Issues Concerning the Interpretation and Assessment of Career Adaptability: Perspective from Hong Kong, China

Abstract

The concept of career adaptability has been widely applied across cultural and educational settings in the hope of finding working solutions to facilitate school-to-work transition. In Hong Kong, China, there are signs showing that career adaptability scores are increasingly being used as the dominant benchmark to measure the effectiveness of career interventions designed for student populations. However, this concept is developed primarily based on western values. For it to fulfill its theoretical promises, the concept needs to be reinterpreted in the local context. This means that issues concerning the measurement and interpretation of career adaptability need to be clarified due to cultural differences. This paper attempts to address this issue by reviewing published studies on adaptability across other disciplines of psychology. Results showed that most published studies in Hong Kong on career adaptability did not use data and methodological triangulation research methodologies. Overall, this review shows that a reductionist approach has been applied to the study of career adaptability in Hong Kong. The current understanding of career adaptability remains largely at the psychological level only. Cognitive and behavioral changes are seldom studied or reported despite their importance. Implications on how future research could be enhanced are discussed.

Assessing factor structure and reliability of the career adaptability scale in students with special educational needs

“…These evaluation results would be valuable recourses for school stakeholders’ development of productive career guidance activities to support students with diverse needs in Hong Kong and other countries/regions. As Wong (2022) argued in a review of career adaptability, given that this contract was typically developed in Western cultures, cross-cultural empirical studies, as well as appropriate interpretations of career adaptability concerning local contexts of different research designs, need to be recognized and strengthened.…”

“…However, Salimi et al (2022) did not examine the factor structure and the four dimensions of career adaptability. In a recent review conducted by Wong (2022) , this scholar reviewed 463 published studies on career adaptability in a range of disciplines of psychology and found that “most published studies in Hong Kong on career adaptability did not use data and methodological triangulation research methodologies” (p. 181).…”

Grit and Career Construction among Chinese High School Students: The Serial Mediating Effect of Hope and Career Adaptability

“…Career construction theory and career adaptability may contain different dimensions in China compared to elsewhere that reflect Chinese cultural values [74]. A recent review study showed that flexibility and creativity are essential career adaptability resources in Chinese culture [75], which presents an opportunity to design an appropriate career adaptability measurement according to the cultural context in China. Researchers should also consider parental influence (e.g., parents' education and occupation), an essential factor in adolescents' career construction in Chinese culture.…”

Development obstacles of the agent accounting industry in China’s Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area based on quantitative analysis—Research on the problem of employee’s work attitude

“…On one hand, in terms of life-long learning, it is important to update knowledge and acquire new abilities continuous to increase one’s career development potential. On the other hand, it can boost one’s confidence and gain more sense of assertiveness ( Wang, 2021 ). Therefore, organizing “small group” training not only improves the professional ability of employees, but also promotes the spirit of learning from each other.…”