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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a synthesis of the contingent work field and to advocate a sustainable career perspective on contingent work.Design/methodology/approachAdopting a broader review approach allowed to synthesize the contingent work literature across contingent work types (temporary agency work, gig work and freelance work) and develop a sustainable career perspective on contingent work. The authors searched for empirical, conceptual and review articles published from 2008 to December 2021. In total, the authors included 208 articles.FindingsThe authors advocate a sustainable career perspective that allows for organizing and synthesizing the fragmented contingent work literature. Adopting a sustainable career perspective enables to study contingent work from a dynamic perspective transcending one single organization.Originality/valueThe field is suffering from fragmentation and most importantly from an oversight of how contingent work experiences play a role in a persons’ career. This paper addresses this problem by adopting a sustainable career perspective on contingent work.

A successful school-to-work transition is crucial to an individual’s initial entry into the labor market and overall sustainable career development. Scholarly interest in how emerging adults (i.e., late teens to late 20s) can achieve a successful transition to work has grown considerably, stemming from various disciplines, such as educational sciences, psychology, sociology, and economics. These disciplines have all produced valuable knowledge, yet, they mostly exist as separate silos, without clear integration. To create an overview of the literature, we systematically reviewed school-to-work transition literature and used a sustainable career lens to organize it. Based on 365 articles from the past 28 years, our review findings show that there are different conceptual and theoretical approaches to studying school-to-work transitions. We subsequently organize these perspectives into antecedents categorized into the sustainable career perspective’s person, context, and time dimensions. Moreover, we categorize school-to-work transition outcomes as proximal and more distal outcomes related to happiness, health, and productivity indicators. Finally, we reflect on the implications of our review article and suggest ways forward for conceptualizing and theorizing modern school-to-work transitions, along with an agenda for future research.

Team member proactivity refers to self-starting, future-directed behavior to change a team’s situation or the way a team works. While previous studies have shown that individuals generally benefit from their proactivity, few studies have explored how others in a team experience it. This is important as the way peers perceive team member proactivity could be critical for the initiative to be effective. We conducted a five-month in-depth study to uncover how peers from three self-managing agile teams react to instances of team member proactivity. Our findings suggest a process model of team member proactivity, in which we show that peers react at two distinct moments during proactive episodes. Depending on its perceived success and whether peers directed their reaction to the proactive employee or at their initiative, peer reactions unfolded in four different pathways: by (1) belittling the proactive team member, (2) criticizing the proactivity initiative, (3) supporting the proactive initiative, or (4) admiring the proactive team member. We explain how and why these reactions are formed by showcasing their cognitive, affective, and behavioral evaluations. Our findings contribute to the proactivity literature, provide a process perspective for understanding how peers perceive proactivity, and present implications for sustaining proactivity in teams.

With the growing interest in the joint effects of individual and contextual factors in predicting team member proactivity, this paper examines why and when pursuing one's career calling can lead to team member proactivity. Drawing on the Work as a Calling Theory, we propose that “living out a calling” explains why employees' perceived career calling positively relates to team member proactivity and especially when the employee receives high levels of mentoring support. Our hypotheses are tested using a multisource and time-lagged study design with a sample of 296 dyads of Chinese employees and their direct supervisors. We found support for the mediating role of living out a calling (Time 2) in the positive relationship between perceiving a calling (Time 1) and team member proactivity (Time 3). Mentoring (Time 2) moderated the perceiving a calling and living out a calling link such that when employees received more mentoring, the relationship was positive, whereas under lower levels of mentoring, the relationship was negative. Similarly, the indirect relationship between perceiving a calling and team member proactivity through living out a calling was positive at higher levels of mentoring, but the relationship was negative at lower levels of mentoring.

