PhD student Nitesh Bhat, Prof. Rajalaxmi Kamath win Best Paper award

INDAM conference at NMIMS Mumbai hails ‘Meaningful work or peer influence? A structuration theory perspective of voluntary career transitions’

10 JANUARY, 2023: ‘Meaningful work or peer influence? A structuration theory perspective of voluntary career transitions’, co-authored by Nitesh Bhat, doctoral student (OBHRM), and Prof. Rajalaxmi Kamath from the Public Policy Area, was awarded the Best Paper in the HRM track at the INDAM conference held at NMIMS Mumbai from January 6 to 8.

The central idea of this conceptual paper is that voluntary career transitions, while coming across as narratives of inspired individuals exercising their personal choice, are in fact inextricably linked to their peer networks. Thus, what the individual perceives as a voluntary decision of a career transition can be reconceptualised as being both agentic and structural. Similarly, the paper argues that an individual’s social networks are a product of self-selection towards their career transitions. This recursive link is developed using Giddens’ theory of structuration. 

Viewing voluntary career transitions as a quest for meaningful work, and distilling broader structures into social networks, the paper present propositions to demonstrate how and why these two are endogenous. This study contributes to understanding the sources of meaningful work, emergence of career transitions, formation, and dynamics of social networks and to broader issues of social mobility. This is done by providing propositions that enable the operationalising of Structuration Theory, using the frameworks of meaningful work and social networks.