People are choosing to pursue entrepreneurship as a career at increasing rates; yet, we lack an overarching conceptualization of entrepreneurial career success. Instead, scholars rely on a fragmented set of measures and outcomes, limiting cumulative knowledge about the factors that shape persistence and long-term success in entrepreneurial careers. To address this gap, we integrate career success and entrepreneurship research to develop a multidimensional model of entrepreneurial career success. Drawing on an empirically validated multidimensional framework from career literature, we organize the variety of individual success measures that have been used in the entrepreneurship literature, distinguishing entrepreneurial career success from related constructs such as venture performance and well-being. We further identify entrepreneurship-specific dimensions, including legacy and venture satisfaction, that reflect the heterogeneity of entrepreneurial careers and extend existing career success models. Using the ability-motivation-opportunity (AMO) framework, we review antecedents of entrepreneurial career success and suggest patterns of relationships with different objective and subjective success dimensions. We conclude by presenting an integrative model of antecedents, mechanisms, and boundary conditions to guide future research on entrepreneurial career success.

This article provides a critical review of developments in the literature on career success. We review work from both the organizational psychology (OP) and organizational behavior (OB) disciplines, highlighting the different perspectives, strengths, and weaknesses of each area, and attempt to reconcile these perspectives on career success to suggest productive new research directions. First, the article reflects on conceptualizations of objective and subjective career success and their relative value to the field. We then discuss several categories of career success predictors drawn from economic, sociological, and social-psychological perspectives used in OP and OB. These include human capital, internal and external labor markets, sponsorship and social capital, stable and malleable individual differences, and career self-management behaviors. We provide research suggestions within each of those sections as well as an integrative research agenda built around several emerging issues and theoretical perspectives, encouraging future research on the implications of sustainable careers, career shocks, marginalized group experiences, and alternative employment arrangements for career success.

Our fi eld has seen so much emphasis on theoretical innovation and novelty that theories have sprouted around us like weeds … and are threatening to overgrow the few tried-and-tested theories … . to keep our research garden ordered, happy, and healthy, we need to engage in systematic theory pruning, which consists of testing and weeding out those theories that do not really hold up under sound methodological scrutiny. (Köhler & Cortina, 2021, pp. 510 – 511) All other academic fi elds … attach signi fi cant value to straightforward tests of previously proposed theories, ideas, and operating mechanisms. We in management, however, are so riveted on new and revised theories, and so dismissive of simple generation of facts and evidence, that our revealed ethos is that we care much more about what ’ s fresh and novel, than about what ’ s right. (Hambrick, 2007, p. 1350)

We integrate selective incivility theory (Cortina, 2008) and attributional ambiguity theory (Crocker & Major, 1989) to examine the relationships among race, experienced incivility, perceived racial discrimination, and social integration. Based on the core tenet of selective incivility theory, we expect employees of color to experience higher levels of incivility than White employees. We further propose that social integration in the workgroup decreases experienced incivility, but only for employees of color as it minimizes social categorization processes. Based on attributional ambiguity theory, we then propose race to moderate the positive relationship between experienced incivility and perceived racial discrimination such that the relationship is stronger for employees of color than for White employees. To test these hypotheses using specific incidents of incivility, we collected weekly data from 150 staff at a U.S. university for six consecutive weeks. The results indicated no race differences in the experience of incivility. Further, social integration in the work unit decreased experienced incivility for employees of color only. Finally, for employees of color, but not White employees, there was a strong positive relationship between experienced incivility and perceived racial discrimination. These findings advance our understanding of selective incivility theory and connect incivility to perceptions of racial discrimination. We offer practical recommendations for reducing perceived discrimination and building more inclusive work environments for racial minorities.

This symposium focuses on the antecedents and consequences of an entrepreneurial career. Underlying this focus is the view that entrepreneurship is a career step along a career path as opposed to a final destination (Burton et al., 2016). Four studies in this symposium examine key issues relevant to different stages of an entrepreneurial career, including the pre-entry learning processes that shape entrepreneurial entry decisions and the type of venture founded, the impact of entrepreneurial experience on entrepreneurs’ personality and skillsets, and former entrepreneurs’ behaviors (e.g., turnover) and performance implications (e.g., innovation) in post- entrepreneurship wage employment. Implications for theory and practice will be discussed. Following the paper presentations, Scott Seibert and Aleksandra (Olenka) Kacperczyk, two distinguished experts on entrepreneurship and careers representing different theoretical traditions (micro and macro, respectively), will serve as our discussants to offer theoretical and practical suggestions, identify promising research opportunities, and stimulate an interactive group discussion. The Entrepreneurial Pre-Entry Process: Evidence from the Informal Economy Presenter: SHELTER SELORM TEYI; Copenhagen Business School Presenter: Marcus Møller Larsen; Copenhagen Business School Presenter: Vera Rocha; Copenhagen Business School Rethinking the personality-entrepreneurship link: Can entrepreneurship change your personality? Presenter: Leigh Mellish; UNSW Sydney Presenter: Siran Zhan; U. of New South Wales Presenter: Amirali Minbashian; UNSW Business School, Australia Prior entrepreneurial experience and voluntary turnover in subsequent wage employment Presenter: Siran Zhan; U. of New South Wales Presenter: Liwen Zhang; U. of Macau Presenter: Yu Wu; UNSW Sydney Hiring Entrepreneurs for Innovation Presenter: Louise Lindbjerg; PhD Student Presenter: Theodor Lucian Vladasel; U. Pompeu Fabra and Barcelona GSE

