The purpose of Chapter 1 is to give an overview of the topic under study and to describe different aspects of the study. The sections in Chapter 1 include background of the study, purpose of the study, problem statement, research questions, significance of the study, and definition of terms.
Background of the Study
In the globalized world, boundaries between nations are rapidly disintegrating and the size of the global village seems to be ever-shrinking. As a result of increased global mobility, the number of third culture kids (TCKs) is quickly on the rise. Many children live a lifestyle of mobility and spend extensive time outside of their home cultures as a result of their parent’s professions or for their own education. According to Pollock &
Van Reken (2009, p. 13), a TCK is defined as “a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture.” TCKs do enjoy distinct advantages and encounter unusual challenges from their mobile adolescence which differentiates them from individuals growing up within a single culture.
Often, the TCK experience has so infiltrated an individual’s being that the TCK experience leaves behind life-long marks that are both positive and negative. When making career-related decisions, exposure to multiple cultures and nations can complicate matters. While they enjoy advantages that others do not share, which often include multilingual abilities and multicultural experiences, TCKs also face challenges such as not having enough in-depth understanding about a particular culture, sometimes even their home culture, because they have spent their time split between many places. Once a career choice has been made, TCKs would have to adapt to their new roles within the work environment, just like how they would have to adapt to a new place each time they moved.
The discussion of career is important because to many individuals in the modern society, especially in the western part of the world, career has great significance attached to it. Career is often used to “attribute coherence, continuity, and social meaning” to life (Savickas, 2000, p. 1). Occupations offer individuals a way to be involved and to support
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oneself in society. When individuals participate in employment activities that are productive and meaningful, it is beneficial to both the well-being of the individual and the hiring organization, and it is ultimately the building block that contributes to the stability of the society (Savickas, 2000).
A career defined in the narrower, more traditional sense of the word consists of “the sequence of [job] positions held by individuals over the course of their lives” (Montross
& Shinkman, 1992, p. 5). In contrast, Super (1980) depicts a broader and more extensive picture of a career, involving the array of roles that we play in our lives, the way these roles evolve over time and how they interact with a person’s characteristics and the external factors in our world which then shape our careers.
Regardless of which definition we choose to use, for many individuals, a large number of years in life is spent on the planning, developing, or maintaining of careers so the examination of the decisions, process of career choice and workplace adjustment is an important topic. Furthermore, the career choices, process, and adjustment of TCKs are especially relevant to today’s world. Due to increasing global cooperation and competition, skills such as diplomacy, cultural competency, linguistic abilities, and the ability to reconcile different viewpoints are invaluable assets. As a product of globalization, individuals with a TCK background often acquire these skills naturally as they move through cultures, and in these aspects, they may have distinct advantages in the multicultural, global workplace arena over an individual growing up in a single culture (Selmer & Lam, 2004). Indeed, TCKs can be great workers in the modern workplace and their breadth of experiences may be valuable to the hiring organization (Jurtan, 2011;
Selmer & Lam, 2002). For example, Selmer & Lam (2004) propose that TCKs may be ideal business expatriates to send for assignments abroad. Characteristics that they have developed through their cross-cultural experiences may reduce the amount of training and development needed (Selmer & Lam, 2004), thus helping to trim costs for the organization. With more understanding of the TCK phenomenon and its impact on TCK work experiences, TCKs can be better employed and developed as a valuable source of talent in the workplace today.
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Problem Statement
A TCK experience leaves indelible impact on a person and can affect a person both positively and negatively throughout his or her lifetime. The impact of the TCK experience is pervasive and carries over to different aspects of life. Through their TCK experiences, TCKs often develop skills and characteristics that benefit them for a life time.
They also develop coping strategies as they deal with the challenges of the lifestyle. A well-adjusted TCK may enjoy a rich and fulfilling life. However, depression and low self-esteem is also commonly cited in TCK literature due to adaptation difficulties.
(Cottrell & Useem, 1999; Pollock & Van Reken, 2009)
Although there are informative studies on the general issues of TCK experiences, there is a scarcity of information on TCKs and their careers, especially with a focus on how TCKs make their career choices and how they adapt in their workplaces. This lack of information creates problems for both individuals and organizations. For individuals, such an information gap may mean a lack of resources to help TCKs make better career choices. Although the career choice process may be challenging for anybody, however, collectively, TCKs do share unique characteristics and may face challenges that are not share by non-TCKs. Thus, it is important to have more knowledge in this area to address the problems. The knowledge gap in TCK workplace adjustment processes may mislead TCKs into thinking that they are struggling alone and are without resources and without help. Poor adaptation in the workplace could result in low productivity, poor performance, and low job satisfaction. Not only would this be difficult for the individual, it would also be a loss to the hiring organizations as TCKs could potentially be a competent pool of workers in the global workplace with their rich experiences and unique characteristics.
