Career management tactical innovations and successful interorganizational transitions

The facilitating effect of occupational change on job crafting and innovation performance

BackgroundAlthough occupational change is becoming commonplace for contemporary employees, it remains understudied from the theoretical perspective. With employees bringing along previous job experiences into their new roles, occupational changes potentially create favorable conditions for employees' job crafting and innovation performance.ObjectiveBased on Career Construction Theory, this study aims to gain a better understanding of the increasingly prevalent phenomenon of occupational change. Specifically, this study explores the potential facilitating effect of occupational change on job crafting and subsequently on employee innovation performance.MethodA questionnaire survey administered to 413 employees was conducted to examine the proposed hypotheses. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and a mediation analysis using bootstrapped sampling were employed in the data analyses.ResultsThe results confirmed the hypothesis that occupational change experience is positively associated with employee job crafting. Moreover, job crafting was found to play a full mediating role in the relationship between occupational change experience and employee innovation performance.ConclusionThis study serves as an exploratory attempt to better understand the new and under-researched topic of occupational change. By focusing on the new experience and capabilities that occupational changers can bring to their new jobs, this study proposes that occupational changes could potentially facilitate job crafting which further enhances innovation performance. In this vein, this study provides new theoretical insights and meaningful managerial suggestions on the topic of occupational change.

An Exploratory Study of the Current State of Career Development for Project Managers in the IT and Other Industries

Critical to project success and job satisfaction of project managers is effective Human Resource Management (HRM). The temporary nature of projects has changed the traditional career paths for project managers and the way project-oriented companies prioritize their motivation tactics. By conducting a survey to explore a general pattern of employers' HRM practices in different industries regarding the project management career, this paper presents the fact that most employers prefer on-job training to organizational career path in motivating and retaining project manager and that there is no difference between IT industry and other industries in terms of the extent of use of on-job training and the organizational career path. These findings contribute to an in-depth understanding of the project management career path and suggest that project managers be proactive in adjusting to change in the workplace by being more autonomous in their career development decisions based on the larger work environment.