High-reliability organizations (HROs) and their complex operating models have been a focus of scholarly work for more than three decades. Recently, HROs have been challenged by new market pressures that require them to digitally transform in ways that affect their identity and value creation models while still maintaining high levels of security and efficiency. This longitudinal, in-depth single-case study of a major European utility company examines the role of HRO identity in digital transformation (DT), specifically in terms of tensions between innovation and transformation on the one hand, and maintaining reliable operations on the other. Our findings show how tensions between HROs’ identity and key features of DT give rise to threat perceptions and self-protective behaviors by the IT workforce, that eventually may derail the transformation process. We develop a process model that highlights the sources and consequences of identity misalignment during major DT initiatives in HROs. In doing so, we extend the research on D T by highlighting the importance of bottom-up processes for DT success and failure, especially concerning the IT function's perception of organizational identity.

This three-wave study examined the training-to-work transfer process of a self-leadership skills training programme for crime scene investigators working for the Dutch police force. The transfer process is complex and depends on numerous factors. Two important steps forward are taken in the present study. First, we take into account all transfer steps in one study to gain insights into the transfer process, and second, by being specific about the work situation in which transfer outcomes should occur, we address the “criterion problem” that is often mentioned in transfer research. Based on the Ability Motivation Opportunity model, we hypothesised that the posttraining transfer process starts with being motivated to transfer and that this motivation increases the use of self-leadership during work. Another aspect that may facilitate the use of trained skills is supervisor support, as it offers opportunities to use self-leadership skills during work. In turn, self-leadership skills at work were hypothesised to lead to increased work performance. We tested our transfer model in two different work situations experienced by crime fighters. Our findings show that the use of self-leadership skills is positively related to the detached concern of crime fighters in specific situations. Additionally, our findings show that the use of self-leadership skills mediates the relation between the motivation to transfer and work performance in specific situations. Finally, our findings show that including different transfer steps (i.e. the motivation to transfer, use of skills, and performance), different performance measures, and different work situations in the transfer process provides more insight into when and how transfer-to-work after training occurs. These findings suggest that if organisations aspire to improve such transfer, then they should be specific about the intended posttraining behaviours and performance and the situations in which these outcomes should emerge.

Research on emotions during different phases of the merger and acquisition (M&A) process (i.e., pre-M&A, during M&A and post-M&A) has increased exponentially over the past three decades. However, few attempts have been made to integrate the findings. By systematically reviewing research on emotions during M&As published over the past 30 years, this paper aims to contribute to filling this gap. We organized our findings using a process framework, addressing emotional triggers, the nature of emotions and their dynamics, effects and management. Our review reveals several oversights in research on emotions during M&As, such as the emotional dynamics between the different M&A phases and the role of positive emotions. To address these oversights, future research is encouraged to (a) study emotions following a process-oriented perspective on M&As and include the (interrelationships between) different M&A phases, (b) address the emergence of emotional heterogeneity and homogeneity among organizational members during these phases, (c) investigate the widespread effects of positive emotions and take into account various levels of emotion and (d) explore how emotions can be successfully managed. The paper concludes with a discussion of how these research directions can advance research on emotions during the M&A process.

PurposeThis article aims to introduce the special issue entitled “the role of career shocks in contemporary career development,” synthesize key contributions and formulate a future research agenda.Design/methodology/approachThe authors provide an introduction of the current state-of-the-art in career shocks research, offer an overview of the key lessons learned from the special issue and present several important avenues for future research.FindingsThe authors discuss how the special issue articles contribute to a better understanding of career shocks' role in contemporary career development, focusing on (1) conceptual clarity of the notion of career shocks, (2) career outcomes of career shocks, (3) mechanisms that can explain the impact of career shocks and (4) interdisciplinary connectivity.Originality/valueThis article offers a synthesis of the critical contributions made within this special issue, thereby formulating key ways to bring the field of career shocks research forward. It also provides new avenues for research.

Amid a growing interest in how geographical location functions as a motive for self-initiated expatriate (SIE) academics to choose their next employer, more research is needed to understand how academics select a potential location for their expatriation. With the goal of contributing to the literature on SIE academics, this study explores the cues that drive early career-stage academics to choose a destination—Copenhagen or Amsterdam—when accepting an international job offer. The data reveal that four frames drive SIE academics’ meaning-making regarding a potential destination city: positive impression, livable city, familiarity, and political stability and career development expectations. This paper concludes with a discussion of how our findings contribute to the higher education and mobility literature and offers important implications for practice.