We focus on former entrepreneurs' employment in established firms. Understanding the retention of former entrepreneurs-those who were previously founders of business ventures-is important to firms hoping to reap the benefits of their entrepreneurial experience. We compare the duration of their retention to other employees without entrepreneurial experience and propose a theoretical model in which entrepreneurial identity and job characteristics play a central role. The time-dependent risk of voluntary turnover was estimated using survival analysis. Results from a primary survey collected from multiple firms in 2015-2018 (Study 1) reveal that former entrepreneurs quit sooner than others, and this effect was mediated by entrepreneurial identity. A second study using the NLSY79 and O*Net longitudinal dataset (Study 2) again supports this mediated relationship and further shows that the indirect effect through entrepreneurial identity was moderated such that employees with entrepreneurial identity stayed longer in jobs with favorable characteristics (i.e., high levels of work autonomy and more entrepreneurial opportunities) than other jobs. In Study 2, we were able to observe individuals' careers over decades to capture the patterns of individual mobility-the back-and-forth exploration between businesses owned by self and others. The supplementary analysis provides additional evidence regarding turnover destinations. The findings offer implications for firms endeavoring to retain entrepreneurial talent and individuals pursuing a career that may involve both paid employment and entrepreneurship.

PurposeThis article aims to introduce the special issue entitled “the role of career shocks in contemporary career development,” synthesize key contributions and formulate a future research agenda.Design/methodology/approachThe authors provide an introduction of the current state-of-the-art in career shocks research, offer an overview of the key lessons learned from the special issue and present several important avenues for future research.FindingsThe authors discuss how the special issue articles contribute to a better understanding of career shocks' role in contemporary career development, focusing on (1) conceptual clarity of the notion of career shocks, (2) career outcomes of career shocks, (3) mechanisms that can explain the impact of career shocks and (4) interdisciplinary connectivity.Originality/valueThis article offers a synthesis of the critical contributions made within this special issue, thereby formulating key ways to bring the field of career shocks research forward. It also provides new avenues for research.

Individuals are embedded in networks of personal and professional relationships that confer resources that help drive career success. Our goal for this chapter is to provide the methodological foundations and synthesize new perspectives for understanding the impact of social networks on career outcomes in the current career context. First, we present a network primer with fundamentals about social network research designs, data, and constructs. Next, we overview three foundational network theories that are traditionally applied to careers. Then, we introduce a framework of social network constructs that can be used to better understand the link between social networks and career outcomes, including those that emerged from the changing nature of work. Our framework presents a combination of relational features—network composition, configuration, and content—and relational levels of analysis—individual, dyadic, and network levels—that organize a breadth of network constructs and spotlight contemporary areas that could benefit from greater attention. Last, we identify future directions for scholars interested in exploring careers through a social network lens.

Career shocks have become an increasingly important part of current careers scholarship. In this article, we focus on the role of career shocks in career choice, career development, and career adaptation by exploring interdisciplinary connections with the domains of: (1) job search, (2) human resource management, (3) entrepreneurship, and (4) diversity. Specifically, we argue that a self-regulated job search process is likely often triggered by a career shock, yet could also trigger career shocks in its own right. We also note that employees' perceptions of the HR practices in their company are likely influenced by career shocks, and that the chance of employees to return to their employer in the future (i.e., boomerang employment) is affected by the occurrence of positive or negative shocks. Furthermore, there are ample opportunities to study how career shocks may trigger transitions between paid employment and entrepreneurship, and the role of identity and emotions in such processes. Finally, we argue that career shocks may instigate changes in the salience of social identity or even constitute threats to social identity, thereby reflecting on how career shocks may differentially impact people belonging to different social groups. We hope that our article, in the spirit of this JVB 50-year anniversary issue's aims, will inspire scholars both within and outside of the field of career studies to better understand how career shocks may impact the way in which people work and develop their careers.