For organizations, employers hiring TCKs without knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the TCK experience and their vocational tendencies or needs can also result in organizations placing TCKs in inappropriate positions. Organizations would not be able to harness the full benefits of the TCKs experiences and would not be able to recognize where they could support TCKs to help them overcome some of their challenges. A mismatch between an employee and his organization, a poor fit between an employee and his job, or inability to adapt in the workplace can translate into high costs
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for an organization and create a lot of tension and frustration for both the individual and the organization.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to explore the process that a TCK may go through when making career choices and how they adjust to the changes and challenges in their chosen careers. Specifically, the study seeks to uncover the possible effects that the TCK life experience may have on career choice and career adaptation for a TCK. To do this, the TCK experience is examined from the experiential learning perspective. It is an exploration of how the TCK experiences are interpreted by the participants, what knowledge, skills, and abilities the TCKs participants are able to develop from these experiences and finally how their learning from past experiences impact their subsequent choices in career and work adaptation.
Research Questions
1. What is the process that TCKs go through when making their career choices?
What factors do they consider?
2. How does the TCK experience help or hinder TCKs in adapting to their workplace?
3. What strategies, skills, or abilities, developed through their TCK experiences, do TCKs employ to help them adapt to the workplace and overcome challenges that they may encounter at work?
To respond to these questions, this study takes a qualitative approach and is intended to be explorative. The TCK interviewees are mostly of Taiwanese background, with a few participants from other parts of the world such as the USA, Korea, and Hong Kong.
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Significance of the Study
Today’s work environment is one that is quick-paced, unpredictable, fluid, and marked by technological advances and organizational changes, among other changes.
(Jurtan, 2011; Klehe, Zikic, Van Vianen, & De Pater, 2011). There is more cooperation but also more competition globally due to an increasing dependency among nations (Arthur, 2002). This creates a demand for individuals that have certain competencies to work in this global workplace. TCKs are potentially fitting candidates in this global workplace as they often acquire adaptive characteristics through their TCK lifestyle (Jurtan, 2011). It would thus be helpful to individuals and organizations to gain more understanding about the vocational choices and adaptation patterns of this group of individuals.
Understanding the impact that the TCK experience may have on career choice and career adjustment may provide useful insight to TCKs and organizations in addressing needs and providing the support necessary to help TCKs develop a healthy, fulfilling, and productive career. Organizations can benefit more from hiring TCKs and more fully draw upon their strengths and experiences.
Pollock (1998) noted that the quality of third culture-ness may develop in individuals who live within the confines of a national border but have been exposed to multiple cultures within that nation. This exposure produces experiences similar to that of the international TCK. Thus the study of TCKs and their experiences are relevant to even those who may live in one country but come in contact with multiple cultures. In fact, sociologist Ted Ward has been quoted in saying that a TCK is the prototype for the twenty-first century citizen (Pollock, 1998; Van Reken 2008). The need for more information on them and their experiences will only increase with time and globalization.
Definition of Terms
Third Culture Kids (TCK)
A Third Culture Kid is an individual who has lived in a culture outside that of his parents’ for a significant amount of time during his or her developmental years, which is approximately from birth to age 18. TCKs often develop relationships with all the
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cultures that they come in contact with, but they do not fully belong to any single culture.
Rather than feeling like they belong to a geographic location, often, they experience a sense of belonging in their relationship with others of similar background (Pollock, 1998;
Pollock & Van Reken, 2009).
In his definition, Pollock leaves the length of time one needs to spend in another culture unspecified because the precise amount of time needed to develop third culture characteristics varies with each person and is difficult to pinpoint. For the purposes of this research, we limit the criteria for TCK participants to individuals who have spent at least two years living in another culture between the ages 8-18.
Individuals with TCK background are sometimes also referred to as ‘global nomads’
or ‘transculturals’ (Fail, Thompson, & Walker, 2004) and sometimes, they are described as ‘cultural chameleons’ (Pollock & Van Reken, 2009), ‘hidden immigrants’, or as being
‘internationally mobile’ (Gerner, 1992). Sometimes, the term “adult third culture kid (ATCK)” is used to refer to a TCK who is no longer a child. In this study, the distinction is not made, and “TCKs” are used to simply refer to someone with highly mobile and cross-cultural experiences in their developing years.
Career Choice
Career choices are decisions that an individual makes concerning their vocations and vocational development. In the present research, it simply refers to the full-time jobs that one chooses to do for any length of time.
Career Adaptability
Career adaptability is defined as “the willingness and ability to change behaviors, feelings and thoughts in response to environmental demands” in one’s vocational role (Forrier, Sels, & Stynen, 2009; McArdle, Waters, Briscoe & Hall, 2007, p. 248).
In this research, it is simply defined as the willingness and ability to change to adjust to the demands of the workplace.
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