Career development interventions in organizations

Organizational career management: a review and future prospect

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to review the research about organizational career management (OCM) and provide an integrated understanding of OCM research.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the authors systematically review 85 OCM-related papers published in highly influential journals over the past four decades (1978–2021). This paper reviews the definitions, measurements, antecedents, outcomes, mediators and moderators of OCM.

Findings

Diverse definitions of OCM exist, with three key common factors: what should be included in OCM, who is responsible for OCM and the goal of OCM. Scholars use different OCM measures, which might be due to different nations, industries, groups and scale development methods. More than 20 papers demonstrated the positive influences of OCM, providing convincing evidence of the necessity of OCM. About 90% of the current papers we reviewed (27 out of 30 papers) dominantly examined the influence of OCM on individuals’ attitudes or work behavior. The influence of OCM on organizational outcomes was less addressed.

Originality/value

First, the authors review the existing OCM measurements and distinguish two ways of measuring OCM: OCMP (organizational level, rated by HR managers or HR vice president or CEO, capturing the real practices) and POCM (Perceived OCM, individual level, rated by employees, capturing subjective perception of practices). This distinction reduces the ambiguity in existing measurements. Second, we summarize the empirical findings of OCM, including the antecedents, outcomes, mediators and moderators. These findings uncover the benefits/risks of OCM and the factors that may influence its effectiveness. Third, the review provides several practical implications as the findings can help managers improve their career development programs.

A Cross-Level Investigation of the Relationship Between Career Management Practices and Career-Related Attitudes

The relationship between an organization’s use of various career management practices and career attitudes was examined in a multisource, cross-level field study using organization-level data from 65 companies and individual-level data from 1,876 employees. A bundle approach was used to categorize 16 career management practices into clusters. As expected, the career management bundle associated with future strategic planning was positively related to satisfaction with the promotion process and negatively related to perceptions of job content plateauing. Consistent with research on strategic human resource management, significant interactions were found between some of the career management bundles in predicting satisfaction with the promotion process. A significant interaction was also found between the career management bundle of future strategic planning and sex, in terms of predicting satisfaction with the promotion process. Implications for theory and applied research are discussed.

Career Assessment and the Adult Career Concerns Inventory

This article describes the Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI; Super, Thompson, & Lindeman, 1988), an instrument developed by Donald Super and his colleagues for use by counselors in facilitating adult career planning and exploration. The evolution of the instrument is reviewed from the early version that attempted to measure career development to the current form that assesses adults' awareness of the tasks associated with career adaptability. Also included is a discussion of relevant studies of the instrument's psychometric properties, practical applications, and possibilities for future research.

Successful Aging

Career theory, to date, has provided several frameworks for understanding how employees develop during their careers. However, these frameworks have not yet directly examined the criteria older workers use to evaluate their success in aging in the workplace. In the present study, the authors develop an inventory of tentative criteria for successful aging in the workplace. Two hundred and one working adults complete a self-report survey indicating the personal importance of each criterion. Factor analyses indicate five theoretically important domains for successful aging in the workplace: (a) adaptability and health, (b) positive relationships, (c) occupational growth, (d) personal security, and (e) continued focus and achievement of personal goals. Analyses indicate that only occupational growth is negatively related to age. Further evidence supporting the relevance of these criteria is also presented.

Facilitators and barriers to the assimilation of function-specific executives into senior management roles

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that might contribute to the ease with which marketing executives in UK charities who have been promoted to senior general management positions adjust to the occupancy of these roles.

Design/methodology/approach

– In total, 37 individuals with functional marketing backgrounds currently holding top general management positions in large fundraising charities were interviewed using a frame-worked occupational autobiographic narrative approach. The research was informed by aspects of newcomer adjustment theory, notably uncertainty reduction theory.

Findings

– Social and personal considerations were much more important determinants of the ease of assimilation into top management positions in charities than were technical job-related matters. Role ambiguity constituted the main barrier to smooth adjustment. Mentoring, planned induction programmes, the nature of a person’s past work experience and the individual’s social status critically affected how readily a marketer fitted into a top management role. Disparate sets of factors influenced different elements of managerial newcomer adjustment (role clarity, self-efficacy, and social acceptance).

