Temporal Elements in Career Selection Decisions: An Archival Study Investigating Career Decisions in Medicine

Time is a ubiquitous but often omitted variable in career selection decisions. This study investigates the impact of temporal elements on career selection decisions, thus advancing our understanding of both career decision making and the impact of timing on decision making. We investigate the influence of timing and duration of experience with career options on career selection decisions in an archival study using medical residents’ rotation schedules. We also investigate factors that mitigate the influence of timing on career selection decisions by examining the interaction of timing with the duration of experience and the diversity of options that an individual experiences. Conditional logit results indicate that decisions often based on career and individual attributes are significantly influenced by the timing and duration of options even when controlling for option attributes. Additionally, significant interactions between timing and diversity of experience and timing and duration of experience revealed boundary conditions for timing. Individuals were more likely to select later-appearing career options when they appeared for a greater duration or when they experienced a greater diversity of options in their schedule. Results illustrate that schedules over which individuals have no control can influence consequential decisions. Keywords: career selection decisions; timing; decision making; primacy; information sequencin

Work-Life Boundaries and Well-Being: Does Work-to-Life Integration Impair Well-Being through Lack of Recovery?

Against the backdrop of increasingly blurred boundaries between work and nonwork, the purpose of this study was to investigate the implications of employees’ work-to-life boundary enactment for well-being. Using border/boundary theory (as reported by Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate (Academy of Management Review 25(3):472–491, 2000) and Clark (Human Relations 54(6):747–770, 2000)) and the effort-recovery model (as reported by Meijman & Mulder (Handbook of work and organizational psychology vol. 2 55–53, 1998)), we developed a research model that links work-to-life integration enactment to exhaustion and impaired work-life balance via lack of recovery activities (as reported by Sonnentag, Journal of Applied Psychology 88(3):518–528, 2003). The model was tested using structural equation modeling. Our sample consisted of N = 1916 employees who were recruited via an online panel service. Results showed that employees who scored high on work-to-life integration enactment reported less recovery activities and in turn were more exhausted and experienced less work-life balance. Our study contributes to the existing literature on boundary management by investigating the well-being implications of work-to-life boundary enactment and by suggesting and testing recovery as an underlying mechanism. In doing so, we link boundary enactment with existing theory of the work-life interface. Based on our review of existent research on boundary management and well-being, we disentangle previous contradictory findings. Understanding of the well-being implications of boundary enactment and underlying mechanisms can help human resource professionals and practitioners to devise and implement organizational policies and interventions that enable employees to develop boundary management strategies that are sustainable in that they do not impair employees’ well-being