In the current paper, we focus on job crafting seen from the perspective of colleagues. Guided by Social Information Processing theory, we examine how observing a colleague's job crafting may trigger an observer's reactions, and how these reactions relate to the work enjoyment of the job crafter and the colleague as an indicator of the effectiveness of job crafting. In Study 1, using a vignette experiment with an employee sample (N = 97), we found that those observing a fictitious colleague engaging in avoidance crafting reported a decrease in their willingness to cooperate with the job crafter and an increase in expected relationship conflict, while the opposite was found when they observed approach crafting. In Study 2, using a dyadic field study consisting of 136 employee dyads, we replicated the findings of Study 1 and extended the model by showing that the willingness to cooperate and experienced relationship conflict with the job crafter, in turn, related to the work enjoyment of both the colleague and the job crafter. Together, these studies show the importance of colleague reactions to job crafting behaviors observed among each other.

For two decades, individual motivations to expatriate have received substantial attention in the expatriation literature examining self-initiated and assigned expatriation. Recently, however, this literature has changed direction, demonstrating that prior to forming their actual motivations, individuals undergo a process wherein they actively form those motivations. No review has yet unraveled this motivation process, and this systematic literature review fills this gap. Using the Rubicon Action model that discusses the motivation process of expatriation, this article demonstrates that for self-initiated and assigned expatriation, individuals follow similar processes: expatriation expectations are formed; then, they are evaluated; and finally, preferences are built that result in motivations to expatriate. Findings for each stage are discussed in light of their contributions to the expatriation literature. For major gaps, new research suggestions are offered to advance our understanding of the individual motivation process that expats experience prior to forming their motivations to move abroad.

Avoidance job crafting refers to employees proactively changing work boundaries by reducing tasks and/or interactions with others. Although avoidance job crafting may help employees to address work demands, if noticed by others, specifically supervisors, it may trigger negative reactions from them. While previous research posits that job crafting is largely unnoticed by supervisors, using a dyadic supervisor‐employee study (N = 141 dyads), we found that supervisors were in fact aware of their employees’ avoidance job crafting, which related to a reduction in supervisor support. This relationship was moderated by employee political skill (but not approach job crafting), such that high avoidance job crafting in combination with high political skill resulted in fewer negative outcomes, presumably because supervisors were less likely to notice their employees’ avoidance job crafting. In a second, vignette study (N = 92 supervisors), we experimentally replicated the relation between observed avoidance job crafting and negative supervisor reactions, and found that this relation can be explained by supervisors perceiving avoidance job crafting as destructive work behavior. Our findings introduce the supervisor perspective to the job crafting literature and highlight the importance of engaging in avoidance job crafting in a skillful way that aligns with the external context.

