The Development of Career-Enhancing Strategies and Content Innovation: A Longitudinal Study of New Workers

Abstract

This study tests a longitudinal model of the model of the processes of development of career-enhancing strategies and job content innovation during the first 18 months of transition from school to work. We conducted the analysis of the model using LISREL-7 (Jöreskog & Sörborn, 1988) and double cross-validated the results on random samples (N = 859) of young workers from eight countries. Modifications made to the initial model were also cross-validated on both samples. The results indicate that several mutual influence processes operating between newcomers and social others (supervisors, co-workers) account for the development of career-enhancing strategies and job content innovation attempts. The results of this study support a number of previous research findings and are consistent with several theories of this initial encounter period. We discuss several potential directions for future research on this initial work entry period.