Emotion in career contexts: Challenges for theory and research

In this article I argue that we need a greater understanding of the role of emotion in career development and career management. Notions of careers as sequences of events and experiences and new relational approaches to organizational career development suggest opportunities for exploring the experience, expression, and management of emotion within individuals’ careers. Also, ideas about emotional labour can inform career counselling practice. I also explore how far research into emotions in career contexts requires a constructivist or constructionist approach, and discuss some of the methodological issues in working within positivist, and non-positivist (specifically constructivist and constructionist) paradigms. Both have their strengths, and we should not lose sight of these in furthering our understanding of individuals’ careers and of ways to intervene effectively in career development.     

Planned Happenstance: Constructing Unexpected Career Opportunities

Chance plays an important role in everyone's career, but career counseling is still perceived as a process designed to eliminate chance from career decision making. Traditional career counseling interventions are no longer sufficient to prepare clients to respond to career uncertainties. Work world shifts challenge career counselors to adopt a counseling intervention that views unplanned events as both inevitable and desirable. Counselors need to teach clients to engage in exploratory activities to increase the probability that the clients will discover unexpected career opportunities. Unplanned events can become opportunities for learning.     

Sleepwalking Into Infertility: The Need for a Public Health Approach Toward Advanced Maternal Age

In Western countries today, a growing number of women delay motherhood until their late 30s and even 40s, as they invest time in pursuing education and career goals before starting a family. This social trend results from greater gender equality and expanded opportunities for women and is influenced by the availability of contraception and assisted reproductive technologies (ART). However, advanced maternal age is associated with increased health risks, including infertility. While individual medical solutions such as ART and elective egg freezing can promote reproductive autonomy, they entail significant risks and limitations. We thus argue that women should be better informed regarding the risks of advanced maternal age and ART, and that these individual solutions need to be supplemented by a public health approach, including policy measures that provide women with the opportunity to start a family earlier in life without sacrificing personal career goals.     

Overcoming the Glass Ceiling: Views From the Cellar and the Roof

Women's experiences as professionals and behavior therapists have changed considerably in the past 40 years. The author describes early challenges and experiences of discrimination as a young female professional. Although women's opportunities have improved considerably, women still experience unique career challenges and choices. The author provides some suggestions for women's career development.     

Careers for Women In Accounting

Progress is being made in improving employers' attitudes toward women accountants. A few years ago, most organizations did not actively recruit women accountants. Recently, however, accounting firms have become aware of the increasing number of women accounting graduates and are sending women recruiters to college campuses to recruit prospective women applicants. To analyze the progress in employment opportunities available to women during the past five years, a follow-up of a survey was conducted. Chi-square contingency tests were used to analyze some of the results. The survey showed that most accounting firms are either actively trying to solve the problem of discrimination or are at least interested in seeking solutions. Some companies indicated that they would hire more women college graduates if they were qualified accountants. Women need better career planning and counseling. They should be encouraged to study job market forecasts in view of their personal abilities and goals. Many women either have not been aware of job opportunities in accounting or have been interested in the field but discouraged by the attitudes of parents, professors, or guidance counselors, or overt discrimination by employers. In the past, such attitudes may have caused many capable women to select the more traditional “feminine” professions instead.     

The outcomes of effective career discussion at work

This article examines the outcomes that resulted from career discussions experienced by 104 employees. Employees appeared to benefit from discussions about their careers with individuals in a wide range of roles. Many effective career discussions produced multiple outcomes, and some of these were long-lasting. The most common types of outcomes experienced were a clearer view of future direction, self-insight, awareness of opportunities, and feeling reassured or better about self or work. The findings highlight the need for future research into the effectiveness of career interventions to take more account of multiple outcomes and how these evolve over time. Also, organizations need to encourage informal career discussions and informal mentoring.     

The Interrupted Managerial Career Path: A Longitudinal Study of MBAs

The view of managerial career success as an uninterrupted climb up the corporate ladder no longer fits the realities of many managers. This study examined longitudinal data on the career paths of MBAs to determine the consequences of early- and mid-career gaps on career success. The study found that early gaps have a negative impact on income and management level. Gaps in mid-career also reveal an income penalty, even after controlling for pre-gap income. In mid-career, the negative level effect was found for women, but not for men. MBAs with discontinuous employment histories, however, did not have diminished career satisfaction. The research suggests the need for researchers, organizations, managers, and business schools to broaden the definition of acceptable managerial career paths.     

