The Career Paths Less (or More) Traveled: A Sequence Analysis of IT Career Histories, Mobility Patterns, and Career Success

Abstract

The career paths less (or more) traveled : a sequence analysis of IT career histories, mobility patterns, and career success

Career commitment of information technology professionals: The investment model perspective

“…Research has shown that work-related characteristics (e.g., job security, job fit, salary, autonomy, and organizational commitment) and social and environmental factors (e.g., professional socialization) are related to an employee's attitude and behavior concerning career changes. Some researchers forecast the emergence of boundaryless organizations in which individuals pursue ''boundaryless careers'' [21]. Thus, incorporating additional variables is likely to improve our understanding of ITPs' attitudes toward career commitment.…”

Towards the actors' occupational movements of technical innovation system

“…While career related movements can take many shapes and sizes, the literature informs us that these modes of movement can be classified as belonging to particular generic groups, or 'career paths'. In this paper, we follow Joseph, Boh, Ang and Slaughter's ( [18], p. 429) definition of career paths as "models or prototypes characterizing the career sequences of a group of individuals". Therefore, an individual's sequence of occupational movements become the observable manifestation of a particular career path.…”

“…The sequence of movements between occupational positions that define an individual's career fittingly conjure a path along which the individual navigates professionally over time [1,17,10,18,3]. While career related movements can take many shapes and sizes, the literature informs us that these modes of movement can be classified as belonging to particular generic groups, or 'career paths'.…”

“…[18]). In this preliminary work, we study the orientation of activities in career trajectories of the CTO (Chief Technology Officer), and senior executive in top management, responsible for the coordination of technological efforts between different business units and cooperate research, and assessing long-term strategies for technologies and R&D units [11].…”

“…By tracing the occupational sequence of CTOs, we purport to derive generic career paths that are available to this particular actors of technological innovation system. In this regard, we follow the lead of prior scholars such as Tremblay, Wils and Proulx [24] and Ranson [21], who have identified career paths of Engineers, and Joseph, Boh, Ang & Slaughter [18], who have examined career paths in the Information Technology (IT) sector. Hence, this study aims to contribute to the existed literature on career path in order to explore whether we can apply them on TIM career path argument and identify new career path types in the TIM field, while concurrently exploring connections with the educational background of the studied sample.…”