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1 – 10 of 363Peter de Boer and Prantik Bordoloi
The purpose of this study is to explore the degree of variance in work value preferences espoused by university students based on whether the students are in possession of work…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the degree of variance in work value preferences espoused by university students based on whether the students are in possession of work experience and experience abroad. Vocational identity development (VID) was used as a theoretical lens to explore the extent to which being in possession of experience in these two areas shapes vocational identity.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire (n = 1,188) was employed to measure the relative salience for 8 latent work values constructs and 25 individual-level work values. Respondents were classified into two groups based on work experience and abroad experience, and the differences in work value preferences between these groups were explored.
Findings
The authors' comparison of sample groups revealed that respondents without experience abroad attached significantly greater importance to specific work values (e.g. stability, extrinsic motivation and leisure) than those with sojourner experience. The relative salience of specific work values (e.g. altruistic and extrinsic motivation) was found to be significantly greater for respondents without work experience than those with such experience, however, not to the extent of abroad experience. VID as a theoretical framework was found to be valuable in conceptualising how work value preferences appear to be the outcome of a process of co-construction between an individual and his environment.
Research limitations/implications
The reasons as to how and why changes in work value salience occur cannot be conclusively established due to the exploratory nature and conceptual design of the present study.
Practical implications
The findings suggest work and abroad experience play a pivotal role in shaping respondents' work values and, more generally, the VID. This reinforces the need for cooperation between higher education and industry to provide experiential learning opportunities and career guidance to enhance graduate employability and contribute to long-term engagement of talent in tight labour markets.
Originality/value
The value of these findings is that the findings contribute to greater conceptual understanding of the relationship between work experience, abroad experience and work value preferences. This is particularly relevant to academic staff and curriculum developers at a tertiary level in preparing and guiding university students in their interactions with professional practice.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate students’ perceptions of the value, impact, benefits and disadvantages of in-house, university-based work experience vs off-campus work…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate students’ perceptions of the value, impact, benefits and disadvantages of in-house, university-based work experience vs off-campus work experience.
Design/methodology/approach
Three focus groups, one consisting of students who had undertaken work experience off-campus at an employers’ workplace (n=6), one consisting of students who had undertaken work experience in-house with a university-based employer (n=6), and a third mixed group (n=6, consisting of students who had undertaken both types), were formed. Focus group data were supplemented by interviews (n=3). Data were transcribed and analysed thematically.
Findings
Based on student perceptions, both types of work experience were thought to: enhance future employment; provide career insight; enable skill/experience acquisition and application; and be useful for building relationships. Work experience that occurred in-house was, in addition, perceived to be cost effective; enabling students to be more closely supervised and supported; good for relationship building between and within students/staff; beneficial for increasing student attainment; and enabling students to see the link between theory and practice more clearly. In-house work experience was, however, deemed to be restricted in terms of variety, and links with and perceptions of external stakeholders.
Research limitations/implications
The study is limited in that it is based on the perceptions of students undertaking unique types of integrated work experience within one faculty at one university.
Practical implications
When deciding on whether in-house or off-campus work experiences are offered, consideration should be given to level of support, supervision, observation, and travel and time costs.
Originality/value
Original views of students regarding in-house work experience have been gathered, which can be used to inform in-course workplace practices.
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Alex Bignotti and Ingrid le Roux
In spite of research on entrepreneurial intentions being a mature field of enquiry, little is known about the influence of experience on entrepreneurial intentions, especially…
Abstract
Purpose
In spite of research on entrepreneurial intentions being a mature field of enquiry, little is known about the influence of experience on entrepreneurial intentions, especially among the youth and in developing contexts. This paper aims to investigate the impact of different types of experience – entrepreneurial early childhood experiences, prior start-up experiences, work experience, education and peer influence – on the entrepreneurial intentions of South African youth.
Design/methodology/approach
First, a quantitative survey of 827 secondary students was administered, and the results were analysed by means of hierarchical logistic regression. Second, two focus groups were conducted with secondary students representing two distinct segments of South African society to shed light on some of the unique survey findings.
Findings
The results revealed that the experiences of having attempted to start a business and having previously worked in a business, as well as entrepreneurship education, have a positive influence on youth entrepreneurial intentions, while peers' entrepreneurial intentions exert a negative influence. Peer influence and contextual factors such as family and community support, which are catalytic in other parts of the world, appear to dampen youth entrepreneurial intentions because of fear of failure and fear of competition.
Originality/value
This paper examines the influence of a broader taxonomy of experience types on youth entrepreneurial intentions than found in previous studies. It highlights the unique role played by specific types of experience and points to the need to include extra-curricular entrepreneurial experiences in interventions aimed at fostering youth entrepreneurial intentions in developing nations.
