assignment liu jing yang and long zhao wen

7/29/2019 ASSIGNMENT Liu Jing Yang and Long Zhao Wen

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Declaration of Academic Integrity

Please sign this form below to indicate that you have read and accepted the following

statements.

Then attach the form to the top of your literature review/project report.

Your assignment will not be accepted without this declaration.

We confirm that:

1. We have read and understood the Universitys Shared Values & Honour Code,including the information on practices concerning the academic integrity (given inhttp://academicintegrity.ntu.edu.sg/a-guide-to-academic-integrity/) and that in theattached coursework submission We have worked within its expectations(http://academicintegrity.ntu.edu.sg/shared-values-honour-code/).

2. We are aware that failure to act in accordance with the Universitys Shared Values &Honour Code may lead to the imposition of penalties which may include therequirement to revise and resubmit an assignment, receiving a lower grade, orreceiving an F grade for the assignment; suspension from the University ortermination of my candidature.

3. We consent to the University copying and distributing any or all of our work in anyform and using third parties to verify whether our work contains plagiarised material,and for quality assurance purposes.

We have read and accept the above.

NAME TUE/WED DATE SIGNATURE[for hard copy submission]

Liu jingyangTUE 9/10/2012

Long zhaowenTUE 9/10/2012

NO OF WORDS -__3830_________

We have read and accept the above.

If you require any further guidance about academic integrity, please talk to your professor oruse the resources athttp://academicintegrity.ntu.edu.sg/.
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Interview Summaries

Mr. Liu, 47, Chinese, Enterpriser

Born in 1965 in China, Mr. Liu is a director and manager of a medium-sized enterprise

manufacturing house furniture and packing materials. He now leads a team that managing 3

factories in Changchun, Nanjing and Foshan.

At the year Liu graduated from a light industry collage in Dalian, he was allocated in a

government-owned textile mill in Changchun. At that time in China, the declination of light

industry is accompanied with the reformation and opening policy in China. The textile mill

operated so bad that it could hardly pay salary for Liu. After 2 years of working in textile mill,

Liu quitted and started his own business by selling slippers on the streets of Changchun first.

He was then reconciled to the situation and tried other business such as opening a barber shop

and a restaurant. However those small businesses did not last for long. After several attempts

on small businesses, Liu found an occupation in distributive trades, to sell tinned radiator.After tempered in society and accumulating wealth by selling radiator, Liu finally opened his

own factory producing house furniture in 2002.

Mr. Liu always organized employee trips, basketball matches, and festival celebrations in his

company and factory. There are various difficulties in managing factory and the workers

during Lius experience such as walking off the job and negotiating with local government.

However Lius hard work and abundant life experiences allow his company grew from small

enterprise in one city to a medium-sized enterprise around China in 10 years.

Ms. Hu, 45, Chinese, housewife

Ms. Hu has been a housewife for 16 years, since her resign in Nanchang No. 8 Plastic

Factory, Jiangxi China. She worked in the factory as a supply chain manager, but eventually

gave up her job, due to the lack of family members to take care of her son, and other family

issues at that time.

Ms. Hu showed great leadership characters in her primary school, where her mother worked

in. Her experience as the monitor of her class from primary school to university built up her

confidence and the capacity to lead. After graduation from Nanchang University in 1989, she

started her career in Nanchang No. 8 Plastic Factory as an operational engineer. Her

communication skills and leadership skills were soon discovered by the manager, and Ms. Hu

was promoted to director of Personnel. During her 7 years in the factory, her occupationsbarely matched her major in university. In 1996, she resigned her occupation as a supply

chain manager, due to the lack of family members to take care of her son and other family

issues that she was not willing to share with us. Currently, she is still a housewife, and does

not have the intention to resume work, although her son can take care of himself now.

There were many times when Ms. Hu experienced frustrations, regarding her career transition.

However, it was during the process of frustrations that she constantly adjusted her values,

realized the meaningfulness of work, and established the balance between work satisfaction

and happiness.


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Dr. Tan, 59, Singaporean, Associate Professor

Dr. Tan is an associate professor in the division of economics in Nanyang Technological

University; he has been working in NTU for 20 years. His publications about monetary

policies and economics can be seen usually in newspapers and magazines such as SingaporeEconomic Review.

Dr. Tan showed great interest in engineering in his childhood. He achieved his bachelor of

engineering from the University of Adelaide in Australia in 1972. Upon graduation, he took a

job as a program engineer in an electronics company in Australia. Dr. Tan worked as an

engineer for 10 years and then realized his interest and ability are in economics during his

life. He was quite interested in exploring economic problems and solving abstract problems.

