Crossing national boundaries: A typology of qualified immigrants' career orientations

Abstract

SummaryThis qualitative study examines objective-subjective career interdependencies within a sample of 45 qualified immigrants (QIs) in Canada, Spain and France. The particular challenges in this type of self-initiated international careers arise from the power of institutions and local gatekeepers, the lack of recognition for QIs' foreign career capital, and the need for proactivity. Resulting from primary data analysis, we identify six major themes in QIs' subjective interpretations of objective barriers: Maintaining motivation, managing identity, developing new credentials, developing local know-how, building a new social network and evaluating career success. Secondary data analysis distinguishes three QI career orientations-embracing, adaptive and resisting orientations-with each portraying distinct patterns of motivation, identity and coping. This study extends the boundaryless career perspective by providing a more fine-grained understanding of how qualified migrants manage both physical and psychological mobility during self-initiated international career transitions. With regards to the interdependence between objective and subjective career aspects, it illustrates the importance of avoiding preference to one side at the neglect of the other, or treating the two sides as independent of one another. Practical implications are proposed for career management efforts and receiving economies.

International opportunities on the way up: alternative career paths of descendants of migrants from Turkey in the field of professional business services

“…Although, as Schinkel (2007Schinkel ( , 2013 argues, they cannot logically be "outside" of their societies as the dominant integration paradigm conceptualizes them, migrants and their descendants are continuously confronted with discrimination and exclusion. Nonetheless, the presented ideal type career paths are consistent with the embracing and adaptive career orientations identified by Zikic, Bonache, and Cerdin (2010). That is to say, their reflections on their career paths and prospects were overwhelmingly positive, whereas there was no compelling evidence of a lack of motivation to adapt in the face of obstacles.…”

“…External events might disturb career plans to the extent they could be subjectively perceived as individual turning points (Strauss 1959). This could necessitate a reorientation or re-evaluation of career paths (Zikic, Bonache, and Cerdin 2010). The resulting alternative pathways can be considered as successful attempts at contributing to, or even remaking the mainstream.…”

“…Especially persons employed in corporate settings usually have to follow specialized training that equips them for their increasingly standardized capital-and knowledge-intensive service jobs. Zikic, Bonache, and Cerdin (2010) distinguished three dominant career orientations of qualified migrants − embracing, adaptive and resisting − each with its own distinct patterns of motivation, identity and coping. Similar to their analytical approach that they base on subjective interpretations of objective barriers, this article identifies three "ideal type" alternative career paths for children of lower educated migrants from Turkey who occupy leading positions in the field of professional business services.…”

High-skilled female immigrants: career strategies and experiences

“…Former studies on the experiences of skilled immigrants examined a variety of samples who moved, for example, from Lebanon (Al and North African or European countries to France , from several countries to Canada, Spain, and France (Zikic et al, 2010) and Norway (Fossland, 2013), from Sri Lanka to New Zealand (Tharmaseelan et al, 2010), from Southeast Europe to Western Europe (Winterheller and Hirt, 2017), from Poland to Ireland (Pearson et al, 2012), and from India, China, Pakistan, Iran and Bangladesh to Canada (George et al, 2012).…”

Explorer la mobilité internationale à travers le discours des grandes entreprises1

“…Palabras claves: discurso, grandes grupos franceses y alemanes, la movilidad internacional, carrera lité internationale, la littérature privilégiant une approche centrée la carrière globale de l'individu (Suutari et Taka, 2004;Dickmann et Harris, 2005;Dickmann et Doherty, 2010;Zikic, Bonache et Cerdin, 2010). L'objectif de cette recherche est de savoir comment les grands groupes valorisent la mobilité internationale dans leurs discours officiels -et notamment via Internet.…”