Article

Optimal matching analysis in career research: A review and some best-practice recommendations

April 2015
Journal of Vocational Behavior 90

DOI:10.1016/j.jvb.2015.04.005

Authors:

Universität Mannheim

Optimal matching is a method for the analysis of sequential data. It allows researchers to detect patterns in career sequences or occupational trajectories. We first give a brief introduction to the method and review the existing career literature that employs optimal matching. To examine which data properties are required for optimal matching analysis, we conducted Monte Carlo simulations of career sequences with varying parameters for sequence length, sample size and missing items. We find that sequence length is the relevant factor for correct results, while sample size does not substantially affect result quality. Another important finding is that sequences with up to 30% elements missing can be used for optimal matching analysis. We also show which settings for the optimal matching procedure deliver the best results.

Introduction à l’analyse de séquence et illustration de son application en sciences sociales à partir de patrons de transitions de l’école au travailIntroduction to sequence analysis and its application in the social sciences using school-to-work transition patterns

Article

Jan 2022

Análisis de Secuencias Sociales para la vigilancia en salud

Chapter

Full-text available

Oct 2022

El ASS a pesar de ser un método cuantitativo permite utilizar información cualitativa o mixta, se presentaron sus fundamentos, posibilidades para el análisis e interpretación de la información de salud, así como el software disponible para ejecutarlo, los desafíos metodológicos del método y sus propuestas de solución. Se brindan ejemplos de su aplicación en el ámbito sanitario en otros países y se ejemplifica la forma de usarlo para la vigilancia en salud del nivel de la natalidad detectado en las provincias del país durante los años 2010 al 2017.

WORK DISABILITY, ECONOMIC SITUATION, AND SOCIETAL COSTS OF MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS IN SWEDEN

Thesis

Apr 2022

Chantelle Murley

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects many aspects of life and often leads to a reduction in an individual’s work capacity. This reduction, referred to as work disability, may lead to the use of social protections to replace lost earnings upon being absent and societal costs from the lost production. This thesis aimed to investigate the working life and economic situation of individuals in the early stages of their MS as well as the societal costs of MS. Methods: Four cohort studies using Swedish register data of working-aged individuals were conducted. Work disability was operationalised as net days with sickness absence (SA) and/or disability pension (DP). In Study I, the heterogeneity of disposable income (DI) trajectories from 7 years before to 4 years after the diagnosis year (2008-9) of 1528 people with MS (PwMS) was explored with group-based trajectory modelling. The trajectory members were characterised through use of chi2-tests and multinomial logistic regressions. In Study II, common patterns of working life among 2652 PwMS diagnosed in 2008-11 were identified with sequence analysis. Sequences from 1 year before and 5 years after the diagnosis year were constructed and the members of the sequence types were characterised with multinomial logistic regressions and dependent t-tests. In Study III and IV, productivity losses were calculated with the human capital approach from the days with work disability. Healthcare costs included the costs of specialised out- and inpatient healthcare as well as dispensed drugs. Excess costs of MS were estimated by comparing the all-cause costs of PwMS with the costs of matched references with independent t-tests. Study III quantified the annual excess costs of 1988 PwMS and 7981 matched references without MS from 4 years before to 4 years after the diagnosis year (2010-12). Generalised estimation equation (GEE) models tested the interaction of MS and time. In Study IV, the excess costs from resource use in 2018 with bootstrapped 95% CIs were estimated for 2806 PwMS in Stockholm and 28,060 matched references without MS. Primary healthcare and disease modifying therapies were also costed, with analyses stratified by time since diagnosis. Results: Seven DI trajectories were identified in Study I: Four increasing with different gradients (39.0% of individuals), two constantly low (50.7%), and one decreasing (10.3%). Older age profiles and higher proportions of men were observed in the increasing trajectories and higher proportions with work disability and without university education in the decreasing and constantly low trajectories. In Study II, six types of working life sequences were identified: Stable High Activity (48.4% of the sequences), three types with mixed activity and varying SA/DP regarding the number of days per year and timing (32.6%), Stable High SA/DP (14.5%), and Other (4.5%). Stable High Activity had the highest odds for university education. All sequence types, except Stable High SA/DP, had higher DI in the final study year than the first. In Study III, excess costs of MS were observed already before MS diagnosis. Mean annual excess costs of MS of 2285 SEK (95% CI: 613-3956) per person for healthcare costs and 16,310 SEK (95% CI: 8980-23,640) for productivity losses were observed four years before diagnosis. The excess costs of MS increased thereafter and were reflected in the MS and time interaction estimates. In Study IV, the mean annual excess healthcare costs of MS were 77,383 SEK (95% CI: 73,299-81,950) per person with MS. Primary healthcare accounted for 9% and disease modifying therapies for 48% of the excess healthcare costs. The mean annual excess productivity losses of MS were 138,121 SEK (95% CI: 149,224-146,985) per person with MS, mostly due to DP (79%). The resource use behind the excess costs of MS differed by time since diagnosis. Conclusions: The findings describe the economic situation of PwMS and quantify the excess societal costs of early MS. Most PwMS were in work and had increasing or stable DI in the study periods close to MS diagnosis. However, work disability was often and increasingly a part of PwMS’ working life and was associated with decreasing DI trajectories or relatively low levels of DI as well as unstable working life sequences. Excess costs of MS for lost production and healthcare use were incurred already before MS diagnosis and increased thereafter. The progression of the excess costs of MS reflected different patterns of resource use with time from MS diagnosis. The increasing excess costs of MS from productivity losses began in the early stages of MS and may reflect unmet needs of PwMS regarding morbidity and work capacity which early intervention may ameliorate. Full text available here: http://hdl.handle.net/10616/47911

Evolution of Professionals’ Careers upon Graduation in STEM and Occupational Turnover over Time: Patterns, Diversity Characteristics, Career Success and Self‐Employment

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2022

While STEM occupational turnover constitutes a major concern for society given the importance of innovation and technology in today’s global economy, it also represents an opportunity to achieve career sustainability for individuals. There is ample research on the reasons why students drop out from STEM education, but evidence on STEM professionals’ career patterns and on correlates of occupational turnover after graduation is scarce. Drawing on the sustainable careers framework, the current study examines how STEM graduates’ careers evolve over time, revealing diverse patterns of occupational turnover and the relationships of such career patterns with work diversity characteristics in terms of sex and ethnic minority status, career success, and self‐employment. Using longitudinal data from 1,512 STEM graduates over ten years, results of an optimal matching analysis demonstrate six career patterns that can be distinguished into three continuity (STEM, part‐STEM, non‐STEM) and three change (hybrid, boomerang, dropout) sustainable career patterns. We find differences in sex, but not in ethnic minority status, across career patterns. Further, professionals who change from STEM occupations to non‐STEM occupations show higher objective career success and are more often self‐employed than those following a continuous STEM career pattern. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

COMPUTATIONAL SOCIOLOGY DISCUSSION AND RESEARCH

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Sep 2021

Stability and mobility in occupational career patterns over 36 years in Swiss women and men

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Full-text available

Oct 2021

It is an open empirical question whether occupational trajectories are better described as linear or non-linear. We analysed occupational career patterns (OCPs) over a period of 36 years using longitudinal data from a representative sample of men and women of the German-speaking part of Switzerland. The participants were mostly born in 1963; the data collection spans from 1978 until 2015. For 584 persons, information about the occupational development from age 16 to 52 years was available. Each year’s activity was categorised using the International Standard Classification of Occupations. We conducted sequence analysis (optimal matching analysis) to find clusters and ANOVAs to compare group differences. The results showed six plausible and differentiated OCPs for both genders which support linear career models. For women, OCPs were generally stable. In contrast, men showed more change and upward mobility in OCPs. These patterns were influenced by indicators collected from participants when they were age 15, such as the family’s socio-economic status, the individual’s performance on intelligence measures and attitudes toward gender equality. Furthermore, we found several consequences of OCPs at age 52 on objective indicators of career success (status, income) and subjective indicators (work perception, life satisfaction and health status). Key messages We studied career development over a period of 36 years (from adolescence to midlife) in Switzerland. Six plausible occupational career patterns supporting a linear model were found for both genders. In women’s career patterns, considerable stability can be observed, while men show more upward mobility. Patterns of upward mobility are related to objective and subjective career success. </ul

Quo Vadis ? Career paths of Brazilian regulators

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Full-text available

Jul 2020

Research about professional trajectories of regulators highlights the exchange of personnel from independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) to the private sector, mainly based on US evidence. However, current studies indicate that revolving doors in different contexts may share more nuances, reflecting the role of different political institutions. Here we rely on sequence analysis to explore the trajectories of 117 Brazilian board members of IRAs, investigating: What are their typical professional trajectories? Which career path receives most of the benefits in postterm positions? The analysis uncovers five clusters of career paths in which most regulators do not transition between the public and private sectors but still benefit in direct and indirect ways from serving terms in IRAs. A different mix of market/bureaucratic/political incentives plays a role in the patterns of professional trajectories we uncover in Brazil. Depending on the context, regulators' trajectories might be driven by either market or state forces.

Healthcare utilization after a first hospitalization for COPD: A new approach of State Sequence Analysis based on the '6W' multidimensional model of care trajectories

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2020
BMC HEALTH SERV RES

Background: Published methods to describe and visualize Care Trajectories (CTs) as patterns of healthcare use are very sparse, often incomplete, and not intuitive for non-experts. Our objectives are to propose a typology of CTs one year after a first hospitalization for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and describe CT types and compare patients' characteristics for each CT type. Methods: This is an observational cohort study extracted from Quebec's medico-administrative data of patients aged 40 to 84 years hospitalized for COPD in 2013 (index date). The cohort included patients hospitalized for the first time over a 3-year period before the index date and who survived over the follow-up period. The CTs consisted of sequences of healthcare use (e.g. ED-hospital-home-GP-respiratory therapists, etc.) over a one-year period. The main variable was a CT typology, which was generated by a 'tailored' multidimensional State Sequence Analysis, based on the "6W" model of Care Trajectories. Three dimensions were considered: the care setting ("where"), the reason for consultation ("why"), and the speciality of care providers ("which"). Patients were grouped into specific CT types, which were compared in terms of care use attributes and patients' characteristics using the usual descriptive statistics. Results: The 2581 patients were grouped into five distinct and homogeneous CT types: Type 1 (n = 1351, 52.3%) and Type 2 (n = 748, 29.0%) with low healthcare and moderate healthcare use respectively; Type 3 (n = 216, 8.4%) with high healthcare use, mainly for respiratory reasons, with the highest number of urgent in-hospital days, seen by pulmonologists and respiratory therapists at primary care settings; Type 4 (n = 100, 3.9%) with high healthcare use, mainly cardiovascular, high ED visits, and mostly seen by nurses in community-based primary care; Type 5 (n = 166, 6.4%) with high healthcare use, high ED visits and non-urgent hospitalisations, and with consultations at outpatient clinics and primary care settings, mainly for other reasons than respiratory or cardiovascular. Patients in the 3 highest utilization CT types were older, and had more comorbidities and more severe condition at index hospitalization. Conclusions: The proposed method allows for a better representation of the sequences of healthcare use in the real world, supporting data-driven decision making.

