Journal of Career Development

In this study, we examined the degree to which two forms of perceived interpersonal influence relate to college women’s plans to become leaders in their career fields. We also tested whether those associations vary as a function of the nontraditionality of the women’s majors (as indexed by the percentage of male students in their majors). The responses of 673 female undergraduate students to an online survey revealed that perceived support/guidance for career decision-making and perceived inspiration from career role models both had unique and positive associations with leadership aspirations, but those associations did not differ based on major nontraditionality. We discuss implications for career interventions designed to facilitate college women’s leadership aspirations and identify future research directions.

Informed by goal-setting/self-regulatory theories, we tested the mediating role of career-related effort (i.e., goal striving) in the relationships between career-related indecision (i.e., goal ambiguity) and career-related stress (i.e., affect) and perceived employability (i.e., career-related attitude) and examined the effect of financial distress as a moderator in these direct and indirect relationships. Using a sample of 202 young adults (M_age = 19.8 years, 81.7% female), we found career indecision was related negatively to effort and perceived employability and positively to stress, with effort mediating between indecision and both stress and perceived employability. However, financial distress influenced these relationships. The associations between career indecision and effort and perceived employability were more negative and the associations between career indecision and stress were more positive when financial distress was higher. The study contributes by identifying how financial distress affects the relationships between career indecision, effort, and other career variables.

Family influence is a key factor in many aspects of career development; however, very little research has examined the relationship between family and well-being. Drawing on social cognitive career theory, this study examined the influence of the family on college students’ academic and overall life satisfaction. The participants were 312 college students at a south Brazilian university who completed measures of family influence, along with measures of environmental supports and barriers, academic self-efficacy, goal progress, academic satisfaction, life satisfaction, and positive affect. Academic and life satisfaction were each well predicted in the model (R² = .69 and .42, respectively). Results suggest that family expectations had a negative contribution in the model, and family support seemed to be very positive for academic and life satisfaction. The findings inform the practice, evidencing which family factors can booster and which can hamper college students’ academic and overall life satisfaction.

Past research on career decision-making has focused on two distinct modes of decision-making: logic and intuition. In this study, we extend that two-system model of career decision-making and examine the role of two additional decision-making modalities: advice seeking and spiritual discernment. We conducted two independent studies through which we develop and validate a Career Discernment Scale by examining its dimensions and internal reliability (Study 1), followed by research to establish discriminant and convergent validity (Study 2). Results provide initial support for the dimensionality and reliability of four distinct career decision-making factors, demonstrated by a clear factor structure and internal consistency. In addition, our results show evidence of convergent and discriminant validity through expected correlations across a nomological network of individual differences. Overall, this article highlights the unique role of spirituality and advice seeking in career decision-making with implications for career development and practice.

In this study, we examine the effects of proactive personality on employees’ perceptions of conflict in the work and family domains and work-related outcomes. We test our hypotheses using survey data collected from 1,150 employees. Our results indicate that proactive personality is associated with increased work-interference-in-family (WIF) but decreased family-interference-in-work (FIW). These opposing, domain-specific effects have masked hitherto hidden relationships that we highlight in this study. Using structural equation modeling, we demonstrate that WIF and FIW function as simultaneous mediating variables between proactive personality and turnover intentions as well as between proactive personality and job performance. Through an investigation of underlying mechanisms, this study advances a more nuanced portrait of how individual differences shape individual and organizational outcomes.

Career Construction Counseling fosters client change by evoking and elaborating innovative moments in client narratives. In this article, we describe four types of dialogues that counselors may use to prompt narrative novelty and foster client change: (a) identify and evaluate the effects of innovative moments, (b) highlight contrasting self-positions, (c) ask about changes achieved, (d) promote a meta-perspective on change. Vignettes from a case are used to illustrate how to use IM markers as a heuristic guide for when to engage in these four types of dialogues.

Women and members of many ethnic minority groups continue to be significantly underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and work settings. In this article, we propose that Gloria Anzaldúa’s concepts of nepantla and nepantleras/os can be used to enrich perspectives on underrepresentation among those studying, working, and persisting in STEM fields. We describe how diversity practices may fail to address and foster inclusion in STEM education and workplaces and link inclusion and belonging to engagement and retention in STEM. Recommendations are offered for combining top-down and bottom-up strategies providing information, awareness, and skills training in STEM environments, including recognizing and engaging the insights and experiences of nepantleras/os.

This study explores the role of organizational career growth on employees’ organizational identification and turnover intentions in the contemporary career era. We compare the impact of organizational career growth and perceived external prestige of organization on employees’ organizational identification and turnover intentions and probe whether perceived alternative job opportunities moderate the relations between perceived external prestige–organizational identification and organizational career growth–organizational identification. Using a sample of 644 Chinese employees, findings indicated perceived external prestige and organizational career growth negatively influenced turnover intentions via organizational identification. Perceived alternative job opportunities buffered the relation between perceived external prestige and organizational identification but not the relation between organizational career growth and organizational identification. Finally, organizational career growth contributed more to organizational identification and turnover intentions than perceived external prestige. Our results suggest future research should consider the role of individual career states in improving employees’ organizational identification and retaining them within an organization.