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Young adults are living and working in uncertain economic climates and increasingly exposed to precarious work. Are preferences for job security and actual job stability a result…
Abstract
Purpose
Young adults are living and working in uncertain economic climates and increasingly exposed to precarious work. Are preferences for job security and actual job stability a result of proximal conditions, or do experiences in adolescence also play a role? The adolescent’s environment and experiences may help explain differences in preferences with regards to stable work, as well as work outcomes in early adulthood.
Design/methodology/approach
In this chapter, I use data from the Youth Development Study (YDS) to test three facets of the adolescent experience between ages 14 and 18 – parental work and educational characteristics, adolescents’ academic achievement, and youth employment – as factors shaping (1) respondents’ preferences for stable employment, (2) respondents’ perceived job insecurity, and (3) respondents’ likelihood of being in nonstandard work in early adulthood, age 31–32, approximately 15 years later.
Findings
Adolescent experiences and environments are related to young adults’ preferences for stable employment, likelihood of being in nonstandard work, and likelihood of reporting job insecurity in early adulthood, suggesting the significance of early life experiences as well as the importance of intergenerational transmission processes for the early adult years.
Originality/value
This study points to the important role of adolescent experiences in initiating a trajectory of work preferences and attainment.
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Work experience is increasingly seen as an important complement to traditional higher education. There are a variety of forms of these educational programs, such as internships…
Abstract
Work experience is increasingly seen as an important complement to traditional higher education. There are a variety of forms of these educational programs, such as internships, sandwich programs, field work, and cooperative education, that are referred to generically as Work-Integrated Learning (WIL). As yet, however, there is relatively little research on the concept of work experience and considerable inconsistency in its definition and measurement. This chapter describes some of the research and writing from the industrial and organizational psychology field and its relevance to WIL. Based on the previous work, a model of work experience, specifically developed to aid our understanding of the role of work experience in WIL, is proposed. Three dimensions are suggested: level of specificity (task, job, organization, and career), measurement mode (number, time, relation to program, density, timing, and type), and version of WIL (cooperative education, sandwich, etc.). The model also includes individual factors and contextual factors as influences on work experience. Both immediate and secondary outcomes are described. Finally, the applicability of the model to several examples of WIL research are discussed and suggestions for future research are offered.
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Eunhwa Yang, Yujin Kim and Sungil Hong
This study aims to understand how knowledge workers working from home during COVID-19 changed their views on physical work environments and working-from-home practices.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to understand how knowledge workers working from home during COVID-19 changed their views on physical work environments and working-from-home practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This study conducted a survey targeting workers in the USA recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. A total of 1,651 responses were collected and 648 responses were used for the analysis.
Findings
The perceived work-life balance improved during the pandemic compared to before, while the balance of physical boundaries between the workplace and home decreased. Workplace flexibility, environmental conditions of home offices and organizational supports are positively associated with productivity, satisfaction with working from home and work-life balance during the pandemic.
Research limitations/implications
While the strict traditional view of “showing” up in the office from Monday through Friday is likely on the decline, the hybrid workplace with flexibility can be introduced as some activities are not significantly affected by the work location, either at home-based or corporate offices. The results of this study also highlight the importance of organizations to support productivity and satisfaction in the corporate office as well as home. With the industry collaboration, future research of relatively large sample sizes and study sites, investigating workers’ needs and adapted patterns of use in home-based and corporate offices, will help corporate real estate managers make decisions and provide some level of standardization of spatial efficiency and configurations of corporate offices as well as essential supports for home offices.
Originality/value
The pandemic-enforced working-from-home practices awaken the interdependence between corporate and home environments, how works are done and consequently, the role of the physical workplace. This study built a more in-depth understanding of how workers who were able to continue working from home during COVID-19 changed or not changed their views on physical work environments and working-from-home practices.
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Ronald J. Burke, Mustafa Koyuncu, Parbudyal Singh, Nihat Alayoglu and Kadife Koyuncu
The purpose of this paper is to explore gender differences in the work and career experiences and psychological health of women and men in managerial and professional jobs in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore gender differences in the work and career experiences and psychological health of women and men in managerial and professional jobs in Turkey.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected for 94 men and 48 women in managerial and professional jobs in Turkey. Comparisons of women and men using one‐way ANOVA provided considerable support for the hypotheses.