© 2019 Elsevier Inc. Empirical evidence is mounting that passion is an important part of entrepreneurship, contributing to behavior and outcomes for entrepreneurs, employees, and ventures. Yet knowledge of the performance implications of passion within new venture teams is sorely lacking. We examine how both the average level of entrepreneurial passion and the diversity of passion within new venture teams contributes to venture performance in both the short- and long-term. We test our model with multi-source, multi-wave data collected from 107 new venture teams participating in an accelerator program. Our findings indicate that average team passion is not significantly related to performance, but passion diversity, particularly intensity separation, is negatively related to performance. These findings have important implications for the literature on passion, new venture teams, and group affective diversity. Executive summary: While existing studies have substantially improved our understanding of entrepreneurial passion, its sources, and its subsequent impact, insight into this topic remains limited in at least three ways. First, most new ventures are founded and led by teams rather than individuals, yet existing studies predominantly focus on entrepreneurial passion at the individual rather than team level. Second, while there is a prevailing assumption in existing literature that entrepreneurial passion leads to beneficial outcomes consistent with longstanding work in psychology, there is emerging evidence in entrepreneurship that passion may not always be functional and that it can even be dysfunctional. Despite this, we have limited understanding of what types of passion or when or for whom it is dysfunctional. And third, extant work on entrepreneurial passion for individuals and within teams has focused on behavioral or self-report measures of performance (e.g. Cardon and Kirk, 2015; Santos & Cardon, 2019) as well as venture survival, rather than objective team or firm performance in the short- and long-term. In this paper, we study the influence of team passion on new venture team performance. We draw on theory concerning entrepreneurial passion within venture teams (Cardon et al., 2017) that suggests that different aspects of entrepreneurial passion within teams shape team dynamics and venture outcomes. While generally, theories of passion suggest that entrepreneurial passion is positively related to team outcomes due to the positive emotions it brings about, we find that in teams, the relationships are more complex. While the average level of passion among team members is positively related to team performance when considered alone, this effect is not significant when passion diversity is also considered. Diversity of passion among individual team members has a negative relationship with team performance, including diversity in the level of passion team members experience (intensity separation), as well as diversity in the object of their passion (focus variety). These negatively affect team dynamics due to conflicting emotions and identities among team members associated with passion diversity. We examine these relationships on specific team performance outcomes including evaluation of the business idea in the short-term and venture performance five years after their participation in an accelerator. The sample used in this study includes 107 entrepreneurial teams that were part of an accelerator program in the Netherlands. Teams were evaluated on the quality of their business ideas at the end of the accelerator program and the amount of investment the team had received five years later. Our results provide no support for positive effects of average team passion on the quality of the business ideas and confirm the negative effects of passion intensity separation on the quality of the business idea and the negative effects of passion focus variety on later venture performance. This paper makes several contributions. First, we expand the literature on passion in entrepreneurship, specifically adding to our understanding of passion within new venture teams. More specifically, we contribute to the growing body of evidence concerning potential dysfunctions of passion by uncovering a dysfunctional property of team passion diversity that uniquely manifests itself at the team level of analysis. We contribute to the literature on new venture teams by examining team composition in the form of passion diversity, and its relationship with team performance. Finally, our study extends work on the effects of entrepreneurial passion by looking at objective team performance outcomes in both the short- and long-term. For entrepreneurs, our findings confirm the importance of affect and identity for new venture teams, and specifically our findings indicate that there is a dark side to team passion. While passion is generally positioned as a positive phenomenon, we highlight the negative outcomes that passion can have in the team context. Diversity in the amount of passion team members experience can diminish the quality of the business ideas the team is able to generate in the short-term, while diversity in the focus of team members' passion can diminish the firm's long-term performance. For investors and accelerator communities this research validates the importance of considering entrepreneurial team composition and specifically entrepreneurial passion levels and domains when investing in teams or when supporting venture building.

Personal energy at work has become a popular topic among HRM scholars and practitioners because it has proven to impact performance. Based on the outcomes of previous research and the call for further exploration of the construct of personal energy at work, we executed this quantitative study. We explored the factor structure of the construct and its relationships with health and productivity by examining the construct that addresses four dimensions: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual energy. Data were collected from 256 employees in an international health tech company and used to analyze construct dimensionality and relationships with health, absenteeism and productivity. The results provided support for the four-dimensional structure of personal energy at work and show that the construct of personal energy at work is related to the outcomes of health, absenteeism and productivity. Implications for theory and practice, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.

Demanding and complex work within mental health care organizations places employee well-being at risk and raises the question of how we can positively influence the psychological well-being and functioning of these employees. This study explores the role of servant leadership and workplace civility climate in shaping eudaimonic well-being among 312 employees in a Dutch mental health care organization. The findings showed that servant leadership had a stronger relationship with eudaimonic well-being when workplace civility climate was high. Furthermore, the results showed that servant leadership was positively related to workplace outcomes, partially through eudaimonic well-being, and that this mediating process varied across different levels of workplace civility climate. This study contributes to the scholarly understanding of the role of servant leadership and a positive work climate in shaping psychological well-being at work.

