Nicky Dries

Exploring four generations' beliefs about career: Is “satisfied” the new “successful”?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether four different generations (Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y) hold different beliefs about career. Career type, career success evaluation and importance attached to organizational security are to be scrutinized for each generation.Design/methodology/approach – A total of 750 people completed a vignette task, rating the career success of 32 fictitious people. Each vignette contained a different combination of five career features (functional level, salary, number of promotions, promotion speed, and satisfaction) at two levels (low and high). Furthermore, several items were added in order to determine each participants career type and the extent to which they attached importance to organizational security.Findings – The majority of participants still had rather “traditional” careers, although younger generations seemed to exhibit larger discrepancies between career preferences and actual career situation. Overall, sati...

“Real” high‐potential careers: An empirical study into the perspectives of organisations and high potentials

Purpose – The purpose of this empirical study is to make a contribution to career theory in general, and to the literature on high‐potential careers in particular, by examining the careers of real high potentials, taking place in the twenty‐first century world of work, from the perspectives of the high potentials themselves as well as those of their organizations.Design/methodology/approach – A total of 34 interviews were conducted within three study samples: high potentials (n=14), organisational representatives employed by the same organisations that provided the high‐potential participants (n=8), and organisational representatives employed by organisations that did not allow for interviewing of their high potentials (n=12).Findings – The current study suggests that high potentials still have organisational‐traditional careers. High upward mobility, low inter‐organisational mobility and career self‐management emerged as key features of real high‐potential careers.Practical implications – Implications ar...

The Meaning of Career Success: Avoiding Reification through a Closer Inspection of Historical, Cultural, and Ideological Contexts.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which the concept of career success has been subject to reification, and identify potential implications for individuals, organizations, and societies.Design/methodology/approach – The current paper offers an in‐depth analysis of the different contextual forces contributing to the reification of careers (i.e. history, culture and ideology), and how these have impacted on the social reality of career and the definitions of career success held by different relevant actors.Findings – In total, eight research propositions are identified that need to be addressed in future research in order to advance knowledge and understanding of career success in context.Social implications – One manifest outcome of career reification is the establishment of collective norms prescribing what a “normal”, “successful” career is – and what is not. Consequently, all careers not conforming to these norms are devaluated, which is inappropriate given the present‐day c...

Using emotional intelligence to identify high potential: a metacompetency perspective

Purpose – This paper aims to demonstrate the utility of using some indication of emotional intelligence (EI) to identify high potential in managers. Presupposed correspondences between the EI Personal Factors Model (Bar‐On) and Briscoe and Halls metacompetency model of continuous learning are elucidated.Design/methodology/approach – The study sample consisted of 51 high potentials and 51 “regular” managers, matched onto one another by managerial level, gender and age. All participants completed an online survey containing Bar‐Ons Emotional Quotient Inventory, Blaus career commitment scale and a self‐anchored performance item.Findings – EQ‐i subscales: assertiveness, independence, optimism, flexibility and social responsibility appear to be “covert” high‐potential identification criteria, separating between high potentials and regular managers. Furthermore, high potentials display higher levels of job performance and, supposedly, less boundaryless career attitudes.Practical implications – Using emotiona...

Talent management and organisational justice: employee reactions to high potential identification

We examined how perceived distributive and procedural justice affected the relationship between an employees identification as a high potential (drawn from archival data), job satisfaction and work effort. A questionnaire was distributed within one large company among employees who were and employees who were not identified as a high potential (n = 203). The results indicated that perceptions of distributive justice were significantly higher for employees identified as a high potential. Moreover, perceived distributive justice fully mediated the relationship between an employees identification and his or her level of job satisfaction. The results also revealed that perceptions of procedural justice moderated the relationship between perceived distributive justice and work effort. Theoretical and practical consequences of these findings are discussed.

