Career Construction Theory: Conceptual and Empirical Advancements

Special Issue Call for Papers for the Journal of Vocational Behavior

Cort W. Rudolph (Co-Editor)
Saint Louis University, USA

Hannes Zacher (Co-Editor)
University of Leipzig, Germany

Andreas Hirschi (Co-Editor)
University of Bern, Switzerland

Careers are changing -- dynamic and heterogeneous career patterns have resulted from the dynamic nature of work, the variable content of the psychological contract at work, emerging workforce demographic trends, as well as from macro-level developments, including broader shifts in the economic base within industrialized countries.

Recent theoretical advances have suggested that in this ever-changing career environment, people need to construct their own meaning of working. Moreover, proactivity and adaptability are important person-level characteristics for navigating increasingly complex and challenging paths across one's career. To this end, career construction theory has served as a useful meta-theoretical perspective for explaining dynamics in vocational behavior across the life course (Savickas, 1996, 2002, 2013). Findings based on career construction theory have provided a foundation for career development practice, and have provided professional career counselors with a wealth of knowledge about how to help their clients make vocational choices and construct successful and satisfying work lives. However, recent studies grounded within career construction theory have primarily focused on the measurement and correlates of career adaptability, but have not sufficiently addressed other key components of the theory.

 In this Special Issue of the Journal of Vocational Behavior, we aim to highlight a collection of papers that are representative of current trends and advances in thinking about and investigating careers from a career construction theory lens. Our hope is to showcase various contemporary ideas and rigorously-conducted empirical studies as a means of informing broader thinking about careers and to support enhanced theorizing and practice regarding these processes.

 We are especially interested in: 

• Research on (deliberate) career choices, career entry, and career adjustment based on career construction theory.
• Research on vocational tasks, transitions, and traumas, and how individuals cope with and adapt to such challenges from a career construction perspective.
• Research that takes a lifespan developmental perspective on career construction.
• Research that has implications for and evaluates career counseling based on career construction theory.
• Research concerning the antecedents, processes, and outcomes of psychosocial adaptation to career-related challenges.
• Research that takes a person-centered perspective on career construction.
• Research that deliberately extends the career construction model of adaptation (i.e., relationships among adaptivity, adaptability, adapting, and adaptation results).
• Research on specific facets of career adaptability (concern, control, curiosity, confidence).
• Research that builds upon and expands career construction theory by integrating related theoretical perspectives on career development. 

We will consider various types of submissions, including literature reviews, conceptual papers, and methodological articles; however, we are particularly interested in empirical studies that advance our understanding of the issues outlined above. We strongly encourage empirical research that investigates the linkages proposed within career construction theory (e.g., studies investigating relationships between adapting and adaptation results; those linking adaptivity to adaptability). Likewise, we invite authors to engage various established and novel methodologies, including: 

• Short- and long-term longitudinal studies
• (Quasi-) experimental studies
• Policy capturing studies
• Experience sampling/daily diary studies
• Evaluations of interventions
• Qualitative studies
• Case studies
• Measurement development/validation studies and re-evaluations of existing measurement instruments
• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses
• Conceptual and theory development papers. 

We also invite the re-analysis of publicly available datasets and urge conceptual and constructive replications. We encourage the submission of studies with strong theoretical grounding and high statistical power. We will consider null findings in studies with demonstrably adequate a priori statistical power and appropriate study design and analysis features, and that include appropriate equivalence testing. We will consider papers representing a variety of populations, including student, worker, self-employed, unemployed, managerial, and/or entrepreneurial samples. We strongly encourage papers that rely on data from multiple sources. 

Timeline for Submissions:

• Call for Papers: April 1^st 2017
• 1,000 Word Proposals Due to Cort W. Rudolph (rudolphc@slu.edu): August 1^st 2017
• Full Papers Invited & expected to be submitted: September 1^st 2017
• Deadline for Full Papers: March 1^st 2018
• Final Decisions on Papers: November 1^st 2018
• Issue Published: Jan 31^st 2019 

Contact:

Cort W. Rudolph
Saint Louis University
Department of Psychology
Industrial and Organizational Psychology
3700 Lindell Boulevard
Morrissey Hall 2827
St. Louis, MO, 63108
U.S.A.
Phone:  +1(314) 977-7299
Email: rudolphc@slu.edu

Hannes Zacher
University of Leipzig
Institute of Psychology
Department of Work and Organizational Psychology
Neumarkt 9-19
04109 Leipzig
Germany
Phone: +49 341 97 35932
Email: hannes.zacher@uni-leipzig.de

Andreas Hirschi
University of Bern
Institute for Psychology
Fabrikstrasse 8
3012 Bern
Switzerland
Phone: +41 31 631 40 45
Email: andreas.hirschi@psy.unibe.ch

https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-vocational-behavior/call-for-papers/career-construction-theory-conceptual-and-empirical-advancem