Career theory - Organisational Perspectives

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Career theory - Organisational Perspectives
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Overview

• The Individual the Organisation
• Scheins theory of Organisational Career
• The Psychological Contract Model of the Career
  Management system
• psychological contracting
• identity process theory
• Women, careers and the work/family interface
• Minority group careers
• Future directions

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Schein (1971)Theory of the Organisational Career

• The organisational career is about how
  individuals move through an organisation.
• Individuals (micro-level) Organisation
  (macro-level)
• Career denotes a decision making process
  regarding who to move, when, how and at what
  speed.
• The Self is conceptualised as socially
  constructed - an actor whose behaviour/roles are
  influenced by the socio-cultural demands of the
  organisation.
• Analysis of organisational careers uses concepts
  of
• structural variables (the stable elements of the
  organisation)
• process variables (org. indvl via
  socialisation indvl org. via innovation)

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Scheins Structural Variables

• Individuals move along 3 dimensions, movement
  controlled by boundaries
• Hierarchical boundaries (vertical levels)
• Inclusion boundaries (centrality)
• Functional boundaries (dept, functional gp)
• Types of movement
• Vertical (across hierarchical boundaries)
• Radical (across inclusion boundaries)
• Circumferential (across functional boundaries)
• ADAPTION SOCIALISATION gtgtgt SELF

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Scheins Process Variables

• Career Movement is a repetitive process, each
  incorporating 3 broad stages
• Learning/Socialisation (N.B. Organisational
  subcultures)
• Performance
• Obsolescence or Learning New Skills
• Career sequence of boundary passages
• Sources of career problems relate to boundary
  movements
• i.e.
• career movement is in one direction (i.e.
  lateral)
• inability to gain acceptance, thus centrality to
  new group
• sub-culture norms are incompatible with the
  organisations

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Scheins Career Process hypotheses

• Organisational socialisation will occur primarily
  in connection with the passage through
  hierarchical and inclusion boundaries, efforts at
  education and training will occur primarily with
  passage through functional boundaries
• Innovation (the individual's influence on the
  org.) will occur in the middle of a given stage
  of the career, at a maximum distance from past or
  future boundary passage
• The process of socialisation (the orgs influence
  on the individual) will be more prevalent in
  early stages of the org career innovation more
  prevalent in later stages - although it is
  possible both will be present in all stages
• Socialisation will involve the unstable social
  selves, innovation will involve the stable social
  selves
• Changes in stable social selves from
  socialisation will occur under coercive
  persuasion.

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Evaluation of Scheins model

• Useful heuristic for understanding the
  reciprocity of influence between the individual
  and the organisation
• Raises the notion that pursuit of a career
  requires self-reflection.
• Perception of boundaries used as a basis for
  research into glass ceiling, psychological
  contracting etc.
• Other, related organisational career theories
• Kanter (1989) Entrepreneurial Careers (new
  values/org. capacity)
• Gunz (1989) Routes through an organisation
• BUT
• Assumes only one type of organisation (static,
  hierarchical)
• Socialisation is a one-way process
• Role Innovation Vs Organisational Innovation
• Is descriptive, not predictive, with regard to
  Movement

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Psychological Contract Model of Career Management
(Herriot, 1992 Herriot Pemberton, 1996)

• Psychological Contract the beliefs and
  expectations individuals hold about the nature of
  the exchange relationship between themselves
  and the organisation
• Psychological Contracting the invisible glue
  that binds individuals to the organisation over
  time (Herriot, 1992)
• Characteristics of a Psychological Contract
• They are generally implicit
• They undergo continual re-negotiation over time
• Organisational Career is the sequence of
  renegotiations of the psychological contract
  which the individual and organisation conduct
  during the period of that individuals
  employment
• Psychological Contract is the key interfacing
  concept between the individual and the
  organisation

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Herriot (1992) Herriot Pemberton (1996)
continued...

• Changes in organisations (less hierarchical,
  fewer jobs for life) has impacted upon the
  contractual balance (i.e. benefits to individual
  Vs. organisation) of the psychological contract
  gtgtgt psychological deals
• How can an organisation continually adapt to its
  environment, yet maintain its central continuity?
• Herriot (1992) suggests orgs should operate
  within two overarching frameworks
• Diversity of Values
• different career anchors, temporal changes in
  values (life-stage, career stage)
• Psychological Contracting
• Individuals and Organisations take each others
  needs and viewpoints into consideration

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Herriot (1992) Herriot Pemberton (1996)
continued...

• How an organisation can manage employees
  psychological contracts
• career audits - expectations beliefs
• provide info. systems about internal vacancies
  their requirements
• career counselling (career anchors)
• work shadowing
• mentoring schemes (aid socialisation)
• development opportunities (nurturing expertise,
  not just professional expertise)
• systems geared to individual needs (part-time,
  job share, career breaks, child-care, paternity
  leave, secondments)

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Herriot (1992) Herriot Pemberton (1996)
continued...

