African experiences of doing PhDs abroad: negotiating careers within broader life considerations

Purpose Many nations, including African ones, view PhD graduates as a means to be more internationally competitive, and national policies may encourage outward mobility of potential PhDs, expecting that graduates on return will enhance the country’s capacity. Many studies of such mobility, as with studies of early career researchers generally, focus on their work-related experiences. That is, they do not incorporate the broader life considerations that can intersect with their work-career decisions. So, this study of 36 Africans who completed their PhDs abroad uses a framework that embedded an individual’s work within personal considerations, such as life goals, while not ignoring the structural factors, such as job availability, in play when making work-career decisions. Design/methodology/approach The paper used a narrative methodology, with two stages of analysis: first of individual cases, then of patterns across individuals. Findings Multiple personal factors came to bear in negotiating the structural factors related to work and career. Moreover, there were multiple intersections between personal factors, and the influence of a factor ranged from sustaining through disrupting, highlighting the specific context-bounded nature of the thinking at the time of decision-making. Research limitations/implications This was a small-scale study with no intention to generalize to the broader population of African PhD holders. Rather but the goal was an in-depth examination of individual’s work within personal considerations to further conceptualize the understanding of career decision-making. Practical implications PhD programmes could encourage PhD students to consider the importance of life intentions and hopes in career decision-making and how careers evolve over time in light of structural and life factors. Originality/value Overall, participants demonstrated an intricate weighing of personal factors in making decisions as they also sought to negotiate different structural factors to advance their careers. Further, no other studies the authors are aware of report how the same interacting factors can have a sustaining through disrupting influence dependent on specific contexts, thus further revealing how nested contexts and personal factors co-influence the work-career decisions that each individual makes.