An examination of the Psychology of Working Theory with racially and ethnically diverse employed adults.

Abstract

The present study tested key tenets of the Psychology of Working Theory (PWT) in a sample of 526 racially and ethnically diverse employed adults. The authors investigated how economic resources and marginalization predicted decent work through experiences of work volition and career adaptability. Support for the hypotheses was mixed. There was a direct, negative relation between marginalization and decent work; a direct, positive relation between economic resources and work volition; and a direct, negative relation between marginalization and work volition. There was a positive relation between work volition and career adaptability as well as with decent work. Work volition was also found to significantly mediate the relations between marginalization and economic resources to decent work. These results suggest that the primary reason why greater economic resources and lower experiences of marginalization predict engaging in decent work is attributable to an increased sense of choice in one's career decision making. Results suggest the need for further investigation using the PWT to understand how racially and ethnically diverse employed adults secure decent work. Practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Examining Predictors and Outcomes of Decent Work Perception with Chinese Nursing College Students

“…Those who have the capacity to make their own career-related decisions tend to have positive decent work opinions. The majority of studies support this assumption empirically [9,10,56]. Therefore, the study advanced the fifth hypothesis: Hypothesis 5 (H5).…”

“…Decent work plays a central role in the model, and it has five components: safe working conditions, access to health care, sufficient compensation, free time and rest during the work week, and values match between working place and family [8]. Previous studies have tested the model in various countries, such as Brazil [17], South Korea [18], Switzerland [19], UK [20], Italy [21], Turkey [22], Portugal [23], and China [9], and in various sorts of respondents, such as low-income employees [24], people who suffer from Chiari malformation [25], racially and ethnically diverse employees [10], and emerging adults [11].…”

“…Based on these theoretical and practical calls, the psychology of working theory (PWT) [8] is proposed; it explains an individual's career advancement by discussing contextual and socio-psychological factors simultaneously. To date, PWT is utilized to understand career behaviors of various groups, including working adults [9], marginalized grown-ups [10], and college students [11]. Few studies so far have examined constructs from the PWT with nursing college students, tested its application to a Chinese college sample, and linked the future decent work perceptions with students' actual career exploration behaviors.…”

Decent Work’s Association With Job Satisfaction, Work Engagement, and Withdrawal Intentions in Australian Working Adults

“…However, Douglas et al found no direct effect of career adaptability on decent work. Other research has affirmed a predictive relations between marginalization and decent work and, indirectly via work volition, in an ethnically-diverse American sample; however, again, there was no predictive relation with career adaptability (Duffy et al, 2018). Career adaptability has, nonetheless, been found to predict decent work in other samples (e.g., Tokar & Kaut, 2018).…”

The Psychology of Working in Practice: A Theory of Change for a New Era

“…Research has begun to build substantive empirical evidence for the utility of PWT (e.g., Autin, Duffy, Jacobson, Dosani, & Bott, 2018;Douglass, Velez, Conlin, Duffy, & England, 2017;Duffy et al, 2018;Kossen & McIlveen, 2018;Tokar & Kaut, 2018). Additionally, PWT tenets rest on a foundation of previous empirical work linking contextual variables, work volition, career adaptability, and well-being (e.g., Duffy et al, 2012;Zacher, 2014).…”