An increasing digitalization in all aspects of life and work reshapes traditional assumptions about human creativity. Both scholars and practitioners raise many questions with regards to how to stimulate employee creativity in the digital work context. While there are many studies that examine predictors of employee creativity, little effort has been made thus far to synthesize these findings in way that would provide meaningful guidance to organizations and to provide bases for future research. With this paper we aim to contribute to filling this gap. We systematically review empirical studies on predictors of employee creativity published in the past 30 years and organize findings following an established human resources management framework: Ability−Motivation−Opportunity (AMO) theory. This organizing framework enables us to clearly depict how contextual factors (a) separately and (b) jointly influence individual employee creativity. Specifically, it enables us to depict two possible models—combination and multiplicative models—through which contextual factors interact with individual factors in predicting employee creativity. Through synthesizing evidence for each of the models, we demonstrate to scholars and practitioners what is known about the interactional effects of contextual and personal factors on employee creativity, and what still needs to be studied if we are to take the field of research on creativity in the digital era forward.

Despite the established view that investing in developing one's career competencies would lead to career success and employability, little is known about the role of career shocks (i.e., positive and negative unexpected career-related events) in this relationship. To examine the role of career shocks in the relationship between career competencies, career success and employability, we analyzed data from 704 Dutch young professionals (21–35 years). Results showed that young professionals who have developed high levels of career competencies reported higher levels of perceived employability. The relationship between career competencies and perceived employability was partially mediated by subjective career success (i.e., career satisfaction). Negative career shocks undermined the mediated relationship between career competencies and perceived employability, via early career success, whereas positive career shocks strengthened this relationship. This study contributes to the literature on employability by demonstrating that career shocks play an important role in young professionals' early career development in tandem with career competencies and career success.

Current perspectives on career success have yet to show whether and how subjective career success evaluations may change over time and across career phases. By adopting a retrospective life-span approach to careers, our qualitative inquiry into the career experiences of 63 professionals contributes to the temporal understanding of subjective career success by exploring patterns in how subjective career success perceptions and priorities may change over time. The temporal development of subjective career success was explored among early-career, mid-career, and late-career workers by piecing together retrospective evaluations of career success perceptions. Our findings point to common patterns in career success perceptions across the lifespan. Specifically, we found five shift components of career success perceptions during people’s careers: (1) quitting striving for financial success and recognition, (2) an increased focus on personal development across the career, (3) a stronger emphasis on work–life balance across the career, (4) a shift toward being of service to others, and (5) no change in subjective career success components across the career. These patterns reflect ways in which workers engage in motivational self-regulation and the corresponding career goal-setting across the lifespan. The theoretical implications are discussed.

Although the globalization of the academic labor market offers many advantages to academic institutions and their students, less is known about its (dis)advantages for academic expatriates’ careers. This paper seeks explanations of how academic expatriates aspire to invest in their careers in emerging economies by engaging both with the evidence of intelligent career theory, and with the literature on academic expatriation to emerging economies and on higher education. On the basis of these different streams of the literature, this paper identifies and outlines the institutional practices that could influence academic expatriates’ careers. This paper suggests that future research on academic expatriation to emerging economies can develop in at least three directions, namely, (a) the institutional practices at academic institutions in emerging economies, (b) the careers of academic expatriates, and (c) a reciprocal relationship between institutional practices and the individual careers of academic expatriates.

With this article, we open a special issue of the Journal of Vocational Behavior on “Calling and Careers: New Insights and Future Directions.” Calling has become an important emerging topic of study in vocational psychology and organizational behavior, as the exponentially increasing volume of published studies on the topic indicates. After summarizing the aims of the special issue, we introduce each of the nine studies of calling and careers selected for inclusion. These studies initiate fresh research directions in key domains of calling research, such as: a) the conceptualization of calling, b) the emergence and development of calling, c) positive and negative effects of calling, and d) further theoretical development related to the construct. Together with the authors of these studies, we hope this special issue succeeds in moving the scholarly conversation on calling and careers forward.

