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The field of careers studies is complex and fragmented. The aim of this paper is to detail why it is important to study careers, what we study and how we study key issues in this evolving field.

Key theories, concepts and models are briefly reviewed to lay the groundwork for offering an agenda for future research.

The authors recommend ten key directions for future research and offer specific questions for further study.

This paper contributes to the development of the theoretical underpinning of career studies.

The authors hope that the proposed agenda for future research will help advance the field and encourage more research on understudied, but important, topics.

This paper presents a comprehensive view of research on contemporary careers.

This chapter explores the linkage between the careers of women over the lifespan and their experience of stress. Traditional models of career stages were developed by studying men's careers and do not fit the complexities of women's careers. Several newer models of careers have appeared in the literature but none of these models adequately address the issues women face as they juggle work responsibilities and their family lives. We discuss the Kaleidoscope Career Model (KCM) as a means of understanding the parameters that may affect women's decision making about their careers and the relationship between these parameters and the experience of stress. Testable propositions based on this model using the Kaleidoscope Careers Self-assessment Inventory (KCSI) are included as ideas for future research. Recommendations for organizational programs and policies are also detailed.

This special issue seeks to examine mentoring relationships and offer new perspectives and frameworks, suggesting exciting avenues for future research on mentoring and career development.

In the last two decades, the workplace has been dramatically transformed. Individuals traditionally had careers entrenched in organizations, relying on the paternalistic firm for career development. Increasingly now, individuals are enacting careers outside organizational boundaries, defining career success on their own terms rather than by the organizational measures of salary and rank. Rapid technological change and globalization have intensified the decoupling of individual careers from organizations, putting more emphasis on individuals for their own career development and creating an even greater need for mentoring.

Although much research has been done on the impact of mentoring on subjective and objective career success, there are still many unexamined and under‐explored aspects of mentoring. This collection of ten articles tackles some of these areas, providing new insights and offering new avenues for research and practice.

These articles are authored by individuals from a variety of disciplines (e.g. organizational behavior, psychology, health care), and countries (e.g. USA, UK, Nigeria), with each article bringing a unique lens to the study of mentoring and careers. Individually, each article makes a contribution to the better understanding of how mentoring has evolved and is enacted today. Together, this collection of articles provides important insights that it is hoped encourage even further research into the complexities of developmental relationships and their impact on career development.

This article aims to examine the process of mentoring and career development within the global arena. Although much has been written on the adjustment of expatriates, relatively little research has examined the exchange of information and knowledge among workers in different countries via the mentoring process.

A model is offered of how an expatriate progresses through learning cycles aided by multiple mentors. Multiple mentoring contributes to the individual's career development and facilitates the development of organizational tacit and embedded knowledge.

Using Hall and Chandler's conceptualization of multiple learning cycles over the life span, it is proposed that the expatriate cycles through a learning cycle over the course of an extended assignment. These learning cycles are shorter than the traditional career stages, often lasting two to four years – similar to the length of an expatriate assignment. It is suggested that the stages of an expatriate assignment – predeparture, on‐site and repatriation – represent a learning cycle. A successful expatriate experience is more likely to occur if multiple mentors in various locations are available – as needed – to offer information and career support to the expatriate.

With increasing globalization and rapid technological advances, mentoring relationships that cross national and other types of boundaries have increased, yet theory has not kept pace. A framework is provided for the further examination of expatriate careers and how mentoring can increase career outcomes and knowledge transfer.

The increasing complexity of global labor markets and work environments has made the school-to-work transition more difficult. We explore factors that influence important career outcomes for young adults in China as they transition from their university to the labor market. Specifically, we examine how protean career orientation, self-perceived employability, mother’s and father’s career support and human capital (English language proficiency) may influence career satisfaction and employment status during adulthood.

We collected survey data in two waves, six months apart, and obtained English proficiency ratings from university records.

Father’s and mother’s career support was significantly associated with protean career orientation and protean career orientation was significantly related to self-perceived employability. Self-perceived employability was significantly associated with career satisfaction and employment status. The career support-career satisfaction and career support-employment status relationships were fully mediated by protean career orientation and self-perceived employability. Contrary to expectations, the human capital variable of English language proficiency did not moderate the serial mediation involving either career satisfaction or employment status.

By integrating protean career theory, human capital theory and research on parental support, we offer an interdisciplinary contribution to the school-to-work transition literature. We also advance protean career theory by studying it as a mediating variable and by examining parental support as an antecedent of it.

Using a career lens, the purpose of this paper is to examine the psychological factors related to the career success (e.g. performance and adjustment) of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs).

