Career agility for purposive career exploration: Role of adult learners’ career orientations and digital-era world of work awareness

Abstract

Background: There is limited empirical research on the role of individuals’ career orientations, digital-era world of work awareness and career agility mindset in purposive career exploration.Objectives: The objective of this study was to assess the extent to which career orientations and awareness of the digital-era world of work contribute to a career agility mindset.Method: The cross-sectional quantitative survey involved a sample of 486 adult learners (65% women; 35% men; 85% black learners; 15% white learners; and mean age 34 years) in the economic and management sciences field.Results: Regression analysis revealed the protean-type career orientations of technical and functional competence, autonomy and independence, and pure challenge career orientations as significant predictors of digital-era world of work awareness. Digital-era world of work awareness and the technical and functional competence, pure challenge and general management career orientations acted as significant antecedents of the career agility mindset.Conclusion: The associations between the study constructs offer promising support for applying principles of career exploration theory in digital-era purposive career exploration counselling.

Employees’ career mindsets as career capital for a digital work world orientation

“…In the context of the present study, the internal career alludes to individuals' career mindsets, which are underpinned by their personal 'knowing why' career capital, that is, their career-related interests, motives, needs and values (Abessolo et al, 2017;Brown et al, 2020;Coetzee & Schreuder, 2014;Rodrigues et al, 2013;Schein & Van Maanen, 2016). Individuals' career mindsets are an essential aspect of job and occupation choices, life-long career development, stability, success and well-being in times of uncertain career and employment prospects (Abessolo et al, 2017;Coetzee, 2022;Schein & Van Maanen, 2016). However, scant attention has been given to whether distance learning employees' career mindsets as career capital influence their digital-era work world orientation (Coetzee, 2022).…”

“…Research provides evidence that individuals' insight into their career-related values and interests promotes their active engagement in and open-mindedness towards the exploration of interest-relevant job and occupation opportunities including the development of skills and experience needed to ensure their future employability (Bates et al, 2019;Clements & Kamau, 2017). In this regard, research also shows that within the contemporary increasingly more complex digital-driven work environment, in which known jobs may become obsolete and new forms of jobs and occupations may continue to arise and disappear, individuals' internal or subjective career provides a sense of psychological stability for job search behaviour and decisions (Coetzee, 2022;Coetzee & Schreuder, 2014;Schein & Van Maanen, 2016).…”

“…Individuals' career mindsets are an essential aspect of job and occupation choices, life-long career development, stability, success and well-being in times of uncertain career and employment prospects (Abessolo et al, 2017;Coetzee, 2022;Schein & Van Maanen, 2016). However, scant attention has been given to whether distance learning employees' career mindsets as career capital influence their digital-era work world orientation (Coetzee, 2022).…”

“…The present article addresses this gap in research by its aims to empirically examine the influencing role of individuals' career mindsets on their digital-era work world orientation. It is important to assess the association between these constructs to determine whether it is useful to consider individuals' career mindsets when preparing them for their careers and employability in a work world that is impacted by rapid change and evolutionary technology advancement (Coetzee, 2022;Cortellazzo et al, 2020;Valickas et al, 2019). Of importance to this study are four career mindsets that denote unique career values-driven attitudes and motivations pertaining to Schein's (1990) career anchors of pure challenge, entrepreneurial creativity, security and stability, service and dedication to a cause and general managerial competence.…”

University students’ digital world of work readiness in relation to their employability competency

“…Reskilling and upskilling human capital and, therefore, producing graduates who are perceived by themselves and others as employable, is a global national strategic research priority (Florek-Paszkowska, Ujwary-Gil & Godlewska-Dziobon, 2021). South African scholars also continue to draw attention to the students' orientation about the world of work and confidence in their own abilities on the actual world of work employability competencies required in the new normal digitally driven career space (Coetzee, 2022;Ramnund-Mansingh & Reddy, 2021).…”