At the same time the passion of being an engineer is fading away. After evaluating and

understanding himself he then started to pursue a PHD in economics in the University of

Sydney. Dr. Tan completed his economics PHD and work as an economics professor in

University of New South Wales and Macquarie University in Australia in 1991.

Few years later Dr. Tan moved back to Singapore with his family and got an occupation in

Nanyang Technological University as a professor in the division of economics.


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Short Essay One

Mr. Liu

Self-awareness

Self-awareness distinguishes self from the environment and other individuals, and in the case

of Mr. Liu, we looks into self-awareness in self-evaluation and comparing selfs current

behavior and internal standard and value aspects.

Mr. Liu started his career as a spinner in a textile mill upon his university graduation in China

in the 1980s. The policy of reformation and opening led to Chinas modernization of industry,

which results in the declination of textile industry. He felt that the work was boring, therewere little salary, no prospect for the textile industry, and limited opportunities for a college

graduate. The above situation can be considered as low self-esteem [1], and lack of chance for

self-actualization, which can be explained by the growth needs concerns in Alderfers

Modified Approach of motivation theory. [2]

With this driving motivation, Mr. Liu evaluated and compared his behaviour of the time with

his internal standard as a college graduate. [3] He was aware that he did not live up to his

personal standard and value, which corresponds to the aspect of self-awareness we defined.

Therefore, frustration aroused when he realized the motivation to achieve his internal standard

was blocked by the poor prospect of the future of textile industry. [4]

By applying self-evaluation, Mr. Liu described himself as extroverted, adventurous, and

preferred to lead, rather than following others and doing conventional work. Hollands theory

could explain the mismatch of his personality type and the compatible work environment. As

a result, Mr. Liu chose the withdraw reaction to respond to his frustration. In order to fulfill

his internal standard and value, he started his own business, which was driven by his intrinsic

motivation, such as a sense of challenge and achievement. [4]

Environment

Environment consists of the correlation between individuals and natural and socialenvironment. In the analysis of Mr. Lius interview, we define environment in technology,

training opportunities and cultural consideration features.

As described above, the declination of demand for labour work, due to automation of

machines, in Chinas light industry led to low salary, the dim future of unskilled workers and

low employment rate. This contributed a lot to his withdraw reaction, and further influence on

his whole career. Therefore, technological development had affected his career development

profoundly.

However, Mr. Liu recalled the dilemma he faced after leaving the textile mill. He was lack of

skills for various jobs, for instance, management skills, and specific engineering knowledge.Meanwhile, few companies offered pre-work training sessions to their employees.


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Consequently, he had no choice but to start with small business, by selling slippers along the

street, followed by opening a barber shop, restaurant, etc. If there were training opportunities

offered, Mr. Liu doubted whether he would still be running his own business now. The

significance of training opportunities can be inferred from his experience.

Mr. Liu admitted that cultural consideration also played a part in his career development. Thebelief in Confucius was deeply rooted in Chinese, including Confucius famous saying

While one's parents are alive, one should not travel to distant places. Although the prospects

were better along coastal areas in China, due to the reformation and opening, Mr. Liu gave up

the opportunity in those regions, and stayed in his hometown. This phenomenon can also be

illustrated in Gottfredsons theory as individuals prefer jobs within zone of acceptable

alternatives. [5]

Ms. Hu

Self-awareness

During the interview, self-awareness that we discussed with Ms. Hu stayed within the

boundary of self-evaluation.

Ms. Hu attributed her success of her early career partly on her childhood, when she was the

monitor of her class throughout her primary school. She described herself as confident, had

the desire to lead and give instructions, and concerned the most with the tasks she had, yet

occasionally had conflicts with fellow classmates. According to Ginzberg & Colleagues

theory, Ms. Hus explanation for her early career development was valid. [6] During her

fantasy stage, she progressively defined her interest in the transactional leadership roles, and

developed the capacity and competency for handling problems in supply chain of Nanchang

No. 8 Plastic Factory, Jiangxi China. Judging from Ms. Hus early experience, it is obvious

that she had a clear self-evaluation, which helped her embark her career.

