Abstract:
The world is becoming ever more digitally orientated and in order to remain profitable and be sustainable in the future, businesses and individuals need to keep up with this trend. In particular, the global advertising industry has seen major shifts to serve the rapidly expanding digital consumer market. This disruption has resulted in a number of adjustments to industry structures. It therefore requires individuals and organisations operating in this industry to re-examine their career management techniques in order to remain competitive and relevant. As this is a developing industry, there is a dearth of research for career development and therefore insight for career management in the global digital advertising industry is critical.
As social capital is a key pillar of career capital, this research had a specific focus on the role of social capital in career management in the global digital advertising industry. The four key objectives were to determine (i) whether social capital is a key tool for career advancement in this industry, (ii) how its value is perceived by select stakeholders in the industry, (iii) specific benefits of this form of capital, and (iv) key tools for social capital accumulation. To determine this, an exploratory research method consisting of 18 in-depth interviews across four continents was employed. The sample comprised three sample subsets, namely, senior managers, knowledge workers and HR practitioners/recruitment specialists.
The findings highlighted that the accumulation of social capital has apparent benefits for career advancement in the industry, particularly if developed in the context of a strong foundation of the relating forms of career capital and the introduced concepts of foundational and strategic social capital. A key conclusion is that social capital was found to be most beneficial once the ?knowing-why' and ?knowing-how' forms of career capital have been developed. Senior managers and knowledge workers believe that social capital is more beneficial for career advancement than HR practitioners/recruitment specialists in the industry. Although the accumulation of social capital was found to have both individual and organisational career management benefits, the individual benefits unmistakably out-weigh the organisational benefits. Furthermore, the study provided interconnected models of the stages of social capital as well as a development ladder for the accumulation of social capital for effective career management in the global digital advertising industry.
