Self-awareness and Career Management: Mobility and Job Embeddedness - Article Example

Mobility and Job Embeddedness What do you understand by the concept of mobility and job embeddedness? How do these concepts help us to analyze how graduates might move around the world when managing their career? Mobility is defined as the movement of people (The Free Dictionary, 2010). Mobility is interpreted from different dimensions. For instance, sociology views mobility as the movement of people from one social group to the other, within a population or between institutions. On the other hand, mobility in the field of engineering and science refers to the movement of particles etc. Conversely, economic mobility is concerned with the improvement in the economic conditions of people. Job mobility is explained in terms of movement that people make for the sake of job. However one quality remains the same: all dimensional analyses of mobility have the aspect of movement common to them. From the perspective of employment, labor mobility is an important and recurring terminology. Labor mobility is defined the ability of workers and the ease with which they can switch between different employment activities (Jütting & Laiglesia, 2009). Labor mobility is an important indicator of how flexible the market of a country is. The more the mobility, the more matching is present between the workers and their jobs. The significance of labor mobility lies in the fact that the more the job is suited to the person, the higher the returns, a factor that is valued greatly for the reduction of poverty. Labor mobility does not necessarily entail shifting between formal and informal markets. It can generally be regarded as the individual changes that are brought about by the movement of people between jobs in the labor market activity. Therefore labor mobility is generally classed into job mobility and spatial mobility. Job mobility refers to the movement of people between jobs whereas spatial mobility is related to the geographical relocation of people for the purpose of employment. Job mobility is further divided into industrial and occupational mobility, dealing with changes in industry and the occupation respectively (Jütting & Laiglesia, 2009). Job embeddedness encompasses all the factors that are responsible for keeping a person from leaving his or her jobs. It is indicative of overall construct or the glue due to which the person does not leave his or her job. Embeddedness has also been described as the notion that relates to the “contingent nature of economic action with respect to social cognition, social structure, institutions and culture” (Griffeth & Hom, 2004). Job embeddedness does not constitute the mere aspect of leaving one’s job. It also encompasses the relationship between the worker and the organization and social factors that influence it. There are three main facets of job embeddedness. These include the links between the people and the organization, the fit referring to the degree of compatibility that the worker feels with the environment that he or she prefers to work in and that of the organization. Lastly, the third aspect of job embeddedness includes sacrifice, entailing the cost of material or the psychological advantages that the person would be devoid of after leaving the job. According to a research conducted by Terence Mitchell and Thomas Lee the level of embeddedness can help establish well in advance if the worker will leave the job or not (Finnegan & Finnegan, 2009). Job embeddedness is important in determining whether an employee will continue doing a job. For people moving around the world, there are various aspects of job embeddedness that can affect their decision to take up or leave a job. One of these aspects relates to the sacrifice that the employee gives in terms of lost psychological or material benefits when considering leaving a job. If a person finds a new job opportunity, he would tend to weigh the benefits of accepting the potential job against the merits of the current job. There are various factors that can convince the employee to stay in the same job. Side bets refer to the investments made by the individual in the organization and include time, amount of hard work put in etc. The notion of sink cost would reduce the job and spatial mobility of the employee as it would discourage him or her from leaving the job. Age and experience will also affect the employee’s decision. Employees who are looking for job security due to advancing age would not prefer being very mobile. Moreover those with great experience gained from an organization would hesitate from leaving the organization. With experience comes the respect that the person has earned over the years. The seniority and the self-satisfaction that comes along with the job are likely to make the employee consider if leaving the organization would be a wise option. Furthermore, continuance commitment contributes to the reluctance that the person feels from leaving a job (Griffeth & Hom, 2004). Therefore employees moving around the world would feel glued to the organization that they are working with if they regard continuance commitment, age, experience etc as important benefits that they derive from it. If the person feels that there is a lot of compatibility between the job he has found and his personality, he would prefer leaving the organization he is working with currently. This is because the worker would feel that greater compatibility would improve his performance and be beneficial for his career. This person-organization