Search results

The purpose of this paper is to present research findings on the experience of career barriers by women who have changed career, and to suggest the practical implications of these findings for career management.

An established, qualitative methodology, interpretative phenomenological analysis, was used to explore participants' experiences. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with eight women who had changed careers and were analysed to identify the salient themes.

Participants experienced career barriers, but their subjective experience did not necessarily match objectively defined barriers. One participant, for example, experienced redundancy not as a barrier to her career path but as an opportunity. It was only when situations or events threatened the self‐concept that problems were experienced as barriers. These barriers were not insurmountable and participants used a number of strategies to overcome potential barriers.

The findings suggest that career management or counselling should acknowledge and explore the client's subjective experience of career barriers. Strategies such as challenging or reframing potential barriers can be effective methods for helping clients to dismantle them.

This research points to the gap in career theory and research on the experience of barriers in adult careers. It presents evidence on the subjective nature of barriers and on strategies used to overcome them.

College support and career development are two significant challenges international students encountered during the pandemic, and these two factors have an enormous impact on the internationalization of higher education. The data for this study came from the 2020 to 2021 administrations of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) that includes over 500 international students enrolled at over 120 four-year colleges and universities in the United States. These students specifically responded to an open-ended item asking them what they think institutions should do better to assist their academic achievement and career goals. This study takes an in-depth look at international students’ qualitative responses about ways that institutions could better support their preparation for future careers. Using theories of cultural wealth and ecological systems to understand the unique experiences of international students during the pandemic offers an opportunity to help students not just in times of crisis but more holistically as they continue to pursue their higher education experiences in the United States. Ultimately, the authors provide recommendations for higher education professionals working with international students to better support their students’ career development and overall college experience.

Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) employees constitute one of the largest, but least studied, minority groups in the workforce. This article examines what we know, and what we need to know, about the career and workplace experiences of this understudied population. The construct of sexual identity is defined, followed by a review of the research on sexual orientation in the workplace. Then an analysis of the differences between LGB employees and other stigmatized groups is presented. Three unique challenges facing LGB employees are identified, and conceptual models are developed that explain underlying processes. Finally, career theories are critically analyzed, and an identity-based longitudinal theory of LGB careers is presented.

The purpose of this study is to examine the career transition experiences of three immigrants from Pakistan in Canadian organisations using Nicholson’s four-phase transition cycle.

A case study approach was used, and data were collected through three in-depth, semi-structured interviews to determine how immigrants experience career transitions in Canadian organisations.

The findings show that all three participants had almost the same level of expectations before coming to Canada; however, there were significant differences in their career transition experiences. These findings demonstrate that immigrants’ career experiences can be understood and examined through the lens of Nicholson’s transition framework; their expectations and experiences at one stage subsequently affected their experiences at later stages.

A longitudinal research design would be an excellent approach to explore immigrants’ career transition over time.

Organisations hiring skilled immigrants need to be more supportive of their efforts in reducing immigrants’ feeling of underemployment and discrimination.

The study contributes to the immigrant literature by presenting a new way of looking at immigrants’ experiences in Canadian organisations. It also contributes to the career literature by extending the application of Nicholson transition cycle to an underrepresented population (i.e. immigrants) in careers research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the levels of athletic identity influenced the relationships among college experiences, career self-efficacy, and the career barriers faced by semi-professional student-athletes in Taiwan.

Survey data of athletic identity, college experiences (involvement in social, academic, career orientation activities, etc.), career self-efficacy, and career barriers (inherent difficulties in career exploration in a dual student-professional role) were collected from 345 varsity student-athletes in Taiwan sport universities. The conditional process analysis was conducted to test whether the mediating role of career self-efficacy in the association between college experiences and career barriers was dependent on athletic identity levels.

The results indicated that enriching college experiences contributed to fewer barriers regarding career exploration post graduation through high levels of career self-efficacy. Particularly for assorted and social experiences, the indirect effect reduced as the levels of athletic identity increased.

These findings may be applied to athletes who pursue early specialization and students who engage heavily in a specific sport or other co-curricular activities while neglecting the importance of scholastic learning and career exploration. Career counseling practitioners and sport psychologists are advised to take account of athletic identity and contextual specificity while providing career interventions to student-athletes.

This study extends the understanding of the impacts of athletic identity on college student-athletes’ career explorations within a specific sport context.

The purpose of this paper is to understand Korean women’s lived experience with career chance given the unique cultural traditions.

This study adopted a basic qualitative research design. The data from semi-structured person-to-person, in-depth interviews were analyzed using a constant comparative method.

The findings revealed that the participants dealt with their career chance events to maintain harmony. Their experienced chance events were scattered over a period of time, but as a whole, these events became meaningful for their career development. The lessons learned through their experiences transformed their priorities in career decisions and life values.

This study yielded insightful theoretical and practical implications. From a theoretical perspective, this study identified the key elements of career chance events and interactions among these experiences, which can be further developed for future theory building.

