Search results
1 – 10 of over 8000Bhagyashree Barhate and Khalil M. Dirani
This paper aims to explore the career aspirations of individuals belonging to the Gen Z cohort, i.e. born between 1995 and 2012.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the career aspirations of individuals belonging to the Gen Z cohort, i.e. born between 1995 and 2012.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a systematic review of the literature. The authors accessed four databases to collect literature for review. The databases included were Academic Search Ultimate, Business Source Ultimate, ERIC and Google Scholar. Keywords used to conduct the search process were as follows: career development, career aspiration, generation Z, Gen Z and iGen. The authors imported all articles to RefWorks, read article abstracts and decided on whether to include or exclude the article in the review.
Findings
Based on this systematic review, the authors found that intrinsic and extrinsic factors determine Gen Z's career aspirations. Further, based on past studies' predictions, the authors concluded that Gen Z has well-defined career expectations and career development plans.
Research limitations/implications
Gen Z is the newest generation to enter the workforce. With limited research on this cohort, this study synthesized the existing knowledge of Gen Z students' career aspirations and their future employers' expectations. All research around Gen Z is currently focused on students, and hence, it is challenging to predict their workplace behavior. In this work, the authors provided organizations and practitioners guidelines to be prepared with Gen Z's expectations as they enter the workplace.
Originality/value
This systematic literature review synthesizes empirical research from around the world on career aspirations related to Gen Z.
Details
Keywords
Malcolm J. Beynon, Paul Jones, Gary Packham and David Pickernell
The purpose of this paper is to investigate student motivation for undertaking an entrepreneurship education programme and their ultimate employment aspirations through a novel…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate student motivation for undertaking an entrepreneurship education programme and their ultimate employment aspirations through a novel data mining technique. The study considered what relationship certain motivation characteristics have to students’ aspirations, specifically in terms of their intention to be self-employed or employed.
Design/methodology/approach
The study examined enrolment data of 720 students on an entrepreneurial education programme, with work statuses of full-time, part-time or unemployed and have known aspirations to either employment or self-employment. The Classification and Ranking Belief Simplex (CaRBS) technique is employed in the classification analyses undertaken, which offers an uncertain reasoning based visual approach to the exposition of findings.
Findings
The classification findings demonstrate the level of contribution of the different motivations to the discernment of students with self-employed and employed aspirations. The most contributing aspirations were Start-Up, Interests and Qualifications. For these aspirations, further understanding is provided with respect to gender and student age (in terms of the association with aspirations towards self-employed or employed). For example, with respect to Start-Up, the older the unemployed student, the increasing association with employment rather than self-employment career aspirations.
Research limitations/implications
The study identifies candidate motivation and the demographic profile for student's undertaking an entrepreneurial education programme. Knowing applicant aspirations should inform course design, pedagogy and its inherent flexibility and recognise the specific needs of certain student groups.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the literature examining motivations for undertaking entrepreneurship education and categorising motivating factors. These findings will be of value to both education providers and researchers.
Details
Keywords
Gbolahan Gbadamosi, Carl Evans, Mark Richardson and Yos Chanthana
Building on the self-efficacy theory and self-theories, the purpose of this paper is to investigate students working part-time whilst pursuing full-time higher education in…
Abstract
Purpose
Building on the self-efficacy theory and self-theories, the purpose of this paper is to investigate students working part-time whilst pursuing full-time higher education in Cambodia. It explores individuals’ part-time working activities, career aspirations and self-efficacy.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected in a cross-sectional survey of 850 business and social sciences degree students, with 199 (23.4 per cent) usable responses, of which 129 (65.2 per cent of the sample) indicated they currently have a job.
Findings
Multiple regression analysis confirmed part-time work as a significant predictor of self-efficacy. There was a positive recognition of the value of part-time work, particularly in informing career aspirations. Female students were significantly more positive about part-time work, demonstrating significantly higher career aspirations than males. Results also suggest that students recognise the value that work experience hold in identifying future career directions and securing the first graduate position.
Practical implications
There are potential implications for approaches to curriculum design and learning, teaching and assessment for universities. There are also clear opportunities to integrate work-based and work-related learning experience into the curriculum and facilitate greater collaboration between higher education institutions and employers in Cambodia.
