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This study seeks to examine the impact of career growth prospect (CGP) and formal mentoring support (FMS) on overall organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and its five dimensions.

Data were obtained from 72 supervisors and 182 of their subordinates in branches of a bank located in a city in South‐western Nigeria.

Results indicate that CGP accounted for a significant percentage of the variance in overall OCB (β=0.46, p<0.001), predicting three dimensions: sportsmanship, conscientiousness and civic virtue. Contrary to hypothesis, FMS did not predict overall OCB, but significantly influenced three OCB dimensions: sportsmanship, courtesy and altruism, predicting “sportsmanship” (β=0.26, p<0.001) to be better than CGP (β=0.22, p<0.01).

Although generalisation is limited in a study of a single organisation, the findings of the study imply that CGP and FMS have differential relevance in OCB.

Altering negative perceptions of CGP among employees engenders OCB but FMS needs to be complemented with other interventions to foster overall OCB.

Although career growth prospects and formal mentoring support are projected to foster OCB in the Nigerian banking sector, no research has investigated this expectation. The extant literature shows that research on the impact of career growth prospects on OCB is virtually absent. Again, the absence of African perspectives on research issues such as OCB, has limited comparative studies and the global scope of most reference journals. This study narrows these gaps in literature and contributes empirical information that equips management to deal more strategically with the integrated approach to OCB.

This study addresses a central research question: Does employees' personal initiative, with a benevolent political will, lead to career growth prospects in a work environment replete with perceived organizational politics? Drawing upon self-determination, signalling, and social cognitive theories, the authors examine how perceptions of organizational politics operate to limit the influence of benevolent political will – induced personal initiative on career growth prospects.

This research adopts a quantitative research design. This multi-wave, multi-sample and multi-source investigation includes 730 subordinate-supervisor dyads from India's information technology, education and manufacturing companies. The sample comprises 236 full-time faculty members from higher educational institutions and 496 mid-level managers from technical and service departments of information technology and manufacturing companies.

The results indicate that benevolent political will is significantly related to career growth prospects. In addition, perceptions of organizational politics shows a crossover interaction effect. The findings reveal that the indirect relationship between benevolent political will and career growth prospects changed significantly from those with a low perception of organizational politics to significantly negative among those perceiving organizational politics as high.

This study provides several implications for practice regarding personal initiative, benevolent political will and perceptions of organizational politics.

The significant contributions of this study are to provide new insights into the relationship between benevolent political will and career growth prospects and to unravel the paradoxical nature of the personal initiative phenomenon.

This study attempts to expand the literature on organizational career advancement (career mobility and promotion prospects) by examining work factors (withdrawal behaviors, contextual performance and job performance) that managers consider when making decisions regarding their employees' career mobility and promotion prospects.

The research population consists of employees working in both service and non‐service organizations in Israel. Data were collected from three sources: employees, managers and organizational records. Regression analyses were used to assess the research hypotheses.

The results show that career mobility is significantly associated with withdrawal behaviors (lateness and absenteeism), overtime dedication and job performance. Interestingly, however, the results did not show a significant relationship between organizational career advancement and the two dimensions of contextual performance (altruism and compliance). We also found that job performance is the only major predictor of promotion prospects.

This research is an effort to systematically examine the effects of various work behaviors and job performance as well as demographic data on two aspects of career advancement: career mobility and career prospects. The findings shed light on the criteria used in making decisions on career mobility and career prospects, the consistency and inconsistency of these criteria, and their relative importance with respect to each aspect of career advancement. However, future research should apply a longitudinal design to fully understand the dynamics of the career advancement process.

Individual employees and their managers may benefit from a close, systematic examination of the criteria that are important for the career advancement process. Employees may benefit from a better understanding of what managers consider when they make decisions regarding promotions within the organization; thereby, better directing their efforts to meet these expectations. Managers may learn that some inconsistencies exist between their employees' genuine prospects and their own actual decision to promote them. This may lead to exploring practices that might overcome these inconsistencies, as well as a developing ways to use this mechanism in order to advance specific values, attitudes, behaviors and outcomes that are of importance to the viability of the organization.