Despite the long tradition of studies on calling conducted in established professional and occupational groups, little is known about what it means to enact one's calling in the context of less-established professions, absent career structures and temporary organizational settings. However, with the changing nature of work, this knowledge is highly needed to support independent workers. This paper presents a study of twenty-four founders of (video)game development companies in the Dutch video game industry who enact their calling in the context of poorly established career structures and scarce resources. Our findings reveal that the way the game company founders describe the meanings they attach to their work and to video game development suggests the presence of a creative calling, which focuses on the creative process rather than on a specific occupation or profession. The founders engage in emergent entrepreneurship and bond with like-minded people to create space that allows them to enact their creative calling in the video game industry. In doing so, they anchor their creative calling enactment in either an idealized or a crafted work identity. In turn, the choice of work identity anchor shapes how successful they are in sustaining this creative calling enactment in the video game industry. Our findings shed new light on the concept of calling and its enactment in the context of less-established career structures and scarce resources; they further provide practical implications for individuals who pursue their calling in contemporary work contexts and for career counselors.

The number of worldwide traumatic events is significant, yet the literature pays little attention to their implications for leader development. This article calls for a consideration of how collective trauma such as genocide and the Holocaust can shape the values of leaders, who are second- and third-generation descendants. Drawing on research on the transgenerational transmission of collective trauma and leader values, we show how collective trauma resides in (1) cultural rituals and artifacts, (2) community events and commemorations, and (3) family narratives is transmitted to leader descendants through at least three channels: social learning, social identity, and psychodynamics. We also offer propositions that recommend ways in which the transmission of these repositories can shape certain leader values that guide leader behaviors. Our conceptual review suggests that the transmission of collective trauma on leader development and leader values remains under-researched, offering prospects for new research and learning on the origins and seeds of leader development.

Careers exist in a societal context that offers both constraints and opportunities for career actors. Whereas most studies focus on proximal individual and/or organisational-level variables, we provide insights into how career goals and behaviours are understood and embedded in the more distal societal context. More specifically, we operationalise societal context using the career-related human potential composite and aim to understand if and why career goals and behaviours vary between countries. Drawing on a model of career structuration and using multilevel mediation modelling, we draw on a survey of 17,986 employees from 27 countries, covering nine of GLOBE's 10 cultural clusters, and national statistical data to examine the relationship between societal context (macrostructure building the career-opportunity structure) and actors' career goals (career mesostructure) and career behaviour (actions). We show that societal context in terms of societies' career-related human potential composite is negatively associated with the importance given to financial achievements as a specific career mesostructure in a society that is positively related to individuals' proactive career behaviour. Our career mesostructure fully mediates the relationship between societal context and individuals' proactive career behaviour. In this way, we expand career theory's scope beyond occupation- and organisation-related factors.

The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of how entrepreneurial leadership relates to workplace creativity in organizations from the compatibility perspective. Drawing on social cognitive theory, we propose that individual creative self-efficacy and team creative efficacy beliefs mediate the relationships between entrepreneurial leadership and individual and team creativity. This study examines the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and creativity through creative efficacy. Survey data were collected from multiple sources, including 43 leaders and 237 employees in eight Chinese companies. Cross-level relationships are tested by means of a hierarchical linear modeling analysis (HLM). The results reveal that entrepreneurial leadership is positively related to employee and team creativity, and these relationships are found to be mediated by both employee creative self-efficacy and team creative efficacy. Furthermore, team creative efficacy is found to exert a cross-level mediating influence on the entrepreneurial leadership-employee creativity relationship. This study suggests that employees and teams led by entrepreneurial leaders are likely to produce creative outcomes. The findings further confirm the important role of creative efficacy beliefs in explaining how entrepreneurial leadership relates to employee and team creativity, as such beliefs serve as a within-level and cross-level mediating mechanism in these relationships. Our study is among the first to empirically investigate the concept of entrepreneurial leadership in a broader organizational context. We examine how entrepreneurial leadership contributes to workplace creativity. Our study shows that creative efficacy beliefs exert both within-level and cross-level mediating influences in the entrepreneurial leadership-creativity relation.

The nature of work is changing and digital nomadism is emerging as a new way of working. Digital nomads are professionals who use information and communication technology to achieve location-independence and, to varying extents, combine working with traveling. Through a 25 months qualitative study of highly mobile digital nomads, this article investigates how a new generation of professionals works and lives. Our three main findings are that digital nomads strive for independence of work and life, engage in a community of like-minded others to create sense of identification and continuously establish and break down temporary structures of working and living. This article ties digital nomadism to three main conversations in the literature of work, namely work design, work identity and identification, and changing places of work. We draw on our findings to suggest avenues for future theory building and research.

