Career decision making, stability and actualization of career intentions: The case of entrepreneurial intentions
Hirschi, A. (2013). Career decision making, stability and actualization of career intentions: The case of entrepreneurial intentions. Journal of Career Assessment, 21(4), 555-571, doi:10.1177/1069072712475287
Abstract
Career counselors are often concerned with stability and likelihood of implementation of clients’ career intentions. It is often assumed that the status in career decision making (CDM) is one likely indicator, yet empirical support for this assumption is sparse. The present study focused on entrepreneurial career intentions (EI) and showed that German university students (N = 1,221), with high EI can be found in very different empirically derived CDM statuses that range from pre-concern to mature decidedness. Longitudinal analyses (n = 561) showed that career choice foreclosure (high decidedness/low exploration) related to more EI stability and that mature decidedness (high decidedness/high exploration) amplified effects of EI on opportunity identification, a form of EI actualization. The results imply that CDM statuses are useful to estimate stability and actualization of career intentions.
Keywords: entrepreneurial intention; career decision making; vocational identity; career exploration; career intentions
Vocational interests and career goals: Development and relations to personality in middle adolescence
Hirschi, A. (2010). Vocational interests and career goals: Development and relations to personality in middle adolescence. Journal of Career Assessment, 18(3), 223-238. doi: 10.1177/1069072710364789
Abstract
Cross-sectional research implies a close relation of vocation interests, goals, and traits, yet little is known about their reciprocal development over time. This longitudinal study examined develop ment of Things/People (T/P) and Data/Ideas (D/I) vocational interests and career goals in relation to Big Five personality traits among 292 Swiss adolescents with a cross-lagged panel design with two measurement points over 1 year from seventh to eighth grade. Interests and goals were significantly related within time and showed significant interactions across time. Traits related significantly and equally to interests and goals within time and predicted their development across time except for T/P goals. Goals and interests possessed incremental validity above traits in affecting each other. Implications include the need to account for dynamic processes in the development of goals and interests and their systematic relation to traits in theory and practice.
Keywords: vocational interests, career goals, career aspirations, personality, adolescent career development, developmental systems theory
Adaptation of career goals to self and opportunities in early adolescence
Hirschi, A. & Vondracek, F. W. (2009). Adaptation of career goals to self and opportunities in early adolescence. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 75(2),120-128. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2009.05.005
Abstract
Development of career goals that are adapted to self and opportunities is a central compo nent of adolescent career preparation. The present longitudinal study (conducted through out the eighth grade with three assessment points) investigated how 330 Swiss adolescents simultaneously adapt career goals to interests, scholastic achievement and environmental opportunities. Results demonstrated that students increasingly adapt their goals to the environment. Mean adaptation to environment related positively to degree of adaption to interests and achievement. Increased adaptation to environment over time related to increased adaptation to achievement but to decreased adaptation to interests. Gender, attended school type and nationality moderated adaptation processes. Structurally disadvantaged students (girls, lower requirements school track, immigrant students) reported more conflict in aligning adaptation to environment with adaptation to interests.