This study is part of a growing research interest on organizational career advancement, with a specific focus on promotion decisions and their underlying reasons. It contributes to a better understanding of what managers tend to consider when making promotion decisions and evaluating their employees' career prospects.

Targeting at the inconsistent relationship between protean career orientation and turnover intentions, this study aims to uncover when and why such inconsistency occurs. It emphasized the mediating role of organizational identification and moderating effects of current organizational career growth and future organizational career growth prospect.

The authors conducted a three-wave time-lagged study over seven months, with a sample of 1,012 participants from various occupations.

The relationship of protean career orientation to turnover intentions via organizational identification was negative when current organizational career growth was high, and it was positive when current growth was low. Future organizational career growth prospect weakened organizational identification–turnover intentions relationship. Those two moderators jointly influenced the indirect relationship. For employees low in both states, the positive indirect relationship was the most significant.

By integrating social identity theory and social cognitive theory, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of protean career orientation–turnover intentions relationship. It also enriches studies on protean career orientation and organizational identification–turnover intentions relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how to facilitate newcomers’ career advancement within an organization and diminish their intention to quit from the perspective of socialization. In addition, the moderating role of the type of newcomers on the relationship between socialization tactics and career advancement, and consequently, on the mediating effect of newcomers’ proactive socialization behavior, will be examined.

Longitudinal survey research was conducted in the tertiary industry in four large cities of China. Regression analysis and bootstrapping method were used to verify the hypothesized relationships.

Organizational socialization tactics could have positive effects on newcomers’ proactive socialization behavior and promotion prospects. And newcomers’ proactive socialization behavior partly mediates the relationship between organizational socialization tactics and their promotion prospects. The type of newcomers moderates the relationship between proactive socialization behavior and promotion prospects and also the mediation effect of proactive behavior, which says a moderated mediating effect.

Employers should put more value on college recruitment, making good use of social media tools in particular. And they should also select applicants with proactive personality traits. Finally, a series of structured orientation programs should be implemented for all newcomers.

This study contributes evidence for career advancement as one of the distal socialization outcomes, the moderating role of the type of newcomers on the relationship between socialization and career advancement, and the classification as graduates from school and experienced newcomers from other organizations holds significance to examine newcomers’ socialization.

The purpose of this paper is to draw on the employment situation of postdoctoral researchers (postdocs) in the Netherlands, concerning their career prospects and embeddedness within their organisation, in order to discuss theoretical perspectives on academic careers.

This multi-method study consists of three parts: a survey, in-depth interviews, and three focus group meetings with postdocs as well as representatives of the human resource staff and the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This paper reports on the findings from the focus group meetings, which concentrated on how postdoctoral researchers consider their employment situation and career prospects.

The three focus group discussions revealed that postdocs are caught within a dual controversy, the first involves their lack of clarity concerning their career prospects and developments despite their highly valued work, the second regards the fact that they are specialized staff, contributing to the primary process of their employing organisation but faintly connected. Although the postdocs’ formal position seems weak, their situation in terms of academic socialising is much stronger and active than appears at first sight, particularly due to their personal agency.

The postdocs require and appreciate guidance and support, particularly when they must leave academia.

The paper provides new and additional insights into the position of postdocs and their career prospects. Their personal agency in pursuing further career steps is more active than expected in previous studies.

This paper examined the role of career‐enhancing strategies (CESs) as mediators of the relationship between situation‐centred characteristics (e.g. career prospects) and subjective career success. CESs included self‐nomination, networking behaviour and consultation with mentors. Subjective career success was measured using two criteria, intrinsic job success and perceived career success. Questionnaire data was collected from 283 full‐time support personnel in the UK. Results provided partial support for the mediating role of CESs between situational characteristics and subjective career success. Specific CESs played a mediating role in the relationship between specific situation‐centred variables and intrinsic job success. Self‐nomination and networking played a mediating role between career prospects and intrinsic job success. Networking also played a mediating role between security and intrinsic job success. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, together with avenues for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship of gender, work factors, and non‐work factors with aspirations to positions in senior management. A process model of senior management aspirations was developed and tested.

Data were collected via an online survey that resulted in a sample of 368 working professionals. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to analyze results.