The role of learning agility and career variety in the identification and development of high potential employees

Purpose – A survey study was conducted in seven best practice organizations in the field of talent management. By cross‐checking their existing high potential lists, the authors aimed to examine to which extent assessments of learning agility were able to predict being identified as a high potential or not above and beyond a baseline prediction by job performance. Furthermore, they aimed to investigate whether learning agility increased with career variety.Design/methodology/approach – The study had a case‐control design, comparing supervisor ratings of employees recently identified as high potentials (n=32) with supervisor ratings of a carefully matched control group of non‐high potentials (n=31).Findings – Learning agility (mediated by job content on‐the‐job learning) was found to be a better predictor of being identified as a high potential than job performance. Career variety was found to be positively associated to learning agility.Research limitations/implications – This studys design did not allow...

Information asymmetry in high potential programs: A potential risk for psychological contract breach

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the implicit beliefs both high potentials and HR directors hold about the terms of the exchange relationship between high potential employees and their organizations. The paper positions the study within the framework of the psychological contract, exploring specifically whether strategic ambiguity and information asymmetries in high potential programs create a heightened risk of psychological contract breach. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 20 high potentials and 11 HR directors from nine different organizations were interviewed. Open and axial coding of the qualitative data was performed by three raters. Findings – Information asymmetry in high potential programs, indeed, poses a potential risk for psychological contract breach. Although strategic ambiguity can be an effective communication strategy in that it creates a power imbalance in favor of the organization, at all times a delicate balance must be maintained between leaving room for flexi...

Self-perceived employability, organization-rated potential, and the psychological contract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between self-perceived employability resources and perceived psychological contract (PC) obligations. To examine the extent to which organizational ratings of potential, through their “signaling” function, might serve as a buffer between employability and PC perceptions that are undesirable from an employers point of view. Design/methodology/approach – Both self-report data (i.e. self-perceived employability resources and perceived PC obligations) and data reported by the HR departments of the participating organizations (i.e. organizational ratings of potential) were collected in a case-control design (n=103). Findings – Self-perceived employability resources are not related to lower intentions to stay with ones current employer. High-potential employees did not perceive themselves as particularly obliged to reciprocate their organizations’ additional investments in them by expressing longer term loyalty, or a higher performance level. Pr...

Arena: A Critical Conceptual Framework of Top Management Selection

While the selection of top managers is vital to the performance and survival of organizations, the process by which these managers are selected remains uncharted territory. In this conceptual artic...While the selection of top managers is vital to the performance and survival of organizations, the process by which these managers are selected remains uncharted territory. In this conceptual article, we propose that both structural conditions of and the selection process for top management positions are different from those at lower organizational levels. We build on the existing literature on succession, tournament models, and promotion systems to characterize top management selection. The main situational component of this characterization is that of relative versus absolute selection, which leads us to adopt the “arena” as a metaphor and critical framework for top management selection. Finally, we argue that due to certain cognitive features, the arena is an efficient but not necessarily effective selection process, which may contribute to side effects and negative outcomes for organizations. We conclude by setting the agenda for further research on top management selection.

HR Directors’ Understanding of ‘Talent’: A Cross-Cultural Study

In this chapter we aim to advance understanding of the meanings attributed to ‘talent’ by HR directors across the world (N = 410), and how their ‘talent mindsets’ translate into the ways in which talent is identified and managed in their organizations. Respondents from different cultural clusters mentioned ability, skills, knowledge, and potential as high-ranking associations with talent. In addition, the HR directors seemed to agree that talent can be developed for over 50 %. We did find cultural differences relating to the extent to which organizations had an ‘inclusive’ talent management mindset, and the extent to which they relied on first impressions in their assessments of talent. In both cases, organizations from the Anglo cluster scored higher than the other clusters. This is particularly interesting in that the talent management literature is somewhat Anglo-Saxon biased (as most literature is produced in the US and the UK)—further research is necessary to examine the extent to which Anglo-Saxon approaches to talent management can be generalized (or ‘exported’) to other countries and cultures, especially within one and the same MNC. Specific implications for global talent management research and practice are spelled out.