Kontinuität und Wandel: Zusammenspiel von Persönlichkeit und Berufstätigkeit bis zum 52. Lebensjahr Schlussbericht zu Handen des SBFI

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Full-text available

Feb 2018

Wirtschaftliche und politische Entwicklungen haben in den letzten Jahren und Jahrzehnten zu grossen Veränderungen auf allen Ebenen geführt (z.B. wirtschaftliche Globalisierung, Wandel zur Dienstleistungsgesellschaft). Auf der individuellen Ebene sind statt klaren Normen und fixen Abläufen Wahlfreiheit, Offenheit und Flexibilität getreten, was mehr Entscheidungen und Anpassungsfähigkeit auf Seiten der Person verlangt. Was die Veränderungen auf der individuellen Ebene und im Verlauf des Berufslebens bedeuten, ist noch wenig untersucht worden. Wie wurden und werden diese Anpassungen beispielsweise von der Generation, die heute im mittleren Erwachsenenalter (ca. 45-55-jährig) steht, bewältigt? Um solche Fragen zu beantworten, braucht es Längsschnittdaten, welche Berufsverläufe über eine längere Zeit verfolgen. Anhand der Daten der Zürcher-Längsschnittstudie, welche eine repräsentative Deutschschweizer Stichprobe mit dem Jahrgang 1963 umfasst, konnten in einem ersten Projekt verschiedene Aspekte von Laufbahnen vom 15. bis zum 49. Lebensjahr beschrieben werden. Wichtige Fragen blieben jedoch offen, die mit diesem Folgeprojekt geklärt werden sollten. Durch eine Erweiterung der Stichprobe sollte es möglich sein, insbesondere auch Fragen betreffend Laufbahnmustern und Berufsverläufen bestimmter Personen- und Berufsgruppen genauer zu analysieren. Zusätzlich sollten zentrale Aspekte der Persönlichkeit erneut untersucht werden. Neu wurden auch die aktuelle Lebenssituation und gesundheitliche Aspekte differenziert erhoben. Der Rücklauf beträgt für die gesamte Stichprobe 71%: 806 Personen haben erneut teilgenommen, und von diesen Personen liegen nun Angaben über ihre Berufslaufbahn und deren Determinanten vom 15. bis zum 52 Lebensjahr vor. Durch die differenzierte Erfassung der Berufslaufbahn und einer Vielzahl von psychosozialen Merkmalen aus der Jugendzeit und im mittleren Erwachsenenalter war es möglich, Laufbahnen unter einer ganzheitlichen, entwicklungspsychologischen Sicht zu betrachten. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass wir erwartungsgemäss sowohl Kontinuität wie auch Wandel finden. Erstaunlich ist aber doch die grosse Kontinuität resp. Anpassungsfähigkeit und kontinuierliche Weiterentwicklung, die sich in unseren Daten zeigt. Die erste Berufswahl und die erste Berufsausbildung sind wegweisend für die weitere Entwicklung. Trotzdem sind danach noch vielfältige Anpassungen und Veränderungen möglich. Die berufliche Laufbahn konnte sehr differenziert untersucht werden und es ist gelungen, verschiedene klare Muster in Berufsverläufen zu identifizieren. Die Muster unterscheiden sich deutlich zwischen den Geschlechtern und teilweise zwischen wirtschaftlichen Sektoren/Ausbildungsberufen. Während sich bei Frauen im Durchschnitt mehr Kontinuität abzeichnet, fallen bei Männern mehr berufliche Wechsel auf (z.B. in Richtung Spezialisierung und Aufstieg). Die Durchlässigkeit im Schweizer Bildungssystem zeigt sich auch in unseren Daten; viel Personen bilden sich weiter auf Fachhochschulniveau oder in der höheren Berufsbildung. Erstaunlich war die grosse Adaptationsfähigkeit der Personen, welche sich oft unabhängig von ihrem beruflichen Werdegang, möglichen Schicksalsschlägen oder ihrer aktuellen Lebenslage in verschiedenen Lebensbereichen gut entwickelt haben. Je nach Sektor verlaufen Laufbahnen auch unterschiedlich: Im Dienstleistungssektor kann eher von Kontinuität ausgegangen werden, während im Produktionssektor (Industrie, Gewerbe) eher Anpassungen in Form von Weiterbildung und Weiterentwicklung notwendig sind. Dennoch gibt es Gruppen von Personen, welche schwierigere Entwicklungen zeigen: Dies zeigt sich teilweise bereits bei Verhaltensproblemen in der Schule (erfasst durch die Einschätzung der Lehrpersonen), bei Auffälligkeiten im Bereich Suchtverhalten mit 15 Jahren, oder auch bei weniger erfolgreichen schulischen Laufbahnen (tiefe Schulabschlüsse). Einzelne Laufbahnmuster stehen weiter mit möglichen gesundheitlichen Problemen in einem Zusammenhang: Speziell die Gruppe der handwerklich-technischen Berufe beklagt sich über gesundheitliche Probleme, wahrscheinlich mitverursacht durch jahrzehntelange körperliche Beanspruchung. Einzigartig an der Studie war die Wiederholungsmessung der Persönlichkeit im Alter von 52 Jahren. Es zeigte sich, dass sich Persönlichkeitsmerkmale teilweise (manchmal auch beruflich bedingt) verändern, aber auch stabil bleiben und die Jugendpersönlichkeit damit ein guter Prädiktor für die Vorhersage der Laufbahn sein kann. Interessant war der Befund, dass die Passung zwischen Persönlichkeit und Berufstätigkeit (gemessen nach den Berufsfeldern von J. Holland) insgesamt sehr gross ist über die Laufbahn sogar teilweise noch zunimmt. Trotz Veränderungen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt und dem Druck nach Flexibilisierung und ständiger Veränderung bleibt die Persönlichkeit eine wichtige Steuergrösse beruflicher Entscheidungen. Unsere Studie zeigt eine Reihe von Ressourcen und auch Risikofaktoren für berufliche Entwicklungsverläufe und die spätere Lebenssituation (z.B. auch im Bereich Gesundheit) auf: Dies sind zum einen bekannte strukturelle Merkmale (Herkunftsfamilie, absolvierte Schulbildung) und persönliche Merkmale (Intelligenz, Selbstwirksamkeit, Instrumentalität, etc.), aber auch weitere bisher weniger beachtete Merkmale erwiesen sich als relevant: Bedeutung von Unterbrüchen in der Berufslaufbahn, Investition in Aus- und Weiterbildung, «Job-Involvement» (Arbeitsumfang), Prädiktionskraft von «sozio-emotionalen-Kompetenzen», Aspekte sozialer Unterstützung, etc. Die Ergebnisse sind bedeutsam auf verschiedenen Ebenen und für verschiedene Zielgruppen: Die Ergebnisse stellen beispielsweise auf der Ebene Berufsbildung und Arbeitsmarkt eine Bestätigung für den eingeschlagenen Weg dar. Die Berufsbildung bildet offenbar eine gute Grundlage und Voraussetzung. Das System ist zudem durchlässig genug, um dies zu ermöglichen. Sie weisen aber auch auf sensible Punkte im System hin, wo noch Handlungsbedarf besteht, z.B. Diversity-Management von weniger privilegierten Gruppen. Ansätze zur Steigerung der Work-Life-Balance v.a. bei den Frauen sind weiter zu suchen, damit ihr Potenzial der Schweizer Wirtschaft möglichst kontinuierlich zur Verfügung steht; dies kann den Bereich Arbeitsausgestaltung betreffen (z.B. Arbeitsumfang), gezielte Unterstützung durch Vorgesetzte, aber auch Begleitung durch geeignete Karriereberatung. Damit könnte auch der Fachkräftemangel speziell im Gesundheits- und in anderen Dienstleistungsbereichen teilweise entschärft werden. Eine breite Palette weiterer Handlungsempfehlungen können für verschiedene Bereiche formuliert werden, wie für die Schule (z.B. Wichtigkeit von Abschlüssen, Karriereaspiration, Aufbau sozio-emotionale-Kompetenzen), das Elternhaus (z.B. im Bereich Erziehungsstil, Förderung von Autonomie) und die Berufsbildung und Wirtschaft (z.B. Aufbau von guten Beziehungen).

Self-employment career patterns in the Netherlands: exploring individual and regional differences

Article

Full-text available

May 2022
ANN REGIONAL SCI

Although the self-employed represent 16.7% of the Dutch labor force (OECD 2020), their internal heterogeneity in profiles regarding motivations, characteristics and career trajectories remains unclear. Yet, understanding self-employment profiles and their spatial distribution may help understand differences in career progression of the self-employed. This study identifies and describes patterns in long-term career trajectories of the Dutch self-employed, and it explores spatial differences along the urban hierarchy. The study uses a life-course approach and register data of the whole population to find common patterns of careers among a sample of Dutch self-employed ( N = 42,028) and their spatial distribution. We investigated careers through sequence and cluster analysis of individuals’ socio-economic statuses between 2003–2018. The analysis identifies 7 career clusters that collapse into three main career profiles: Mixed self-employment careers that combine self-employment with wage-employment, stable self-employment, and precarious self-employment. The clusters differ importantly in terms of the individual characteristics of the self-employed including age, gender, educational level and income. In terms of spatial distribution, the study shows that self-employment career profiles follow the urban hierarchy. Urban regions give way to all types of self-employment, while rural regions mainly exhibit stable self-employment. Precarious self-employment presents differently in urban and rural areas; in urban labor markets, we find self-employed individuals vulnerable to economic shocks, losing their jobs as a consequence of the financial crisis in 2007/08. In rural regions, formerly inactive workers become self-employed following the crisis.

ANALYSIS OF MASSIVE IMPORTS OF OPEN DATA IN OPENSTREETMAP DATABASE: A STUDY CASE FOR FRANCE

Article

Full-text available

May 2022

Importing spatial open data in OpenStreetMap (OSM) project, is a practice that has existed from the beginning of the project. The rapid development and multiplication of collaborative mapping tools and open data have led to the growth of the phenomenon of importing massive data into OSM. The goal of this paper is to study the evolution of the massive imports over time. We propose an approach in three steps: classification of the sources used to edit features in the OSM platform including those massively imported, classification of modifications, and identification of evolution patterns. The approach is mixing global analysis (i.e. sources and modifications are classified) and feature based analysis (i.e. imported features are analyzed with respect to their evolution over time). The approach is applied on three datasets coming from OSM considered for their heterogeneity in terms of complexity, imports, and spatial and temporal characteristics. The results show that there is a sustained activity of edition on imported features, with a ratio between geometry editions and semantic editions depending on the type of the features, with roads being the features concentrating the most activity.

Typical school-to-work transitions of young adults with disabilities in Germany – a cohort study of recipients of vocational rehabilitation services after leaving school in 2008

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2021

Purpose In Germany, vocational rehabilitation (VR) for young people with disabilities (YPWD) aims to counteract disadvantages on the training and labour markets. However, the school-to-work transitions (STWT) among YPWD are underexplored. This study investigates to what extent and for whom VR provides an institutional bridge into employment. Materials and methods Based on representative administrative data of the German Federal Employment Agency, young people in VR are observed for 6.5 years after completing lower or intermediate secondary education in 2008. Using optimal matching and cluster analysis, six typical STWT trajectories are identified. Results Most of the YPWD completed company-external vocational training, some undertook regular in-firm training. These forms of training often lead to regular employment, albeit with a delay for some. Other young people are guided from training in sheltered workshops into sheltered employment. Another group exhibits problematic STWTs in which recurring unemployment and (non-training) programmes fail to lead to training or employment. Conclusions VR combined with in-firm or company-external vocational training can facilitate the STWTs of people with disabilities. However, individuals from poor families are less likely to benefit from VR. Similarly, restricted capabilities and problematic STWTs are observed when young people drop out of VR due to poor cooperation. • Implications for rehabilitation • Vocational training often is a prerequisite for labour market entry; however, if the structural conditions on the local labour market are unfavourable, young people with disabilities do not take up employment. • Training within sheltered workshops often leads to highly institutionalised trajectories that should be reconsidered to permit greater permeability into the regular labour market. • As young people with problematic STWT more often come from poor households, they should be targeted to a greater extent in the context of VR counselling.

Career trajectories of young engineers in Brazil

Article

Jul 2021
J ENG TECHNOL MANAGE

Discussions on the shortage of engineers have arisen in many countries. We discuss it by analyzing the career trajectories of young engineers. Applying Optimal Matching Analysis on Brazilian employment official databases, we identified eight trajectories and labor market outcomes. Main results: i) an ascensional career implies a managerial job; ii) the typical engineering career is the third most attractive career; iii) a relevant path of degradation was detected; iv) trajectories are first defined up to three years after the first job, but promotions to managerial positions may occur after eight or ten years. Crises periods affect the attractiveness of a typical engineer's career and, therefore, the demand for engineering courses.