Given the increased self-directedness of todays’ career environment, career goals represent to some extent the exercise of individual agency, particularly during ecological transitions (e.g., school to work). The main purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between internship quality and career exploration behavior, considering students’ career goals content (labor market vs. higher education). Using a longitudinal design (pre- and post-internship), we conducted a study (12th grade; N = 191) that explores the relationship between perceived qualities of the internship and the different dimensions of career exploration. Analysis of variance and analysis of covariance, with repeated measures, were used to analyze the data. The results reinforce the importance of career goals, since they seem to have a differentiating effect on how the quality of the internship interacts with students’ career exploration behavior. Finally, the implications of these findings for career interventions and for future research in this area are discussed.

Demands on the teacher workforce are changing as one quarter of children in U.S. schools live in immigrant families and about half of students are racial/ethnic minorities. Simultaneously, diminishing teacher support and teacher shortages cause reliance on alternative certification programs (e.g., Teach for America). In response, we studied the links between color-blind racial attitudes and culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy and outcome expectations with immigrant students among 323 teachers completing an alternative program. Results from a moderated mediation model based on social cognitive career theory demonstrated that color-blind racial attitudes were significantly negatively associated with teaching outcome expectations with immigrants. In addition, the link between color-blind attitudes and self-efficacy was positive and significant only for Asian/Asian American teachers, and the link between self-efficacy and outcome expectations was significant for Latinx and Asian/Asian American teachers, and White teachers. We discuss implications for supporting teachers’ career development in schools serving immigrants of color.

Professional identity, for many, is a substantial component of their career choices and development. In this study, we utilized data from an online survey completed by 1,867 participants living across the United States to consider the extent to which an individual working in science, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics (STEM) field identifies with each discipline, and how this may be associated with recognition, competence, and sense of belonging. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that participants’ STEM field had a positive, direct impact on their discipline-specific identity but a negative, direct impact on other discipline identities. Furthermore, recognition and competence had significant direct and indirect effects on participants’ STEM identity, which was not consistent by STEM field. Alternatively, sense of belonging and self-identifying as a woman had limited effects in our model. Our findings raise questions as to the possibility (or not) of STEM as an interdisciplinary identity for professionals with a career in STEM.

A lack of empirical research on career decision-making experience of doctoral students prevents them from developing relevant career competencies to achieve desired career goals. Understanding career experiences and diverse career needs of doctoral students is crucial to better prepare them for varied career paths inside and outside academia. Grounded in social cognitive career theory’s career self-management model, we investigated the association of the personal and contextual factors of doctoral students with their career decision making. To gain a comprehensive understanding of career choices of doctoral students, comparisons are made between academic and beyond academic career groups. Data were collected from 313 doctoral candidates from a research-oriented public university located in the U.S. Midwest. The results of logistic regression analysis show significant associations between career support, marital status, and major and career choice of doctoral students. Implications for graduate education to support doctoral students for diverse career paths are discussed.

In the contemporary work environment, which is characterized by change and uncertainty, employees must proactively manage their careers to develop and maintain their competitiveness. Drawing on self-determination theory, this study developed an interactive model that uses job autonomy, supervisor support, and calling to predict career self-management. With a sample of 245 full-time employees in China, the time-lagged survey showed that job autonomy has a direct effect on career self-management, which is moderated by supervisor support and employees’ calling. Furthermore, the three-way interaction indicated that the moderating effect of supervisor support on the relationship between job autonomy and career self-management is stronger when calling is low. Finally, the implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.

This study proposed protégé’s ego-resiliency as a parsimonious predictor of perceived mentoring. Uncertainty-avoidance and collectivism orientations were hypothesized as boundary conditions of this relationship. An additive multiple moderation model was developed using conservation of resource theory. Data were collected from 193 employees of a large Southeast Asian commercial bank. Results of structural equation modeling indicated that protégé’s ego-resiliency was positively related to perceived mentoring. This positive relation was stronger for protégés who held weaker uncertainty-avoidance orientations and was stronger for those who held collectivistic orientations. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of developmental networks in a managerial career. We argue that the 21st-century managerial career is constructed in interaction with developmental networks. The people around one and the prevailing situation can either promote or restrict a person’s career. We search for answers to the questions of (1) what kinds of developmental networks exist and (2) how developmental networks affect managerial careers. We interviewed 16 managers, both male and female, in semistructured thematic interviews. We discovered six core narratives of developmental networks: enticers, recognizers, supporters, challengers, blockers, and demotivators. Our results highlight the importance of support and developmental networks in managerial careers.