Contextualizing career development: Cultural affordances as the missing link in social cognitive career theory

2025/03/14 by Christian Yao, Ishbel McWha-Hermann, Ishbel McWha‐Hermann · 3 citations
Social Sciences · Business, Management and Accounting · #Career Development and Diversity #Higher Education and Employability #Entrepreneurship Studies and Influences

paper · doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2025.104114

Abstract

This study extends social cognitive career theory (SCCT) by introducing cultural affordances as culturally embedded interpretive frameworks through which individuals make sense of and navigate between distal contextual affordances (e.g., Confucian values) and proximal contextual affordances (e.g., contemporary work values). Based on qualitative interviews with 31 unemployed, university-educated Chinese youths, the study shows how cultural affordances shape individuals' interpretation of career-related opportunities and tensions arising from the interplay between traditional and contemporary values. This extension enhances SCCT's cultural relevance, offering insights into career development in contexts where tradition and modernity intersect. • Cultural affordances identified as a culturally embedded interpretive framework linking distal and proximal contextual factors within SCCT • Individual agency both shapes and is shaped by cultural affordances • Cultural affordances evolve to accommodate cultural values and changing work values • Confucian values and modern pressures create tensions for unemployed Chinese youth

Citations

• Social cognitive career theory and the prediction of interests and choice goals in the computing disciplines
• Toward a Unifying Social Cognitive Theory of Career and Academic Interest, Choice, and Performance
• Sources of self-efficacy and outcome expectations for career exploration and decision-making: A test of the social cognitive model of career self-management
• Navigating the multiple challenges of job loss: A career self-management perspective
• Social cognitive model of career self-management: Toward a unifying view of adaptive career behavior across the life span.
• Cultural affordances and emotional experience: Socially engaging and disengaging emotions in Japan and the United States.
• Contextual supports and barriers to career choice: A social cognitive analysis.

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• The relationship of career exploration on the teaching intention of pre-service special education teachers in China: A chain-mediating role of career calling and perceived employability
• Development and Validation of the Future Career Insecurity Scale (FCIS) in Law Students. [europepmc]
• Associations between organizational cynicism, workplace alienation, and nurses' work effectiveness: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey. [europepmc]

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