Portrayal of Skilled Migrants' Careers in Business and Management Studies: A Review of the Literature and Future Research Agenda

The influence of complexity, chance and change on the career crafting strategies of SIEs

Purpose

Externalities influence the career trajectories of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) and their respective career crafting. This study aims to explore the international career crafting of SIEs (encompassing their proactive career reflection and construction), taking the combined external influences of complexity, chance and change into consideration.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors employ a qualitative (interpretative) approach, combining career crafting and the chaos theory of careers (CTC) to further understand, from an individual standpoint, the impact of externalities on the career crafting strategies of 24 SIEs who have relocated within the European Union.

Findings

The authors show that SIEs' proactively craft their careers to varying degrees and with varying frequency. The CTC – incorporating complexity, chance and change – allows for a more nuanced understanding of SIEs' career crafting.

Originality/value

This paper applies the concept of career crafting to an international context, exploring the impact of externalities on SIEs' careers. In this way, the authors combine two previously separate theories, extend the application of career crafting to an international career context and emphasise the role of temporality and the whole-life view of career in SIEs’ career crafting approach.

A Black-Box yet To Be Opened: Multi-level Processes During Migrants’ Organizational Socialization

Migrants entering a new country also search for belonging. Through employment, migrants work in organizations and experience socialization in these new contexts. Thereby, organizations offer migrants a wide range of possibilities for identification and are thus places to regain a sense of belonging. We rely on prior research showing what migrants experience during the process of organizational socialization to organizational identification, more specifically through (a) sense-making which (b) provides self-esteem and self-enhancement, and (c) reduces uncertainty. Furthermore, we also investigate the interplay of various in-groups (multiple cultures) and levels (micro, meso, macro) that migrants identify with. Consequently, we follow a cross-level approach to identity in and beyond organizations and combine migration, organizational, and intercultural research. Based on a qualitative interview study in Germany, we highlight how positive organizational identification results not only in companies’ workforce retention but also in migrants’ increased societal identification. Moreover, we emphasize the important role German colleagues play in the socialization process across various levels. They serve as socialization agents being individual interaction partners and team members, but also representatives of professional cultures and of the German society. In sum, our research yields important theoretical and practical implications. We provide interesting avenues for future research to uncover the complex interrelationships in more detail, open up the black-box of organizational socialization, and rely on interdisciplinarity in a complementary way. Human Resources Management could consider identification as a multi-layered opportunity, recognize the potentials of migrants’ identification, and thus strive for the sustainable development of their competencies.

Restrictive Reciprocal Obligations: Perceptions of Parental Role in Career Choices of Sub-Saharan African Migrant Youths

This study employed interpretivist, grounded theory method and utilized semi-structured interviews to explore how 31 African migrant high school and university students from eight sub-Saharan African representative countries and currently residing in Townsville, Australia, perceived the roles of their parents in their career development. The study findings revealed that the support (financial, social and emotional) and encouragement (sacrificial love, role modeling and guidance) received from parents underpinned the youths’ perceptions of their parents as influential in their career trajectories. Though participants acknowledged their indebtedness to parents and the system that nurtured them, they faced a dilemma conforming to parental preference or personal conviction, which presented “a fork in the career decision-making road.” Study findings indicate that participants’ reactions and strategies for negotiating parental approval differ based on entry status and gender. Most participants, particularly those with professional entry status, conformed to their parents’ career choice for fear of failure, while a few who followed their personal interests negotiated parental approval through dialogue and educating parents. Male participants with humanitarian entry status opposed their parents’ career preferences and followed their own personal interests. Taken together, all participants had strong desire to obtain parental approval and whether sought early or later, the main focus for all participants was prioritizing family needs and obligations. The practical implications of these findings for all stakeholders are discussed.

Perceived Employability of Highly Skilled Migrant Women in STEM: Insights from Labor Market Intermediaries’ Professionals

While global economies are in a tremendous need for talented workers that could fill vacancies in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, available evidence shows that highly skilled migrants with a background in these fields are not protected from brain waste and deskilling. In this paper, we add to the previous literature on the employability of highly skilled migrant women from the specific—and under-investigated—perspective of labor market intermediaries. We specifically investigate what the barriers and resources are for employability of highly skilled migrant women in STEM, as perceived by labor market intermediaries’ professionals; and what the training needs are that labor market intermediaries’ professionals perceive to effectively work with this target group. We use unique explorative survey data collected in 2018 in five countries (Greece, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom) from professionals working in diverse labor market intermediary organizations. We find that these professionals perceive the employability of migrant women in STEM as rather low, and strongly determined by migrant women’s psychological capital. Professionals in Southern Europe perceive structural barriers as more important than those in other countries. Professionals display training needs related to ad-hoc mentoring and networking competences for this specific target group. We discuss theoretical and practical implications.

Exploring flexible home arrangements – an interview study of workers who live in vans

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to understand the lived experience of workers who live in vans to explore how work and non-work interact when one's living environment is mobile.

Design/methodology/approach

In this qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were carried out with 18 participants. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts, coded while listening to each interview recording, provided a rich account of the interaction of work and non-work life domains.

Findings

Several themes were identified, including seeing the van as a home, hidden or disclosed identity stemming from living in a van, financial freedom, career freedom and work/non-work synchronization. Overall, findings suggest that flexible home arrangements, the relocation of one's home to adapt to work, aligned work and non-work domains to positively impact their overall work and non-work satisfaction, providing career freedom and expanded career opportunities.

Research limitations/implications

The understanding of workers who live in vans broadens one’s understanding of mobile work and the work/non-work interface, providing insight into the dual alignment of work and home to accommodate each other, which the authors term work/non-work synchronization.

Originality/value

This is one of the first studies to consider van living from a work and career perspective and for the first time conceptualizes the notion of flexible home arrangements.

Skilled immigrants: a resettlement information literacy framework

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of skilled immigrants’ lived experience of using information to learn about their new setting.

Design/methodology/approach

Thematic analysis was conducted on a qualitative data set collected through 16 semi-structured interviews with newly arrived skilled immigrants in Australia.

Findings

The study uncovered six different themes of experiencing using information to learn among skilled immigrants. The themes, presented as a framework, explain skilled immigrants learn about their new life through: attending to shared stories by others; getting engaged; researching; comparing and contrasting past and present; being reflective; and being directly educated.

Research limitations/implications

The study presents the theory-to-practice translation approach of “information experience design” that enables the enactment of theoretical understanding of information research.

Originality/value

The study invites, encourages and enables information professionals to take part in interdisciplinary conversations about integration of skilled immigrants in their host countries. Using the presented framework in the study, information professionals will be able to explain skilled immigrants’ learning about their new setting from an information lens. This provides information professionals an opportunity to work with immigration service stakeholders to help them incorporate the presented framework in their real-world practice and service. Such practice and services are of potential to support newly arrived skilled immigrants to become more information literate citizens of the host society who can participate more fully in their host society.