Career events, communication activities, and working hours investment among research and development employees

This research compares communication activities and weekly working hours investment of employees who experienced one of the following career events: reaching a career plateau, organizational entry, (internal) job change. Using questionnaire data from a sample of 140 R&D professionals, new hires are found to be less well integrated into communication networks than job changers, who work longer hours than both plateauees and new hires. Career events frequently moderated relationships between studied behavioral variables and outcome variables (e.g., work satisfaction). Findings are discussed in terms of personal needs and situational opportunities for communication activities coinciding with various career events, and implications for effective R&D