Sustainable careers : towards a conceptual model

This paper aims to move the research field on sustainable careers forward by building conceptual clarity about what a sustainable career means and delineating what distinguishes sustainable from non-sustainable careers, thereby providing key indicators of a sustainable career. Moreover, we approach sustainable careers from a systemic and dynamic perspective and address influential factors associated with stakeholders situated in multiple contexts and evolving over time. We elaborate on core theoretical frameworks useful for enhancing our understanding of what makes careers sustainable and present three key dimensions that can help to analyze and study sustainable careers: person, context, and time. Finally, we propose a research agenda that we hope will spur scholars to examine the topic in more detail in future empirical work

The Best of Both Worlds: The Role of Career Adaptability and Career Competencies in Students' Well-being and Performance

In addition to acquiring occupation-specific knowledge and skills, students need to develop a set of career self-management skills – or resources – that helps them to successfully maneuver the various career-related challenges they face and that stimulate their well-being, engagement, and performance in studying tasks. In the current study, we apply the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory in an educational setting and suggest that career adaptability and career competencies are important career resources that predict both life satisfaction and academic performance via students’ satisfaction with the choice of their major and study engagement. Undergraduate students (N = 672) from nine different colleges and universities in Lithuania participated in the study. The results revealed that career adaptability and career competencies were positively linked to students’ life satisfaction, both directly and via study engagement. In addition, these career resources were positively, yet indirectly, related to academic performance via study engagement. Overall, the results suggest that career resources contribute to study engagement, life satisfaction, and academic performance. The results of our study further support JD-R theorizing and its applicability in student samples. Further theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Ticket to ride : I-deals as a strategic HR tool for an employable work force

We describe how idiosyncratic deals (I-deals), in this case I-deals focused on workers' employability enhancement, can serve as a powerful strategic HR tool for simultaneously meeting both the strategic goals of employers and the career goals of employees. Building on a sustainable career perspective, I-deals are interpreted as highly valuable, as they can help individual employees to more easily adapt to the fast-changing environments that nowadays characterize society and the labor market. After theoretical outlines on the concepts of I-deals and employability, we argue that I-deals can form the basis for integrative employment relationships aimed at employability enhancement. This article concludes with concrete recommendations for practice, indicating that in order to enable the sound use of I-deals as a strategic HR tool, organizations should discuss I-deals and employability openly through constructive dialogue. Moreover, examples for achieving this through specific practices, such as working with employability coaches and world cafés on employability, are described. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2021 Van der Heijden, Nauta, Fugate, De Vos and Bozionelos.

A sustainable career perspective of work ability : the importance of resources across the lifespan

In this study, we examine employees’ perceptions of their work ability from a sustainable career perspective. Specifically, we investigate the role of a person’s perceived current fit (i.e., autonomy, strengths use and needs-supply fit), and future fit with their job as resources that affect perceived work ability, defined as the extent to which employees feel capable of continuing their current work over a longer time period. In addition, we test whether meaningfulness of one’s work mediates this relationship, and we address the moderating role of age. Our hypotheses were tested using a sample of 5205 employees working in diverse sectors in Belgium. The results of multi-group Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) provide mixed evidence for our hypotheses. While all four resources were significantly and positively related to perceived meaningfulness, only needs-supply fit was positively related to perceived work ability. Strengths use, on the other hand, was also significantly related to perceived work ability, yet in a negative way. These findings underscore the importance of distinguishing between several types of resources to understand their impact upon perceived work ability. Interestingly, the relationship between future-orientedness of the job and perceived work ability was moderated by age, with the relationship only being significant and positive for middle-aged and senior workers. This suggests an increasingly important role of having a perspective of future fit with one’s job as employees grow older. Contrary to our expectations, meaningfulness did not mediate the relationships between resources and perceived work ability. We discuss these findings and their implications from the perspective of sustainable career development

