PurposeThe purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between a lifelong learning mindset and career success. A lifelong learning mindset is a way of approaching one's work with ...curiosity, strategic thinking, and resilience. Career success refers to objective (e.g., number of promotions) and subjective (e.g., job satisfaction) indicators of progress and fulfillment in one's work.Design/methodology/approachTwo studies are presented. Both studies draw from an accounting and finance program at a Canadian university. In study 1, data were collected from students (n = 62) and their supervisors at the end of a four-month co-operative education (co-op) work term. In study 2, data were collected from graduates (n = 148).FindingsResults suggest that developing a lifelong learning mindset enhances both objective and subjective career success. Participants' lifelong learning mindset was associated with objective career success in both studies (supervisor-rated performance in study 1 and number of promotions in study 2). Lifelong learning mindset was associated with subjective career success in study 2 (job satisfaction, work engagement, and job-related self-efficacy) but not in study 1 (experience satisfaction).Originality/valueThis article presents the first empirical examination of the relationship between a lifelong learning mindset and career success. Insights from the article highlight the fact that educators and workplace managers might work together to promote a lifelong learning mindset for current and future workers.
Employers are essential partners in sustainable work-integrated learning (WIL) programs. They aim to recruit talented students, and they create recruitment messages (e.g., job advertisements) to ...achieve this goal. Signaling theory suggests that aligning recruitment messages with WIL students' interests will enhance job attractiveness. This study conceptualized such interests as 'student-oriented' opportunities: opportunities for learning, making an impact, and connecting academic studies with careers. It then examined whether signals aligned with student-oriented opportunities enhance job attractiveness relative to a traditional job advertisement. Participants (n = 57) viewed job advertisements that signaled the employer's commitment to creating a student-oriented opportunity, commitment to and plan for such an opportunity, or a control version with no such messages. Results suggest that WIL job seekers were most attracted to job advertisements that signaled the employer's commitment to and plan for creating student-oriented opportunities. Implications for WIL employers and the educators who support them are discussed.
Client upset is one of the greatest challenges for service providers. Anger, in particular, can have dramatic and negative effects on clients' responses to hospitality services and to the service ...providers themselves. This study explores how staff might best respond to angry clients. Guided by justice theory, psychological coping theory, and the service recovery literature, we examine conditions that generate anger among clients and how angry clients prefer to be involved in service recovery efforts. Specifically, we consider whether anger predicts clients' desire to co-create the recovery process. Participants (n = 271) responded to a hypothetical scenario describing a service failure common to hospitality and tourism settings. As expected, participants were most angry when the problem was perceived as severe and when they attributed blame to the provider. Further, anger (and not clients' personal traits) predicted greater preferences for co-created service recovery. We conclude with implications as they relate to understanding service recovery.
The purpose of this study was to examine the association between greater engagement (i.e., number of times participated) in mindfulness exercises administered in large university lectures and ...students’ writing self-efficacy. For eight weeks, a breathing exercise was administered to students in one lecture section, and a progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) exercise was administered to students in another lecture section of the same course. Participants (n = 147) completed measures of writing self-efficacy before (T1) and after (T2) the eight-week exercise period. Engagement was greater in the breathing exercise than in the PMR exercise (p < .05). Writing self-efficacy was marginally greater (p = .08) at T2 for those administered the breathing exercise than for those administered the PMR exercise. Correlational analyses further showed that engagement in the breathing exercise was associated with writing self-efficacy at T2 (p < .01), but engagement in the PMR exercise was not (p = .21). We conclude with implications for course instructors using mindfulness exercises to enhance desirable writing outcomes.
This paper advances the Future Ready Talent Framework (FRTF), a conceptual model of talents that are relevant to stakeholders of work-integrated learning (WIL) programs. The paper is organized into ...three sections. The first section provides background on the development of the FRTF, including a brief review of talent frameworks and the future of work literature as they relate to WIL. The second section presents the method through which the FRTF was extended and validated. This involved soliciting behavioral examples of talents from WIL stakeholders. The third section of the paper discusses implications of the FRTF for WIL, such as its application to student assessment. It also situates the FRTF in a broader discussion of WIL and the future of work. The goal of the paper is to position the FRTF as a tool that WIL stakeholders can use to create "common ground" as they communicate with each other about talent.
Written communication is essential to student success. Mindfulness exercises may improve thoughts and feelings that support written communication. These exercises are typically delivered to students ...in small groups such as tutorials. However, first year courses that develop written communication skills are often delivered in large classroom settings. The purpose of this study was to explore the feasibility of delivering mindfulness exercises to improve written communication in large introductory university classrooms. Using observations throughout an eight-week period, the authors identify key issues associated with mindfulness in this setting. These issues include a lack of engagement which stem from distractions and disinterest with mindfulness scripts. Strategies for instructors who aim to introduce mindfulness exercises into their large classrooms are offered.
Rationale/Purpose: Frontline staff are central to co-creating desirable outcomes of leisure services. Many frontline staff in these services are contingent (e.g. temporary or part-time) and turnover ...amongst contingent staff is high. This study examined whether frontline staff perceptions of job enrichment (a feeling of knowledge, meaning, and responsibility in one's job) enhances intentions to return to the service in the future.
Methodology: A theoretical model was developed and tested using data collected from one contingent staff group, seasonal student workers (n = 124) who completed a four-month long summer job. Work engagement (positive energetic feeling about work in general) and organizational commitment (psychology bond with the organization) were proposed as mediators of the relationship between job enrichment and intention to return.
Findings: Job enrichment did not directly influence intention to return, but did so serially through work engagement and organizational commitment.
Practical implications: Managers can enrich contingent staff members' jobs to improve retention outcomes
Research contribution: This study is the first to examine job enrichment as a retention strategy for contingent staff in sport and leisure settings.
Previous research suggests that going unmatched in the competitive co-op job search process might have an emotional cost. This study examined the feasibility and efficacy of interventions for ...improving unmatched co-op students' emotional wellbeing. Participants (n = 74) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a positive psychology based writing task, a toolkit with materials and information about coping with stress, or a control condition. They completed a measure of emotional wellbeing before and after the intervention period (one week long). Controlling for pre-intervention emotional wellbeing, statistically significant gains in emotional wellbeing were reported only by those in the writing task condition. Administering positive interventions such as instructions to focus on "good things" may be particularly feasible and effective in the co-op context. Implications for co-op practitioners and future research are presented.
Using data collected from co-operative education students at two different times over a four-month long work term, we test and find support for the hypothesis that students' approaches to learning ...explain the relationship between their lifelong learning characteristics and work adjustment. Students' lifelong learning characteristics were positively associated with a deep approach to learning and negatively associated with a disorganized approach to learning (and unrelated to their rational approach to learning), and these in turn influenced work adjustment. We conclude that the development of lifelong learners contributes to students' school-to-work transitions in work-integrated learning programs. The development of lifelong learning characteristics may be an important part of preparing students for organizational entry.
The purpose of this grounded theory study was to explore the notion of inclusion from the perspective of LGBTQ+ co-op students in the context of their work term experiences, including searching for ...work and during the work term. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight LGBTQ+ students who had at least one previous work term experience at a Canadian university. Analyses of transcripts revealed several themes pertaining to how students navigate the recruitment process, feelings about inclusion at work, contributions of interpersonal dynamics (with supervisors and co-workers) to those feelings, and the role of co-op administrators in enhancing inclusion. The study identifies directions for future research in this area and suggests some strategies for creating inclusive co-op workplaces.