Des sciences naturelles aux sciences de la vie. Changements et continuités des élites académiques de la biologie et de la chimie en Suisse au xxe siècle

Thesis

Full-text available

Dec 2019

Pierre Benz

Cette thèse porte sur les élites académiques de la biologie et de la chimie en Suisse au XXe siècle. Elle a été menée dans le cadre du projet FNS «Academic Elites in Switzerland: between Autonomy and Power» (2013-2017) et s’appuie largement sur les données prosopographiques de la base «Elites suisses au XXe siècle»exploitée dans le cadre du projet. La thèse propose un focus sur l’évolution de la hiérarchie des disciplines au travers des profils, des carrières et des réseaux des professeurs sur cinq cohortes (1910, 1937, 1957, 1980 et 2000) qui structurent les espaces de la biologie et de la chimie. Définis comme des élites académiques, les professeurs ordinaires et extraordinaires occupent les positions les plus élevées de la hiérarchie des postes académiques. Au sein du champ académique, les individus sont dotés de diverses ressources scientifiques,mais aussi institutionnelles, internationales et extra-académiques, dont l’importance relative détermine le degré d’autonomie du champ, une autonomie relative et changeante qui sert de cadre à l’activité scientifique et rend possibles certaines transformations de la hiérarchie des disciplines. Cette thèse apporte un éclairage encore très peu exploité sur les développements de la chimie et de la biologie en Suisse au XXe siècle, entre dynamiques de différenciations institutionnelleset de rapprochements dans le domaine des sciences de la vie. Elle mobilise diverses méthodes de traitement des données prosopographiques, telles que l’analyse des correspondances multiples, l’analyse de séquences, l’analyse de réseaux et les modèles linéaires généralisés pour aborder quatre axes de questionnements: les reconfigurations institutionnelles des disciplines, l’évolution du profil des professeurs au regard de leur dotation différenciée en ressources spécifiques et l’analyse longitudinale des carrières professorales,les collaborations interdisciplinaires et le capital social issus des réseaux de co-requêtes de projets financés par le FNS et, enfin, les enjeux de l’adoption du modèle de l’université entrepreneuriale et son impact sur les carrières des professeurs entre académie et secteur privé. Elle s’attache ainsi, par un focus sur deux disciplines qui ont participé à transformer les sciences naturelles au XXe siècle, à explorer les conséquences de l’affirmation des sciences de la vie sur l’organisation des disciplines dans un contexte de transformation des modes de production du savoir.

Whom do nascent ventures search for? Resource scarcity and linkage formation activities during new product development processes

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2022
SMALL BUS ECON

External linkages allow nascent ventures to access crucial resources during the process of new product development. Forming external linkages can substantially contribute to a venture’s performance. However, little is known about the paths of external linkage formation, as well as the circumstances that drive the choice to pursue one rather than another path. This gap deserves further investigation, because we do not know whether insights developed for incumbent firms also apply to nascent ventures: To address this gap, we explore a novel dataset of 370 venture creation processes. Using sequence analyses based on optimal matching techniques and cluster analyses, we reveal that nascent ventures pursue one of overall four distinct paths of linkage formation activities during new product development. Contrary to the findings of the strategy literature, we find that if nascent ventures engage in external linkages at all, they do not combine exploration- and exploitation-oriented linkages but form either exploration- or exploitation-oriented linkages. Additional regression analyses highlight the circumstances that lead nascent ventures to pursue one rather than the other pathways. Taken together, our analyses point out that resource scarcity constitutes an important factor shaping the linkage formation activities of nascent ventures. Accordingly, we show that nascent ventures tend not to optimize by adding complementary knowledge to the firm’s knowledge base but rather to extend the existing knowledge base—a strategy which we call bricolage.

Mapping career patterns in research: A sequence analysis of career histories of ERC applicants

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2020
PLOS ONE

Despite the need to map research careers, the empirical evidence on career patterns of researchers is limited. We also do not know whether career patterns of researchers can be considered conventional in terms of steady progress or international mobility, nor do we know if career patterns differ between men and women in research as is commonly assumed. We use sequence analysis to identify career patterns of researchers across positions and institutions, based on full career histories of applicants to the European Research Council frontier research grant schemes. We distinguish five career patterns for early and established men and women researchers. With multinomial logit analyses, we estimate the relative likelihood of researchers with certain characteristics in each pattern. We find grantees among all patterns, and limited evidence of gender differences. Our findings on career patterns in research inform further studies and policy making on career development, research funding, and gender equality.

Identifying common patterns of health services use: a longitudinal study of older Swiss adults' care trajectories

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2022
BMC HEALTH SERV RES

Background Population ageing puts pressure on health systems initially designed to handle acute and episodic illnesses. Segmenting an ageing population based on its healthcare utilization may enable policymakers to undertake evidence-based resource planning. We aimed to derive a typology of healthcare utilization trajectories in Swiss older adults. Methods Our work used data from the Lc65 + study, a population-based cohort of individuals aged 65 to 70 years at enrolment. The dimensions of healthcare utilization considered were ambulatory care, emergency care, hospitalizations, professional home care and nursing home stay. We applied the Sequence Analysis framework, within which we quantified the variation between each multidimensional pair of sequences, implemented a clustering procedure that grouped together older persons with similar profiles of health services use, and characterized clusters of individuals using selected baseline covariates. Results Healthcare utilization trajectories were analysed for 2271 community-dwelling older adults over a period of 11 years. Six homogeneous subgroups were identified: constant low utilization (83.3% of participants), increased utilization (4.9%), late health deterioration (4.4%), ambulatory care to nursing home (1.5%), early fatal event (3.8%) and high ambulatory care (2.1%). Associations were found between cluster membership and age, sex, household composition, self-perceived health, grip strength measurement, comorbidities, and functional dependency. Conclusions The heterogeneous healthcare utilization profiles can be clustered into six common patterns. Different manifestations of functional decline were apparent in two distinct trajectory groups featuring regular home care use. Furthermore, a small proportion of individuals with a unique set of characteristics was related to the highest levels of ambulatory and emergency care use. New research avenues are outlined to investigate time-varying effects of health factors inside the clusters containing most unfavourable outcomes.

Nachschulische Bildungsverläufe in Deutschland: Schulentlassene zwischen institutionalisierten Idealwegen und schwierigen Umwegen

Book

Full-text available

Oct 2022

Ziel der Analyse ist es, Muster in nachschulischen Bildungswegen zu identifizieren sowie Problemlagen und Herausforderungen bei der Gestaltung und Steuerung nachschulischer Bildungswege herauszuarbeiten. Während in der bisherigen Forschung der Fokus punktuell auf Übergängen in eine Ausbildung oder ein Studium liegt, basiert diese Studie auf Daten des Nationalen Bildungspanels (NEPS), die seit 2010 erhoben werden. Der Datensatz zeichnet sich durch eine hohe Repräsentativität aus, so dass ein umfassendes Abbild nachschulischer Bildungswege innerhalb von vier Jahren seit Abgang aus der allgemeinbildenden Schule gezeichnet werden kann. Die Ergebnisse zeigen heterogene Verläufe, bei der die Mehrheit der Schulabgänger:innen von den ¿Idealwegen' abweicht und auf unterschiedlichsten Wegen in den Ausbildungs- und Arbeitsmarkt gelangt. Aufgrund der herausgearbeiteten differenzierten sozialstrukturellen Unterschiede zwischen unterschiedlich erfolgreichen Gruppen werden bildungspolitische Handlungs- sowie auch Forschungsbedarfe diskutiert.

CLASSIFICATION OF CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURE OF THE CAREER: A CO-WORD ANALYSIS

Article

Jul 2022

Ihsan Aytekin

In order to understand the progress and future of a research field that has reached a certain level of knowledge, it is necessary to analyze the subject patterns, research trends, conceptual structure and evolution from a historical perspective. A systematic review of the domain is required in order to consolidate its scattered theoretical and conceptual structure and reveal its evolutionary characteristics, since career is a scientific discipline that has been studied for many years, permeable with many different scientific fields, and received great interest from both academic and professional environments. With this study, it is aimed to reveal the conceptual structure of and the new developments in the field by systematically reviewing the studies, covering the years 1975 – to 2018, in the field. In this direction, common word analysis was performed by downloading the bibliometric data of the studies published within the scope of the Web of Science. As a result of the analysis, it has been observed that the studies in the field of career are gathered in three different clusters: i) organizational career management and environmental factors, ii) individual career management and career outputs, and iii) pre-career and career adventure. In addition, emerging concepts were examined. The findings were discussed by comparing the literature.

The why, what and how of career research: a review and recommendations for future study

Article

Jan 2022
Career Dev Int

Purpose The field of careers studies is complex and fragmented. The aim of this paper is to detail why it is important to study careers, what we study and how we study key issues in this evolving field. Design/methodology/approach Key theories, concepts and models are briefly reviewed to lay the groundwork for offering an agenda for future research. Findings The authors recommend ten key directions for future research and offer specific questions for further study. Research limitations/implications This paper contributes to the development of the theoretical underpinning of career studies. Practical implications The authors hope that the proposed agenda for future research will help advance the field and encourage more research on understudied, but important, topics. Originality/value This paper presents a comprehensive view of research on contemporary careers.

On My Way: A Sociological Study on the Contextual Determinants of Higher Education Enrollment and Success

Thesis

Full-text available

Jan 2021

Isis Vandelannote

Severe and persistent housing instability: examining low-income households’ residential mobility trajectories in the United States

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2021

Seungbeom Kang

Given the growing threat of housing instability in the United States, this study explores the variability in housing instability experiences in terms of severity and persistence by tracking low-income households in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data from 2003 to 2017. First, this study examines the associations between one housing instability incident at a particular time and subsequent mobility trajectories. Second, by incorporating sequence analysis, this study explores the conditions under which low-income households are likely to suffer from more chronic forms of housing instability. The results reveal that the more severe one housing instability incident is, the more prolonged the entire housing instability experience is likely to be over time. The ability to maintain homeownership, repeated transitions in partnerships, job insecurity, and repetitively moving across distressed neighborhoods are the conditions for housing instability that occurs more frequently. Moreover, younger households and households with a member with health problems are likely to suffer from more chronic forms of housing instability.

The New Swiss Banking Elite? Plurality and Polarization of Careers

Thesis

Full-text available

Sep 2020

Pedro Araujo

This thesis questions the emergence of a new Swiss banking elite. It relies on a biographical database composed of executive directors and non-executive directors of 37 Swiss banks (N = 487) as well as a series of 20 biographical interviews. First, I show that there is a polarization within the Swiss banking elites, between an international pole on the one hand and a national pole on the other. The new elite is rather located on the international pole. Second, I establish a typology of the geographical mobility of the careers of banking elites. I identify four types attesting the plurality of the career paths: national careers, early international careers, international careers and European careers. Thirdly, I identify individual pathways leading to the hierarchical top of a bank. Through this career analysis, I show how the social space of banking elites is highly differenciated. Fourth, I analyze dispositions and strategies of presentations of self by banking elites. I show an opposition between the figure of the wealh manager and the figure of the investment banker, embodied by a new elite. In conclusion, I affirm that there is indeed a new banking elite, characterized by its internationality and its relationship to performance. However, this new group did not replaced the old ones and Swiss banking elites remain a group defined by its plurality.

Übergangsverläufe am Ende der Sekundarstufe I: Erklärungsansätze für soziale und migrationsbezogene Ungleichheiten

Book

Full-text available

Dec 2020

Robin Busse

Which school leavers experience a smooth transition to vocational education and training (VET) after the 9th and 10th grade of secondary school, and which school leavers take other (educational) routes? Using longitudinal data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS, Starting Cohort 4), the author reveals patterns in school leavers’ transition trajectories and empirically tests theoretical mechanisms of social and migration-related educational inequalities. Particular attention is given to the extent to which educational inequalities in youths’ transition trajectories can be explained by differences in (1) school performance (primary effects), (2) rational choice factors (secondary effects), (3) family resources, and (4) the educational expectations of parents and friends. The findings reveal that rational choice factors and the educational expectations of social groups largely determine school leavers’ pathways, but also contribute to educational inequalities. In the identification of the primary mechanisms of educational inequalities, the assumptions of existing theories are examined, and various explanatory approaches are combined. In addition, the results provide starting points for educational policy discussions on strategies and measures to reduce social and migration-related inequalities in the transition to VET and secondary vocational schools.