Research Summary Using meta-analysis, we investigate the extent to which General Mental Ability (GMA) and Emotional Intelligence (EI) predict entrepreneurial success. Based on 65,826 observations, we find that both GMA and EI matter for success, but that the size of the relationship is more than twice as large for EI. Our study contradicts and adds important contextual nuance to previous meta-analyses on performance in traditional workplace settings, where GMA is considered to be more critical than EI. We also contribute to the literature on cognitive and emotional intelligence in entrepreneurship. Managerial Summary While previous studies have shown General Mental Ability (GMA, cognitive intelligence) to be more important for success compared to Emotional Intelligence (EI) in traditional workplace settings, we theorize that EI will be more important in entrepreneurial contexts. Entrepreneurship is an extreme setting with distinct emotional and social demands relative to many other organizational settings. Moreover, managing an entrepreneurial business has been described as an "emotional rollercoaster." Thus, on a relative basis we expected EI to matter more in entrepreneurial contexts and explore this assumption using a meta-analysis of 65,826 observations. We find that both GMA and EI matter for entrepreneurial success, but that the size of the relationship is more than twice as large for EI.

SummaryTo better understand why leader–member exchange (LMX) differentiation in teams may be detrimental to individual and team performance, we propose that team members' perception of LMX differentiation (PLMXD) is more important than statistical measures of LMX differentiation. Specifically, we hypothesize a multilevel model in which relationship conflict and procedural justice (climate) mediate the relationships of individual and collective PLMXDs with individual and team performance, respectively. Using a sample of 235 individuals in 53 teams, we found that individual PLMXD was negatively related to individual performance through relationship conflict perceptions, controlling for LMX. At the team level, collective PLMXD was negatively related to team performance through procedural justice climate and relationship conflict, controlling for a statistical measure of LMXD. Theoretical implications and directions for future research are explored.

This study develops and tests a model of the transition from paid employment to entrepreneurship using a sample of 226 adults currently in paid employment. Building on a seminal but largely untested insight from Shapero (1975), we used theoretical logic from event system theory to propose that displacing work events moderate the effect of entrepreneurial identity aspirations, a possible-self role identity, on engagement in nascent entrepreneurial activities (discovery and exploitation behaviors). Results show that entrepreneurial identity aspirations were more strongly positively related to entrepreneurial discovery behaviors among employees who experienced a displacing work event in their current workplace; discovery behaviors in turn related to entrepreneurial exploitation behaviors. The moderation effect was significant for four of the six displacing events examined in this study. Our findings have implications for the literatures on entrepreneurial career transitions, entrepreneurial role identity, and event system theory and offer validity evidence for the nascent entrepreneurial behaviors scale. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

What are the effects of perceiving peers' higher performance? Social-cognitive theory emphasizes the positive influence that perceiving higher performers can have on observer task and job performance (because observational learning from role models enhances self-efficacy). Social comparison theory emphasizes the negative self-evaluations that accompany perceiving higher performers, which should under many circumstances reduce self-efficacy and subsequent task and job performance. To more fully understand the effects of perceiving higher performance, we argue the effects of perceived higher performers on observer task and job performance depend on individuals' disposition in how they cognitively process coworkers' performance. Drawing on goal orientation theory, we suggest individuals with higher levels of performance prove goal orientation (PPGO) primarily interpret perceived higher performers as comparative referents rather than as instructive role models, inhibiting social learning and reducing self-efficacy. Results from a 2 studies (a field study of 110 corporate employees as well as an experimental study with 107 undergraduate students) support these ideas: Individuals with higher levels of PPGO have decreased self-efficacy and performance when observing higher performing coworkers, and individuals with lower levels of PPGO have increased self-efficacy and performance when observing higher performing coworkers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

SummaryIntegrating job embeddedness theory with the sponsored and contest mobility perspectives, we developed and tested a model linking organizational embeddedness with two indicators of career success within the organization (promotion and career satisfaction), via the mediating roles of employees' organizational sponsorship network and job‐related human capital development. Data from 188 employees and their supervisors over a 1‐year period showed that, after controlling for employees' initial levels of career satisfaction and job performance, only job‐related human capital development transmitted the positive effects of organizational embeddedness on promotion and career satisfaction. Supplemental analyses revealed that organizational sponsorship network's positive effects on promotion and career satisfaction were transmitted indirectly, via job‐related human capital development. Our findings illustrate the importance of integrating sponsored and contest mobility perspectives and contribute to research on organizational embeddedness by extending its outcomes to include career success within the organization and specifying the process through which organizational embeddedness is related to career success within the organization.

Samples drawn from commercial online panel data (OPD) are becoming more prevalent in applied psychology research, but they remain controversial due to concerns with data quality. In order to examine the validity of OPD, we conduct meta-analyses of online panel samples and compare internal reliability estimates for scales and effect size estimates for IV–DVrelations commonly found in the field with those based on conventionally sourced data. Results based on 90 independent samples and 32,121 participants show OPD has similar psychometric properties and produces criterion validities that generally fall within the credibility intervals of existing meta-analytic results from conventionally sourced data.We suggest that, with appropriate caution, OPD are suitable for many exploratory research questions in the field of applied psychology.