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Searching for a job is an important process that influences short- and long-term career outcomes as well as well-being and psychological health. As such, job search research has grown tremendously over the last two decades. In this chapter, the authors provide an overview of prior research, discuss important trends in current research, and suggest areas for future research. The authors conceptualize the job search as an unfolding process (i.e., a process through which job seekers navigate through stages to achieve their goal of finding and accepting a job) in which job seekers engage in self-regulation behaviors. The authors contrast research that has taken a between-person, static approach with research that has taken a within-person, dynamic approach and highlight the importance of combining between- and within-person designs in order to have a more holistic understanding of the job search process. Finally, authors provide some recommendations for future research. Much remains to be learned about what influences job search self-regulation, and how job self-regulation influences job search and employment outcomes depending on individual, contextual, and environmental factors.

For half a century, psychologist Albert Bandura has worked to advance a cognitive interactional model of human functioning that emphasizes the role of cognitive and symbolic representations as central processes in human adaptation and change. In his seminal 1977 publication, Bandura emphasized that these representations – visualized actions and outcomes stemming from reflective thought – form the basis from which individuals assess their personal efficacy. An efficacy belief, he contended, is the “conviction that one can successfully execute the behavior required to produce the outcomes” one desires (p. 193). Efficacy beliefs serve as the primary means by which people are able to exercise a measure of control over their lives. During the next two decades, Bandura (1986, 1997) advanced his social cognitive theory, in which people are viewed as self-organizing, proactive, self-reflecting, and self-regulating rather than as solely reactive organisms, products of environmental or concealed inner influences. From this agentic perspective, people are seen as contributors to their life circumstances, not just recipients of them. In this way, people are “partial architects of their own destinies” (Bandura, 1997, p. 8).

Studies have suggested that entrepreneurship is a key mechanism for rejuvenating and facilitating economic growth in deprived areas. To provide further understanding of the persistently low entrepreneurial intentions found in deprived areas this chapter identifies key mechanisms and theoretical frameworks that link the formation of appropriate human capital to the prevailing environment, and that influences may flow in both directions. This contributes to the existing literature to provide a fuller understanding of interest to policy-makers of why past interventions have struggled to boost entrepreneurial intentions and where new interventions may be most effective in generating more positive entrepreneurial intentions in deprived areas.

Overconfidence in one’s entrepreneurial abilities is often assumed to motivate the behaviors of founders of high growth ventures. However, when founders encounter significant obstacles in the firm growth process, some begin to doubt their efficacy of their abilities to manage these growth processes successfully. In these circumstances, prior research suggests that such self-doubt creates significant cognitive constraints on an entrepreneur’s growth ambitions. Similar to other types of resource constraints, cognitive constraints are thought to impact firm performance outcomes negatively. Despite these claims, in this study, phenomenological analysis of the experiences of a group of entrepreneurs creating and managing high-growth ventures based largely in Silicon Valley suggests that a number of these entrepreneurs experience significant levels of self-doubt but still persist in growing their ventures. Yet current entrepreneurship theory provides limited guidance regarding how entrepreneurs overcome these self-doubts and persist in creating a new venture. To address these theoretical limitations, in this chapter, we examine the cognitive process through which entrepreneurs wrestle with self-doubt in order to overcome self-imposed, cognitive constraints on firm growth. Based on this analysis, we develop a process model using a unique sample of interviews with 27 high-tech, high-growth entrepreneurs who have received venture capital funding. This model suggests entrepreneurs overcome self-doubt by managing the emotional impact derived from the discrepancy between their ideal and actual selves. Furthermore, entrepreneurs engage in an active process of transforming negative mental states by leveraging their intentionality, engaging in forethought, taking consistent action, and relying on the support of others. Overall, we find that entrepreneurs display a high level of entrepreneurial agency when attempting to transform negative mental states in order to persist with their ventures. Implications of these findings for cognitive theories of entrepreneurial action are discussed.

This study examines students’ views of the institutional learning environments, which add to their academic and social success, in a multicultural college. The relationships between the students’ background characteristics and their academic skills, self-efficacy and interactions with the academic and administrative staff are analysed utilising quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings indicate that the students encounter difficulties in their academic studies because of low attainment in academic literacy. However, students with higher self-efficacy actively seek assistance to advance their academic skills, whilst students with lower self-efficacy circumvent academic-assistance resources available on campus. Nonetheless, most students are motivated to succeed in their academic studies and continue them further.

The study concludes with recommendations for future measures to enhance students’ self-efficacy and the specific needs of students of diverse ethnic and national origin.

This chapter argues that there are many, just many many variables which contribute to academic performance as measured in degree outcome, and, as such, simple bivariate analysis is inappropriate. We use structural equation modelling, and explore the contribution of academic behavioural confidence, to make the point that it does contribute to academic performance, but to a lesser extent than self-efficacy theory argues. We suggest that this is because degree outcome is made up of many efficacy variables, which we argue are better captured overall in academic behavioural confidence.

Some educators and teachers, when seeking to adopt a new pedagogy or technology, neglect to search for motivation. What will motivate the learner to accept and participate in any new method or technology offered by others? Based on personal experience, realistic observations, and literature reviews, we find that many educators and teachers suggest new pedagogy or technology for different purposes without consulting the ultimate beneficiary, who is the learner. Such behavior often creates resistance on the part of learners that negatively affects the desired outcomes.

From the lessons learned, for teachers in higher education (HE) to succeed in introducing or adopting a new pedagogy, such as active learning or modern technology, the learners' opinions must be explored, their points of view recognized, and their involvement in decision-making encouraged. We start by telling them what they should learn (curriculum, objectives, and content), then suggesting new pedagogy and technology and searching for consensus with the majority to get the required motivation. Active learning pedagogy is no exception here.

This chapter contributes to highlighting the importance of motivation for the success of active learning practices. Aiming to encourage educators and teachers to search for motivation before adopting a new project, pedagogy, or technology. This study offers a strategy to guide active learning practices in HE. We expect a positive impact of active learning practices in (HE) when such strategy (i.e., seeking motivation) is not neglected. The content analysis approach was adopted to collect data, and the data was analyzed by Excel. Finally, some recommendations were made.

There has been much research and many follow-up recommendations on how to introduce a new electronic human resource management (e-HRM) system to employees in order to avoid or minimize troubles during its implementation. However, implementation projects are known to be time consuming, indirect, and sometimes impulsive developments, leading to a mismatch between the initial ideas behind information technologies and the use in practice, the employees' perceptions and their experience. Paraphrasing Block, I put forward the following question: If I define successful e-HRM as one that is developed on-time and within budget, is reliable and easily maintained, and meets the specified requirements of HR professionals, line managers, and employees — how many organizations would acknowledge having successful e-HRM? (Block, R. (1983). The politics of project. New York: Yourdon Press). This chapter explores lessons from information technology (IT) studies that e-HRM researchers can learn and apply to better understand complex e-HRM implementation projects.

This chapter applies three of the most prominent theories in vocational and career psychology to further illuminate the turnover process. Prevailing theories about attrition have rarely integrated explanatory constructs from vocational research, though career (and job) choices clearly have implications for employee affect and loyalty to a chosen job in a career field. Despite remarkable inroads by new perspectives for explaining turnover, career, and vocational formulations can nonetheless enrich these – and conventional – formulations about why incumbents stay or leave their jobs. To illustrate, vocational theories can help clarify why certain shocks (critical events precipitating thoughts of leaving) drive attrition and what embeds incumbents. In particular, this chapter reviews Super's life-span career theory, Holland's career model, and social cognitive career theory and describes how they can fill in theoretical gaps in the understanding of organizational withdrawal.