After giving birth to her son, she admitted her value has changed significantly, transforming

from a strong leader to a thoughtful mother in chief. Besides her change in cognitive attitude,

her emotional attachment to her kid, which was described by Ginzberg & Colleagues as

affective attitude, as well as the family pressure eventually gave rise to her decision of giving

up her promising career, and started a new career as a housewife. In this process, her

occupational choice could be described as a developmental process, in which she constantly

practiced self-evaluation on her values, and coped with internal frustration and external

pressures. Consequently, her change in affective and cognitive attitudes influencedsignificantly on her career path.

Environment

Ms. Hus career was influenced by three environmental conditions: family members, cultural

consideration, and rate of return for various occupations.

Family members influenced Ms. Hus both early occupation as a supp ly chain manager, and

her career as a housewife. As recalled by Ms. Hu, she was initially given the chance of being

the monitor of her class, due to the fact that her mother was a teacher in the primary school.

She built her confidence, interest, capacity, and competency in mastering leadership role inschool. These experiences helped her with her early stage of career as a supply chain


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manager. The birth of Ms. Hus son changed her attitudes, and the lack of other family

members who could take care of her son eventually resulted in her career transition to

housewife.

Cultural consideration also exerted pressure on Ms. Hus decision of her career transition.

This can be illustrated by frustration theory. Factors influencing frustration includes thestrength of motivation, which can be influenced by culture, social and critical incidents. In the

case of Ms. Hu, the culture stereotype in China that men work outside, while women work

inside the house demotivated her career as the supply chain manager.

When Ms. Hus son grew up, Ms. Hu did consider the option of going back to work.

However, as Ms. Hus family became richer, and the price for hiring a maid kept surging, the

marginal benefit for Ms. Hu to give up her career as a housewife became less significant. At

the same time, Ms. Hu realized after years of separation from the working environment, her

skills were not updated, thus, her chance to pursue the leadership role became mere.

Therefore, the rate of return for her to go back to work was far too low than her expectation.

And eventually Ms. Hu decided to stay at her current career as a housewife.

Dr. Tan

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is quite a general concept which can be simplified by differentiating oneself

from the surrounding people and objects. In the case of Dr. Tan, we consider self-awareness

as understanding of ones traits and personalities.

Dr. Tan described that the 10-year engineering life in an electronics company is just owing to

the imagination of working with various machines during his youthful age. Little Tan thought

it would be fun to work as an engineer. Therefore after getting his bachelor of engineering, he

did become an engineer. The simple idea and decision of Dr. Tan in his childhood can be

explained by Ginzbergs Process Theory; [7]purely play is significant in ones initial stage in

fantasy period. Ginzbergs Process Theory also implies that occupational choice is a

developmental process rather than a single decision.

Dr. Tan concluded that economic issues around his life tend to be more attractive rather than

engineering and programming after years of self-understanding. He affirmed that exploring

economic problems and solving abstract problems are what he is skilled and interested in;

individual with these personalities is defined as an investigative thinker in Hollands Theory.[8] These self-introspection and evaluation eventually resulted in the quitting of his

occupation as an engineer. After pursuing PHD for 5 years, he became a professor in NTU

which is investigative thinker type that exactly matches his personality. The modification of

Dr. Tans own career can be elucidated by Hollands Theory; one should choose a job of

which the job type is similar to his personality type.

Environment

In the analysis of Dr. Tans interview, we define environment in family training,

neighbourhood and community influences, and geographic environment.


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As described above, Dr. Tan had a great passion to be an engineer when he was young

because of his imagination of working with machines. Dr. Tan insisted that his mother play an

important role in the development of his interests. He recalled that his first plaything he can

remember, bought by mother is a set of building block. Dr. Tans mother taught him how to

play building block and thus trained his engineering thinking ability.

Dr. Tans satisfaction and success in his career of being a professor is remarkable in his life

according to his own opinion. He said that discussing economic issues with other students and

staff who has the same interest with him is not monotonous but enjoyable for him. Suchphenomenon can be explained by Hollands Theory that individual who choose to work with

others who have a personality type like him will feel comfortable and satisfied. Therefore Dr.

Tans neighbourhood and the community he is working in have a critical effect on ones

career development.

As a Singaporean, Dr. Tans first occupation was in Australia where he obtained his bachelor

of engineering. The coastal cities in Australia always suffered from typhoon due to the

latitude and monsoon. Mr. Tan had experienced several typhoons in Australia. He was tired ofthe bad weather and missed Singapore. The geographic environment is also one of the reasons

he came back to hometown. According to Ginzbergs Theory, the effect of reality through

environmental pressure can influence ones occupational choice.

