The gap between career management expectations and reality - empirical insights from the IT industry

The Information Technology (IT) industry has become an important economic factor in many Western countries, but it is well known for suffering from skills shortages and high turnover rates. Organizational career management (OCM) may help to attract new talent and reduce IT turnover by satisfying individuals’ career needs. However, to date, little is known about what, exactly, IT professionals expect in terms of career-related support, and whether their expectations match with what IT organizations provide. This paper reports on a quantitative study that investigated what 1686 IT professionals in Switzerland, Germany and the UK expected and what their employers provided in terms of OCM. Findings indicate that there are substantial mismatches between OCM ‘supply’ and ‘demand’. The paper makes an important contribution by providing a more in-depth understanding of IT professionals’ OCM preferences, leading to various practical implications for IT organizations and beyond

Career anchors and preferences for organizational career management: A study of information technology professionals in three European countries

Careers research has moved beyond the notion of traditional careers in a stable, predictable work environment to a more individual perspective. However, individual agency in career management is still likely to involve interactions between organizations and individuals. This is particularly evident in organizational career management (OCM). Career anchor theory has shed light on the work preferences of professionals but little research has examined relationships between career anchors and how people enact their careers, or how these constructs and their relationships might differ between countries. We report a quantitative study of 1,629 IT professionals from 10 organizations in Switzerland, Germany and the UK. After allowing for control variables, career anchor scores explained statistically significant amounts of variance in preferences for five of the six categories of OCM practices. Some of the connections between career anchors and OCM preferences followed naturally from their content, but others were less self-evident, or even seemingly contradictory. There were some significant differences between nationalities, with the UK tending to be the outlier. These differences were partly but not entirely consistent with prior research. This study expands understanding of the interplay of individual values and OCM and draws on previous work to offer a new classification of OCM practices

Organizational boundaries and beyond: a new look at the components of a boundaryless career orientation

Purpose The key purpose of this paper is to develop a new conceptualization of the boundaryless career—a widely acknowledged contemporary career concept—that reflects its original description more fully than previous literature has done, and to apply this conceptualization in an empirical investigation of career behavior and intentions of a large sample of European Information Technology (IT) professionals. Design/methodology/approach As part of a large study of IT professionals in Europe (N = 1,350), we had three research objectives. First, we developed and empirically tested a new operationalization of a person’s boundaryless career orientation (BCO) that reflects the originally proposed boundaryless career meanings more closely than existing approaches. Second, we used this to identify in a holistic manner different patterns of BCO. Third, we examined the nature and extent of links between BCO and self-reported career behavior and intentions. Findings We identified five BCO factors that differentiate individuals into three distinct clusters. Although organizational boundaries appeared to be salient for most individuals, they did not differentiate the clusters. Instead, geographical mobility preference and rejection of career opportunities emerged as highly differentiating but hitherto rarely examined types of career boundaries. Practical implications Our findings can help HR managers to gain a better understanding of different mobility preferences amongst different groups of employees, which could lead to the development and implementation of more refined reward schemes and career development practices in organizations. Originality/value This study provides a new operationalization of the BCO that is grounded in its original definition and offers a new empirically tested 15-item BCO measure. It contributes to career research with scarce empirical findings regarding the components of the BCO, their salience for individuals, and the connections between BCO and behavior

Reassessing the protean career concept: empirical findings, conceptual components, and measurement

The protean career concept is a widely acknowledged contemporary career model, but conceptual and empirical analysis of the model is scarce. We provide an integrative literature review of empirical research and note that the research is hampered by inconsistent use of terminology and methodological limitations. First, we show that the two protean metacompetencies-adaptability and identity-have been relatively neglected as the research has evolved. Second, we describe how preexisting protean measures are limited in covering the full range of the concept. Finally, we draw on career theory to suggest four conceptual components as a basis for future model development and offer suggestions for research that tests the utility of the protean career concept in relation to other similar constructs. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd