Learning from each other: leaders' social representations of career beginners and career beginners' self-assessment

Kristina Rakinić, Uršula Čebron Lipovec and Katarina Babnik

International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 2022, vol. 32, issue 3, 322-340

Abstract: Today's youth face prejudice and stereotyping in the workplace; in times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, their prevalence and strength may increase. We conducted a qualitative study of social representations of key exchange partners – leaders and career beginners. In the first phase, we conducted semi-structured interviews to identify the dominant social representations that small business leaders (N = 9) hold about career beginners. In the second phase, we examined how future career beginners (N = 26) responded to five hypothetical work situations based on the leaders' social representations. The social exchange partners shared the narrative that career growth, advancement, and financial incentives are important motivators for career beginners, but contradicted each other in their accounts of career beginners' initiative levels and in their accounts of preferred leadership styles. The findings help to raise awareness of the mutual representations and expectations of different age groups in the work context.

Keywords: social representations; leaders; career beginners; thematic analysis; vignettes; age-related stereotypes. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=125776 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijilea:v:32:y:2022:i:3:p:322-340

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Innovation and Learning from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().