite extensive; however, this study explains the impact of leadership styles on career success, career competence and career adaptability in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The literature on leadership is quite extensive; however, this study explains the impact of leadership styles on career success, career competence and career adaptability in the health sector. It explains the impact of servant leadership on career competence and career adaptability with a serial mediating impact of psychological safety and proactive behavior as well as self-efficacy and proactive behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
It is a quantitative study, and it tested the suggested model in hospitals in Pakistan. The data were collected from 310 health practitioners from the hospitals, and it was analyzed with partial least square structural equation modeling.
Findings
The findings suggest that psychological safety and proactive behavior serially mediate the impact of servant leaders on career competence and career adaptability; hence, servant leadership tends to increase career competence and career adaptability of individuals. One more serial mediation has been tested with positive results between servant leadership and career competence and career adaptability.
Originality/value
The study takes a very well theoretically linked model which tests the serial mediating path of servant leadership to career competencies and career adaptability.
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Ivona Mileva, Nadezda Pop-Kostova and Nadica Jovanovska Boshkovska
The study of entrepreneurship has advanced quickly in recent decades; however, despite its extraordinary importance, the information on the influence of family on entrepreneurial…
Abstract
The study of entrepreneurship has advanced quickly in recent decades; however, despite its extraordinary importance, the information on the influence of family on entrepreneurial intentions remains fragmented and hard to compare. Therefore, the main objective of this chapter is to give readers a thorough grasp of family enterprises’ entrepreneurial aspirations. It will also assess how previous experience in family businesses affects one’s ambition to start their own firm. For this matter, the authors will use data acquired from the GUESSS (Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey), the survey carried out among college students in different Balkan countries: North Macedonia, Albania, Greece, Croatia, and Bulgaria. The reader will be introduced to the up-to-date scientific research in the area of entrepreneurial intentions, through receiving an increased understanding of whether the role of parents has influence over the entrepreneurial intentions of their offspring.
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Auf Tumwebaze Alicon and Kassim Kalinaki
Despite the sporadic evolution of artificial intelligence, the most valuable asset of any organization in the modern world is human resources. This study aims to reveal that…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the sporadic evolution of artificial intelligence, the most valuable asset of any organization in the modern world is human resources. This study aims to reveal that partnerships between higher education institutions (HEIs) and employers will ease the process of employee mid-career development in Uganda's corporate employment sector by promoting work-based postgraduate training, and this additionally promotes human resources (HR) capacity-building for organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypothesis is that contemporary employees seek out an academic mid-career development postgraduate programme that is blended to fit into the employees' work schedule. The study was a descriptive quantitative study, and a closed-ended questionnaire was sent out to groups of corporate employees online (N = 70) and 41 responded, giving a response rate of 58.5%.
Findings
Findings indicate a need for a flexible program for mid-career development and transition, the low standard deviation of (Neutral = 0.95, Disagreed = 2.64 and Agreed = 3.3) implies an insignificant deviation from the mean of responses. Indeed, over 95% agree that pursue further studies is needed but in a more flexible way.
Research limitations/implications
The study design was limited by the sample selection process and study design. In the future, the authors recommend a mixed study for both quantitative and qualitative dimensions of such studies.
Practical implications
Irrespective of gender, hierarchy and experience, employees want flexible study modes for their postgraduate. This implies that institutions of higher learning should work with the labour industry and position themselves as work-based information and communication technology (ICT)-Integrated learning theatres.
Originality/value
The move towards a collaborative strategy between academia and the employment industry is very evident in this study.
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In this paper, I explore what shapes the identities of digital nomads (DNs), a class of remote workers who travel and work concurrently. Through extensive fieldwork and interviews…
Abstract
In this paper, I explore what shapes the identities of digital nomads (DNs), a class of remote workers who travel and work concurrently. Through extensive fieldwork and interviews with 50 digital nomads conducted in seven coworking hostels in Mexico in 2022, I construct a theory of DN identity. I base this upon the frequent transformations they undergo in their Circumstances, which regularly change their worker identity.
DNs relinquish traditional social determinants of identity, such as nationality and religion. They define their personal identities by their passions and interests, which are influenced by the people they meet. DNs exist in inherently transitive social spaces and, without rigid social roles to fulfil, they represent themselves authentically. They form close relationships with other long-term travellers to combat loneliness and homesickness. Digital nomads define their worker identities around their location independence. This study shows that DNs value their nomadic lifestyle above promotions and financial gain. They define themselves by productivity and professionalism to ensure the sustainability of their lifestyle. Furthermore, digital nomad coworking hubs serve focused, individual work, leaving workplace politics and strict ‘office image’ norms behind. Without fixed social and professional roles to play, digital nomads define themselves personally according to their ever-evolving passions and the sustainability of their nomadic life. Based on these findings, I present a cyclical framework for DN identity evolution which demonstrates how relational, logistical, and socio-personal flux evolves DN’s worker identities.
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Lisa Rosen, Shannon Scott, Bek Urban, Darian Poe, Roshni Shukla and Shazia Ahmed
The purpose of this study was to examine the lived experiences of working mothers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and assess their perceptions of the types of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to examine the lived experiences of working mothers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and assess their perceptions of the types of training opportunities that would help advance their careers as they navigated pandemic-related challenges.
Design/methodology/approach
In study 1, 53 participants responded to an online survey that included open-ended questions regarding the impact COVID-19 has had on their careers and desires they have for training to ameliorate these concerns. For study 2, 10 participants completed an interview that included open-ended questions regarding workplace changes and professional development/training opportunities since the pandemic.
Findings
Thematic analysis showed mothers facing several setbacks in their careers, including delays, loss of hours and wages, childcare stressors and strained or lost relationships with colleagues and supervisors. A small number of participants also reported some surprisingly positive experiences, such as a push toward career innovation. Participants reported little to no exposure to career development opportunities and expressed a desire for training for leadership and interpersonal connection in the workplace.
Originality/value
Although quantitative data have been helpful in identifying and quantifying growing gender gaps in work during the pandemic, the qualitative analyses the authors used highlight how recent difficulties encountered by working mothers risk a growing gender gap in work and career mobility as women in the leadership pipeline struggle with challenges. Further, the findings suggest ways that women in management can support the working mothers on their staff, including by suggesting ways additional training may address some concerns.
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