Findings
Women and men were found to differ on many personal demographic and work situation characteristics: women were younger, less likely to be married or have children, were at lower organizational levels, worked fewer hours and earned less income. Women and men had similar levels of education, however. Women and men were similar on almost all work outcomes (e.g. job satisfaction, work engagement, intent to quit) and indicators of psychological health (e.g. exhaustion, life satisfaction). However, men worked significantly more hours than did women.
Originality/value
The research extends previous work by scholars using a sample from Turkey. It is not often that research of this nature utilizes samples from countries outside of North America, Europe and Australasia. Furthermore, unlike some published research, this study uses many instruments/measures, all with excellent psychometric properties.
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Christian Beech and Fiona Verity
The purpose of this paper is to explore interprofessional and multidisciplinary working between health and social care practitioners providing services to older people through the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore interprofessional and multidisciplinary working between health and social care practitioners providing services to older people through the prism of how risk is assessed and managed. It proposes that whilst interprofessional and multidisciplinary working is a broad and commonly researched topic, there is a relative paucity of evidence specifically regarding how health and social care practitioners work together across structural, cultural and ideological divides. The study aims to expand the domain of integrated health and social care by including perceptions, understanding and use of the concept of risk by professionals from different disciplines.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based upon an exploratory study using an interpretivist phenomenological perspective, including 23 semi-structured individual interviews with health and social care practitioners and 2 non-participant observations of multidisciplinary team meetings.
Findings
The paper provides empirical insights around the complex dynamics of interprofessional and multidisciplinary working between health and social care practitioners, in particular the saliency of the interconnectedness of individual practitioner Personalities with the Process of interprofessional and multidisciplinary working under the auspices of relevant Policy drivers.
Research limitations/implications
The research was conducted in Wales and, due to the increasingly divergent policy context within the UK, the research results may lack generalisability from a wider UK or international perspective. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the propositions of this research further.
Practical implications
The paper includes implications for both interprofessional and multidisciplinary policy and practice with older people. With new models of integrated care being sought, the findings of this study may offer a timely and valuable contribution, particularly from the inclusion of a social care perspective and in better understanding the interconnectedness of practitioner personalities with process and policy.
Originality/value
This paper fulfils an identified need to study the complex dynamics and interconnectedness between health and social care practitioners who work together to provide services to older people.
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David Drewery, My Truong and Anne-Marie Fannon
This study aims to explore the relationship between the number of co-operative (co-op) education work terms that students completed and the importance they attach to employer and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the relationship between the number of co-operative (co-op) education work terms that students completed and the importance they attach to employer and job attributes (i.e. work values).
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from a large cross-sectional survey of co-op students (N = 2,097) from one Canadian university.
Findings
Of the 19 work values measured, only six were related to work experience. Whereas work experience was related to several of the least important work values, such as geographic location, it was unrelated to many of the most important work values, such as work–life balance. Further, evidence suggests that changes in work values occur when work experience is first introduced in the curriculum (e.g. first co-op work term), not at subsequent work experiences.
Research limitations/implications
The findings extend the understanding of how work-integrated learning (WIL) prepares students to make decisions about their careers in the future of work and provide insights to address the challenge of scaling WIL. However, the study draws on cross-sectional data from one single Canadian university and does not explore potentially confounding factors including time itself or critical events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Practical implications
WIL educators may leverage these findings to improve their understanding of how students' work values evolve as they complete WIL experiences. They may also use insights from the study to align students' needs and employers' understandings of those needs.
Originality/value
This study is the first to explore how work values might change throughout a WIL program, particularly among Gen Z students whose work values seem divergent from those of previous generations.
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Susanne Tietze and Gill Musson
This paper seeks to show how the shift of paid work from traditional locations into the home environment raises serious questions of identity for managers who have started to work…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to show how the shift of paid work from traditional locations into the home environment raises serious questions of identity for managers who have started to work from home and who have to “cope with” the sometimes conflicting demands imposed by different socio‐cultural spheres.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on an empirical study of working from home, three case studies are presented, which articulate and summarise different modes of engagement with both paid and domestic work and respective identity issues.
Findings
Adding to the extant literature on working from home, the findings indicate that the success or failure of working from home is intrinsically tied into issues related to homeworkers” identity.
Research limitations/implications
The empirical data are taken from a period when homeworkers had to “learn” how to cope with being both “at home and at work”. Further empirical enquiry might focus on longitudinal aspects of the relationship between working from home and identity.
Practical implications
With regard to working from home policies it is advisable to take into account questions of identity, rather than applying exclusively task‐based or technical aspects when considering the organisational benefits of this form of spatial and temporal flexibility.
Originality/value
In conceptualising working from home from an identity perspective, new insights have been gained into the reasons why this mode of work sometimes fails to deliver on its promises, yet proves outstandingly successful on other occasions.
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