Who is successful in career development? A person-centered approach to the study of career orientation profiles
Career Development International
ISSN: 1362-0436
Article publication date: 8 November 2023
Issue publication date: 6 December 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This research examined the presence of career orientation profiles by investigating how young workers combined protean career orientation attitudes, motivation to learn to develop one's career and an optimistic future perspective on their career. It explored how a differentiated endorsement of these attitudes and motivation (i.e. career orientation profiles) were associated with the adoption of multiple career-enhancing behaviors, namely proactive career behaviors (i.e. career planning, networking and skill development) and learning behaviors with technologies.
Design/methodology/approach
Latent profile analysis was conducted among young individuals starting their career (N = 767) and found four distinct profiles.
Findings
The first profile revealed that 17.2% of workers in this sample were displaying low levels in protean career orientation, motivation to learn and optimistic future time perspective (profile 1). Two differentiated profiles showed either low levels of protean career orientation and high levels of motivation to learn (profile 2) or high levels of protean career attitudes and low levels of motivation to learn (profile 3). These profiles presented an average level of future time perspective and represented 13.8 and 40.6% of the sample. Finally, 28.4% of the sample showed high levels on all these variables (profile 4).
Originality/value
Only young workers who showed high levels on all these indicators also presented high levels of proactive behaviors and learning with technologies. The other three profiles were associated with suboptimal levels on these outcomes. Taken together, these results offer new insights into the psychological state of mind of workers most adapted to succeed in a modern career.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The first two authors (Nicolas Bazine and Léandre Alexis Chénard-Poirier) contributed equally to the preparation of this article. Both should be considered as first authors.
Citation
Bazine, N., Chénard-Poirier, L.A., Battistelli, A. and Lagabrielle, M.-C. (2023), "Who is successful in career development? A person-centered approach to the study of career orientation profiles", Career Development International, Vol. 28 No. 6/7, pp. 772-792. https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-11-2022-0301
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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