2014, Hirschi, Andreas, Freund, Philipp Alexander, Herrmann, Anne

Careers today increasingly require engagement in proactive career behaviors; however, there is a lack of validated measures assessing the general degree to which somebody is engaged in such career behaviors.Wedescribe the results of six studies with six independent samples ofGerman university students (total N ¼ 2,854), working professionals (total N ¼ 561), and university graduates (N ¼ 141) that report the development and validation of the Career Engagement scale—a measure of the degree towhich somebody is proactively developing his or her career as expressed by diverse career behaviors. The studies provide support for measurement invariance across gender and time. In support of convergent and discriminant validity, we find that career engagement is more prevalent among working professionals than among university students and that this scale has incremental validity above several specific career behaviors regarding its relation to vocational identity clarity and career self-efficacy beliefs among students and to job and career satisfaction among employees. In support of incremental predictive validity, beyond the effects of several more specific career behaviors, career engagement while at university predicts higher job and career satisfaction several months later after beginning work.

2012, Hirschi, Andreas, Herrmann, Anne

The present study explores what mechanism might be responsible for the reported link between presence of a calling in one’s career and life satisfaction. It is proposed that vocational identity achievement acts as one important mediator of this relation and that the effects can be observed even when controlling for core self-evaluations (CSEs). The study used a short-term longitudinal design based on a sample of 269 German college students from different majors. The results confirmed the mediation model, with calling predicting vocational identity achievement 6 months later and identity serving as a stronger predictor of life satisfaction, all controlling for CSEs. However, contrary to previous research, presence of calling was not directly related to life satisfaction and even showed a negative relation when vocational identity achievement was controlled. The results are interpreted to suggest a multifaceted relation between calling and life satisfaction.