Increasing Career Self‐Efficacy for Women: Evaluating a Group Intervention

The study evaluated whether women participating in a career group designed to increase career‐related self‐efficacy would make gains on career decision‐making self‐efficacy and vocational exploration and commitment compared with women in a control group. Thirty‐one women participated in a 6‐week treatment group, and 30 women participated in a no‐treatment control group. Results indicated that, compared with the control group, women in the treatment group improved on career decision‐making self‐efficacy and vocational exploration and commitment, and maintained those gains at 6‐week follow‐up. The discussion focuses on implications for counseling, limitations of the study, and future research.     

Women and Work—Rights,Realities, and Prospects

Women's place as a permanent part of the work force has been established, but the question now is whether women will continue to be the majority of low-skilled, low-paid workers or will share equally in opportunities in all fields of employment. The economic needs of most women workers are approximately the same as those of male workers. With 6.6 million women heads of families in 1973, nearly one out of three such families was poor according to Department of Labor criteria. Professional job counselors have a responsibility to support women who make nontraditional career choices. Counselors and others must also be aware of the rights and resources available to each woman in pursuing her career goals.     

Black College Women's Career Values: A Preliminary Investigation

We identified nine values that guided the career decisions of a sample of Black college women, then explored whether these values were predicted by racial and feminist identify stage sentiments Findings from this study suggest the need for further research on the career development of women of color.     

Proactivity,adaptability and boundaryless career attitudes: The mediating role of entrepreneurial alertness

We examined the role of entrepreneurialism in careers in the information society and global economy, bringing together key constructs in the fields of career studies and entrepreneurship. Specifically, our study involving a diverse group of 750 undergraduate students from Singapore showed that entrepreneurial alertness to opportunities partially mediates the relation of proactive personality to boundaryless career mindset and career adaptability, but not to self-directed or protean career attitudes. Findings are discussed in relation to the contribution of entrepreneurialism to careers research and the larger issues of workforce development.     

Comparison of two group counseling approaches to enhancing confidence in planning careers by undecided Taiwanese college women

This is a report of research comparing two approaches to enhance the career confidence of undecided female college students. 30 women who requested enrollment in career counseling were assigned to two counseling groups (a cognitive reconstructing intervention group and a career decision-making skills training group) and one no-treatment control group based on time of request. After participating in the two career counseling groups for eight sessions in a month, the female college students rated their mean confidence as increased over that of the no-treatment group. Analysis indicated that the indecisive female college students benefitted from career group counseling with an emphasis on self-efficacy and that the cognitive reconstructing intervention was more effective.     

Contextual and Cognitive Determinants of Procedural Justice Perceptions in Promotion Barriers for Women

The relationships between procedural justice in promotion decisions for women and contextual factors deemed as contributing to glass ceilings were examined. The contextual factors examined were a lack of female role models, limited networking opportunities for women, gender segregation, and formal career ladders. It was found that gender schema is a moderator between procedural justice and the perceived number of female role models and between procedural justice and the perception of formal career ladders. Although gender schema was not a moderator in the relationship between procedural justice and gender segregation, nor in the relationship between procedural justice and networking opportunities for women, a significant main effect was found. These results are consistent with the notion that organizational justice perceptions are products of individual cognitive processes, which develop in response to cultural expectations.     

Advancing career counseling and employment support for survivors: an intervention evaluation

