Understanding and Managing Careers in Changing Contexts

Slide 13.
Chapter 13
Understanding and managing

careers in changing contexts
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
Slide 13.2
Introduction
Career
• How can we understand the concept of career?
• Psychological and sociological perspectives.
• Objective realities or subjective constructions.
• Relationship between an individual and an
organisation.
Slide 13.3
An elastic concept
• Life time of service
• Professional career, e.g. medicine
• Temporary career, e.g. sports person
• Career of a drug addict!
• Career in crime
• Career of an academic subject
• What do we actually mean by career?
• Could any job be described as a career?
Slide 13.4
An elastic concept (Continued)

• A career is a succession of related jobs arranged
in a hierarchy of prestige, through which persons
move in an ordered (more or less predictable)
sequence (Wilensky, 1961, p.523)
• Career as paid work
• Structural phenomenon
• Career as a ‘real thing’
• Bureaucratic context
• Career ladder
• Career path.
Slide 13.5

• Individual’s life experience more generally
• More inclusive notion of career
• Origins in the 1930’s
• ‘A career consists, objectively, of a series of
statuses and clearly defined offices…subjectively,
a career is the moving perspective in which the
person sees his [sic] life as a whole and
interprets the meaning of his various attributes,
action and the things that happen to him’.
(Hughes, 1937, p.413)
Slide 13.6

• Hughes definition acknowledges the structural,
objective dimension of career.
• Also, highlights the notion of the career as
situated within the individual (subjective
dimension).
• Construction of a career.
• Social economic and cultural context.
• Trends towards broader, more inclusive
definitions.
• Definition may vary by subject discipline.
Slide 13.7
Sociological and psychological

approaches to the study of career
Psychological
• Individual perspective
• Vocational vs. developmental literature.
Vocational
• Individual capabilities and match them to occupation.
• Holland (1973) – personality type and work environment
classification
• Realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising and
conventional.
Developmental
• Career as a dynamic and changing process
• Evolving and developing over time (Gunz and Peiperl, 2007)
• Growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance and
disengagement (Super, 1980).
Slide 13.8
Sociological and psychological approaches to

the study of career (Continued)
Sociological
• Constrained by a variety of factors
• Social structure.
•Field theory (Bourdieu, 1986)

 Field – social context
 Habitus – feeling, thinking, acting
 Capital – valued resources (e.g. economic,
social, cultural and symbolic capital).
Slide 13.9
Sociological and psychological approaches to

the study of career (Continued)
Subjectivity
• Perceptive narratives of career
• Understand patterns of change and continuity
• Illuminates contradictions, ambiguities
• Understand relationships with social world, outside of
social vacuum (work-life balance).
Social constructionism
• Career an elastic/dynamic construct
• Embedded within organisation, familial, socio-cultural
contexts
• Individual contribution towards career environment
• Question conventional (bureaucratic) definitions of
career.
Slide 13.10
Career success
Definition
‘The accomplishment of desirable work related outcomes at
any point in a person’s work experiences over time’ (Arthur
et al., 2005, p.179).
Research
Predictors of success
• Number of hours worked, social capital and political
knowledge and skills are examined.
Conceptualisation of success
• Subjective vs. objective
• Gender differences
• Cultural differences.
Slide 13.11
The changing nature of careers?
• Characterised by uncertainty and change.
Boundaryless (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996)

1. Transcend the boundaries of different employers.
2. Draw validity and marketability from outside the present employing
organisation.
3. Sustained and supported by external networks.
4. Challenge traditional assumptions about career advancement and
movement up through an organisational hierarchy.
5. Reject opportunities for advancement for personal or family reasons.
6. Interpretation, who may see their career as boundaryless regardless of
contextual constraints.
• Boundaryless to reconceptualising boundaries?
Slide 13.12
The changing nature of careers?

(Continued)
Protean (Hall, 1976)
‘The individual, not the organisation, is in charge, the

core values are freedom and growth, and the main
success criteria are subjective (psychological) vs.
objective (position, salary)’ (Hall 2004, p.4).
• Construct own careers, guided by personal value

systems and subjective notions of success.
Slide 13.13
Gender and career
Career models criticised for being male orientated (Gallos,1989).
The Kaleidoscope career model (KCM) (Mainiero and Sullivan,

2005)
• Three parameters – authenticity, balance and challenge

• Parameters take different levels of importance depending on
woman’s life during particular time (e.g. age).

Career development phases (O’Neil and Bilimoria, 2005)
Three phases:
– idealistic achievement (ages 24–35)
– pragmatic endurance (36–45)
– re-inventive contribution (45–60)
Slide 13.14
Careers and ageing
• Abolition of statutory retirement age.
• Stereotypes against older workers

(Ali and Davies, 2003)
Lower ability
Less motivation
Harder to train
Resistant to change
Less adaptive/flexible.
• Little evidence for claims (Sanders-Rejo and Reio,

1999; Posthuma and Campion, 2009).
Slide 13.15
Organisational career management
• Issues of career development

• Career management practice/interventions
• Organisational interventions (Arnold, 1997)
– Internal vacancies
– Workshops
– Mentoring
– Rotation
– Outplacement
– Workbooks
– Career path.
Slide 13.16
Conclusion
• Emerging debates on changing nature of careers

• Implications for HR practice
• Changing context
• Uncertainty and instability
• Current employment context
• Traditional conceptualisation
• More inclusive definitions
• Theoretical frameworks
• Organisational intervention.

Understanding and Managing Careers in Changing Contexts

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Slide 13.

Understanding and managing

An elastic concept (Continued)

An elastic concept (Continued)

An elastic concept (Continued)

Sociological and psychological

Sociological and psychological approaches to

•Field theory (Bourdieu, 1986)

Sociological and psychological approaches to

The changing nature of careers?

• Characterised by uncertainty and change.

Boundaryless (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996)

• Boundaryless to reconceptualising boundaries?

The changing nature of careers?

‘The individual, not the organisation, is in charge, the

• Construct own careers, guided by personal value

Gender and career

Career models criticised for being male orientated (Gallos,1989).

The Kaleidoscope career model (KCM) (Mainiero and Sullivan,

• Three parameters – authenticity, balance and challenge

Careers and ageing

• Abolition of statutory retirement age.

• Stereotypes against older workers

• Little evidence for claims (Sanders-Rejo and Reio,

Organisational career management

• Issues of career development

• Emerging debates on changing nature of careers

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