BSRS 4207

Career Management
Chapter (3)
Prepared & Delivered by
Dr. ADIL AL-BALUSHI , Faculty -, Department of Business Studies , UTAS

References
Wiernik, B. M., & Wille, B. (2017). Careers, career development, and career
management. In D. S. Ones, N. Anderson, H. K. Sinangil, & C. Viswesvaran (Eds.),
Handbook of industrial, work and organizational psychology (2nd ed., Vol. 3). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage. 
2 Course learning outcomes
• On completing this chapter, you should be able to define these
key concepts. You should also know about:
• Learning outcomes

career management theories

Theories of Career Development 

• Career theories can be broadly grouped into three categories—

1. person-environment fit theories,
2. developmental career theories,
3. management career models.
Person-Environment Fit Theories 

• Early career theories focused on assessing important characteristics of

individuals and work environments and hypothesized that a match
between person and environment would lead to positive outcomes
(Parsons, 1909). These theories have been referred to as trait-and-
factor or person-environment (P-E) fit theories. Different P-E fit career
theories have focused on different sets of constructs, but each shares
the hypotheses that the degree to which an individual’s capabilities
meet the job’s requirements and the degree to which a job or
organization’s features match an individual’s desires are key drivers of
employee success, satisfaction, and persistence in a career.
• The P-E fit framework has been highly influential in applied settings,
both for vocational guidance and for personnel selection (Huo, Huang,
& Napier, 2002; Kristof-Brown, 2000), and various forms of P-E fit
are related to numerous positive work outcomes (Kristof-Brown,
Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005; Oh et al., 2014). Despite growing
interest in other counseling frameworks, identifying potential careers
that match individual characteristics remains the dominant approach in
career counseling (Hansen, 2013). 
Theory of Work Adjustment
• Theory of Work Adjustment (TWA) is among the oldest career
theories.
• TWA includes both a predictive model and a process model.
• The predictive model describes the personal and environmental
characteristics that are hypothesized to lead to successful work 
outcomes.
• TWA focuses on the needs/values and skills/abilities of an individual,
job requirements (vis á vis abilities and skills), and job reinforcers (vis
á vis values and needs).
• Satisfaction is posited to result when the individual’s needs are met by
the job reinforcers, while effective performance (called
satisfactoriness) results when the individual’s abilities meet job
requirements.
• Long-term tenure and career persistence are predicted to occur when
both forms of correspondence are present.
• When there is mismatch, the TWA process model describes how
individuals and environments pursue different adjustment strategies to
correct the mismatch, including tolerating some degree of mismatch
(flexibility), changing oneself (reactive adjustment; e.g., an individual
learning new skills, an organization changing its culture), or changing
the other party (active adjustment; e.g., an individual changing their
job duties, an organization providing training).
• Individuals and organizations attempt these adjustment techniques for
a limited period (called their degree of perseverance) before they give
up and leave the organization (individuals) or dismiss the employee
(organizations).
• TWA’s hypotheses have received substantial empirical support (Dawis,
2005), and many of its tenets have been incorporated into other P-E fit
models in organizational research, including models for recruitment,
selection, socialization, and stress (see Edwards, 2008 for a review).
Holland’s theory.
• Holland’s theory is organized around the articulation of 6 “types” or dimensions that are used to
describe both individuals and work environments.
• These types (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Convention; abbreviated
RIASEC and arranged in a circumplex pattern), primarily consist of interests in jobs and work
activities, though Holland’s original descriptions also incorporated work values, skills,
personality traits, and other.
• Holland’s theory describes several features of individuals’ interest
profiles (e.g., rank order, consistency, differentiation) and predicts that
a match between an individual’s type and the type of their occupation
(congruence) is a major contributor to satisfaction, performance,
tenure, and other important work outcomes.
RIASEC interests do not appear to actually form a hexagon (Tinsley, 2000a,
2000b), but researchers frequently conclude that their results support
Holland’s model, even when their data in fact show the opposite (Tinsley,
2001). Thus, while vocational interests are important contributors to
successful work performance (Nye, Su, Rounds, & Drasgow, 2012; Van
Iddekinge et al., 2011), many of the specific hypotheses made by Holland’s
theory have been falsified. 
 Social Cognitive Career Theory
Social Cognitive Career Theory based on general social cognitive theory
(Bandura, 1997), focuses on the role of self-efficacy and outcome
expectations in driving vocational behavior. While not strictly a person-
environment fit model, SCCT incorporates many features of P-E fit theories
into its frameworks for the development of self-efficacy, interests, career
choice, and performance behaviors. SCCT draws heavily on research
examining the role of interests, values, abilities, and personality traits in
vocational behavior, while also emphasizing the impact of contextual
factors, self-efficacy, and change in personal and environmental
characteristics over time.
• The current conceptualization of SCCT consists of four predictive
models describing
• (1) interest development,
• (2) career choices,
• (3) educational and vocational performance, and
• (4) work and career satisfaction (Lent, 2013b).
•
• The interest model hypothesizes that interests in specific fields form as a
result of positive task-related self-efficacy beliefs, outcome
expectations, and learning experiences. The choice model posits that
interests work in tandem with self-efficacy (influenced by abilities and
skills), outcome expectations (influenced by work values), and
contextual factors to mold an individual’s career goals and educational
and  occupational choices.
• The performance model predicts that self-efficacy beliefs, goal setting,
and ability lead to effective performance, while the satisfaction model
predicts that self-efficacy beliefs, goal attainment, work conditions, and
affect-related personality traits contribute to work satisfaction. 
• SSCT self-management model specifies a large set of adaptive career
behaviors (“behaviors individuals employ to help direct their own
career development,” p. 559) and predicts how self-efficacy, outcome
expectations, contextual factors, and general personality traits are
related to different classes of these behaviors. 
• SCCT has received the most empirical research attention of any
contemporary career theory (Lent & Brown, 2013; Savickas, 2013),
and it is also the career theory that remains the most connected to
advances from other fields of psychology, including advances in
personality and cognitive ability models, biological and developmental
psychology, and personnel selection and performance modeling.
Developmental Career Theories 

