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Research has been conducted to investigate the factors that influence career indecision. This study attempted to synthesize empirical research on career indecision to (1) find the common determinants over the last two decades and (2) find the factors/areas that need to be addressed for future research on career indecision.

This study used the systematic literature review (SLR) methodology and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Following the predetermined inclusion criteria, 118 articles from the Scopus database were included for review.

From this research, the authors found four main determinants for career indecision, namely (1) career-related decision-making difficulties, (2) adolescent differences, (3) individual and situational career decision-making profiles (CDMPs) and (4) level of individual readiness for career choice, which have been researched in the last two decades. Additionally, eight factors/areas were found to be addressed in future research on career indecision which include those four common determinants, the other three determinants, namely (1) individual differences, (2) contextual/environmental factors, (3) social factors, and one outcome, subjective well-being.

The study had limitations in conducting this research, and the findings of the study provide some theoretical and future research implications.

The seven determinants and the only outcome provide some implications for practitioners and policymakers.

The study found seven determinants and one outcome of career indecision derived from empirical studies conducted during 2000–2021.

While women are increasingly in senior positions in accountancy firms, a century after gaining entry to this once exclusively male field, they are still struggling to achieve career success. The concept of possible selves and a model of career crafting are activated in an analysis of how a set of New Zealand professional accountants have pursued their careers. This paper aims to focus on how people actively craft career selves in the context of organisational and gendered constraints, some of which are self-imposed, and therefore, can be modified and revised.

Interviews with 36 male and female accounting professionals in New Zealand – 21 working in private firms and 15 in academia identify how careers are shaped by contexts, cultural understandings of gender, organisational structures within which accountants are located and wider environmental factors.

Women accountants in this study are both agential and responsive to a range of constraints they encounter. These women challenge the notion that professional achievement requires single minded allegiance to a career; their strategic career crafting demonstrates how career and family commitments are not irreconcilable but can be skilfully integrated to nurture multiple selves. Their strategies are considered alongside those of a comparable set of male accountants.

This paper contributes to the literature on possible selves and the complexity of gendered lives through the application of a career crafting matrix to explore how accounting professionals forge careers and construct multiple selves.

Stories of employability are told in employment and educational settings, notably the selection interviews. A popular training approach guiding higher education students to construct employability stories has been the past-behaviour storytelling method. However, insufficient research exists regarding the method's effectiveness and optimisation. This study examines whether the method (1) increases the quantity and quality of interview narratives in story forms and (2) can be enhanced by image stimuli.

In a double-blind randomised control trial with repeated measures, participants submitted four weekly interview narratives. After receiving past-behaviour serious storytelling training in Week 3, they were randomly allocated to an exposure group using images and a control group using keywords as a placebo to continue producing interview narratives. The interview narratives were assessed based on the number of stories and quality ratings of narrative conformity, relevance and conciseness. Results before and after the training, and with and without the image stimuli, were analysed.

Training increased the number of stories. Training and repeated practice also increased narrative quality ratings. However, the image-based intervention was the strongest predictor of improved quality ratings (effect size 2.47 points on the observed scale of 0–10, p < 0.01, 95% CI [1.46, 3.47]).

A pre-existing ability to tell employability stories cannot be assumed. Training is necessary, and intervention is required for enhancement. Multi-sensory narrative interventions may be considered.

This study is the first known double-blind randomised control trial with repeated measures evaluating if storytelling training and image stimuli improve interview narratives.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of peripheral services offered by distance education (DE) institutes on student involvement in DE and, examine whether this impact is mediated by student experience quality.

Quantitative research approach based on cross-sectional survey design was used where data were collected using a structured questionnaire. Sample consisted of 400 undergraduates of the Open University of Sri Lanka, drawn using simple random sampling technique. Collected data were analyzed using the structural equation model.

Data analysis revealed that there is a significant direct impact of peripheral services offered by DE institutes on student involvement in the Sri Lankan context. Furthermore, it is validated that this impact is mediated by student experience quality.

Focus of the study is only on the impact of contextual elements rather than personal or demographic factors of students which can have an important impact on their experience quality as well as involvement.

Findings are useful in designing and redesigning service offering and policy development by DE institutes to make their services more appealing.

Even though previous studies have identified student dropout and lower academic excellence as issues in DE, how service offering can be used to overcome them via student involvement has not received considerable attention. Hence, the tested conceptual model developed on multiple theories is a novel contribution to the existing knowledge base.

The low number of women in the information technology (IT) field is a concern. The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors behind the exclusion of girls from the IT field.

The present work includes a narrative literature review and an exploratory interview study with ten girls and six study guidance counsellors (GCs) from Finnish senior high schools. Using the nexus analysis as a theoretical lens, the authors examined the exclusion of girls from IT.