By reviewing the three interviewees careers, we reached the conclusion that self-awareness,

which focused on self-evaluation of personalities, traits, values, and attitudes, played a

significant role in ones career development. However, although environment influences

ones career significantly, the specific environment factors vary from different individuals, as

individuals have different values and attitudes and different constraints in their career

developments.


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Short Essay Two

Career goals

Jingyang is currently a year two Electrical and Electronic Engineer undergraduate. Zhaowen

is studying Mechanical Engineering in year two as well. Both hold the Minister of Education

scholarship with six years bond of work in Singapore.

After exchanging ideas about our career goals, we found out surprisingly that we share quite

similar career goals that both of us seek chance to work in an influential company, where

there are big stages for us to achieve self-actualizations, and to gain recognition. However,

there is a minor difference in our career goals. Jingyang prefer the platform in Singapore,

while Zhaowen is keen to develop his career in China.

By the scholarship contract, both Jingyang and Zhaowen will have to start their careers in

Singapore companies in the first six years of their careers.

Mr. Liu

Emotional intelligence in Mr. Lius career

Mr. Liu regularly organized employee trips, basketball matches, and festival celebrations,

since he fully understood the negative feelings of stress generated at work for employees. By

doing so, he created the sense of belongings among employees, and harmonious atmospherebetween superiors and subordinates, which gave rise to positive working attitudes among

workers. Emotional intelligence can be employed to explain his ability of perceiving others

emotions, and further applying the information to motivate employees. [9] Therefore,

emotional intelligence helped him guide employees working attitudes, and performance.

His ability to manage emotion was exhibited when there were a lot of sophisticated

documents needed to be signed on establishing his factory, provided the situation that the

relevant departments always delayed in passing his documents. These processes could not

have been accomplished without a good control and management of his own emotions.

Thus, to reach career success, emotional intelligence in terms of effective awareness, controland management of ones own emotions, and those of others are required, as can be seen in

the case of Mr. Liu.

Application of Mr. Lius experience on our careers

In achieving our career goals, which are self-actualization in big platforms and gaining

recognition, we are expected to supervise on our subordinates, and earn the support from not

only our mangers, but also our subordinates in the future. To be prepared for this experience,

not only it the 5 years after graduation, but throughout our whole careers, we need to learn

from Mr. Liu by paying attention to our colleagues emotions, and be ready to comfort and

motivate them when they encounter negative emotions. According to Goleman, recognizing


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and understanding others emotions and the ability to manage relationships are two important

domains in ones emotion intelligence. [10]

In our first 5 years in our companies, the unfair treats by our managers and colleagues are

unavoidable, and might be regular, due to the fact that we are inexperienced, and hold

relatively low positions in the companies. To reduce the unnecessary conflicts with ourmanagers and colleagues, it is essential for us to control emotions without letting them affect

our behaviours in a negative way, as seen in the case of Mr. Liu, who can be categorized

under the individual of high self-esteem. [11] In order to build our high self-esteem

characteristics, we need to recognize and accept our limitations, keep our promises, and be

open to guidance and advice from others. [12]

Ms. Hu

Emotional intelligence in Ms. Hus career

As the monitor of her class throughout her primary school to university, Ms. Hu constantlymotivated herself whenever she encountered problems with fellow classmates. She recalled at

the beginning of her role of class monitor, many classmates expressed their unsatisfactory

about the way she managed the class, as she was the type of person who preferred finishing

things in a vigorous and resolute way. Noticing these feedbacks, she was patient, observant,

reflective, and willing to analyze and identify the skills she was lacked in. It was during the

process that she learnt how to manage her own emotions, especially her anger towards those

who procrastinated, how to recognize and understand other peoples emotions, and manage

relationships with her fellow classmates. Thus, her pre-work training on the five domains of

emotional intelligence (Goleman) did help her a lot when she started her career.

Ms. Hus response to events and frustrations showed the importance of emotional intelligence

on career development. Ms. Hu was effectively aware of her change in her values, her goals

after she gave birth to her son. As a result, when there was a lack of family members who

could take care of her son, she could quickly make the decision to withdraw from her job, and

started her career as a housewife. Surely, there was time when she was bored managing the

household at the start of her new career. Her ability to adapt to changes and the ability to be

optimistic helped her retain in her current career. And she did not regret her choice.

