Abstract
Career customization has been suggested as a sustainable solution to the mismatch between traditional career models and the needs of today's workforce. We examine career consequences of Mass Career Customization (MCC) in a Professional Service Firm (PSF). This customization allows employees to tailor their career development up or down on four dimensions (pace, workload, location/schedule, responsibility). Using a multiple wave research design in a firm setting, we explore the impact of customizing up or down on objective and subjective career outcomes by gender and parental status over time. While MCC has some positive outcomes (e.g. increased career satisfaction for fathers customizing down; increased performance evaluations for mothers customizing down), MCC also has negative career consequences that can be explained by flexibility stigma, especially for fathers who deviate from the ideal worker norm inherent in PSFs. Our findings inform the debate around the impact of organizational practices generally considered to facilitate sustainable careers. We give practical recommendations for the conditions under which career customization can flourish in a PSF context as well as lessons for promoting sustainable careers in other organizational settings.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 103320 |
| Journal | Journal of Vocational Behavior |
| Volume | 117 |
| Early online date | 1 Sept 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2020 |
Funding
This research got funded by a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship FP7 grant. Contract number PIEF-GA-2010-273824 . We thank the Amsterdam Canter for Career Research at VU Amsterdam for its support. Appendix A Table 1 Sample demographics for overall sample and MCC career profiles. Table 1 t 2 t 3 Overall sample n = 464 n = 434 29% women 29% women M = 33.52 age ( SD = 8.67; range 18–60) M = 34.32 age ( SD = 8.67; range 19–61) 38% parent 43% parent M = 44.35 ( SD = 7.93) hours M = 44.27 ( SD = 8.21) hours Career choice - up n = 37 (8%) n = 25 (6%) 19% women 36% women M = 30.32 age ( SD = 6.10) M = 30.56 age ( SD = 6.17) 19% parent 20% parent M = 49.05 ( SD = 5.63) hours M = 50.2 ( SD = 8.10) hours Career choice - common n = 380 (82%) n = 345 (80%) 26% women 23% women M = 33.59 age ( SD = 8.78) age M = 34.27 age ( SD = 8.57) 36% parent 41% parent M = 44.98 ( SD = 7.49) hours M = 45.39 ( SD = 7.53) hours Career choice - down n = 47 (10%) n = 64 (14%) 57% women 58% women M = 37.04 age ( SD = 9.84) M = 36.10 age ( SD = 9.53) 66% parent 58% parent M = 35.53 ( SD = 6.73) hours M = 36.42 ( SD = 7.29) hours Note : This sample is representative for the organization (30% female, mean age 33 years); hours = actual hours per week. Table 2 Mean scores as a function of MCC choice, gender and parental status at t 1 , t 2 , t 3 . Table 2 Source t 1 t 2 t 3 M SE M SE M SE Career satisfaction Up Mothers a 2.65 0.35 Non-mothers 3.62 0.19 3.71 0.18 Fathers 3.61 0.19 3.61 0.28 Non-fathers 3.60 0.10 3.86 0.14 Common Mothers 3.56 0.73 3.66 0.10 3.53 0.10 Non-mothers 3.47 0.63 3.58 0.06 3.47 0.07 Fathers 3.67 0.56 3.52 0.05 3.61 0.05 Non-fathers 3.55 0.68 3.54 0.04 3.60 0.04 Down Mothers 3.48 0.11 3.22 0.10 Non-mothers 3.56 0.17 3.59 0.14 Fathers 3.66 0.14 3.55 0.14 Non-fathers 3.56 0.17 3.40 0.13 Career ambition Up Mothers a 4.01 0.32 Non-mothers 3.83 0.16 3.57 0.17 Fathers 3.87 0.16 4.04 0.26 Non-fathers 3.67 0.08 3.76 0.13 Common Mothers 3.58 0.72 3.76 0.08 3.70 0.09 Non-mothers 3.65 0.69 3.64 0.05 3.54 0.04 Fathers 3.50 0.73 3.63 0.04 3.61 0.04 Non-fathers 3.79 0.65 3.64 0.03 3.55 0.04 Down Mothers 3.54 0.10 3.54 0.09 Non-mothers 3.40 0.15 3.60 0.13 Fathers 3.75 0.12 3.32 0.13 Non-fathers 3.40 0.15 3.57 0.12 Performance evaluations Up Mothers a a Non-mothers 5.20 0.43 4.44 0.51 Fathers 4.86 0.27 5.00 0.50 Non-fathers 5.54 0.25 4.77 0.42 Common Mothers 4.82 0.26 4.58 0.23 4.96 0.25 Non-mothers 5.00 0.18 5.12 0.14 4.79 0.18 Fathers 4.84 0.15 5.10 0.12 4.81 0.12 Non-fathers 4.84 0.12 5.00 0.10 4.92 0.11 Down Mothers 5.31 0.30 4.63 0.29 Non-mothers 4.94 0.43 5.00 0.41 Fathers 4.43 0.30 4.87 0.41 Non-fathers 5.41 0.61 6.30 0.50 a No respondents in this category. Table 3 Unstandardized parameter estimates for dependent variables at t n+1 . Table 3 Career satisfaction Career ambition Performance evaluation t 1 to t 2 t 2 to t 3 t 1 to t 2 t 2 to t 3 t 1 to t 2 t 2 to t 3 Controls Dependent variable at t n 0.60 ⁎⁎⁎ 0.59 ⁎⁎⁎ 0.77 ⁎⁎⁎ 0.75 ⁎⁎⁎ 0.47 ⁎⁎⁎ 0.57 ⁎⁎⁎ Men b −0.15 0.08 −0.13 −0.07 0.52 ~ −0.15 No kids b −0.08 −0.06 −0.12 −0.15 0.54 −0.17 Main effects MCC up 0.07 −0.88 ⁎⁎ 0.39 0.32 −0.69 −0.01 MCC down −0.19 −0.31 ⁎ −0.21 ~ −0.15 0.73 ⁎ −0.33 Interaction MCC up × Male 0.02 0.88 ⁎ −0.16 0.11 0.45 0.21 MCC down × Male 0.33 0.25 a −0.15 −1.40 ⁎⁎ 0.38 MCC up × No kids −0.03 1.12 ⁎⁎ −0.20 −0.30 0.77 ⁎ −0.34 MCC down × No kids 0.16 0.44 ⁎ −0.02 0.21 −0.91 0.55 MCC up × Male × No kids a −0.87 ~ a 0.09 a a MCC down × Male × No kids −0.30 −0.58 ⁎ a 0.11 1.99 ⁎⁎ 0.78 ~ p < .10. ⁎ p < .05. ⁎⁎ p < .01. ⁎⁎⁎ p < .001. a No respondents in this category. b Men and no kids as reference category against which other subgroups are compared.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Seventh Framework Programme | PIEF-GA-2010-273824 |
Keywords
- Flexibility stigma
- Mass Career Customization
- Objective and subjective career success
- Sustainable careers