Classic developmental theories, such as Super’s Life-span,

1. Life-space Theory (Super, 1980)
2. and Gottfredson’s Theory of Circumscription and Compromise (L. S.
Gottfredson, 1981)
were developed to complement, rather than replace, P-E fit theories
(Savickas, 1997).
• While P-E fit theories predicted what career choices individuals would
make and the impact of those choices on outcomes, developmental
theories were designed to address how and why individuals made
career decisions.
• Contemporary postmodern career theories go further and reject the
entire P-E fit paradigm, instead arguing that, in light of rapid societal,
economic, and technological changes, constructing a strong career
identity and remaining flexible and adaptable are more important than
identifying a career path that “matches” one’s personal characteristics. 
Life-span, Life-space Theory.
• Super described a sequence of five developmental stages through
which most individuals pass during the course of their lives. During
each stage, individuals face particular development challenges, such as
identifying potential career options during adolescence (exploration)
or preparing to end one’s work career during late adulthood
(disengagement).
• Individuals’ responses to these challenges were determined by their
personal characteristics (e.g., abilities, interests, values),
environmental features (e.g., economic situation, family demands),
and past experiences. A key construct in Super’s theory is career
maturity, defined as an individual’s readiness to face the particular
developmental  challenges at each life stage.
Management Career Models 

While person-environment fit theories focus on identifying predictors of

career choice and success and vocational developmental models
examine the processes through which individuals make career decisions
and develop career identities, career models developed in management,
organizational behavior, industrial-work-organizational psychology, and
related fields usually focus on individuals’ observable patterns of
movement between different jobs, roles, and employers and their
attitudes toward these transitions.
• In recent decades, career research has been concerned with the
implications of broad societal and economic changes, such as
globalization, technological advances, and declining job security, for
the way individuals and organizations manage careers. Career scholars
have suggested that these societal shifts have resulted in dramatic
changes to individual careers. While “traditional” careers (alternately
called organizational, linear, or bureaucratic careers) were
characterized by lifetime employment in a single organization, 
• advancement up a linear organizational hierarchy, and development
opportunities determined by organizational superiors (Arnold & Cohen,
2008), career scholars argue that contemporary careers are characterized
by high levels of mobility and individual initiative. The degree to which
such changes have actually occurred appears to be overstated.
 boundaryless career
The two most popular alternatives to traditional careers are the
boundaryless career and the protean career. The boundaryless career
(Arthur, 2014; Arthur & Rousseau, 1996; Sullivan & Arthur, 2006) is a
career path characterized by independence from any single employer for
work success, resources, and advancement. In the original descriptions of
the concept, the “boundary” in boundaryless careers referred specifically
to the boundaries between organizations. Originally, DeFillippi and Arthur
(1994) focused specifically on employment across organizations and
defined the boundaryless career as “sequences of job opportunities that go
beyond the boundaries of single employment settings” (p. 307
Arthur and Rousseau (1996) expanded the concept and described six
organizational boundaries that have been relaxed during the era of the
boundaryless career: 
1. Movement between separate employers. 
2. Gaining reputation and validation from external sources (e.g.,
academic researchers). 
3. Drawing support from outside networks or information sources. 
4. Advancing in ways other than up an organizational hierarchy (e.g.,
lateral moves). 
5. Favoring personal or family concerns over career opportunities. 
6. Perceiving one’s career as “boundaryless” despite constraints. 
 CONTACT INFORMATION:

Name of the Staff : Dr ADIL KHAMIS AL-BALUSHI

Office:: BS043
Email: adil.albalushi@hct,edu.om

VERSION HISTORY

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01 Sem. (2) 2022/2023

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