The purpose of this research was to conduct a replication-based and extension study examining the effectiveness of a 5-week career group counseling intervention, Advancing Career Counseling and Employment Support for Survivors (ACCESS; Chronister, 2008). The present study was conducted in a markedly different geographic region within a larger community as compared with the original investigation conducted by Chronister and McWhirter (2006). Women survivors of intimate partner violence (N = 73) participated in ACCESS, with career-search self-efficacy, perceived career barriers, perceived career supports, anxiety, and depression assessed at preintervention, postintervention, and 8-week follow-up. Women survivors demonstrated significant improvements in career-search self-efficacy and perceived career barriers at postintervention. Moreover, these same improvements were maintained at the 8-week follow-up assessment with the addition of significant improvements in perceived future financial supports, anxiety, and depression compared with preintervention scores. This work replicates the initial findings regarding the effectiveness of ACCESS with respect to career-search self-efficacy (Chronister & McWhirter, 2006) as well as extends the initial research to include improvements in perceived career barriers and perceived career supports. Moreover, the present study extends the work to include the mental health outcomes of anxiety and depression; results demonstrated improvements in these areas at 8-week follow-up. This investigation begins to fill a critical need for evaluated career-focused interventions for the underserved population of women survivors of intimate partner violence.     

Achievement and affiliation motivation in career-oriented and homemaking-oriented college women

The purpose of this research was to investigate the possibility of an interaction between need for achievement and need for affiliation in career-oriented and homemaking-oriented college women. In the first study, scores on the appropriate scales (Achievement and Affiliation) of the Adjective Check List were obtained for 250 female college students, who were also classified as career or homemaking oriented on the basis of their responses to a questionnaire concerning postcollege plans. No significant differences were found between the career- and homemaking-oriented groups on Achievement and Affiliation; but, as predicted, a significant interaction occurred between the two variables. A second study, involving 257 college women and employing the same procedures and analysis, replicated the results of the original study: no main effects, but a significant interaction between Achievement and Affiliation. Implications of the findings for female career development and the counseling of women are discussed.     

Studies of the effects of career interest inventories: Expanding outcome criteria to include women's experiences

It is proposed here that the goal of understanding individual satisfaction with work involves the perception of how work fits into a life pattern. This perspective should assist in explaining the occupational patterns and labor force participation of women. Current research on women's experience supports the need for expansion of outcome criteria in studies of effects. In particular, there is a need for outcome measures related to type of role explored (vocational, marital, parental) and decision area (occupation, marriage, and parent). Recently reviews of the effects on students of taking interest inventories and of the effects of career interventions more generally have derived primarily from views of the career development of men. Adding outcome measures in the roles and decision areas should increase the relationship between studies of effects and the experience of women.     

Children’s career development: A research review from a learning perspective

Recent advances in career theory have resulted in widespread acceptance of the lifespan perspective on development. However, a review of research and practice conducted during 2001 revealed that little attention has been paid to the career development of children (Whiston & Brecheisen, 2002). In response to calls for a greater concentration on this important stage in the lifespan, the present article uses learning as a unifying theme to structure a research review of career development in children. This theme highlights the need to understand more holistically the influences on and the process of career development learning in children. The learning framework accommodates the dynamic and interactional nature of career development and suggests the need for dual focus research that examines the what and the how of children’s career development learning.     

Career trajectories of older women: implications for career guidance

As work and employment transitions become more frequent and difficult, the demand for formal career guidance increases. Women are likely to experience structural labour market disadvantage and may benefit from formal support that is sympathetic to their particular needs. Yet the traditional psychological paradigms that dominate career guidance practice have assumed homogeneity. To contribute both to broader debates about careers services for adults and the development of more relevant theoretical frameworks for career practice for women, results are presented from an international, comparative qualitative investigation of the career trajectories of older women (aged 45 to 65) in Australia, England and South Africa. These results confirm a need for career guidance that is nuanced and differentiated for women.     

The Influence of Psychological Separation and Parental Attachment on the Career Development of Adolescent Women

This study explored the contribution of psychological separation and parental attachment to constructs related to the career development of 282 adolescent women. Results of a canonical correlation analysis suggested that high school women who experienced similar attitudes to mother, reliance on mother for assistance in daily functioning, conflictual feelings toward mother, and freedom from the need for approval, closeness, and emotional support from father evidenced very strong career self-efficacy beliefs and moderate levels of both career orientation and realism. Thus, this study indicated that young women who experienced attachment to their mothers and were moving toward independence were interested in pursuing a career, selected careers which were mostly consistent with their ability, and felt highly efficacious with regard to choosing a career. Continued attention to the career development of young women over time is critical in order to further differentiate among the individual, relational, and societal variables that promote healthy career development as well as occupational success and satisfaction for women.