ABSTRACT

Prior studies of PhD graduates beyond the academy have focused on graduates’ perceptions of work or the views of employers and organizational factors. We argue this bifurcation of individual and structural factors contributes to an incomplete understanding of PhD career trajectories, as it ignores the interaction between individual and structural factors that ultimately influences career trajectories. Using an individual-structural framework, we conducted a bounded case study of two small units within a private organization to see whether the framework and study design provided insight into the influence of this intersection. We found that hiring PhDs both sustains and enhances the mission and growth of the organization and offers PhD graduates the potential for a non-traditional PhD career trajectory. Further, the conceptual framework and study design suggest possibilities for future exploration of this intersection.

摘要

先前对学院以外的博士毕业生的研究主要集中在毕业生对工作的看法或雇主和组织因素的看法上。我们认为，个人和结构因素的这种分歧导致对博士职业轨迹的不完整理解，因为它忽略了最终影响职业轨迹的个人和结构因素之间的相互作用。使用个人结构框架，我们对私人组织内的两个小单位进行了有限的案例研究，以了解框架和研究设计是否提供了对该交叉点影响的洞察。我们发现，聘用博士既可以维持和增强组织的使命和发展，又可以为博士毕业生提供非传统博士职业轨迹的潜力。更远，