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The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrative process model that explains the mechanisms through which intrinsic motivation can influence career self‐management and subsequent subjective and objective career success.

Research on career self‐management can benefit by incorporating an intrinsic motivation perspective. The paper proposes a model that depicts how four components of intrinsic motivation – meaningfulness, competence, choice, and progress – can contribute to career self‐management.

Because the manuscript is conceptual and theoretical in nature, there are no empirical findings to discuss. The paper does, however, advance six testable research propositions linking components of intrinsic motivation to career self‐management and career success.

The model is most applicable for individuals who have some level of control over their own career choices and mobility. Also, we focus on intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, motivation, and we consider psychological and sense‐making aspects of motivation rather than structural and task‐based aspects. Propositions are advanced to be tested in future research; future research can use the model as a platform from which to study the connection between intrinsic motivation and career self‐management.

The paper describes how the model can be applied to help individuals navigate the realities and challenges of their careers.

Prior research has not specified the exact mechanisms through which intrinsic motivation may guide career self‐management. This paper provides an integrated process model addressing this need with relevance to researchers, career management professionals, and individuals.

The purpose of this paper is to identify leader behaviors that foster intrinsic rewards (IRs) in technical professionals, sustain their felt and behavioral engagement, and relate the career outcomes of performance, satisfaction with the organization, and retention.

Employing an action research approach, four studies were undertaken to: first, identify what intrinsically motivates professionals in a large R & D organization; second, create a survey of the leader behaviors that foster a sense of IR and engagement; and third, use the survey with two samples (Canada, Europe) to examine the relationships of engagement with three desired career outcomes.

Leader behaviors can foster a sense of IRs which are related to performance, satisfaction with the organization, and retention. These relationships were partially mediated by felt and behavioral engagement, with felt engagement more strongly associated with satisfaction and retention, and behavioral engagement with performance.

Leaders play a significant role in fostering a sense of IR in technical professionals, which helps to sustain their engagement. Important distinctions among IRs, felt engagement, and behavioral engagement are made that contribute to a better understanding of how these constructs affect the careers of professionals.

Professionals and other knowledge workers are often thought to be self-motivated, or motivated by the tasks they perform. Leaders can greatly enhance this motivation and important career outcomes of satisfaction, performance, and intent to stay.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the support managers provide to employees affects the employees' sense of intrinsic reward, personal commitment, perceived career success, and retention.

A large‐scale employee survey wss conducted of 28 organizational entities in India involving 9,301 randomly identified employees yielding 4,811 respondents (54 percent response rate) supported by employee interviews following the survey.

Using a hypothesis‐driven, path analytic‐regression approach, the managerial support of employees had significant direct and indirect effects on perceived career success and retention one year later. Intrinsic rewards and personal commitment mediated these relationships.

Managers may play a much greater role in employee retention than the literature often suggests. Key manager practices include showing personal interest, holding career discussions, acknowledging employee contributions, using a system of empowerment, and celebrating milestones and successes. Employees can improve their perceived career success by balancing their long‐ and short‐term goals, improving their competence, and communicating openly with their managers. To reduce turnover, HR professionals can provide better manager support training, hold managers accountable for retention, enhance the career management and HR systems by developing more non‐monetary rewards, and learn from those that leave.

Manager practices in support of their employees were studied across a large and diverse set of national, international, and global firms operating in India. Findings highlight the importance of the managerial role in reducing turnover and enhancing perceptions of career success in a culture known for high power distance among managers and employees.

The aim of this paper is to focus on reducing employee dissatisfaction and withdrawal in major, consultant designed, change programs by increasing intrinsic rewards.

A survey of 585 employees and 31 team leaders involved in ten change programs across seven companies, 25 business units, and three countries was used to collect employees' sense of intrinsic rewards, innovation, satisfaction with their organization, and intentions to stay at the start of the change effort and one year later.

Employees reported higher levels of intrinsic rewards (meaningfulness and choice) one year into a change program compared to at the start of the change effort. Intrinsic rewards related positively with satisfaction with the organization and intentions to stay at both time periods, with programs supportive of employee innovation further enhancing employee satisfaction and retention more strongly during the change effort.

While the sample was large, and the authors obtained team leader perspectives in support of the findings, the study involved surveying samples of employees on programs where the team leader had sufficient rapport to obtain voluntary employee responses.

Consultants and managers involved in planned change can increase the support for the change through enhancing the intrinsic rewards of employees involved in the change program.

By examining the work motivation of employees undergoing a change program the authors were able to identify ways in which consultants and managers can increase employee satisfaction with their organization and intentions to stay with it.