Women were less likely than men to desire promotion into a senior management position. Moreover, women's lower desired aspirations for promotion to senior management were due in part to the smaller degree of congruence that women perceive between personal characteristics and senior management positions and in part to the less favorable prospects for career advancement that women perceive relative to men.

The cross‐sectional, correlational research design does not permit strong inferences regarding the causal direction of observed relationships. In addition, the specific nature of the sample (working professionals enrolled in graduate study at one university in the USA) may limit the generalizability of the results.

Because women's career aspirations are affected by their perceived congruence with senior management positions and by their perceived opportunity to reach senior management, organizations should assure that senior management roles are not predominantly associated with masculine characteristics and should evaluate their promotion systems to eliminate artificial barriers to women's advancement into senior management.

This research distinguishes between desired and enacted aspirations as well as provides insights into some factors that explain why women hold weaker desired aspirations for senior management positions than men.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the career preferences of real estate students and the predisposing factors influencing the choice of career. The study also analysed the gender and socioeconomic variations with respect to the career preferences and factors influencing the career choice of real estate students in an emergent market like Nigeria.

Closed-ended questionnaires were administered on final year real estate students in the three Federal universities offering real estate in Southwestern Nigeria. Data were analysed using frequency counts, percentages, mean ranking, independent t-test, analysis of variance and correlation analysis.

The findings showed that the predominant individual factors influencing career choice of real estate students were personal career interest, the magnitude of initial salary, future financial prospects and job security. Furthermore, while intrinsic and economic/financial factors were the major themes influencing respondents’ career choice, the influence of a third party was less a likely determinant. Analysis of gender differences showed that there was a statistical difference between the male and female respondents with respect to the intrinsic and career exposure factors.

The study has implications for real estate students, career advisers/academic counsellors, organisations employing the services of real estate graduates, and educational institutions and policy stakeholders in the real estate sector. The study also has implication for real estate professional bodies in Nigeria and other emergent markets.

This is perhaps the first attempt that examined the factors influencing the career choice of real estate students in an emergent market like Nigeria, especially from the perspectives of gender and socioeconomic variations.

Based on impression management theory, the authors ask how marketing activities build organizational reputation and examine the mediating mechanisms of desired impressions, and the moderating impact of national culture. Specifically, and in the context of higher education (HE) institutions, the authors examine the influence of relational marketing and traditional advertising on organizational reputation through the mediation of desired impressions (e.g. quality of learning, career prospects and extracurricular activities) across countries and specify the moderation role of cultural variables.

This study estimates empirical models using a survey data set comprising 1,890 student responses from 10 universities in 8 countries. The authors use confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and measurement invariance models, as well as ordinary least squares with robust standard errors to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that marketing activities affect organizational reputation through the mediation of desired impressions in line with our theoretical reasoning. Specifically, the results show that (1) relational marketing has direct and indirect effects on organizational reputation; (2) relational marketing has a higher influence on organizational reputation in countries with lower individualism and lower masculinity scores; (3) quality of learning mediates the relationship between traditional advertising and organizational reputation; (4) quality of learning also mediates the association between relational marketing and organizational reputation; (5) career prospects mediate the relationship between relational marketing and organizational reputation; (6) traditional advertising does not have a direct but only an indirect effect on organizational reputation; and (7) these findings are net of the effect of respondents', universities', and countries' characteristics.

The findings contribute to the body of knowledge on the antecedents of organizational reputation, from an international marketing perspective. The results extend the impression management by integrating constructs that have been studied independently into a cohesive framework that links marketing activities, desired impressions and organizational reputation. With the study, impression management theory provides a framework to study the impact of marketing activities on organizational reputation not only in domestic but also in international markets.

By asking the target market about the importance of different marketing activities, their expectations of the organization and its reputation, HE administrators can employ the model proposed in this study to assess the relevant marketing strategies that will drive desired impressions which in turn will influence reputation.

While there are studies that focus on the impact of several constructs on organizational reputation in an international context, it is striking to observe that extant research is silent on how (via what mediating mechanisms) marketing activities work as an antecedent of organizational reputation. To address this gap, we examine marketing activities as antecedents of organizational reputation in an international, cross-country context, and specify the moderation role of cultural variables.