Research limitations/implications

– As the participants in the study needed to satisfy certain narrowly defined criteria and to work in a single sector (large fundraising charities) the sample was necessarily small. It was not possible to explore the effects on operational performance of varying degrees of ease of newcomer adjustment.

Practical implications

– Individuals promoted to top management posts in charities should try psychologically to break with the past and should not be afraid of projecting a strong functional professional identity to their new peers. These recommendations can be expected to apply to organisations in general which, like large charities, need senior management mentoring and induction programmes to assist recently promoted individuals from function-specific backgrounds; job descriptions for top management posts that are clear and embody realistic expectations; and “shadowing” and training activities for newly appointed senior managers with function-specific backgrounds.

Originality/value

– The study is the first to apply newcomer adjustment theory to the assimilation of functional managers into more senior general management. It examines a broader range of potential variables affecting managerial newcomer adjustment than has previously been considered. Relevant issues are examined in the context of an important sector: fundraising charities.

Talent identification and development tools

Purpose

– This paper aims to contribute to talent management literature by examining empirically the relationship between talent identification and development tools.

Design/methodology/approach

– The study sample consisted of 112 Argentina-based companies. All participants completed an online survey containing a list of identification and development practices. Responses were analyzed with SPSS 19.

Findings

– Results show that companies running more talent identification processes (performance management and potential identification) make use of a greater number of development tools. Significant differences were observed in the use of all development tools analyzed, with the exception of formal education and job rotation. Results indicate that the presence of a Development Department encourages the implementation of identification and development tools.

Practical implications

– The study suggests that the better the quality of the information involved during the identification stage, the higher the contribution to development investment decisions. Companies should do well to rely on higher-quality diagnostic information to facilitate a better selection of development tools to fulfill specific objectives. The existence of a Development Department favors the implementation of a greater number of identification and development tools.

Originality/value

– This paper adds to fill a perceived gap in the literature investigating, empirically, the relationship between talent identification processes and development tools.

Strategy of Career Interventions for Battered Women

Female victims of domestic violence—also referred to as “battered women”—face serious career development challenges that necessitate the intervention and aid of human resource development (HRD) practice.The purpose of this article is to identify critical factors having an impact on the career development (CD) of battered women and to offer suggestions for how HRD practitioners may begin work to aid battered women in the development of their careers. This article is primarily concerned with career development interventions with battered women who also experience additional economic, educational, or networking hardships. Therefore, the findings of this article should not be considered inclusive of all female victims of domestic violence, but rather the start of an important conversation. The considerations in this article and the interventions suggested herein need testing and development, as do other methods of CD interventions with battered women. The expansion of HRD to include programs for those who have historically been minimized by systems of oppression should be considered a primary concern of current researchers and practitioners.

Career Development Program in Queensland Transport

The significant changes in work and workplaces are making organisational career development programs imperative from both an organisational and individual perspective. Queensland Transport has responded to the demand from its employees for career development tools and resources by committing to the development and implementation of a departmental Career Development Program. This paper outlines the Queensland Transport Career Development Program with a particular emphasis on how it came about, what it entails and the challenges faced. Various initiatives have been implemented to date, yet many challenges lie ahead.

Surviving on the Inside

This article discusses the implications of organisational change for organisational management and staff. Attention is given to the impact on those who survive downsizing or restructure and refers to these individuals as the survivors. Change necessitates many personal skills as well as the ability not only to be proactive but also “preactive”. The writers suggest that if, as has been asserted, the notion of career as we know it is dead, then the traditional role of the career practitioner may also be defunct. The article concludes with the suggestion that life management skills need to be acquired early in an individual's development and that the role of the career practitioner should be expanded to incorporate the facilitation of these skills for their clients, the survivors.

Tracking Adult Career Development

The Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI) was designed to measure career planning and career adjustment in four stages of career development: exploration, establishment, maintenance and disengagement. In this study 288 employees, aged between 25 and 55 completed the ACCI. A factor analysis found that the items in five of the six subscales of the establishment and maintenance scales loaded together. Eight other items, which loaded together, could be interpreted to represent becoming established in a job or workplace. Two previous factor analyses testing a four factor model gave conflicting results, and the discrepancy between the studies is discussed. That adults move through stages in their careers is not questioned. Research areas that remain open for investigation include the number of stages in mid-career and the measurable constructs in those stages, the relationships between stages of career development and other career variables and the empirical establishment of the sequence of the stages.