The transformation of professors’ careers: standardization, hybridization, and acceleration?

Article

Full-text available

May 2021
HIGH EDUC

Over the recent decades, the turn to managerial governance has thoroughly transformed the European university systems and, by extension, the careers of university professors. Scholars postulated that professors’ careers have undergone an increasing formalization, that disciplinary careers have been hybridized, and that new modes of selection and recruitment (through assistant professorship) have been introduced. This article, based on a case study of the EPFL Lausanne, one of the leading European technical universities, aims to understand these changes by conducting a sequence analytical study of the actual trajectories of professors. By studying the careers of 351 professors who were nominated between 1969 and 2010 at the EPFL, we first develop a typology of professors’ careers. We distinguish between “direct careers,” “seniority careers,” “conversion careers,” and “parallel careers.” We then examine, based on a series of binomial logistic regression models, how career types vary according to the nomination cohort, the discipline, and the recruitment mode. Our results show that slower “seniority careers” within academia have become more important in recent cohorts, that disciplinary logics still shape professors’ careers, and that new recruitment mechanisms, such as assistant professorship, do not necessarily lead to accelerated careers. This article contributes to the literature by showing that beyond the analysis of the institutional setting of academic careers, it is also important to study their actual progression.

On the non-standard routes: vocational training measures in the school-to-work transitions of lower-qualified youth in Germany

Article

Full-text available

May 2020

This study explores school-to-work transitions in Germany, aiming to achieve a richer understanding of the complexity of labour market entry trajectories while focusing on transition measures. The term transition measures refers to additional training courses that complement the regular vocational education and training system of firm-based or school-based qualification routes. The contribution of supplementary training measures to the school-to-work transitions of young adults is a controversial issue. While programmes aim to ease the transitions of low-skilled youth in the training and labour market, critics point to the risks of long-term subsidised careers or fragmented employment trajectories in subsequent years. By applying sequence analysis to administrative data of the Federal Employment Agency, individual trajectories of a cohort of school leavers with an at-most intermediate school-leaving certificate are analysed for the period 2008 to 2014. The results show a complex picture of ten distinct school-to-work transition patterns. Youth passing through transition measures tend to experience a less continuous but still purposeful transition pathway. We also identify a small number of youth experiencing at-risk trajectories characterised by a highly discontinuous transition process, which points to sustained detachment from the training and labour markets.

How institutional and ecological forces shape the career profiles of organizational leaders: An analysis of US law school deans, 1894–2009

Article

Apr 2020

How do macro social forces shape the career profiles of organizational leaders? The aim of the article is to answer this question by examining how institutional and ecological forces have influenced the careers of law school deans in the US from the late 19th century to the present. Specifically, we focus on the coexistence of two social forces—professionalization and the diversity of an organizational population. On the one hand, we view professionalization as a converging institutional force that promotes homogeneity among leader career profiles. The diversity of an organizational population, on the other hand, is viewed as a diverging ecological force that increases heterogeneity among leader career profiles. We show how these two opposing forces have left different imprints on leader career profiles with a unique career data of 1396 deans in American law schools from 1894 to 2009. We utilize optimal matching analysis to assess the degree of similarity (or dissimilarity) among deans’ career sequences and test our hypotheses. This study contributes to our understanding of the link between macro social transformations and leader career profiles.

Going the distance in vocational behavior research: Introducing three extensions for optimal matching analysis based on distances between career sequences

Article

Feb 2020

Optimal matching analysis is the most commonly used method to analyze career sequences. It enables researchers to calculate the distance (i.e. the dissimilarity) between individuals' careers. However, the method's primarily descriptive and explorative approach limits its scope and complicates statistical inference testing for a wide field of research questions. We introduce three extensions to optimal matching analysis that combine the method's core idea with approaches from other disciplines, thereby overcoming this weakness. In essence, these extensions allow researchers to use career sequence similarities as predictors, as outcomes, and as control variables in quantitative statistical analyses. We discuss practical recommendations and pitfalls when applying these extensions, and we outline potential avenues for future career research.

Parcours de soins des patients atteints de sclérose en plaques à partir des données médico-administratives en France

Thesis

Nov 2018

Jonathan Roux

La sclérose en plaques (SEP) est une maladie neurologique chronique du jeune adulte affectant environ 100 000 personnes en France. Au cours des deux dernières décennies, les stratégies thérapeutiques ont fortement évolué avec l’apparition de nouvelles molécules dont les premières formes orales. Le parcours de soins dans la SEP implique plusieurs professionnels de santé médicaux (généralistes, neurologues) et paramédicaux (kinésithérapeutes, infirmiers). Actuellement, aucune recommandation sur ces parcours n’a été définie, et peu de données existent sur le recours aux soins des individus ayant une SEP et l’utilisation des traitements spécifiques à la SEP en France. L’utilisation des données du Système National des Données de Santé (SNDS), c’est-à-dire les bases de l'Assurance Maladie, couplée avec les méthodes d’analyse de séquences donne l’opportunité d’étudier ces parcours de soins. L’objectif principal de cette thèse était d’étudier les parcours de soins des personnes ayant une SEP en France, à partir du SNDS, afin de décrire les consommations de soins et de mettre en évidence une typologie de parcours. Les objectifs secondaires étaient d’étudier l’utilisation des traitements de fond de la SEP en France (fréquence et place dans la séquence thérapeutique), et d’étudier la faisabilité de mesurer le niveau de handicap moteur dans ces bases. Au total sur la période de suivi de 2010 à 2015, 112 745 patients ont été identifiés, dont 47,4% avaient reçu au moins une délivrance d’un traitement de fond spécifique à la SEP. Une typologie a été obtenue identifiant cinq groupes cliniquement distincts. En parallèle, un indicateur de quantification du niveau de handicap moteur, pouvant être répliqué dans d’autres études, a été proposé afin d’enrichir les données du SNDS. Au travers des différentes analyses réalisées et des questions méthodologiques soulevées, des éléments clés permettant l’utilisation des méthodes d’analyse de séquences en santé, notamment la multichannel sequence analysis, ont pu être mis en évidence.

Youth transitions to employment: longitudinal evidence from marginalised young people in England

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2019

Elizabeth Sanderson

This paper uses empirical evidence to explore the nature of employment transitions for a cohort of marginalised young people in England. The findings presented reveal the importance of past experiences, largely determined by prevailing opportunity structures, in shaping the present and reiterate the need to see transition as a historical process. Longitudinal data collected as part of an evaluation of a youth employment programme called Talent Match provides the evidence for the paper. The routes participants took in terms of securing and sustaining employment are examined. The paper develops a typology of different transitional groups to explore these routes based on the movement (or lack of) into and out of employment. The relative importance of different factors in explaining the groupings are assessed, with results underlining how the ongoing change participants were encountering in the present was inextricably linked to their past. In response, this paper suggests a reemphasis on understanding youth as both a stage of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’, seeing youth as both a condition in its own right but also part of the life course process, and calls for a more dynamic understanding of youth transitions among policymakers and those designing youth employment programmes.

Brief note about management research on job mobility

Article

Aug 2019

Métodos y desafíos en la medición de desigualdades sociales en salud de Cuba / Methods and challenges in the health social inequalities measuring in Cuba

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2020

Introducción Los individuos en posiciones de desventaja socioeconómica presentan un mayor riesgo de sufrir enfermedades. En Cuba se investigan las desigualdades sociales en salud mediante diversos enfoques, primando las técnicas cualitativas. En nuestro país se divulgan poco los métodos cuantitativos para capturar estas desigualdades. Objetivo Proponer pasos para la medición de las desigualdades sociales en salud considerando métodos cuantitativos poco utilizados o no usados en Cuba como métodos clásicos, análisis multinivel y análisis de secuencias sociales. Método Se realizó una revisión bibliográfica sobre las técnicas y se expusieron sus fundamentos. Se compararon los métodos considerando desafíos metodológicos, estructura de la información de entrada, ventajas y limitantes, interpretación de los resultados, posibilidades para capturar la desigualdad y software disponible para cada técnica. Se propusieron etapas para la medición de las desigualdades sociales en salud tomando en cuenta la comparación realizada, los desafíos metodológicos planteados en las investigaciones, las alternativas metodológicas propuestas y la experticia de los autores de este artículo. Conclusiones Entre las limitantes de los métodos clásicos está la necesidad de tener datos hasta el nivel mínimo de análisis. El análisis multinivel asume que los efectos contextuales son los mismos para todos los individuos dentro de los grupos a lo largo del tiempo. Esta dificultad es resuelta por el análisis de secuencias sociales. El requerimiento de datos longitudinales es el mayor impedimento de esta técnica para su utilización en Cuba. Abstract Introduction Subjects in disadvantage socioeconomic positions have a high risk of suffering a disease. Social sciences are researching about social inequality in Cuba using many approaches, and giving priority to qualitative techniques. In our country, quantitative methods to measure the inequalities are less spread. Objectives We compare less used or not use methods for measuring social health inequalities in Cuba: classic methods, multilevel analysis, and social sequence analysis. Method We perform a literature review about those techniques, and we describe its theoretical principles. We compare the methods considering methodological challenges, input data structure, the pros and cons, results interpretation, possibilities for capturing the inequality, and available software for each technique. Then, we proposed steps for measuring social health inequalities based on the previous comparison, the methodological challenges present in research, the methodological alternatives proposed, and the our expertise in the topic. Conclusions Among the classic methods drawbacks, there is the recollection of data at the minimum level of analysis. The clustering methods have the challenge of feature extraction. Multilevel analysis assumes that contextual effects are the same for all the individuals inside the groups all the time. This drawback is solved by social sequence analysis. The need of longitudinal data is the main obstacle for applying this technique in Cuba.

Smoothness of the School-to-Work Transition: General versus Vocational Upper-Secondary Education

Article

Feb 2019

This article analyses the effect of vocational education on school-To-work transitions for the 2006 cohort of Dutch graduates of upper-secondary education (ISCED Level 3). Using sequence analysis, it uncovers ideal-Typical school-To-work transition trajectories representing the first 7 years in the labour market. It then analyses the effect of vocational education on trajectories and wages. Specific attention is paid to the moderating influence of vocational sector and type of programme: classroom-Taught or workplace-based. The results indicate that, compared to entrants with general education, vocationally educated entrants are less likely to have problematic labour market entry trajectories. Vocational field has a moderating effect on the prevalence of particular trajectories. Those with a vocational education enjoy higher wages on labour market entry but are soon overtaken by their counterparts with a general education. © The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions.

QUO VADIS? AS TRAJETÓRIAS PROFISSIONAIS DE REGULADORES BRASILEIROS

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2022

Pesquisas sobre trajetórias profissionais de reguladores destacam sua passagem para o setor privado, principalmente com base em evidências norte-americanas. No entanto, estudos atuais indicam que portas giratórias (revolving doors) dos reguladores em diferentes contextos podem compartilhar mais nuances, refletindo o papel de diferentes instituições políticas. Neste estudo, baseamo-nos na análise de sequência para explorar as trajetórias de 117 conselheiros brasileiros de agências reguladoras independentes (ARIs), investigando: Quais são suas trajetórias profissionais típicas? Qual plano de carreira recebe maiores benefícios salariais em cargos pós-mandato? A análise revela cinco grupos de planos de carreira nos quais a maioria dos reguladores não faz a transição entre os setores público e privado, mas ainda se beneficia de forma direta e indireta de cumprir mandatos em ARIs. Uma mistura diferente de incentivos de mercado, burocráticos, e políticos desempenha um papel nos padrões de trajetórias profissionais que descobrimos no Brasil.