Social implications
There are implications for recruitment practices amongst organisations seeking to maximise the benefits derived from an increasingly highly educated workforce, including skills acquisition and development, and self-efficacy.
Originality/value
It investigates the importance of income derived from part-time working to full-time university students in a developing South-East Asian country (Cambodia), where poverty levels and the need to contribute to family income potentially predominate the decision to work while studying.
Details
Keywords
Louise Kloot, Kath Marles and Denis Vinen
This paper reports on an exploratory study examining factors which may affect the career choice of accounting students. Although prior studies have examined factors affecting the…
Abstract
This paper reports on an exploratory study examining factors which may affect the career choice of accounting students. Although prior studies have examined factors affecting the choice of an accounting major, few studies have examined factors affecting the choice of career of accounting graduates. This study found that more students aspired to become Certified Practising Accountants (CPAs) of the Australian Society of Certified Practicing Accountants (ASCPA) rather than Associate Chartered Accountants (ACAs) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia (ICAA) This study also found that there were differences in career aspirations between males and females, and between students at different universities. Female students perceived gender discrimination would have a greater adverse effect on their future careers compared with male students, particularly in chartered accounting and industry; and overseas students were more conscious of discrimination than Australian students. There is also some evidence that Big 6 selection practices are perceived as biased.
Sigalit Tsemach and Orly Shapira-Lishchinsky
The purpose of this study is to explore the mediating role of workplace attitudes: professional identity and career aspirations between perceptions of principals’ authentic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the mediating role of workplace attitudes: professional identity and career aspirations between perceptions of principals’ authentic leadership and teacher behaviors: intent to leave, organizational citizenship behavior, counterproductive work behavior, lateness and intention to leave among teachers.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample was composed of 605 teachers, randomly selected, nested in 41 Israeli elementary, junior high and high schools. Data analysis was based on multi-level structural equations.
Findings
The findings indicated that the more the school was perceived by the teachers as having an authentic leader, the professional identity of the teachers was higher and was negatively associated with counterproductive work behavior toward colleagues in the school, while the teachers’ career aspirations were higher and negatively associated with counterproductive work behavior toward the organization.
Originality/value
This study shows the importance of teachers’ individual and collective perceptions and their impacts on teacher behaviors. The practical contribution may include encouraging principals to promote high standards of authentic leadership, to raise teachers’ professional identity and their career aspirations and reduce teachers’ counterproductive work behavior and intention to leave.
Details
Keywords
Mariska van der Horst, Tanja van der Lippe and Esther Kluwer
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate how work and family aspirations relate to occupational achievements and gender differences herein.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how work and family aspirations relate to occupational achievements and gender differences herein.
Design/methodology/approach
Using data from 2009 the authors examined the relationship between career and childrearing aspirations and occupational achievements of Dutch parents. Using path modeling in Mplus, the authors investigated both direct and indirect pathways where aspirations were related to occupational achievements via time allocations.
Findings
The authors found that ranking being promoted instead of a non-career aspiration as the most important job aspiration was positively related to occupational achievements. Surprisingly, the authors also found that ranking childrearing as the most important life role aspiration was positively related to earnings among fathers.
Research limitations/implications
Investigating aspirations in multiple domains simultaneously can provide new information on working parents’ occupational achievements.
Practical implications
The results imply that parents who want to achieve an authority position or high earnings may need to prioritize their promotion aspiration among their job aspirations in order to increase the likelihood of achieving such a position. Moreover, this is likely to require sacrifices outside the work domain, since spending more time on paid work is an important way to achieve this aspiration.
Originality/value
This paper adds to previous research by explicitly taking life role aspirations into account instead of focussing solely on job aspirations. Moreover, this study extends previous research by investigating indirect pathways from aspirations to occupational achievements via family work in addition to the previously found pathway via paid work.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to examine the situated understandings that higher education students can offer on their employability, and to make sense of “employability” in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the situated understandings that higher education students can offer on their employability, and to make sense of “employability” in industry and career context‐specific ways. The paper further seeks to explore potential critical reflections on emerging professional practice and future employment conditions.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on interviews and focus groups conducted with students located within a university‐operated industry‐facing media production studio, this paper focuses on how students articulate their career development and aspirations.