From a practical perspective, this study sheds light on career education and counseling programs for adult women in an educational setting. In an organizational setting, this study recommends creating an employee career development culture where women employees are encouraged to take advantage of unpredicted career chance experiences.

This study provides culturally unique contributions to the body of literature on career chance events experienced by Korean women, which may not be adequately accounted for in most existing theories driven by western individualistic ideas of careers.

Extant expatriate literature largely adopts a global north/western focus and expatriate-centric approach in investigating spousal/partners’ motives for supporting expatriation. Contrastingly, this study focuses on the lived experiences of dual-career female partners from an emerging global south economy and a patriarchal society as it relates to motives for supporting a partner’s international assignment (IA) to a developed country.

This investigation adopts a hermeneutic interpretive phenomenology research design. Twelve career-oriented female partners from an emerging global south economy (Brazil) who supported a partner’s IA to a developed country (USA) participated in this study. The data included semi-structured interviews and field notes.

The study indicates that societal constraints, gendered career experiences and career and life stage reasons influenced women’s decision to engage in career opt out and/or interruption in support of their partners' IA. Further, patriarchal long-lasting structures and ideologies shaped women’s career experiences; women perceived IAs as a means of acquiring embodied and institutionalized cosmopolitan capital for themselves and their families in order to gain a better position in a transnational/globalized world.

Although the sample size of this study is appropriate for the methodological choice adopted, future studies should include more participants and address different socioeconomic, political and cultural contexts.

This study highlights dual-career female partners' lived experiences in an emerging global south economy and a patriarchal society as it relates to motives for supporting IAs.

Notwithstanding the emergence of hospitality education around the world, the hospitality industry itself has struggled to establish a talent pipeline of young ambitious managers. Typically, only 30% of hospitality students are predicted to develop their careers within the hospitality industry, while the remainder will relocate to other industries such as retail, banking and consulting. Although this manifestation has been globally documented, most studies have simply adopted a quantitative approach in defining this phenomenon; hence, despite its scale being appreciated, less attention has been paid to defining the underlying causes which drive this concern. This study contributes to this issue by interviewing 18 students at three key stages of their practical placements, namely, pre-, during and post their placement, drawing on the ‘Principles of a Sustainable HRM ROC framework’. This chapter concludes with significant findings from which some recommendations have been formulated.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight an emerging and evolving area within women’s careers literature – women’s opting-out and opting-in experiences. Highlights from several career theories, extant research, and a framework for women’s opting-out and opting-in experiences are discussed as well as future research considerations for women’s career breaks.

The present study provides the first synthesis of the theoretical and empirical work on women’s opting-out and opting-in experiences, by providing a framework that integrates existing research with the kaleidoscope career model. Published works from 1986 until the present were considered from psychology, management, sociology, and economics literatures.

This paper provides information about how women’s experiences of opting-out and opting-in to the workforce have emerged and evolved over the past few decades. Theoretical foundations, quantitative and qualitative research findings, and considerations for future research are discussed.

This paper is a useful source of information regarding an emerging and evolving area of studying within the women’s career literature. The paper discusses considerations for scholars and practitioners regarding developing, supporting, and retaining female talent amidst women’s career break experiences.

This paper provides an integrative framework that provides theoretical and empirical perspectives on the changing nature of women’s career values and choices, which influences their experiences of opting-out and opting-in to the workforce. Given both the changing demographics of the current workforce (e.g. increased women’s participation in the workforce) and women’s career values, research on women’s career breaks is warranted.

This paper looks to study how adult third culture kids (ATCKs) perceive that their childhood international experience is linked to their career interests and choices in later adult life.

This qualitative study is based on 34 semi-structured interviews analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The authors adopted social cognitive career theory as a theoretical framework for the work.

The findings indicate that regardless of the ATCKs field of expertise, their international childhood links to various international exposures and work experiences already in their early career. ATCK background can also be interpreted as an essential facet that promotes significant interest towards international roles, work tasks and careers because they are familiar with a globally mobile lifestyle. A global childhood was represented as a phenomenon that fosters stress tolerance, and ATCKs' unique international capabilities were perceived as an advantage for employment. The authors also found that they tended to set high goals for themselves in terms of education and career, in order to pursue high-end international positions.

ATCKs' value interpretations of their strengths, skills and knowledge highly relate to working in an international setup. When applying for jobs, ATCKs could find it beneficial to highlight their early international experiences and explain why this is valuable experience for organizations that are seeking highly educated, globally competent, and flexible employees. Also, information about ATCKs could be included in international business course curricula, in order to foster an increased recognition of the value and benefits of hiring individuals with a TCK background.

This paper is the first qualitative study which empirically examines ATCKs' longer term career interests and career decisions among individuals with adult work experience. This study contributes to the knowledge about how early life international experiences are interpreted in the context of work-life decisions from a social cognitive perspective.