Discontinuities in vocational education and training: the influence of early-risk factors and personality constructs on premature training termination and subsequent trajectories

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2022

Background For adolescents, preventing a premature training termination (PTT) and withdrawal from education and training after a PTT is an important societal task. While studies reveal that early-risk factors such as a low educational background or selected personality constructs are relevant for predicting PTT, less is known about subsequent trajectories after a PTT and the factors that determine them. Methods Using data from the German National Educational Panel Study, we examine the influence of early-risk factors and personality constructs on the first PTT (n = 4892) in the training course using a binomial logistic regression model. In a second step, by using a sequence and cluster analysis we explore subsequent trajectory patterns within 24 months after PTT (n = 944) and analyze the influence of early-risk factors and personality constructs on subsequent trajectory clusters after PTT. Results We identify 7 different trajectory clusters, of which three clusters show risk-related trajectories (37.0%) with tendencies to withdraw from education and training. Furthermore, our analysis confirms the relevance of early-risk factors for predicting PTT as well as trajectories after PTT: a low educational qualification, graduation after more than the typical number of years, and low parental education increase the probability of discontinuities in adolescents’ educational and training paths. Additionally, it is important to consider the influence of personality traits on the subsequent trajectories: adolescents with strong openness tend to have continued school attendance after PTT, indicating a constructive career adaptation process, while adolescents with strong self-efficacy seem to assess their chances in the labor market as positive even without a vocational qualification. Conclusions The longitudinal perspective on the consequences of a first termination of a VET program revealed that educational trajectories after a PTT are highly heterogeneous indicating the need for different types of policy measures to minimize the incidence of PTT and withdrawing from education and training.

Trajectories of systemic agent use and associated depression- and anxiety-related health care costs among patients with psoriasis

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2022

Background Systemic treatment patterns and related mental health disorders economic burden among patients with psoriasis are largely unknown. Objective To assess systemic treatment patterns and associated depression- and anxiety-related healthcare costs among patients with psoriasis initiating a conventional systemic treatment (CST). Methods Using a retrospective cohort design with sequence and cluster analyses, we assessed systemic treatment’s trajectories (CST and tumor necrosis factor inhibitors or ustekinumab, TNFi/UST) over a two-year period following CST initiation. We compared healthcare costs between trajectories using two-part models. Results We included 781 patients and identified eight trajectories that we labelled by their apparent pattern: Persistent methotrexate; Persistent acitretin; Early discontinuation; Late discontinuation; Switch to TNFi/UST; Adding TNFi/UST; Discontinuation then restart on methotrexate; and Discontinuation then restart on acitretin or multiple CST switches . Overall, 165 (21%) patients incurred depression- and anxiety-related healthcare cost (median annual cost CAN$56, quartiles: $14-$127). Compared to Persistent methotrexate, Adding a TNFi/UST (cost ratio 3.63; 95%CI: 1.47-5.97) and Discontinuation then re-start on acitretin or multiple CST switches (13.3; 5.76-22.47) had higher costs. Limitations Trajectory misclassification may occur. Conclusion Depression- and anxiety-related healthcare costs were high among patients adding TNFi/UST and those discontinuing then restarting on acitretin or experiencing multiple CST switches.

Multidimensional analysis of adult patients’ care trajectories before a first diagnosis of schizophrenia

Article

Full-text available

May 2022

For patients at high-risk for developing schizophrenia, a delayed diagnosis could be affected, among many reasons, by their patterns of healthcare use. This study aims to describe and generate a typology of patients’ care trajectories (CTs) in the 2 years preceding a first diagnosis of schizophrenia, over a medico-administrative database of 3712 adults with a first diagnosis between April 2014 and March 2015 in Quebec, Canada. This study applied a multidimensional approach of State Sequence Analysis, considering together sequences of patients’ diagnoses, care settings and care providers. Five types of distinct CTs have emerged from this data-driven analysis: The type 1, shared by 77.6% of patients, predominantly younger men, shows that this group sought little healthcare, among which 17.5% had no healthcare contact for mental disorders. These individuals might benefit from improved promotion and prevention of mental healthcare at the community level. The types 2, 3 and 4, with higher occurrence of mental disorder diagnoses, represent together 19.5% of the study cohort, mostly middle-aged and women. These CTs, although displaying roughly similar profiles of mental disorders, revealed very dissimilar sequences and levels of care providers encounters, primary and specialized care use, and hospitalizations. Surprisingly, patients of these CTs had few consultations with general practitioners. An increased attentiveness for middle-aged patients and women with high healthcare use for mental disorders could help to reduce delayed diagnosis of schizophrenia. This calls for further consideration of healthcare services for severe mental illness beyond those offered to young adults.

The Dynamics of Marginalized Youth: Not in Education, Employment, or Training Around the World

Book

Mar 2022

This book studies young people who are Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET); a prime concern among policymakers. Moving past common interpretations of NEETs as a homogeneous group, it asks why some youth become NEET, whereas others do not. The authors analyse diverse school-to-work patterns of young NEETs in five typical countries and investigate the role of individual characteristics, countries’ institutions and policies, and their complex interplay. Readers will come to understand youth marginalization as a process that may occur during the transition from school, vocational college, or university to work. By studying longitudinal analyses of processes and transitions, readers will gain the crucial insight that NEETs are not equally vulnerable, and that most NEETs will find their way back to the labour market. However, they will also see that in all countries, a group of long-term NEETs exists. These exceptionally vulnerable young people are sidelined from society and the labour market. The country cases and cross-national studies illustrate that policies intended to help long-term NEETs to find their way in society are very limited. The book provides useful theoretical and empirical insights for scholars interested in the school-to-work transition and marginalized youth. It also provides helpful insights in vulnerability to policymakers who aim to combat youth marginalization. Available via Open Access: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003096658/dynamics-marginalized-youth-mark-levels-christian-brzinsky-fay-craig-holmes-janine-jongbloed-hirofumi-taki

Career patterns of marketing managers in top European football clubs

Article

Jan 2022

Karolina Nessel

Purpose The goal of this research was to explore career patterns of senior marketing managers in the best European football clubs (SMMEFCs). Design/methodology/approach The data came from the LinkedIn profiles of current and past SMMEFCs. Firstly, the optimal matching algorithm was used to determine clusters of pathways leading to a first SMMEFC position based on the main activity of the employing organisation. Secondly, these patterns were compared in terms of variables depicting the career paths, clubs and managers. Finally, the evolution of the post-SMMEFC careers was analysed. Findings People in their first SMMEFC positions are mainly male with a university degree in business and marketing, and with a predominantly functional experience in marketing. There are five ways to become an SMMEFC: through business (40% of the sample), football (32%), other sports (11%), marketing and communication (11%), and media (6%). As the majority of SMMEFCs come to their positions from outside the sporting world, the specificity of the football industry is not a serious obstacle. Instead, the careers are bounded by functional marketing experience. Among the individual sequences leading to a first SMMEFC position, only around half of the football cluster may be considered traditional careers. Football, and sports in general, seem attractive for post-SMMEFC career development for the majority of managers coming from all pathways. Originality/value The study is the first one to quantify career patterns in professional sports management. It provides new insights about marketing careers and practice in European club football.

Disease-modifying therapy usage in patients with multiple sclerosis in France: A 6-year population-based study

Article

Jul 2021
REV NEUROL-FRANCE

Background Most data regarding the use of disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) in multiple sclerosis (MS) comes from clinical series or regional databases that have a risk of recruitment bias. French health administrative data offers the significant advantage of being extensive in regards to both MS population coverage and DMT prescriptions. Objectives To describe patterns of DMTs usage at the level of the entire French population of MS patients from 2010 to 2015. Methods MS patients were identified during a 6-year study period via the French national health data system (covering 97% of the general population) and characteristics of patients who received at least one treatment were compared to those that never received treatment over the indicated period. A state sequence analysis was performed to study in a longitudinal way MS patients who started DMTs in 2010 and then to classify them into groups of similar therapeutic patterns. DMTs were categorized into first-line, second-line and off-label use, and included untreated periods for at least six months. Groups that were obtained were described and compared using a multinomial logistic regression. Results A total of 112,415 patients with MS were identified, of whom 54.0% received at least one DMT over the 6 years. The probability of being treated significantly decreased with age. Comorbidities and physical limitations appeared to be more frequent in not treated patients than in treated patients. Significant differences were also found between the two groups regarding the use of healthcare services (hospitalizations and visits to general practitioner, neurologist and nurse). Based on the 6-year therapeutic sequences, a four-cluster typology was obtained on the 4,474 patients who started a DMT in 2010. The first group which consisted of more than half of the patients (57.0%) mainly used first-line DMTs. The second group (13.1%) represented patients with second-line DMTs whereas the third group (7.3%) was comprised of off-label users and the last group (22.6%) was composed of MS patients who received no or minimal treatments. Classification into one of these groups was associated with patient's age, long-term disease status, pregnancy occurrence, estimated level of disability, levels of care (visits to a neurologist, nurse and/or physiotherapist and hospital/rehabilitation stays) and occurrence of death. Conclusions The exhaustive population-based dataset from the French national health data system gave the opportunity to provide a detailed description regarding the use of DMTs for MS at national level. The innovative method of state sequence analysis allowed obtaining four homogeneous groups of patients among thousands of longitudinal therapeutic sequences. The predominant place of first-line treatments was confirmed even if the type of first-line treatments has probably changed since 2015.

Types of working-life sequences among people recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in Sweden: A nationwide register-based cohort study

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2020

Objectives To explore sequences of annual states of activity and sickness absence (SA) or disability pension (DP) (SA/DP) among working-aged people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS) as well as characteristics associated with the identified types of working-life sequences. Design Nationwide Swedish register-based cohort study from 1 year prior to 5 years after the year of multiple sclerosis (MS) diagnosis. Setting Sweden. Participants PwMS diagnosed in 2008–2011 when aged 20–55 (n=2652, 69.9% women). Primary and secondary outcome measures Individual-level sequences spanning 7 years were constructed with annual states regarding activity (income from paid work, student allowances, parental leave or unemployment compensation) and/or SA/DP. Types of working-life sequences were identified among the individuals’ sequences using hierarchical cluster analysis with optimal matching dissimilarity measures. Results Six types of working-life sequences were identified. The largest cluster, Stable High Activity, represented 48.4% of the cohort. Other types were: Stable High SA/DP (14.5%); Other (4.5%); and three types with mixed activity and varying SA/DP regarding the number of days/year and timing (32.6%). Characteristics of the different identified types of sequences were subsequently investigated. All types of sequences had lower odds for university education (OR range: 0.18–0.72) compared with Stable High Activity. Increasingly higher odds of having anxiety/depression compared with Stable High Activity were observed across the types of sequences, by increasing proportions of SA/DP. Stable High SA/DP sequences were less likely than Stable High Activity to be prescribed MS drugs in the MS diagnosis year (OR 0.61; 95% CI 0.47 to 0.78). All types of sequences had higher disposable income in the final study year than the first, except for Stable High SA/DP sequences (Swedish Krona 4669, 95% CI −1892 to 11 230). Conclusions Diversity in working life was influenced by sociodemographic and clinical characteristics resulting in different activity and SA/DP patterns across the six identified types of working-life sequences.

Best-Practice Recommendations for Producers, Evaluators, and Users of Methodological Literature Reviews

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2020
ORGAN RES METHODS

We categorized and content-analyzed 168 methodological literature reviews published in 42 management and applied psychology journals. First, our categorization uncovered that the majority of published reviews (i.e., 85.10%) belong in three categories (i.e., critical, narrative, and descriptive reviews), which points to opportunities and promising directions for additional types of methodological literature reviews in the future (e.g., meta-analytic and umbrella reviews). Second, our content analysis uncovered implicit features of published methodological literature reviews. Based on the results of our content analysis, we created a checklist of actionable recommendations regarding 10 components to include to enhance a methodological literature review’s thoroughness, clarity, and ultimately, usefulness. Third, we describe choices and judgment calls in published reviews and provide detailed explications of exemplars that illustrate how those choices and judgment calls can be made explicit. Overall, our article offers recommendations that are useful for three methodological literature review stakeholder groups: producers (i.e., potential authors), evaluators (i.e., journal editors and reviewers), and users (i.e., substantive researchers interested in learning about a particular methodological issue and individuals tasked with training the next generation of scholars).