The concept of social capital will be key to individual and organizational success throughout the twenty‐first century. Social capital is the stock of accumulated resources that one can access based on the relationships that can aid or be leveraged in accomplishing an end or furthering a pursuit. Several attributes of social capital are explored that distinguish it from other forms of capital; namely, physical, financial, human, market, intellectual, and knowledge capital. These attributes considered are capital’s transferability, controllability, fungibility, entropy, and synergy. Implications for career development and one’s ability to contribute to organization effectiveness are discussed, as well as management practices affecting the development of social capital. Concludes with propositions for future research.

The effectiveness of HR programs developed to curb turnover of new professionals has rarely been subject to rigorous examination as to their success and applicability across cultures. To address this issue, we undertook a study in India to examine professional perceptions of the effectiveness of their organization's talent‐management efforts.

A random sample of 9,301 individuals (4,811 responded) from 28 companies involving 32 operating entities in India voluntarily participated in this study. Of the respondents 2,723 were new professionals. Actual turnover data for the participants was obtained a year after the initial survey.

Performance management, professional development, manager support, and socially responsible actions had a positive relationship with pride in and satisfaction with the organization. A lack of pride in and a lack of satisfaction with the organization have a strong relationship with new professionals' intention to leave and subsequent turnover.

Organizations can increase the retention of professional talent through their HR practices and actions which increase the individual's pride in and satisfaction with the organization. Although several steps were taken to achieve a high response rate, and tests on the results provided evidence against a response bias, caution is required. Because this research was conducted exclusively in India we suggest additional research be done in other country settings.

The paper discusses performance‐management, professional development, manager support, and social responsibility actions companies can take to increase retention of professional talent.

This paper discusses a large sample research study in India on four key organizational practices affecting retention of professional talent. The scope of the research using a large sample in India provides unique value on this topic.

The “War for Talent” has made the cover of Fortune Magazine as well as being a top agenda item for the leadership of professional service firms – from McKinsey to the three Bs (Bain, Boston Consulting Group, and Booz Allen) to the big five accounting firms. A boom economy has led to a demand for talent that surpasses the supply, or at least the supply from Ivy League and top tier B‐schools. As consulting firms battle it out on B‐school campuses and scurry to other sources of talent such as engineering schools and PhD programs, one cannot help but ask, “Why are people choosing entrepreneurial positions over a consulting career?” The answers may be more in the failings of consulting firms to define a compelling industry‐wide value proposition than in a new venture’s overarching attractiveness as a moderate risk, high reward opportunity.

This small‐sample (N = 84) study investigated human resource management practitioners’ views of academic research relevance to, and management professor effectiveness in, management development. Results indicate that practitioners do not particularly value academic research, especially relative to other kinds of information they may access in pursuing their management development. Practitioners view management professors as somewhat ineffective, especially relative to executives and consultants, as instructors in management development seminars and workshops. A curvilinear relationship between company size and respondents’ ratings of both academic information’s utility and professors’ effectiveness was also observed. Implications for future research are discussed, as well as for efforts to enhance research’s relevance and increase professors’ managerial work exposure.

This paper proposes to rethink the concepts of relevance and usefulness and their relation to the theory–practice gap in management research.

On the basis of the cognitive-linguistic relevance theory or inferential pragmatics, supplemented by insights from information science, we define relevance as a general conceptual category, while reserving usefulness for the instrumental application in a particular case.

There is no reason to hold onto the difference between theoretical and practical relevance, nor to distinguish between instrumental and conceptual relevance.

This novel approach will help to clarify the confusion in the field and contribute to a better understanding of the added value of management research.

In the present chapter, we present the case study of the only woman film director who has ever won an Academy Award for Best Director, Kathryn Bigelow. We analyzed 43 written interviews of Kathryn Bigelow that have appeared in the popular press in the period 1988–2013 and outlined eight main themes emerging regarding her exercise of leadership in the cinematic context. We utilize three theoretical frameworks: (a) paradoxical leadership theory (Lewis, Andriopoulos, & Smith, 2014; Smith & Lewis, 2012); (b) ambidextrous leadership theory (Rosing, Frese, & Bausch, 2011), and (c) role congruity theory (Eagley & Karau, 2002) and show how Bigelow, as a woman artist/leader working in a complex organizational system that emphasizes radical innovation, exercised paradoxical and ambidextrous leadership and challenged existing conventions about genre, gender, and leadership. The case study implications for teaching and practice are discussed.