A cross-cultural longitudinal analysis of the meaning of work and the socialization process of career starters

Itzhak Harpaz, Benson Honig, Pol Coetsier

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This research examines the cultural variations in the socialization process of youth, from seven different countries during their transition into the world of work. It represents one of the very few longitudinal studies among young career starters and their work values. We study the extent to which work centrality is trans-national or culturally/nationally specific. The most significant increase in work centrality was found to occur during the second year of employment. At the national level, cultural differences were identified using Hofstede's (1980) measures. Countries low in uncertainty avoidance were shown to have increased work centrality, while those high in masculinity-femininity appeared weakly influential.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)230-244
Number of pages15
JournalJournal of World Business
Volume37
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2002

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We also predicted that youth from countries high in masculinity would begin their careers with more work centrality than those from more feminine national cultures. We found that the U.K. and Italy demonstrate very strong centrality, dwarfed only by The Netherlands, which is uncharacteristically the most feminine country in the study. Belgium, another highly masculine country, also demonstrated high work centrality at time one, hence, Hypothesis 6 is partially supported by the data.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Business and International Management
  • Finance
  • Marketing

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