Prototypical career paths in urban, suburban, and rural locations in the United States

Article

Jun 2020

Career paths are formed over time from interactions between individuals, organizations, and labor markets within and across geographic locations. What are the prototypical career paths thus formed? Who are the likely incumbents of these career paths? What are the consequences of pursuing these career paths? This study combines micro-level perspectives on personal agency and macro-level institutional factors to explain how careers unfold over time and space. The juxtaposition of micro- and macro-level factors contributes to career research and practice, which have traditionally examined careers as movements across organizations and occupations over time, but almost exclusively within specific geographic locations. We make a significant contribution to theory and practice by analyzing sequences of jobs and residence locations for 2836 individuals drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. The analyses reveal eight prototypical career paths, some commonly found across geographic locations and others idiosyncratic to specific geographic locations. The profiles of the career path incumbents vary regarding gender, ethnicity, and education attainment. We find that the objective career success associated with prototypical career paths is more a function of human capital accumulation and career choices than geographic locations. We close by discussing our findings’ implications for career research and practice.

Mining Career Paths from Large Resume Databases: Evidence from IT Professionals

Article

May 2020
ACM Trans Knowl Discov Data

Theodoros Lappas

The emergence of online professional platforms, such as LinkedIn and Indeed, has led to unprecedented volumes of rich resume data that have revolutionized the study of careers. One of the most prevalent problems in this space is the extraction of prototype career paths from a workforce. Previous research has consistently relied on a two-step approach to tackle this problem. The first step computes the pairwise distances between all the career sequences in the database. The second step uses the distance matrix to create clusters, with each cluster representing a different prototype path. As we demonstrate in this work, this approach faces two significant challenges when applied on large resume databases. First, the overwhelming diversity of job titles in the modern workforce prevents the accurate evaluation of distance between career sequences. Second, the clustering step of the standard approach leads to highly heterogeneous clusters, due to its inability to handle categorical sequences and sensitivity to outliers. This leads to non-representative centroids and spurious prototype paths that do not accurately represent the actual groups in the workforce. Our work addresses these two challenges and has practical implications for the numerous researchers and practitioners working on the analysis of career data across domains.

Career patterns in self-employment and career success

Article

Dec 2019
J BUS VENTURING

A substantial body of research examines entry into and exit from self-employment. However, little is known about the career patterns of the self-employed, their transitions into and from self-employment and the success associated with different patterns of their careers. To address these issues, we examine the career patterns of individuals with self-employment experience and their relationship to objective and subjective career success using data from the German Household Panel (SOEP). Our results show that persistent self-employment careers have higher gross labor income and exhibit higher job and life satisfaction than all other self-employment career patterns.

How boundaryless are partner careers in consulting firms?—a two-country optimal matching analysis

Article

Oct 2019

Jan-Niklas Bartel

Empirical research on firms organized as partnerships is scarce, especially regarding the careers of their senior leaders, the partners. In the context of career theory, this study analyzes the careers of 291 American and German partners of the ‘Big Three’ consulting firms and provides insights into the paths that lead to partner positions within these firms. Using optimal matching, an innovative method particularly appropriate for career analysis, I find four career patterns that involve multiple moves across organizational and industry boundaries and thus match the definition of a boundaryless career. My results indicate that American partners and partners with fewer years of education before their first job are more likely to follow one of the boundaryless career patterns. These findings provide new evidence of the existence of boundaryless careers in industries with strict hierarchies and advancement principles, and are relevant to organizational inquiries into partnerships.

Recommendations for Producers Evaluators and Users of Methodological Literature Reviews

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2019

We conducted a “review of reviews” and categorized and content-analyzed 241 methodological literature reviews published in 54 journals. First, our categorization uncovered that the majority of published reviews belong in three categories (i.e., narrative, descriptive, and scoping reviews), which points to opportunities and promising directions for additional types of methodological reviews in the future (e.g., umbrella, theoretical, and realist reviews). Second, our content analysis, which involved a type of policy-capturing approach, revealed implicit features of published methodological reviews from which we created a checklist of actionable recommendations on what components to include to improve a review’s thoroughness, clarity, and ultimately, usefulness. Third, because our content analysis also identified critical areas where judgment calls must be made, we describe choices and judgment calls found in published reviews and provide detailed explications of exemplars that illustrate how those reviews made explicit those choices and judgment calls. Overall, our manuscript offers recommendations that address the needs of three methodological review stakeholder groups: producers (i.e., potential authors), evaluators (i.e., journal editors and reviewers), and users (i.e., substantive researchers interested in learning about a particular methodological issue and instructors of research methods seminars).

Welfare Dynamics and Employment: Heterogeneous Paths Through Means-tested Basic Income in Germany

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2019

This study contributes to the international literature on welfare dynamics, by providing a differentiated picture of paths through the means-tested Basic Income for recipients who are capable of working, after the reorganisation of the basic income system in Germany in 2005. We analyse the employment and benefit trajectories of individuals who became recipients for the first time between 2007 and 2009 by methods of sequence and cluster analysis based on representative administrative individual data. We find a significant polarisation between long-term recipients and those with an early exit from benefit receipt via full-time employment. One in three new recipients remains in benefit receipt for the next years and shows almost no employment activities. Approximately 23 percent leave benefit receipt quickly and work in full-time employment. Several other different paths exist between these two poles. These heterogeneous trajectories should be characteristic for broad basic income systems and require a variety of policies that in part are beyond labour market policies.

Return to work after first incidence of long-term sickness absence: A 10-year prospective follow-up study identifying labour-market trajectories using sequence analysis

Article

Apr 2019

Aleksander Årnes Madsen

Aims: The study aim was to identify prototypical labour-market trajectories following a first incidence of long-term sickness absence (LTSA), and to assess whether baseline socio-demographic characteristics are associated with the return-to-work (RTW) process and labour-market attachment (LMA). Methods: This prospective study used Norwegian administrative registers with quarterly information on labour-market participation to follow all individuals born 1952–1978 who underwent a first LTSA during the first quarter of 2004 (n =9607) over a 10-year period (2004–2013). Sequence analysis was used to identify prototypical labour-market trajectories and LMA; trajectory membership was examined with multinomial logistic regression. Results: Sequence analysis identified nine labour-market trajectories illustrating the complex RTW process, with multiple states and transitions. Among this sample, 68.2% had a successful return to full-time work, while the remaining trajectories consisted of part-time work, unemployment, recurrence of LTSA, rehabilitation and disability pension (DP). A higher odds ratio (OR) for membership to trajectories of weaker LMA was found for females and older participants, while being married/cohabitating, having children, working in the public sector, and having a higher education, income and occupational class were associated with a lower OR of recurrence, unemployment, rehabilitation and DP trajectories. These results are consistent with three LMA indicators. Conclusions: Sequence analysis revealed prototypical labour-market trajectories and provided a holistic overview of the heterogeneous RTW processes. While the most frequent outcome was successful RTW, several unfavourable labour-market trajectories were identified, with trajectory membership predicted by socio-demographic measures.

Determinants of successful labour market integration as exemplified by the German Green Card programme

Article

Feb 2019

Martin Wrobel

The German Green Card programme that was in place from the year 2000 to 2004 was intended to counter claims propagated by industry and trade associations of a shortage of ICT professionals. Even if it is debatable whether the programme can be judged as a success in terms of the absolute number of Green Cards issued, it provides important insights into the long-term integration of migrants from third countries coming to Germany for employment purposes – a matter where the Green Card programme was successful beyond the policy it was originally designed for. Using sequence and cluster analyses to examine the employment trajectories of some 1500 Green Card recipients who came to Germany reveals the personal, occupational and firm-specific characteristics that have contributed to successful integration. It emerges that the likelihood of a Green Card recipient becoming successfully integrated in the German labour market is quite high and grows with increasing establishment size. Other factors beneficial to integration are a moderate agreed wage, employment in a more technically-oriented occupation and in particular being of Central or Eastern European origin. Against the background of the current debate surrounding demographic change and the growing skill shortages, the results obtained in this paper provide indications as to how human capital that is in demand globally and is correspondingly mobile can be bound to the German labour market in the longer term.

Employment status mobility from a life-cycle perspective: A sequence analysis of work-histories in the BHPS

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2003
DEMOGR RES

In this paper we apply optimal matching techniques to individual work-histories in the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), with a two-fold objective. First, to explore the usefulness of this sequence-oriented approach to analyze work-histories. Second, to analyze the impact of involuntary job separations on life courses. The study covers the whole range of employment statuses, including unemployment and inactivity periods, from the first job held to the year 1993. Our main findings are the following: (i) mobility in employment status has increased along the twentieth century; (ii) it has become more similar between men and women; (iii) birth cohorts in the second half of the century have especially been affected by involuntary job separations; (iv) in general, involuntary job separations provoke employment status sequences which substantially differ from the typical sequence in each cohort.

Career Patterns of Executive Women in Finance: An Optimal Matching Analysis

Article

Full-text available

Mar 1999

Mary Blair-Loy

This article examines the objective and subjective facets of female finance‐executive careers. Optimal matching and qualitative analyses are used to show how the careers are shaped by workplace structures and by the early 1970s enforcement of women's employment rights. Changing opportunity structures in turn shaped respondents' perspectives. Many younger respondents were unaware that their mobility was partly due to the creative action of their female predecessors and took personal credit for their own rapid progress. Finally, it appears that as women have experienced more freedom in pursuing finance careers, their career trajectories have become more rigid.

Does career type matter? Outcomes in traditional and transitional career patterns

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2014
J VOCAT BEHAV

Labor market segmentation theory and new career theory differ in their appraisal of the long-term consequences of career mobility. In this article we examine career outcomes of different career types and review their correspondence to both theories. The analysis is carried out in two steps. First, we construct a career typology using Optimal Matching Analysis, utilizing data covering entire individual careers. Second, we compare these career types on a set of measures pertaining to objective and subjective career success. The results indicate that neither of the two theories is fully able to explain the data. Instead, they can be combined to provide a more adequate model of career mobility outcomes in the context of flexibilizing labor markets.

The Career Paths Less (or More) Traveled: A Sequence Analysis of IT Career Histories, Mobility Patterns, and Career Success

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2012
MIS QUART

This paper examines the objective career histories, mobility patterns, and career success of 500 individuals drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), who had worked in the information technology workforce. Sequence analysis of career histories shows that careers of the IT workforce are more diverse than the traditional view of a dual IT career path (technical versus managerial). This study reveals a new career typology comprising three broad, distinct paths: IT careers; professional labor market (PLM) careers; and secondary labor market (SLM) careers. Of the 500 individuals in the IT workforce, 173 individuals pursued IT careers while the remaining 327 individuals left IT for other high-status non-IT professional jobs in PLM or lower-status, non-IT jobs in SLM careers. Findings from this study contribute to refining the concept of "boundaryless" careers. By tracing the diverse trajectories of career mobility, we enrich our understanding of how individuals construct boundaryless careers that span not only organizational but also occupational boundaries. Career success did not differ in terms of average pay for individuals in IT and PLM careers. By contrast, individuals in SLM careers attained the lowest pay. We conclude this study with implications for future research and for the management of IT professionals' careers.

Analyzing Sequence Data

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2014
ORGAN RES METHODS

In this article we discuss optimal matching (OM), an invaluable yet underutilized tool in the analysis of sequence data. Initially developed in biology to identify and study patterns in DNA sequences, OM subsequently migrated over to sociology, where it has been used to examine career patterns in life course research. It involves the computation of the number of insertions, deletions, and substitutions of sequence elements that are needed to transform one sequence into another and the costs associated with such transformations. The goal is to identify similarities across sequences, which can then be used for pattern identification. Along with a discussion of the logic underlying OM analysis, we provide an illustration of its use in the examination of careers of deans at U.S. business schools. In addition, we use Monte Carlo simulation to compare OM and cluster analysis and highlight the superiority of OM analysis in the analysis of sequence data. Also discussed are recent methodological advances that have been made in OM and our recommendations and guidelines for future applications of OM in management research.

