Yvonne du Plessis

Highly skilled migrant women: a career development framework

Purpose – This paper aims to explore and interpret the pre‐migration and post‐migration career development and success of highly skilled professional migrant women with special reference to The Netherlands.Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory approach rooted in a phenomenological perspective was followed. Two in‐depth Interactive Qualitative Analysis (IQA) focus group sessions were held with a total of 21 self‐initiated expatriate (SIE) women.Findings – An integrated career development framework proposed in this study indicates that individual drivers such as identity, social support and life phase play a role in womens pre‐migration and post‐migration career success or exits. Identity embeddedness, host country culture, openness to foreigners and existing prejudices and stereotypes against women seems magnified for women from outside the host country.Research implications/limitations – The research results may lack generalisability, therefore more research is encouraged to further test the propo...

Self-Initiated Expatriate Women’s Careers — Reflections, Experiences and Choices

Career path perceptions have changed: employees no longer necessarily see career growth as moving upward in an organisational hierarchy (an external career), but instead focus on acquiring individual skills and competencies leading to career development across borders and companies (an internal career) (Stahl et al., 2002). Thus, career management no longer focuses on an organisation but resides with the individual, who must take responsibility for his/her own employability.

Exploring the Theoretical Relationship Between Psychological Ownership and Career Anchors

This chapter explores the possible role that individuals’ psychological ownership can play in their career anchors, since job satisfaction and commitment are common denominators of both constructs. The chapter will commence with a description and an explanation of career anchors and psychological ownership. The possible relationship between the seven dimensions of psychological ownership and the eight career anchors is explored to indicate possible linkages. Several propositions are developed, based on their theoretical relationship, and these propositions are illustrated in a proposed figure.