Career development and work-related learning of earlycareer employees: The role of higher education and organisational characteristics.

The importance of work-related learning in a society characterized by rapid technological advances has been well established. It has been argued that higher education lays the cornerstone learning beyond higher education. A first doctoral study will investigate longitudinally if autonomy support and authentic tasks within higher education are positively related to the motivational antecedents of work-related learning including both formal and informal learning activities. This broader interpretation of work-related learning has been related to the career development of an individual. Therefore, a second doctoral study will focus on the role of workrelated learning and its situational antecedents for the career development of earlycareer employees. Both project will adopt a mixed method approach and collect data from several information sources in order to overcome several common shortcomings of research in this field. The results of this project will be disseminated through publications in international peer-reviewed journals and presentations at international conferences. In addition, a non-researchers audience will be reached via presentations and meetings with practitioners of different higher education institutes and policy makers at different levels (EU, Flemish Government, higher education institutes).