Career patterns: A twenty-year panel study

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2012

Using 20 years of employment and job mobility data from a representative German sample (N = 1259), we employ optimal matching analysis (OMA) to identify six career patterns which deviate from the traditional career path of long-term, full-time employment in one organization. Then, in further analyses, we examine which socio-demographic predictors affect whether or not individuals follow that traditional career path. Results indicate that age, gender, marital status, number of children, education, and career starts in the public sector significantly predicted whether or not individuals followed the traditional career path. The article concludes with directions for future theoretical and methodological research on career patterns.

Do Economic Globalization and Industry Growth Destabilize Careers? An Analysis of Career Complexity and Career Patterns Over Time

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2011
ORGAN STUD

We analyze the impact of economic globalization and industry growth on the complexity of early work careers in Germany. We conceptualize complexity as the absolute number of employer changes, the regularity in the order of job changes, and the variability of the durations spent in different employment states. Results from empirical analyses based on the German Life History Study (N = 5453) show only a small increase in the complexity of work careers over the last decades, but there was a shift in the prevalence of different career patterns. This suggests that effects of globalization might be counteracted or modified by other social changes that affected work careers in Germany during the last 60 years. In particular, we consider the possible impact of educational expansion, labor market restructuring, and women’s increased employment. We find no evidence that industry-specific economic globalization impacts the complexity of work careers, but we find a U-shaped relationship between industry growth and career complexity. Careers are slightly more complex in industries with high or low industry growth. We conclude that, while there has been a shift in career patterns over time, the impact of globalization on career stability is possibly overestimated.

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2003
Acoust Speech Signal Process Newslett IEEE

Cees Elzinga

This article reviews objections to optimal-matching (OM) algorithms in sequence analysis and reformulates the concept of sequence similarity in terms of a binary precedence relation. This precedence relation is then used to develop a new quantification of sequence similarity. The new measure is used to reanalyze the life history data that were previously discussed by Dijkstra and Taris (1995). The reanalysis demonstrates the new measure to be superior to the OM algorithm and the alternatives proposed by Dijkstra and Taris. A new algorithm is presented to enumerate matching k-tuples from pairs of sequences in polynomial time.

Beyond Transitions: Applying Optimal Matching Analysis to Life Course Research

Article

Full-text available

Jul 2008

Life course researchers have increasingly explored optimal matching analysis (OMA) as a tool for the analysis of sequences, such as sections of people's status biographies. OMA is usually employed in combination with cluster analysis (CA) to create classifications of sequences. In this article, we introduce an analytic strategy that allows assessing the classification's internal validity. Using ideal typical sequence representations, we test different cluster algorithms and are able to optimise the fit to the data. An application analyses economic activity sequences collected for two British birth cohorts born in 1958 and 1970, investigating historical changes in passages to adulthood. The results suggest that passages into adulthood have become more diverse since the 1970s. The analytic strategy produced a classification with better fit than straightforward CA.

An Empirical Taxonomy of Implementation Processes Based on Sequences of Events in Information System Development

Article

Full-text available

Nov 1993

A widely accepted and usable taxonomy is a fundamental element in the development of a scientific body of knowledge. However, the creation of good empirical taxonomies of implementation processes is complicated by the need to consider the dynamics of the implementation process. This paper addresses this difficulty by using an optimal matching procedure to measure the pairwise distances among event sequences occurring in 53 computer-based information system (IS) implementation projects. Cluster analysis based on these inter-sequence distances is used to generate the empirical taxonomy of implementation processes. The resulting taxonomy includes six distinct archetypical processes. One of the process types is labeled textbook life cycle (type 4) due to its close resemblance to the detailed, rational approach commonly prescribed in IS textbooks. The logical minimalist process (type 1) follows some of the basic steps of the textbook approach, but is characterized by little project definition and infrequent assignment of personnel. Whereas both textbook life cycle and logical minimalist approaches use external vendors and consultants to some extent, external dependence is much greater in traditional off-the-shelf (type 2) and outsourced cooperative (type 5) processes. The traditional off-the-shelf process simply involves purchasing the system from an external vendor, with little system construction or assignment of personnel. In contrast, the outsourced cooperative process consists of joint system development by internally assigned personnel and external vendors. The remaining two process types—problem-driven minimalist (type 3) and in-house trial and error (type 6)—are both considerably influenced by performance problems. The problem-driven minimalist process is initiated by such problems, with little project definition, and results in a reassignment of organizational roles. The in-house trial-and-error process begins like textbook life cycle, with a clear project definition, but involves frequent system modifications to respond to the performance problems encountered during the project. The paper demonstrates how an empirical taxonomy that incorporates the dynamics of event sequences may be developed. The archetypes comprising the taxonomy are related to other implementation process models available in the literature. Some limitations of the study are acknowledged and its implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Sequential Variety in Work Processes

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2003

Brian Pentland

This paper introduces the concept of sequential variety as a way to measure variability in the sequence of steps used to perform a work process. There is reason to expect that such variability may influence a range of outcomes, such as flexibility and quality. Two alternative ways to operationalize sequential variety are demonstrated and compared to traditional measures of task variety in four task units. The findings provide empirical support for treating sequential variety as a distinct construct. In particular, sequential variety appears to provide an index of tacit, procedural knowledge, while task variety may relate more closely to explicit, declarative knowledge.

New Life for Old Ideas: The "Second Wave" of Sequence Analysis Bringing the "Course" Back Into the Life Course

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2010
SOCIOL METHOD RES

In this article the authors draw attention to the most recent and promising developments of sequence analysis. Taking methodological developments in life course sociology as the starting point, the authors detail the complementary strength in sequence analysis in this field. They argue that recent advantages of sequence analysis were developed in response to criticism of the original work, particularly optimal matching analysis. This debate arose over the past two decades and culminated in the 2000 exchange in Sociological Methods & Research. The debate triggered a 'second wave" of sequence techniques that led to new technical implementations of old ideas in sequence analysis. The authors bring these new technical approaches together, demonstrate selected advances with synthetic example data, and show how they conceptually contribute to life course research. This article demonstrates that in less than a decade, the field has made much progress toward fulfilling the prediction that Andrew Abbott made in 2000, that 'anybody who believes that pattern search techniques are not going to be basic to social sciences over the next 25 years is going to be very much surprised" (p. 75).

Optimal Matching Analysis and Life-Course Data: The Importance of Duration

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2010
SOCIOL METHOD RES

Brendan Halpin

The optimal matching (OM) algorithm is widely used for sequence analysis in sociology. It has a natural interpretation for discrete-time sequences but is also widely used for life-history data, which are continuous in time. Life- history data are arguably better dealt with in terms of episodes rather than as strings of time-unit observations, and in this article, the author examines whether the OM algorithm is unsuitable for such sequences. A modified version of the algorithm is proposed, weighting OM's elementary operations inversely with episode length. In the general case, the modified algorithm produces pairwise distances much lower than the standard algorithm, the more the sequences are composed of long spells in the same state. However, where all the sequences in a data set consist of few long spells, and there is low variability in the number of spells, the modified algorithm generates an overall pattern of distances that is not very different from standard OM.

De-standardization of Family-Life Trajectories of Young Adults: A Cross-National Comparison Using Sequence Analysis

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2007

We introduce a number of new methods based on sequence analysis to test hypotheses on the de-standardization of family-life trajectories in early adulthood, using Fertility and Family Survey data on 19 countries. Across cohorts, family-life trajectories of young adults have not become more turbulent. However, in most countries family-life trajectories of young adults have become less similar to one another and the variation in the types of family-trajectories has increased. Contrary to expectations, no clear differences in de-standardization were observed between countries characterized by a social-democratic welfare-state regime and countries characterized by either liberal or conservative welfare-state regimes. Nous introduisons une variété de nouvelles méthodes basées sur l’analyse séquentielle pour tester des hypothèses sur la dé-standardisation des trajectoires de vie familiale au début de l’âge adulte, en utilisant les données de l’enquête Fécondité et Famille dans 19 pays. D’une génération à l’autre, les trajectoires de vie familiale des jeunes adultes ne sont pas devenues plus “turbulentes”. Toutefois, dans la-plupart des pays, ces trajectoires sont devenues de plus en plus dissemblables et diversifiées. A l’opposé des attentes, aucune différence claire en matière de dé-standardisation n’apparaît entre les pays caractérisés par un système de protection sociale et de retraite de type social-démocrate et ceux caractérisés par un système de type libéral ou conservateur.

A Cluster Separation Measure

Article

Full-text available

May 1979
IEEE T PATTERN ANAL

A measure is presented which indicates the similarity of clusters which are assumed to have a data density which is a decreasing function of distance from a vector characteristic of the cluster. The measure can be used to infer the appropriateness of data partitions and can therefore be used to compare relative appropriateness of various divisions of the data. The measure does not depend on either the number of clusters analyzed nor the method of partitioning of the data and can be used to guide a cluster seeking algorithm.

Optimal Matching in Management Research

Article

Jul 2012

A dendrite method for cluster analysis

Article

Jan 1974

Optimal Matching Analysis in Career Research: A Review and Some Best-practice Recommendations

Article

Jan 2015

Katja Dlouhy

Optimal matching is a method for the analysis of sequential data. It allows researchers to detect patterns in career sequences or in trajectories of vocational development. After giving a brief introduction to the method, we review the present literature on careers and vocational development to show where optimal matching analysis has already been employed. We then conduct Monte Carlo simulations of data with varying parameters for sequence length and sample size. Based on the results from these simulation studies, we recommend which properties data sets should have for an optimal matching analysis. We also provide guidelines on how to code sequences, discuss how to deal with missing values, and show which cost settings and clustering algorithms deliver the best results for data sets with specific properties.

A life-span, life-space approach to career development

Article

Jan 1990

Sequence Analysis and Optimal Matching Methods in Sociology: Review and Prospect

Article

Aug 2000
SOCIOL METHOD RES

The authors review all known studies applying optimal matching or alignment (OM) techniques to social science sequence data. Issues of data, coding, temporality, cost setting/ algorithm design, and analytic strategies are considered, and substantive findings are reviewed. The authors conclude that OM techniques have produced interesting results in a wide variety of areas, the most promising being studies of careers and of sequentially organized cultural artifacts.

Is Optimal Matching Suboptimal?

Article

Nov 2009
SOCIOL METHOD RES

Matissa Hollister

Optimal matching (OM) is a method for measuring the similarity between pairs of sequences (e.g., work histories). This article discusses two problems with optimal matching. First, the author identifies a flaw in OM "indel costs'' and proposes a solution to this flaw. Second, the author discusses the need for benchmarks to measure the added value of OM and to test competing versions. To that end, the author conducts an empirical test of traditional OM, the alternative localized OM, and sequence comparison. The test documents the problem with traditional OM and shows that it is solved by localized OM. The test also demonstrates the value of OM and sequence comparison in examining occupational sequences; both methods capture variation beyond traditional human capital and status attainment measures, although the marginal improvements of OM over sequence comparison may not justify its computational complexity. These results point to the need for more systematic approaches to sequence analysis methods.

The Comparative Method.

Article

Jan 1993

The Lid on the Garbage Can: Institutional Constraints on Decision Making in the Technical Core of College-Text Publishers

Article

Jun 1989
ADMIN SCI QUART

In a study of college physics and sociology textbook publishers, coercive, mimetic, and normative forces in the institutional environment are shown to order the decision and access structures of garbage can systems and to account for a uniformity of outcomes that is unexpected from garbage can decision models. Interviews with editors established that decision making in textbook publishing conforms with the garbage can model and helped us determine the ten best-selling introductory texts in each field. Optimal matching, a quantitative technique for content analysis, was used to demonstrate that differences in the homogeneity of contents and sequencing of material in these textbooks are determined by the degree of development of paradigms in the academic discipline. We show that, in contrast to Thompson's (1967) model, organizations with ambiguous core technologies can benefit from opening their technical cores to be shaped by the institutional environment.