Application of Ms. Hus experience on our careers

From Ms. Hus experience, we derived that self-concept and self-esteem influence greatly onones succeeding at work and personal life, especially when there are big event happening to

us that changes our values and attitudes. During our first 5 years of our careers, we must be

able to recognize our beliefs and perceptions about ourselves out of the unconscious feelings,

and evaluate them regularly, by asking the question is my career goal really what I want? By

establishing a clear self-concept, we could reduce potential frustrations that we might need to

go through in the five years. [13] In the case of the two authors, Zhaowen may go through

more frustrations, compared with Jingyang, as one of his career goals is to develop his career

in China, rather than Singapore. There may bring about more significant events experienced

by Zhaowen. Therefore, lessons should be learnt from Ms. Hu, for every decision we make,

we must first make sure the decision and consequences caused are in line with our values,

attitudes, and career goals.


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Besides, we should try to build up the characteristic of high self-esteem. By doing so, we

would be more future-oriented, which is necessary at the beginning of our careers; we could

control our emotions without letting them affect our behaviors, and take things less

personally. Most people who have just started their careers tend to be proud, and feel hard to

control their emotions sometimes. Therefore, high self-esteem is also one of the key factors

that could affect our career paths.

Dr. Tan

Emotional intelligence in Dr. Tans career

The change in subject should be quite difficult especially for Dr. Tan who has been working

as an electronic engineering for 10 years. The engineering method of thinking has deeply

ingrained in his mind. However he did obtained the PHD of economics after 5 years of

learning. Dr. Tan affirmed the importance of his interest in economy, while what he

highlighted is that he always have strong confidence in learning things and can motivate

himself by reading books like and biographies of famous people.

Thus Dr. Tans accomplishment in his career can be explained by Golemans Theory,

motivating oneself is significant that it is one of the 5 domains of emotional intelligence.

According to that theory, being optimistic despite obstacles, ones mental attitude will

energize him to work steadily towards goals despite setbacks. Therefore self-motivating is

required to reach ones career goal.

Application of Dr. Tans experience on our careers

In achieving our career goals, which are self-actualization in big platforms and gaining

recognition, we will encounter several of obstacles inescapably. We need to control our

emotions and motivate ourselves by apply specific ways when facing the difficulties in

company. By learning from Dr. Tan, according to the characteristic of emotional intelligence,

we may apply self-motivation which can gather up our feelings and direct ourselves towards a

goal, despite self-doubt, inertia and impulsiveness. The significance of self-motivation can be

elaborated by self-efficacy, which is defined as the belief in ones capacity to perform a

specific task or reach a specific goal (Bandura, 1997).

To develop our self-efficacy, we may also build immediate goals that provide opportunities

for satisfaction and increased feeling of self-efficacy, while maintaining interest in the task.For instance, a small project which will take us a week could be an immediate goal, finishing

the project may increase our confidence and move on to the next task. [14] The well finished

project can be considered as mastery experiences, which will strengthen beliefs in our

capabilities, according to developing self-efficacy.


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References

[1] Lecture 11 Succeeding at Work lecture notes page 19, Kamal Kant, 2012

[2] Lecture 5 Driving Motivation lecture notes page 22, Kamal Kant, 2012

[3]A Collective Self-Esteem Scale: Self-Evaluation of One's Social Identity, Riia

Luhtanen andJennifer Crocker, 1992

[4] Lecture 5 Driving Motivation addendum to chapter 4 Frustration, Kamal

Kant, 2012

[5] Lecture 5 Driving Motivation lecture notes page 10, Kamal Kant, 2012

[6] Work and Careers in the 21st Century page 53, Kamal Kant, 2011


[8] Stages of Career Development, Ginzberg, Ginsburg, Axelrad & Hermas

1951


[10]Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than Why It Can Matter

More Than IQ,Daniel Goleman, 1995

[11] Lecture 9 Understanding Intelligence lecture notes page 32, Kamal Kant,

2012

[12] Self-Efficacy and Self-esteem: A Comparative Study of Employed and

Unemployed Married Women in Iran, Irandokht Asadi Sadeghi Azar and

Promila Vasudeva, 2006

[13] The frustration-aggression hypothesis, Miller, N. E.,1941

[14] Lecture 11 Succeeding at Work lecture notes page 20, Kamal Kant, 2012
http://psp.sagepub.com/search?author1=Riia+Luhtanen&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://psp.sagepub.com/search?author1=Riia+Luhtanen&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://psp.sagepub.com/search?author1=Jennifer+Crocker&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://psp.sagepub.com/search?author1=Jennifer+Crocker&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://psp.sagepub.com/search?author1=Riia+Luhtanen&sortspec=date&submit=Submithttp://psp.sagepub.com/search?author1=Riia+Luhtanen&sortspec=date&submit=Submit

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