• Conditions required for satisfactory
  psychological contracting
• full knowledge of terms conditions of
  employment
• accurate representation of the current
  situation by both parties
• neither party should be coerced or put under
  duress
• neither party should be expected to commit an
  immoral act as a consequence of the contract
• Successful psychological contracting gtgtgt impacts
  on human resource strategy (active participation
  and collaboration of ALL employees in support of
  the strategic business plan)

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Women Careers

• Assumptions about Women Work in traditional
  career literature
• women are fundamentally different from men in
  their interface with the workplace (Gallos,
  1989) they do not pursue a career
• Work and organisational life seen to be more
  central to the male identity than females
  (females priorities being non-economic i.e.
  domestic)
• Women interface with the workplace in a
  transactional terms (short-term, supplementary
  relationships to central domestic role) mens
  interface is relational
• There are differences between sexes in careers,
  because men and women are intrinsically different
  in their basic needs and interests (Bakan, 1966
  Chodorow, 1978)
• Women affiliative Vs Men upward
  progression, status, power

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• rapid changes in educational policy - more women
  are highly educated gtgtgt more women in
  skilled/professional roles (Nicholson West,
  1988)
• blurring of boundaries between home and work
  (teleworking)
• blurring of traditional male and female
  roles.
• Smaller families, more labour saving household
  devices gtgtgt reduced need for home-maker

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Research on Womens Careers

• Very little done!
• Women as honorary men Millward Brewerton
  (in press) psychological contracts of full-time
  female Vs male workers (5 orgs). Found females
  were largely relational.
• Women are more heterogeneous in employment
  patterns and biographical profiles than men
  (Hakim, 1996)
• The extent to which work is the primary source of
  identity for women may depend on the extent to
  which they can reconcile needs with the masculine
  nature of organisational responsibilities (David
  Hearn, 1996)
• Different kinds of jobs afford different
  identities.... Tajfel (1978) Social Identity
  Theory Individuals identify with groups and
  organisations partly to enhance self-esteem gtgtgtgt
  high profile women in male dominated professions
  often develop attitudes, needs and values on a
  par with male counterparts (Terborg, 1977).

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WorkFamily Interface

• WorkFamily interface critical to understanding
  career (thus developmental perspectives on
  career development also relevant)
• Emphasis in early literature on (a) description
  and (b) problem-focused (identifying adjustment
  and interface difficulties)
• Dual Career Families (Hall Hall, 1979)
• Where both partners in a relationship are in
  pursuit of career development. Issue children!
• Sequential Career - man continues, woman either
  (a) stops pursing career, looks after children
  (b) career break (c) pursues career after
  children
• Simultaneous Career - man and woman continue
  careers and have children gtgtgt stress from
  allocation of home tasks.

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Hall Hall (1980) Home Task Allocation Patterns

• Each party is highly involved in different
  spheres (e.g. woman at home, man at work)
• Each party is highly involved in their own career
  without concern for perfection in the home domain
  (e.g. employ nannies, cleaners)
• Each party is highly involved in their own
  career, and wants the other person to do more at
  home
• Each party is highly involved in both home and
  work
• Benefits of Dual Careers (Rosin, 1990)
• Greater financial security
• Children have role models of both sexes
• Men - alternative source of success and
  satisfaction outside of work
• Share experiences with partner similar
  career/life stages
• NB. Redefine career success

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Minority Group Careers

• Thomas Alderfer, 1989 very little research,
  as minority groups excluded from
  managerial/professional careers (focus of
  traditional careers literature)
• Organisations are not meritocracies (Tharenou,
  1997)
• Wells Jennings (1983) processes by which
  minority employees are prevented from attaining
  higher org levels
• white entitlement - mgmt insistence of right to
  control resource allocation, perpetuating
  privilege.
• scandalous paradox - minority employee who
  achieves is seen as scandalous achievements are
  illegitimate
• legitimist impulse - status anxiety and fear of
  mgmt that their rightful position is being
  undermined.
• Small amount of research conducted focuses almost
  exclusively on Black Americans.

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The Future...

• Both objective and subjective faces of career
  are essential to its analysis subjective
  increasingly more relevant
• Objective notions of career still predominate
  perceptions of career success, but alternatives
  are being contemplated
• Increasingly flexible, fluid org structures allow
  more opportunity for employees to make their
  own career. But, increased autonomy and personal
  responsibility for careers are coupled with less
  security
• Need for further interdisciplinary research into
  the concept of career career development (i.e.
  sociology, economics..)
• Need for further research on women, minority
  groups, non-managerial/non-professional careers.

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Additional References

• Davidson, M.J. (1997). The Black and Ethnic
  Minority Woman Manager Cracking the concrete
  ceiling. Paul Chapman Publishing, London.
  658.409089
• Haslett, B., Geis, F.L., Carter, M.R. (1996). The
  Organizational Woman Power and paradox. Ablex
  Publishing Corporation, New Jersey. 658.406082
• Mayo, A. (1991) Managing Careers Strategies for
  organizations. IPM, London 658.312