This research examines the previously unstudied relationship between career adaptability and career success. Data were collected by surveying 273 SIEs employed in professional jobs in China.

As hypothesized, career adaptability was positively related to performance as well as to adjustment. Psychological availability mediated the relationships of career adaptability with performance and with adjustment. Contrary to expectations, supportive supervision did not moderate the relationship between career adaptability and either performance or adjustment.

Because the data were collected in a single, self-report survey, future studies should collect longitudinal data so that the effects of changes in career adaptability on adjustment and performance can be determined. In addition, as all of the participants were professionals, future research should examine SIEs employed in blue-collar jobs.

As this is the first study to consider how career adaptability may influence SIEs’ performance and adjustment, it offers unique insights into the work experiences of SIEs. Additionally, this study examines the theoretical underpinnings of career construction theory, namely, the previously hypothesized but untested relationship between career adaptability and adjustment.

The number of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) is growing, yet we know relatively little about their work experiences, especially how they react to stress. The purpose of this study is to examine whether challenge and hindrance stressors influence SIEs' intent to remain as well as the possible influence of emotional resilience and cultural novelty upon these relationships.

Data were collected from 249 SIEs working in China.

As hypothesized, hindrance stressors were negatively related to the SIEs' intent to remain. Contrary to expectations, challenge stressors were not associated with intent to remain. Hindrance (challenge) stressors were negatively (positively) related to emotional resilience, and resilience mediated the relationship between stressors and intent to remain. Cultural novelty failed to moderate the relationship between emotional resilience and intent to remain and did not moderate the mediated effects of challenge stressors on intent to remain via emotional resilience. Cultural novelty did moderate the mediated effects of hindrance stressors on intent to remain via emotional resilience, but not in the hypothesized direction.

This study was cross-sectional. It examined SIEs working in China, and its findings may not be generalizable to SIEs working in other countries.

This is the first study to examine how emotional resilience may mediate the relationship between stressors and SIEs' intent to remain and also considered the possible moderating effects of cultural novelty. In addition, unlike most studies that focus only on the negative outcomes of hindrance stressors, this study tested the possible positive effects of challenge stressors.

Over the past decade, researchers and managers alike have begun to recognize that we are in the “age of globalization”. Examples of the increasing integration of nations and businesses include:

The purpose of this paper is to examine, utilising the Kaleidoscope Career Model, whether members of the Baby Boom generation and Generation X differ in their needs for authenticity, balance, and challenge.

Survey data were obtained from 982 professionals located across the USA. Correlations, t‐tests, and multiple regressions were performed to test the hypotheses.

Members of Generation X have higher needs for authenticity and balance than Baby Boomers. There was no difference in needs for challenge between Baby Boomers and members of Generation X.

A limitation in the study, as well as in most of the research on generational differences, is the use of cross‐sectional designs that fail to capture the influence of the aging process. A longitudinal, multi‐survey design over the lives of individuals would enable scholars to capture within‐ and between‐person differences and to permit a better understanding of whether differences are in fact due to generational effects or to aging.

Knowledge of the differences and similarities among the various generations in the workforce can help organizational leaders make important decisions about human resource policies and practices.

Many studies in the popular press stress the prevalence and importance of generational differences in the workplace. However, the little academic research that has been conducted has shown mixed results. The study uses the theoretical framework of the Kaleidoscope Career Model to examine generational differences in work attitudes.

The aim of this paper is to conduct an exploratory empirical examination to determine if factors (e.g. demographic, human capital, motivational, and organizational) associated with career success in Western countries are also related to the career outcomes of Chinese managers.

Survey data were obtained from 139 managers working in China. Correlation and regression analyses were performed to examine the relationship among common predictors of career success and the actual outcomes of Chinese managers.

Predictors of two career outcomes were explored: total compensation and career satisfaction. Although some of the findings were similar to the findings of studies on the career outcomes of managers in Western countries, there were some surprising differences. The results showed that women and top‐level decision makers had higher total compensation. Furthermore, holding a middle management (as opposed to a line management) position, and perceptions that one's organization was successful were associated with greater career satisfaction.

The difficulties of conducting research in another country, especially one under communist rule, resulted in a relatively small sample size, which may limit the generalizability of the findings.

Knowledge of the career processes of Chinese managers is important for the growing number of Western firms investing in and conducting business in China as well as for Chinese firms in their attempts to increase their efficiency and productivity.

Although there have been calls to expand research on careers outside the West, to date there are few published studies on the career experiences of those in Asian countries, especially in China. This research highlights the importance of country context in the study of careers in non‐western settings and tests the generalizability of Western findings on career success.