fit constitutes the similarity between the personality qualities, beliefs and values of the person with the norms, work ethics and culture of the organization (Griffeth & Hom, 2004). Organizational identity is related to the connection that the employee feels with the organization and being a part of it. The person would regard the successes and failures of the organization as his own. Therefore organizational identity is consistent with the self-identity of the person. If the employee feels that a particular job is more gratifying and there is a merger of the self with the organization, the employee will find that job to be more suitable for the progress of his or her career (Griffeth & Hom, 2004). As an employee moves around the world, jobs that demand the knowledge and expertise he or she has are going to appeal to him or her. Jobs which align with the life needs of the individual and inculcate his skills and passion are going to advance his career (Harrington & Hall, 2007). Advancement in career can occur only if the person is able to work in an organization that requires the usage of skills that the person has. Therefore, finding a person-job fit is also going to cause a person to accept that job and settle there, limiting further job mobility (Griffeth & Hom, 2004). Another important factor that can influence job and spatial mobility are family responsibilities. People may be compelled to look for more jobs if the current job is not able to provide for the financial needs of the family. Spatial mobility is also limited by the marital status of the person or closeness to family. People mostly prefer jobs closer to the place where their relatives live. It is not the just the benefits that a person gains from an organization that would affect his choice of job. The leadership, the perks offered and the training and career advancement programs that are present at the organization also determine the person’s choice of job. Another important factor is the relationship that the employee shares with his immediate manager. The duration of the stay of the employee, as well as his productivity, relies greatly on the nature of terms that he has with his supervisor. Much of the research conducted on employment patterns show that the relationship with the supervisor is a major factor in causing the employees to leave a job. Unhealthy relationships with the supervisor include complaints from the employees such as the supervisor does not give due credit for the work they do, the supervisors were cold and insensitive, there was lack of proper communication by the supervisors and the employees were not gaining anything from the job (Finnegan & Finnegan, 2009). Careers have changed dramatically in the modern world. The conventional contract where the worker used to work hard and do well, getting rewards, has been pushed off the stage by a new contract focusing on continuous learning and change in identity (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996). This necessitates that the employee looks for these factors in jobs. Similarly, social mobility is impacted by race, gender and class. Even though the employees may be largely draw towards a job due to the ideal person-job fit it offers, social and cultural factors can play an integral role on the final decision of the employee. Occupational mobility is grouped into two different types: intragenerational and intergenerational. Intragenerational mobility is also known as career mobility and includes all those movements that a person makes within different employers, jobs or positions. In this regard, social class influences the manner of speaking and overall conduct of the person. The conduct of the person may subtly influence the perception that the potential employer develops about the person. The history of the employee serves to be a signal to the employer depending on the class and is employed by the employers to grant job-changers jobs in their organization. On the other hand, intergenerational mobility refers to the job that a person seeks in a profession different from his parents. Employees coming from middle class or under-privileged backgrounds aim for upward intergenerational mobility. Jobs that offer them this incentive are going to induce the employees to change their current jobs. Moreover the opportunity structure, which refers to the types of jobs available, also restricts occupational mobility (Hodson & Sullivan, 2007). Thus there are a number of factors that can cause a person to change jobs or stick with the current job. The root cause for changing or not changing a job is the management and advancement of the career of the employee. Reference List Arthur, MB & Rousseau DM 1996, ‘A Career Lexicon for the 21st Century’, Academy of Management Executive, vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 28-39. Finnegan, RB & Finnegan, RP 2009, Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad: Breakthrough Ideas for Keeping Your Best Workers, Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Griffeth, RW & Hom, PW 2004, Innovative theory and empirical research on employee turnover, IAP. Harrington, B & Hall, DT 2007, Career Management and Work-Life Integration: Using Self-Assessment to Navigate Contemporary Careers, London, Sage. Hodson, R & Sullivan, TA 2007, The social organization of work, 4th edn, Cengage Learning. Jütting, J & Laiglesia, JR 2009, Is informal normal?: towards more and better jobs in developing countries, OECD Publishing. The Free Dictionary, 2010. Mobility, viewed on 4 October 2010, . Read More