The transfer of training can be considered the Achilles heel of the training process. When trainees fail to use their new knowledge and skills on the job, training resources are wasted, and business results go unrealised. Research shows that the most problematic type of training transfer relates to soft skills training. To better understand the factors that influence the success of the transfer of soft skills training, we review studies published in top academic journals between 1988 and 2017. Our review reveals that three groups of work factors influence the post-training transfer of soft skills: job-related factors, social support factors, and factors related to the organisational facilitation of learning. The effects of specific factors vary by transfer stage. Our review also suggests that future research should devote more attention to the stages of transfer and consider both the behaviours of supervisors at each stage and the use of transfer-enhancing interventions.

Using a two-study design (total N = 1232), this paper examines the relationship between calling and employability. We suggest that, on the one hand, calling can positively relate to employability due to individuals' engagement in proactive professional development (PPD). On the other hand, calling can negatively relate to employability due to the career inflexibility that is associated with having a calling. The results of Study 1 revealed that calling does not directly relate to employability. When accounting for PPD in the calling-employability relationship, we found that calling positively and indirectly relates to occupational expertise dimension of employability, while it relates negatively and directly to personal flexibility dimension of employability. Findings from Study 2 showed that calling indirectly relates to employability both positively through PPD and negatively through career inflexibility. The findings from the two studies suggest the double-edged nature of a calling in relation to employability. The importance of these findings for understanding the career-related outcomes of calling is discussed.

PurposeThe conceptual framework developed in the present study aims to highlight the importance of human resource (HR) practices as a mediator between national culture and employees' careers.Design/methodology/approachThe approach taken is a literature review and the development of a conceptual model.FindingsThe paper contributes to the literature by focusing on how culture via HR practices might influence career success. Drawing on Hofstede's cultural dimensions, five propositions are developed regarding the impact of culture on career‐relevant HR practices, and how these practices are likely to influence employee career success.Research limitations/implicationsCulture's effect should not be overstated. Looking at the propositions, it is possible that the influence of HR practices on career success is more pronounced than the direct effects of culture on career success. Future work is needed to measure and compare the relative strength of different associations as well as the possibility that other HR dimensions relevant to the study of career success may exist.Originality/valueAt a general level, there is ample evidence of the impact of culture on the effectiveness of a variety of individual outcomes. The paper focused on the mediating role of HR practices as opposed to advancing hypotheses about direct relationships between culture and career success.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to bring together job design and career theory in the examination of how proactive employees optimize their well-being (i.e. job satisfaction and perceived health) through job crafting and career competencies. This study offers an integrated account of the pathway from proactive personality to well-being. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected by a cross-sectional self-report survey study among 574 employees working in various organizations. Findings The results of structural equation modeling analyses supported the proposed double mediation model: job crafting and career competencies both mediated the positive relationship between proactive personality and well-being. The findings suggest that proactive employees can enhance their well-being both through proactive job redesign and the development of career-related skills and abilities. Research limitations/implications This study precludes causal explanations. Future research should further investigate the role of employee proactivity related to contemporary work topics, including temporary contracts and self-employment. Practical implications Managers and HR practitioners can optimize employee well-being by focusing on HR policies related to job redesign, as well as investing in training and development of career competencies. Originality/value This paper integrates two research domains by exploring how proactive employees take a proactive stance toward their job as well as their career, and investigates how this proactive approach contributes to their well-being. In addition, the authors demonstrated a link between the development of career competencies and employee health.

