Collaboration for the Cross Cultural Study of Contemporary Careers
Michael Dickmann and Emma Parry
Steve Macaulay
We are becoming increasingly aware that contemporary careers are
changing. Now Cranfield is taking a leading role in a consortium that
is taking a global look at this issue. To help me in the studio today to
explore this issue is Michael Dickmann and Emma Parry.
Now, Michael, let’s first of all say a bit more about the consortium
that you are involved in and what it is about.
Michael Dickmann
The consortium is called 5C – The Collaboration for the Cross Cultural
Study of Contemporary Careers. It was set up because we realised
that there is incredibly few studies around issues that compare
careers in different countries. So what we are doing is we are
systematically looking at perceptions of career success and transition
and how they come about and some of the outcomes of these career
success issues around the world.
Steve Macaulay
So, Emma, let’s have a look at where we have got to so far; you are
one of the co-directors, with Michael, of the survey phase, but let’s
see where things are now.
Emma Parry
The collaboration has been in existence for probably three or four
years now and during that time we have done quite extensive
research in around twelve countries to start with, looking at how
people actually conceptualise career success, the career transitions
that they make and the factors that affect those.
So this has been quite large scale qualitative research, we have looked
at three groups of occupations – those being nurses, blue collar
workers and managers – and then we have looked at two different
age groups – people that have just started their careers, so a younger
age group and people who have nearly finished their careers, if you
like, so people in their fifties and beyond. And really asked them
some questions around their careers to date; how they conceptualise
careers success to try and build a picture of how this differs across
countries and age groups.
Steve Macaulay
Now, Michael, there are some themes coming out of this – where are
we heading with it?
Michael Dickmann
We are heading with this picture as Emma said, to understand some
of the commonalities around the world and some issues and areas
where career perceptions differ. I think it is important to point out
how unique this research actually is. We are operating in six
continents – in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia
and Australia – and we cover the key economies, if you want to call it
that. So we would have in North America, for example, Canada, the
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Michael Dickmann and Emma Parry
US, Mexico. In Asia we would cover China, Japan, Turkey, Malaysia.
In Europe - a whole range of countries.
What we found is that some of the research input or output that we
already know in terms of personalities important for careers is being
verified by us. We know now that in countries where we didn’t have
the information that the self-directed careers and the individual as a
master of his or her career is a trend that looks to be worldwide. But
we also know that in certain countries the context is different and
therefore individuals and organisations behave differently, which is an
important ramification for approaches in careers.
Steve Macaulay
Now Emma, I think you have got a very interesting example of how
national contexts can affect perceptions of careers?
Emma Parry
Yes, I think if we take careers success for instance, so how people
conceptualise careers success, now we see there are some
commonalities across countries. So career success is always really
about the person – so either about job satisfaction or making a
difference, something like that, or it is about the job, so the actual
content of the job or it is about interaction with the environment, so
about work life balance or actually the interaction which is going on.
So for instance, what we see is that at one level there is lots of
commonality. So, for instance, financial outcomes are important to
everyone, but what we see is in the Western world that is about
buying things, it is about having a lot of money if you like perhaps
and actually earning a decent wage. Whereas in the developing
world it becomes more about looking after your family and about
financial survival. So while at one level it is all about finances, at
another level, actually in the detail there are some differences there.
Steve Macaulay
Interesting; so Michael let’s come back to some outputs so far.
What else have you found?
Michael Dickmann
Well while we look at country differences – developing world,
developed world – we also looked at occupational differences and
within our three areas of nurses, blue collar workers and managers
and graduates of business schools, we found for example that it is
most important for managers the work life balance compared to the
other occupations. We have some explanations attached to it; they
relate to how you can shut out work when you go home, how you
work with your brains and it is mental work and therefore you
cannot – but that would mean that these occupational differences
actually have an impact on how organisations should develop their
human resource management to take care of those.
Steve Macaulay
So we are at an early stage in this; can you describe where this is
heading next?
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Michael Dickmann and Emma Parry
Michael Dickmann
We internally call it the second phase; what we have done so far was
qualitative research, we are now entering a survey phase. This is
led by Emma and me here in Cranfield, where we will look at over 30
countries and really in essence create a picture of career success,
the outcomes associated with career success, the inputs to career
success and if you want to call it, we will put together a world map
that will mirror the commonalities and the differences. This would
be tremendously important for individuals to understand their
context better, for organisations how to manage careers better
because one of the messages we got from the first phase is that
organisations, despite the fact that the individuals are the masters of
their careers, they are delivering the context and they still have to
actively manage their careers.
And ultimately it will give us really good insights into global trends,
regional trends, local trends, which complements our work here
around global careers, human resource management, national and
international, multinational corporations and expatriation.
Steve Macaulay
Some good news, you have already produced some output in the
form of a book – can you describe that?
Michael Dickmann
Yes; the book is called Careers around the World, it has just been
published – 2012 is the official publication date. We are looking at
individual perspectives in these different countries, but also at their
context and that is the occupational context, it is the national
context and so on. We mentioned some of the outputs, but it is an
incredibly rich document and therefore it is well worth a read.
Steve Macaulay
That is good news; Michael, Emma thank you very much.
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