Journal of Career Assessment

Psychology of Working Theory (PWT) has recently gained empirical support; however, its assumptions have yet to be tested for cultural responsiveness in Latinx communities, one of the fastest-growing worker populations in the U.S. The current study had two major aims: (a) to translate and validate instruments measuring PWT constructs from English into Spanish, and (b) to test theorized PWT predictors of decent work in a sample of Latinx workers (N = 287). First, we translated and validated instruments measuring economic constraints, lifetime marginalization, work volition, and decent work using confirmatory factor analyses (CFA). We then tested a structural model predicting decent work. Results partially supported PWT hypotheses, suggesting its utility and cultural responsiveness in studying the work patterns and conditions in Latinx communities. Practical implications are discussed.

Based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT), this research aimed to investigate whether employees’ psychological need states could be expanded from two (need satisfaction and frustration) to three (need satisfaction, frustration, and unfulfillment). Relying on exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) and bifactor-ESEM, this research also offered to test the construct validity of the Psychological Need States at Work-Scale (PNSW-S) and to explore its criterion-related validity. Results from two studies and three distinct samples of employees (French and English speaking) provided support for the unfulfillment of the needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness to be modeled as a distinct need state when tested alongside the satisfaction and frustration of those three needs. Moreover, results indicated that the different need states appeared to stem from distinct experiences (perceived supervisors’ supportive and thwarting behaviors) and that these need states had well-differentiated effects in terms of employee functioning (job satisfaction, job boredom, and work-related rumination). Our research therefore deepens our understanding of the nature of psychological need states in the workplace and offers a multidimensional instrument allowing to simultaneously assess not only need satisfaction and frustration, but also need unfulfillment. It also indicates that SDT’s explanatory framework may be expanded from two to three need processes to explain the effect of the socio-contextual environment on individual functioning.

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Climate Inventory (LGBTCI) is the only instrument that, from a holistic viewpoint, makes it possible to evaluate the workplace climate of support and/or hostility for LGBT workers. Recently, however its factor structure has been questioned. In addition, there is not a validated version in the Spanish-speaking countries. This study has the aim of adapting and validating the LGBTCI to the Spanish context and to investigate their factor structure through more accurate procedures. 587 LGBT Spanish nationality workers completed the LGBTCI and other scales. Its internal structure was checked by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and by exploratory structural equation modeling. The final scale of 15 items is divided into two-correlated factors (Support and Non-Hostility). Validity was supported by showing that both sub-scales were related negatively to job insecurity and turnover intentions and positively to work satisfaction, life satisfaction, P-O fit, P-J fit. This version has suitable psychometric properties for application and will allow an advance in research on the inclusion of LGBT workers in the Spanish-speaking context.

In this study we investigated whether regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs (RESE) indirectly predict turnover intentions (TI) through organizational socialization (OS) and organizational identification (OI). Three waves of data (1-year lag) were collected on a representative sample of 890 military newcomers belonging to two different cohorts. We tested our hypotheses using a multigroup autoregressive cross-lagged panel model (MG-ACLP) and results fully confirmed the posited theoretical model. Regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs reduced intentions to quit indirectly, via organizational socialization and identification. The present study contributes to fill several literature gaps by offering a complete picture of the socialization process. Moreover, it offers insights about how to support the military newcomers’ work adjustment and retention by fostering and developing their regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs. Limitations as well as directions for future research are discussed.

Future orientation is crucial for young people to achieve career-developmental milestones, yet little research has examined the role of future orientation in attaining career outcomes in adult samples. Using the future orientation framework, we tested direct effects of future orientation on career agency (proactive career behaviors and work effort) and career success (perceived employability and career adaptability), indirect effects via career agency variables, and conditional effects of negative career feedback in the future orientation-career agency-career success relationships. We surveyed 285 adults (M = 38.38 years) and conducted structural equation and moderated mediation analyses. Future orientation was associated positively with work effort, proactive career behaviors, career adaptability, and perceptions of employability. Work effort and proactive career behaviors mediated the future orientation-career success relationship. The mediation via career behaviors (but not work effort) was dependent on the level of received negative career feedback. The results have theoretical and practical implications.

This article reports on the results of the first meta-analysis of the association between working alliance and outcomes of individual career counseling. This random-effects meta-analysis included 18 published and unpublished studies that produced a weighted mean effect size of r = .42. This effect size was heterogeneous across studies. Separate meta-analyses were conducted for several types of outcomes: Career outcomes, mental health outcomes, and client-perceived quality of the intervention. Average effect sizes for the association between working alliance and types of outcomes were .28, .18 and .62, respectively. Moderator analyses indicated that the overall mean effect size (r =.42) varied in a large proportion as a function of the type of outcomes and the time of assessment of working alliance (first session, mid or at termination of the counseling service). Our results confirm that working alliance is associated to career counseling effectiveness and suggest that career counselors should emphasize on the working alliance during the career counseling process. In conclusion, this article provides suggestions for practice in individual career counseling and avenues of research on working alliance in this context.

Career commitment refers to one’s emotional attachment to one’s career rather than to one’s current working organization. While career commitment has been studied for decades as an important construct in applied psychology research, robust conclusions about its antecedents have not been drawn by empirical research. To address this issue, this research presents the results of a meta-analytic review of the antecedents of career commitment based on data from 156 individual studies (N = 58,651) conducted between 1980 and 2019. A total of 52 latent antecedents were captured and categorized into five different groups, and the strength, direction and heterogeneity of the relations between career commitment and its antecedents were meta-analytically investigated. Our findings revealed that while individual attributes (e.g. age) alone were weak predictors of career commitment, psychological (e.g. job satisfaction) and organizational factors (e.g. organizational career growth) exhibited medium effect sizes. In addition, among job-related factors, autonomy demonstrated a relatively strong influence on career commitment. The implications are elucidated for researchers and practitioners in the light of these key findings.

A growing body of evidence supports critical consciousness as a developmental asset for young people, including its benefits for educational and vocational outcomes. National dynamics and policies in the U.S., such as restricting immigration and asylum, have raised the salience of critical consciousness as a protective factor for the career development of Latinx immigrant youth. In this manuscript, we first review the nature and benefits of critical consciousness for Latinx immigrant youth. We then highlight how college and career readiness (CCR) and the components of critical consciousness (CC) can be simultaneously fostered among Latinx immigrant high school students, drawing upon our own work in the context of an afterschool program. We introduce a framework to illustrate this integration, and describe a series of intervention activities and processes designed to simultaneously build CC and CCR. Finally, we provide recommendations and describe caveats and challenges to developing classroom-based career education curricula that integrate CCR and CC.