Earlier literature directed attention to the cultural norms, assumptions and stereotypes still prevalent in society and the lack of role models and positive media as factors contributing to girls excluding themselves from the IT field. In this research study’s data, the authors not only found evidence of the unintentional exclusion of girls from IT by others but also by the girls themselves. Findings of this research study illustrate the various discourses, actors and their interactions, their background and history-related factors affecting girls' career choices. The novelty of this study is in approaching high school as a site of exclusion, where problematic discourses, interactions and histories come together, reproducing exclusion of girls from the IT field.

The authors contribute with a literature review of the research study on gender and IT and the inclusion/exclusion dynamics around IT. Using the nexus analysis, the authors identify the exclusion dynamics in this complex social issue. Several decades of research have shown that the inclusion of women remains low in IT disciplines. In this study, high schools are viewed as sites of exclusion, engendering a prevalent lack of information and education on the field. The authors offer novel insights into the role of curriculum, GCs and online information excluding girls from the IT field.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between general self-efficacy (GSE), job search self-efficacy (JSSE), extraversion and job search success within a sample of new entrants in the labour market. It is hypothesised that JSSE acts as a mediator between GSE and job search success. Evaluation of the hireability – made by expert interviewers – of new entrants involved in a job interview simulation is proposed as a job search success criterion. Moreover, the moderating role of extraversion on the relationship between JSSE and job search success is explored.

Data were collected on 177 graduates from an Italian university. Participants were involved in a simulation of an interview conducted by experts of the personnel selection process, who gave an evaluation. Macro PROCESS for SPSS was used to test the hypotheses.

GSE has an indirect effect on job search success via JSSE. Moreover, extraversion has a moderating effect on the JSSE–job search success relationship for more extraverted job seekers.

Job search and counselling practitioners should consider extraversion and personal differences to improve the effectiveness of interventions aimed at fostering new entrants' self-regulatory resources and behaviours during the job search.

This study contributes to the existing research about the job search process by testing a new and important job search success criterion, showing that GSE could help new graduates in establishing a specific self-efficacy, such as JSSE, and demonstrating that extraversion interacts with JSSE.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neuro-developmental condition that has frequently been pathologised in career research and broader society to date. The study seeks to reframe such assumptions through a qualitative positive-focused exploration of career stories of ADHD adults, elicited through a strength-focused technique with wide applicability for coaching and other career-based development activities.

Situated in a strength-focused coaching psychology paradigm, the authors undertook semi-structured interviews with 17 participants, using an adapted feedforward interview technique (FFI) rooted in positive psychology (PP), to investigate individuals' strengths and successful career experiences.

Narrative thematic analysis of the transcripts identified two core themes: “the paradoxical nature of strengths” and “career success as an evolving narrative”. The participants described how they have achieved career success both “in spite of” and “because of” ADHD. The use of the FFI demonstrated a helpful and easily taught method for eliciting personal narratives of success and strengths, an essential foundation to any coaching process.

This research provides a nuanced overview, and an associated conceptual model, of how adults with ADHD perceive their career-based strengths and experiences of success. Further, the research shows the value of using a positive psychological coaching approach when working with neurominority individuals, using a successful adaptation of the FFI. The authors hope that the documentation of this technique and the resulting insights will offer important guidance for managers as coaches and internal and external career coaches, as well as providing positive and relatable narrative resources for ADHD adults.

This article aims to introduce the special issue entitled “the role of career shocks in contemporary career development,” synthesize key contributions and formulate a future research agenda.

The authors provide an introduction of the current state-of-the-art in career shocks research, offer an overview of the key lessons learned from the special issue and present several important avenues for future research.

The authors discuss how the special issue articles contribute to a better understanding of career shocks' role in contemporary career development, focusing on (1) conceptual clarity of the notion of career shocks, (2) career outcomes of career shocks, (3) mechanisms that can explain the impact of career shocks and (4) interdisciplinary connectivity.

This article offers a synthesis of the critical contributions made within this special issue, thereby formulating key ways to bring the field of career shocks research forward. It also provides new avenues for research.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine the effects of expatriation on the development of career capital among the partners of expatriates.

The study draws on in-depth interviews with 30 Finnish partners of expatriates.

The results reflect the various learning experiences reported by partners of expatriates that developed their career capital during expatriation. The learning experiences related to the experience of living abroad itself and to the specific activities undertaken when abroad. The extent to which partners developed knowing-why, knowing-how and knowing-whom career capital was found to partly reflect their situation abroad as stay-at-home partners or as employees in less-demanding or more-demanding jobs. Though the experiences were developmental for all partners as have been reported among expatriates, the authors also identified several aspects in which partners' experiences differed from the typical developmental experiences of expatriates.

The results also highlight the influence of initiative, an active role and career self-management skills in partners' career capital development.

This paper advances the understanding of how expatriation affects expatriate partners' career capital, a topic that has not previously been studied in-depth.