PurposeThis paper aims to introduce a collection of papers about careers in cross‐cultural perspective, which contributes to the growing body of literature that addresses careers from different locations around the world.Design/methodology/approachIntroduces the topic, providing some background and discussion of the main concepts.FindingsBriefly introduces the papers and their main findings – differences and similarities among careers and career attributes in different cultural and national contexts.Originality/valueContextualizes the issue and extends the overall knowledge in the topic.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate career change intention and its predictors among career change seekers interested in a career opportunity in the information technology (IT) industry.Design/methodology/approachAjzen's theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used to predict career change intention in this group. In addition, we examined the role of professional identity in predicting career change intention. Data were collected in a sample of 225 aspiring IT professionals from four European countries: Austria, Greece, Italy and The Netherlands.FindingsThe findings showed that among four variables assumed to predict career change intention, only professional identity appeared to be a significant predictor.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is limited by the use of career change seekers registered in one web‐based recruiting system.Originality/valueThe paper suggests a higher importance of professional identity in prediction of career change intention compared to other factors that constitute Ajzen's theory of planned behavior.

More and more organizations promote employees’ engagement in corporate volunteering initiatives. Such initiatives are tuned towards developing organizational legitimacy and image branding in the eyes of different stakeholders. However, a growing number of studies are beginning to signal that volunteer experiences can also help employees to develop new skills and competencies. This chapter presents a qualitative case study of corporate volunteers in the Netherlands, exploring the benefits of corporate volunteering for both individuals and organizations. Specifically, it investigates how corporate volunteering contributes to employees’ career capital development and how and for what purposes employees apply this career capital upon returning from volunteering. The study shows that through corporate volunteering employees develop psychological, human and social capital. In turn, employees use their capital to contribute to organizational culture, capabilities and connections upon their return. We discuss these findings in light of a ‘matching process’, where sustainable careers can contribute both to individuals’ employability as well as organizational development.

Purpose: This article presents a summary of the interview with Rino Schreuder, managing director of the European Management Development (EMD) Centre, founder and chairman of the European Executive Development Network, Editor of the Dutch Management Development Journal, and Editorial Board member of the UK journals Development & Learning in Organizations and Leadership & Organization Development Journal. Schreuder has over 20 years of experience working for Fortune 500 and other firms in the area of management development and training. Design/methodology/approach: The interview is conducted by three independent interviewers. Findings: In this interview, Rino Schreuder shares his perspective on the present situation and the future of the Dutch learning and development market. Drawing on a parallel between the properties of the Dutch culture and problems in the learning market, Schreuder highlights the importance of more integrated ways of working between learning providers. He also calls for rethinking the role of learning professionals and chief learning officers (CLOs) in organizations and the organizational practices that measure learning outcomes through return on investments (ROI). Originality/value: The paper presents valuable insights of a leading professional in the field of management development and training into the future of learning and development in The Netherlands. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Purpose – This paper examines the effects of the development of employees’ career competencies (knowing-why, knowing-how, and knowing-whom) on the employing organization and assesses the role of career satisfaction in this relationship. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to research on the consequences of employees’ boundaryless careers. Design/methodology/approach – The study involves a two-wave quantitative investigation of alumni of a large public university in the Netherlands. Findings – The results suggest that by investing in the development of their career competencies, employees contribute to organizational culture, capabilities, and connections. However, these contributions depend on employees’ level of perceived career satisfaction. If employees are satisfied with their careers, they contribute more to their organizations. Research limitations/implications – Further longitudinal research, strengthened by an additional, third wave of data collection, is needed to replicate the present findings. Practical implications – The study highlights the importance of employees’ career development for organizations. Originality/value – This study is the first empirical investigation of the link between the development of employees’ career competencies and employees’ contributions to their employers and one of a few studies that examines career satisfaction as a moderating variable.

This paper examines how separate behavioral science disciplines can be brought together to more fully understand the dynamics of contemporary careers. We adopt one interdisciplinary framework - that of the "intelligent career" - and use it to examine how separate disciplinary approaches relate to one another. The intelligent career framework suggests careers unfold through three interdependent "ways of knowing" reflecting why, how and with whom people work. Breaking this framework down into six unidirectional links, we examine the contributions made by a variety of behavioral science approaches. Our review suggests that separate bodies of career-relevant theory reflect separate links from one way of knowing to another. We offer several lessons concerned with (a) the intelligent career framework; (b) evidence underlying separate theories; (c) differing definitions of career; (d) research methodologies; (e) time; and (f) interdependence among variables. We conclude with some ideas on how to better promote future interdisciplinary careers research. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.