Managerial career patterns: A review of the empirical evidence

Article

Jun 2012

Despite the ubiquitous presence of the term “career patterns” in the discourse about careers, the existing empirical evidence on (managerial) career patterns is rather limited. From this literature review of 33 published empirical studies of managerial and similar professional career patterns found in electronic bibliographic databases, it is clear that upward mobility is still the norm, even when contrasting traditional to “new” careers. We argue that the nature and number of unique career patterns identified is strongly influenced by where and when the data were collected (i.e. empirical access), and how career patterns are measured. Our review further shows organizations clearly still act as containing social structures for the patterning of managerial careers, and that contemporary managerial careers, despite some evidence of increasing inter-organizational mobility, have new boundaries which induce linearity. We provide insights for further conceptualization of managerial career patterns and for advancing methodological approaches, including the use of optimal matching analysis and narratives. By expanding the scope of career pattern dimensions beyond time and direction, this review provides ground for further research on managerial career patterns.

Error Detecting and Error Correcting Codes

Article

Apr 1950

Richard W Hamming

The author was led to the study given in this paper from a consideration of large scale computing machines in which a large number of operations must be performed without a single error in the end result. This problem of “doing things right” on a large scale is not essentially new; in a telephone central office, for example, a very large number of operations are performed while the errors leading to wrong numbers are kept well under control, though they have not been completely eliminated. This has been achieved, in part, through the use of self-checking circuits. The occasional failure that escapes routine checking is still detected by the customer and will, if it persists, result in customer complaint, while if it is transient it will produce only occasional wrong numbers. At the same time the rest of the central office functions satisfactorily. In a digital computer, on the other hand, a single failure usually means the complete failure, in the sense that if it is detected no more computing can be done until the failure is located and corrected, while if it escapes detection then it invalidates all subsequent operations of the machine. Put in other words, in a telephone central office there are a number of parallel paths which are more or less independent of each other; in a digital machine there is usually a single long path which passes through the same piece of equipment many, many times before the answer is obtained.

Optimal Matching Method for Historical Sequences

Article

Jan 1986

A Transition-Oriented Approach to Optimal Matching

Article

Aug 2011

Torsten Biemann

Optimal matching (OM) is a method that assesses sequence similarity. It was originally developed to study protein and DNA sequences and was later transferred to the social sciences where it was applied accordingly. However, there is an ongoing debate on the adequacy of its use in the social sciences, as a superficial transfer might not respond to the significant differences between typical sequences in biological and social settings. In this paper, I elaborate on these differences and introduce a distinction between two sequence types—namely, common ancestors and unfolding processes. While the first sequence type is typically found in biological settings (e.g., DNA sequences), the latter applies to most sequences studied in the social sciences (e.g., careers). Based on this distinction, I present a new way of coding sequences as an extension to conventional OM analyses and demonstrate its usefulness in simulated and empirical examples. The paper concludes with a discussion of this new approach and its integration into previous extensions of OM.

Residential Trajectories: Using Optimal Alignment to Reveal The Structure of Residential Mobility

Article

May 2004
SOCIOL METHOD RES

This article illustrates the challenges and potential advantages associated with using a sequence-based method to describe the structure of individual residential mobility histories. The authors examine the existence and prevalence of distinctive patterns of residential mobility across a rural-suburban-urban place-type continuum. They identify a finite set of empirically common residential trajectories that describe patterns of movement across the geographic landscape. This approach reveals (1) a great deal of stability in patterns of residential attachment; (2) that residential movement is frequently organized in terms of place-type, rather than in terms of specific locations; and (3) that certain place-types are rarely linked together in residential histories, which suggests that the universe of place-types contains social boundaries. Combining the empirically observed residential trajectories with basic demographic characteristics of individuals confirms general expectations from the life course perspective about the roles and positions individuals occupy over different stages of adulthood.

But What Have You Done for Us Lately?: Commentary on Abbott and Tsay

Article

Aug 2000
SOCIOL METHOD RES

Joel H. Levine

Clocking Out: Temporal Patterning of Retirement

Article

Jul 1999

Phyllis Moen

This article draws on life history data of the cohorts of recent U.S. retirees to examine the temporal patterning of retirement. Three major dimensions - historical context, social heterogeneity, and, most important, biographical pacing, measured by cohort, gender, and career pathway, respectively - operate simultaneously, yet unevenly, to affect various aspects of the retirement process. Findings suggest that changes over the past few decades have undermined the regularity in retirement timing that was a product of the convergence of diverse institutional features, anchored by a large core of men on traditional career tracks. Focusing on retirement, our model underscores the multiplex nature of the temporal structuring of the life course.

Ascription into Achievement: Models of Career Systems at Lloyds Bank, 1890-1970

Article

Sep 1996

Optimal matching algorithms are used to model the transformation of-career systems in a large British bank (Lloyds) from 1890 to 1970. The authors first model the breakdown of the traditional ascriptive, status-based system, and then identify a more dynamic, achievement-based system as its replacement. By relating the structure of careers to organizational growth and social change, the authors explore how the modern achievement career came about. More broadly, they argue that optimal matching enables one to see clearly the multiple time frames that are necessarily intercalated into career systems and hence provides new insights into the discontinuous and contingent nature of organizational change.

A Study of Immigrants’ Employment Careers in West Germany Using the Sequence Analysis Technique

Article

Jun 2007

Irena Kogan

This study examines immigrants’ employment careers and their (dis)similarity with careers of the native-born in West Germany. Applying the sequence analysis technique, the study shows that ethnic Germans born abroad and immigrants from EU-15 countries experience employment patterns more similar to those of native-born Germans than do other immigrant groups. The career paths of labor migrants from Turkey remain extremely dissimilar to those of Germans, even when differences in the age structure and the educational level are taken into account. Long and frequent unemployment are among the factors contributing to this dissimilarity. Immigrants, particularly Turks, are not only more likely to be long-term unemployed, they are also pushed into unskilled occupations. The second-generation immigrants, although displaying the strongest degree of similarity to the employment career patterns of native-born Germans, do not fully catch up with the socio-demographically comparable native-born when it comes to occupational assimilation.

Tournament Mobility: Career Patterns in a Corporation

Article

Jun 1979
ADMIN SCI QUART

James E. Rosenbaum

Promotions and demotions are important events in most people's work lives. This study analyzes the career mobility of a cohort of employees in a large corporation over a 13-year period using official personnel records. Derived from the status-attainment, Markov, and organization-career literatures, two conflicting models of mobility are described: an ahistorical (path independence) model and a historical (tournament) model. The empirical analysis supports the tournament model, finding that mobility in the earliest period of one's career has an unequivocal relationship with many of the most important parameters of one's later career: career ceilings, career floors, and probabilities of promotion and demotion in each successive period. Some speculations are presented about Bowles and Gintis's correspondence principle, about functional and dysfunctional consequences of this selection system, and about the implications of organizational opportunity structures on employees' career behaviors.

Some Comments on "Sequence Analysis and Optimal Matching Methods in Sociology: Review and Prospect"

Article

Aug 2000
SOCIOL METHOD RES

Lawrence L. Wu

Monte Carlo Tests of the Accuracy of Cluster Analysis Algorithms: A Comparison of Hierarchical and Nonhierarchical Methods

Article

Jul 1985

Nine hierarchical and four nonhierarchical clustering algorithms were compared on their ability to resolve 200 multivariate normal mixtures. The effects of coverage, similarity measures, and cluster overlap were studied by including different levels of coverage for the hierarchical algorithms, Euclidean distances and Pearson correlation coefficients, and truncated multivariate normal mixtures in the analysis. The results confirmed the findings of previous Monte Carlo studies on clustering procedures in that accuracy was inversely related to coverage, and that algorithms using correlation as the similarity measure were significantly more accurate than those using Euclidean distances. No evidence was found for the assumption that the positive effects of the use of correlation coefficients are confined to unconstrained mixture models.

Measuring Resemblance in Sequence Data: An Optimal Matching Analysis of Musicians' Careers

Article

Jul 1990

This article introduces a method that measures resemblance between sequences using a simple metric based on the insertions, deletions, and substitutions required to transform one sequence into another. The method, called optimal matching, is widely used in natural science. The article reviews the literature on sequence analysis, then discusses the optimal matching algorithm in some detail. Applying this technique to a data set detailing careers of musicians active in Germany in the 18th century demonstrates the practical steps involved in the application of the technique and develops a set of typical careers that successfully categorize most of the actual careers studied by the authors.

Measuring the Agreement Between Sequences

Article

Nov 1995
SOCIOL METHOD RES

The present article proposes a new method to assess distances between sequences of states, belonging to, for instance, event histories. It is based on the number of moves needed to turn one sequence into another sequence. This number of moves is standardized by relating it to the number of moves needed to turn the sequence into its reverse. Weighting it in different manners by the number of common elements in both sequences yields three different agreement measures, suited for different kinds of research questions. Life history data from 494 young adults show that applying our agreement measure to these data can yield insight in interesting relationships, otherwise not readily obtained.

Optimal Matching Analysis: A Methodological Note on Studying Career Mobility

Article

Nov 1995
WORK OCCUPATION

TAK WING CHAN

This article explores how Optimal Matching Analysis (OMA) can be applied to study career mobility. I first apply OMA to career history data to identify typical mobility paths. Then I test whether the mobility paths are selectively open to different people. This procedure provides a useful handle to map the opportunity structure of national labor markets.

Local Sequential Patterns: The Structure of Lynching in the Deep South, 1882-1930

Article

Mar 2001
SOC FORCES

Katherine Stovel

White-on-black violence was a fact of life in the Deep South during the decades straddling the turn of the century. Yet though the lynching of blacks is historically significant, it was, statistically speaking, a relatively rare event. While each lynching is associated with a complex and often gruesome narrative, particularities often overwhelm efforts to reveal anything other than broad structural determinants or proximate causes. Efforts to apply narrative methods have been limited to the analysis of a single lynching incident, and yield more insight into patterns of interaction than into the phenomena of lynching as a whole. This article offers a new analytic description of the temporal structure of local lynching histories in the Deep South between 1882 and 1930. Sequential analysis reveals robust variation in the temporal pattern of local lynching; interpretation of the finite set of patterns of lynching histories focuses on the sequential consequences of various microlevel mechanisms, and demonstrates the advantages of moving beyond the analysis of discrete incidents.

Modes of theorizing in strategic human resource management: Tests of universalistic, contingency, and configurational performance predictions

Article

Aug 1996
ACAD MANAGE J

The field of strategic human resource management (SHRM) has been criticized for lacking a solid theoretical foundation. This article documents that, contrary to this criticism, the SHRM literature draws on three dominant modes of theorizing: universalistic, contingency, and configurational perspectives, Seven key strategic human resource practices are identified and used to develop theoretical arguments consistent with each perspective, The results demonstrate that each perspective can be used to structure theoretical arguments that explain significant levels of variation in financial performance.

Career Patterns of Top Management Team Members in Five Countries: An Optimal Matching Analysis

Article

May 2009

This paper introduces optimal matching analysis (OMA) to the field of top management research. With this method, we develop six career patterns of top management team (TMT) members from five countries based on their international experience, organizational tenure and professional experience. The results provide strong support for the significance of these patterns, since each country (Denmark, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) shows one to four predominant career patterns of their managers and the occurrence of these patterns also differs significantly between the fields of activity within the TMT (chairperson, head of a division, primary activities and support activities).

Well-Separated Clusters and Optimal Fuzzy Partitions

Article

Apr 2008

J.C. Dunn

Two separation indices are considered for partitions P = {X1, …, Xk} of a finite data set X in a general inner product space. Both indices increase as the pairwise distances between the subsets Xi become large compared to the diameters of Xi Maximally separated partitions p' are defined and it is shown that as the indices of p' increase without bound, the characteristic functions of Xi' in P' are approximated more and more closely by the membership functions in fuzzy partitions which minimize certain fuzzy extensions of the k-means squared error criterion function.

The Application of Cluster Analysis in Strategic Management Research: An Analysis and Critique

Article

Jun 1996
STRATEGIC MANAGE J

Optimal matching analysis in career research: A review and some best-practice recommendations

Abstract

No full-text available