A model of human neural networks reveals NPTX2 pathology in ALS and FTLD

Human cellular models of neurodegeneration require reproducibility and longevity, which is necessary for simulating age-dependent diseases. Such systems are particularly needed for TDP-43 proteinopathies$^{1}$, which involve human-specific mechanisms$^{2–5}$ that cannot be directly studied in animal models. Here, to explore the emergence and consequences of TDP-43 pathologies, we generated induced pluripotent stem cell-derived, colony morphology neural stem cells (iCoMoNSCs) via manual selection of neural precursors$^{6}$. Single-cell transcriptomics and comparison to independent neural stem cells$^{7}$ showed that iCoMoNSCs are uniquely homogenous and self-renewing. Differentiated iCoMoNSCs formed a self-organized multicellular system consisting of synaptically connected and electrophysiologically active neurons, which matured into long-lived functional networks (which we designate iNets). Neuronal and glial maturation in iNets was similar to that of cortical organoids$^{8}$. Overexpression of wild-type TDP-43 in a minority of neurons within iNets led to progressive fragmentation and aggregation of the protein, resulting in a partial loss of function and neurotoxicity. Single-cell transcriptomics revealed a novel set of misregulated RNA targets in TDP-43-overexpressing neurons and in patients with TDP-43 proteinopathies exhibiting a loss of nuclear TDP-43. The strongest misregulated target encoded the synaptic protein NPTX2, the levels of which are controlled by TDP-43 binding on its 3′ untranslated region. When NPTX2 was overexpressed in iNets, it exhibited neurotoxicity, whereas correcting NPTX2 misregulation partially rescued neurons from TDP-43-induced neurodegeneration. Notably, NPTX2 was consistently misaccumulated in neurons from patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal lobar degeneration with TDP-43 pathology. Our work directly links TDP-43 misregulation and NPTX2 accumulation, thereby revealing a TDP-43-dependent pathway of neurotoxicity

Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research: Finding the common ground of multi-faceted concepts

Inter- and transdisciplinarity are increasingly relevant concepts and practices within academia. While various definitions exist, a clear distinction between inter- and transdisciplinarity remains difficult. Although there is a wide consensus about the need to define and apply these approaches, there is no agreement over definitions. Building on data collected during the first year of the COST Action TD1408 “Interdisciplinarity in research programming and funding cycles” (INTREPID), this paper describes both tensions and common ground about the characteristics and building blocks of interand trans-disciplinarity. Drawing on empirical data from participatory workshops involving INTREPID network members coming from 27 different countries, the paper shows that diverse definitions of inter and trans-disciplinarity coexist within scientific literature and in the mind of researchers and practitioners. The understanding about the involvement of actors outside of academia also differs widely across scientific communities irrespective of disciplinary training or the research subjects. The focus should be on the knowledge that is required to deal with a specific problem, rather than discussing “if” and “how” to integrate actors outside the academia, and collaboration should start with joint problem framing. This diversity is, however, not an absolute obstacle to practice, since the latter is made possible through building blocks such as knowledge domains, problem- and solution- oriented approaches, common goals, as well as target knowledge. In order to move towards more effective inter- and transdisciplinary research, we identify the need for trained interdisciplinarity facilitators and ‘accompanying research’ (derived from the Danish term ‘følgeforskning’). These two roles can be essential to inter- and transdisciplinarity practices including the promotion of reflexivity

An expanding manifold in transmodal regions characterizes adolescent reconfiguration of structural connectome organization

Funder: Canada Research Chairs; FundRef: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001804Funder: Fonds de la Recherche du Quebec – SantéFunder: Autism Research TrustFunder: Canadian Institutes of Health Research; FundRef: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000024Funder: BrainCanadaFunder: MNI-Cambridge collaborative awardAdolescence is a critical time for the continued maturation of brain networks. Here, we assessed structural connectome development in a large longitudinal sample ranging from childhood to young adulthood. By projecting high-dimensional connectomes into compact manifold spaces, we identified a marked expansion of structural connectomes, with strongest effects in transmodal regions during adolescence. Findings reflected increased within-module connectivity together with increased segregation, indicating increasing differentiation of higher-order association networks from the rest of the brain. Projection of subcortico-cortical connectivity patterns into these manifolds showed parallel alterations in pathways centered on the caudate and thalamus. Connectome findings were contextualized via spatial transcriptome association analysis, highlighting genes enriched in cortex, thalamus, and striatum. Statistical learning of cortical and subcortical manifold features at baseline and their maturational change predicted measures of intelligence at follow-up. Our findings demonstrate that connectome manifold learning can bridge the conceptual and empirical gaps between macroscale network reconfigurations, microscale processes, and cognitive outcomes in adolescent development