Findings
Discussing their studio experience and forms of “identity work”, students would nuance “employability” in terms of media industry‐specific concepts of creativity and professionalism. Anxieties around future professional practice were also voiced, signaling the potential value of a Career Studies approach that creates a space for explicitly exploring employment conditions as personally meaningful concerns.
Research limitations/implications
Noting how employability is articulated in terms of industry professionalism, this paper encourages analysis that is attentive to situated understandings and identity work. Given the studio and media focus, application of findings may be limited.
Practical implications
Relevant for industry employers is how students make sense of their future career aspirations and undertake “work on the self” that is bound up with but also potentially critical of professional norms, quality of life and work conditions.
Originality/value
Recognising how employment can be understood in terms of “professionalism”, this paper suggests how an exploration of discourses and practices of professionalism can be part of a wider examination of employability. This paper explores the value of the Career Studies approach for integrating questions of student identity with subject‐specific accounts critical to employment conditions and practices.
Details
Keywords
Ingrid Schoon, Andy Ross and Peter Martin
Understanding the factors and processes facilitating entry into science related occupations is a first step in developing effective interventions aiming to increase a skilled…
Abstract
Purpose
Understanding the factors and processes facilitating entry into science related occupations is a first step in developing effective interventions aiming to increase a skilled science base. This paper intends to address individual as well as family and school related influences on uptake of science, engineering, technology and health related careers.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on data collected for two British birth cohorts: the 1958 National Child Development Study and the 1970 British Cohort Study, a developmental‐contextual model of career development is tested, comparing the experiences of over 17,000 men and women during the transition from school to work.
Findings
The findings suggest that there is a persisting gender imbalance both in terms of aspirations and occupational attainment. Interest and attachment to a science related career are formed early in life, often by the end of primary education. School experiences, in particular, are crucial in attracting young people to a career in science.
Research limitations/implications
Much remains to be done to improve intake in science related occupations, especially regarding recognition and access to science related courses at school, and rendering school experiences more relevant and engaging for young people.
Originality/value
Comparing career transitions in two longitudinal cohorts allows the study of careers over time, linking early influences to later outcomes, and enables the identification of stable and changing patterns in antecedents and outcomes.
Gary N. Powell and D. Anthony Butterfield
Data gathered by the authors from undergraduate and part‐time graduate business students in 1976‐1977 suggested that men were more likely than women to aspire to top management…
Abstract
Data gathered by the authors from undergraduate and part‐time graduate business students in 1976‐1977 suggested that men were more likely than women to aspire to top management and that, consistent with traditional stereotypes of males and managers, a gender identity consisting of high masculinity and low femininity was associated with aspirations to top management. As a result of gender‐related social changes, we expected the gender difference in aspirations to top management but not the importance of gender identity to have decreased over time. We collected data in 1999 from the same two populations to test these notions. In newly collected data, high masculinity (but not low femininity) was still associated with such aspirations, and men still aspired to top management positions more than women. However, the gender difference in aspirations to top management did not decrease over time.
Details
Keywords
Jennifer Tomlinson and Susan Durbin
The purpose of this paper is to explore the employment trajectories, aspirations, work‐life balance and career mobility of women working as part‐time managers.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the employment trajectories, aspirations, work‐life balance and career mobility of women working as part‐time managers.
Design/methodology/approach
In‐depth, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 16 female part‐time managers and four of their line managers in public and private‐sector organizations. Interviews explored women's career trajectories before and after the transition to part‐time work and focused on career mobility, aspirations and work‐life balance.
Findings
The part‐time managers in this sample held varied careers while working full‐time but careers stalled once a transition to part‐time work was made. The majority were career focused, worked intensively and felt frustrated with their lack of mobility and career progression while working part‐time. The majority worked in excess of their contracted hours and did not experience an appropriate reallocation of work when they reduced hours.
Practical implications
This paper is of value to both researchers and policy makers. Policy implications point to the limitations of the current UK legislation on the right to request flexible working. The paper states that further research would be beneficial on the ways in which managers employed on part‐time and other flexible contracts, operate successfully in organizations, with the aim of championing alternative working patterns and breaking down traditional long hours cultures which act as a barrier to women and part‐time workers.
Originality/value
This paper explores the employment profiles and experiences of a little studied and rare group of female workers.
Details