Development and Validation of a Commitment to Organizational Career Scale: At the Crossroads of Individuals’ Career Aspirations and Organizations’ Needs

This paper introduces the construct of commitment to an organizational career (COC). Conceptualized as a specific form of goal commitment, COC reflects an individual’s commitment to the goal of pursuing a long and successful career in an organization. We developed a 5-item measure of COC and examined its validity and reliability in four studies involving employees from diverse organizations and occupations (Ns = 312, 187, 199, 309). We explore COC’s distinctiveness from related constructs, including organizational commitment components (i.e., affective, normative, and continuance subdimensions) and career commitment, as well as its ability to predict turnover intention and voluntary turnover. Finally, we examine COC’s antecedents and specify boundary conditions to its relationship to turnover. Overall, results support the reliability and validity of the COC measure. We discuss how COC contributes to generate promising research avenues for the careers and commitment literatures

The Veterinary Identity: A Time and Context Model

The nature of professionalism teaching is a current issue in veterinary education, with an individual’s identity as a professional having implications for one’s values and behaviors, as well as for his or her career satisfaction and psychological well-being. An appropriately formed professional identity imparts competence in making complex decisions—those that involve multiple perspectives and are complicated by contextual challenges. It enables an individual to act in a way that aligns with his or her professional values and priorities, and imparts resilience to situations in which one’s actions are dissonant to these personal beliefs. There are challenges in professionalism teaching that relate to student engagement and faculty confidence in this area. However, these cannot be addressed without first defining the veterinary professional identity—in effect, the aim of professionalism teaching. In this article, existing identity models from the wider literature have been analyzed through a veterinary lens. This analysis was then used to construct a model of veterinary professional identity that incorporates the self (personal morals and values), social development (learning from the workplace environment), and professional behaviors. Individuals who form what we have termed self–environment–behavior connections are proposed to be able to use workplace learning opportunities to inform their identity development, such that environmental complexity does not obstruct the link between values and behaviors. Those who fail to connect with the environment in this way may perceive that environmental influences (e.g., the client, financial limitations) are obstructive to enacting their desired identity, and they may struggle with decision making in complex scenarios

Boundary work: An interpretive ethnographic perspective on negotiating and leveraging cross-cultural identity

The complexity of global organizations highlights the importance of members’ ability to span diverse boundaries that may be defined by organization structures, national borders, and/or a variety of cultures associated with organization, nation-based societal and work cultures, industries, and/or professions. Based on ethnographic research in a Japan–US binational firm, the paper describes and analyzes the boundary role performance of the firm\u27s Japanese members. It contributes toward theory on boundary spanning by introducing a “cultural identity negotiation” conceptual framework. We show boundary spanning as a process shaped through the interplay of the contextual issues that make a boundary problematic; an individual\u27s multiple repertoires of cultural knowledge; and the individual boundary spanner\u27s “negotiation”, through interaction with others, of his/her cultural identities – the sense of “who I am” as a cultural being that is fundamental to an individual\u27s self-concept. At the same time, we make transparent the epistemological and methodological foundations of an interpretive ethnographic approach, demonstrating its value for understanding complex organizational processes. Research findings have practical implications for the selection and training of an organization\u27s employees, particularly of persons who may be considered “bicultural”

Extrovert Followership and its Impact on Agreeable Leadership

This study recons the need for research on effective role of followership in mentoring a leader to set pattern or direction for leader. A reinvented concept of leader being a team man needs active participation from followers in changing business dynamics. The sample consisting of middle level management having leader (heads/ supervisors from education sector) above it has been taken and results are achieved using inferential statistics, so to verify the need of followers for result oriented leadership. The results depict that certain personality traits backed by “Big Five Model” are found to be important for followers to have an impact on leader’s decision making. As this study analyses the mutual characteristic of leader follower relation statistically while putting follower on the fore front, the originality of study is ensured. As for limitation, this study may show different results as per variant geographical and economical regions in which followers’ expectations may vary accordingly

Individual, social, environmental, and physical environmental correlates with physical activity among Canadians: a cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The identification of various individual, social and physical environmental factors affecting physical activity (PA) behavior in Canada can help in the development of more tailored intervention strategies for promoting higher PA levels in Canada. This study examined the influences of various individual, social and physical environmental factors on PA participation by gender, age and socioeconomic status, using data from the 2002 nationwide survey of the Physical Activity Monitor.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In 2002, 5,167 Canadians aged 15–79 years, selected by random-digit dialling from household-based telephone exchanges, completed a telephone survey. The short version of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire was used to collect information on total physical activity. The effects of socio-economical status, self-rated health, self-efficacy, intention, perceived barriers to PA, health benefits of PA, social support, and facility availability on PA level were examined by multiple logistic regression analyses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Self-efficacy and intention were the strongest correlates and had the greatest effect on PA. Family income, self-rated health and perceived barriers were also consistently associated with PA. The effects of the perceived health benefits, education and family income were more salient to older people, whereas the influence of education was more important to women and the influence of perceived barriers was more salient to women and younger people. Facility availability was more strongly associated with PA among people with a university degree than among people with a lower education level. However, social support was not significantly related to PA in any subgroup.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study suggests that PA promotion strategies should be tailored to enhance people's confidence to engage in PA, motivate people to be more active, educate people on PA's health benefits and reduce barriers, as well as target different factors for men and women and for differing socio-economic and demographic groups.</p

A model of management academics' intentions to influence values

Business schools face increased criticism for failing in the teaching of management studies to nurture their students’ values. Assuming that individual academics play an important role in shaping the value-related influence of business schools, I model management academics’ intentions to influence values. The suggested model encompasses academics’ economic and social values as internal variables, as well as perceived support for attempting to influence values and academic tenure as social and structural variables. A test with empirical data from 1,254 management academics worldwide reveals that perceived external support is most relevant for explaining intentions. Moreover, academics’ social values, but not their economic ones, contribute to an explanation of their intentions to influence values. The results reveal how important it is for academics to believe that their colleagues, higher education institutions, and other stakeholders support their value-related behavioral intentions