The Meanings of Career Revisited: Implications for Theory and Practice
| Published date | 01 December 1998 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.00096 |
| Author | Claire Viney,Stephen J. Adamson,Noeleen Doherty |
| Date | 01 December 1998 |
Introduction
In both the academic literature and practitioner
press, much has been written about the ‘death’ of
the career and the emergence of ‘new deals’ in
employment. These new deals (which no longer
assume a guaranteed career for life) have, it
seems, emerged in the light of organizational
restructuring and, in particular, with the evolution
of flatter organizations (Herriot and Pemberton,
1995). Pervasive definitions of organizational
or managerial careers have long encompassed
notions of hierarchical progression; that is, a
sequence of work positions of increasing re-
sponsibility and seniority over time (Arthur, Hall
and Lawrence, 1989). However, the flattening of
organizational hierarchies has reduced or elim-
inated entire levels of management and, as such,
career paths have become increasingly blurred
(Inkson and Coe, 1993; Nicholson and West, 1988).
It follows that traditional definitions of career
no longer seem appropriate to contemporary
organizational career systems (Arthur and
Rousseau, 1996; Nicholson, 1996).
A high-profile example of such apparent
change is exposed through the examination of
graduate career management. The traditional
rationale for employing graduates has been to
provide a pool of high potential talent from which
organizations may select their senior manage-
ment of the future (Herriot, 1992). Thus, graduate
recruitment has traditionally been linked to man-
agerial succession strategies, with graduates being
viewed as feedstock for senior management (Tyson,
1995). However, as planning horizons have short-
ened, and the future needs of organizations have
become less clear, both individual employees and
organizational representatives are finding it dif-
ficult to articulate a definition of career appro-
priate to changing organizational circumstances.
In many cases, senior managers are stating that
their organizations no longer offer careers at
all, but rather (given the apparently increasing
emphasis on organizational learning and portfolio
British Journal of Management, Vol. 9, 251–259 (1998)
The Meanings of Career Revisited:
Implications for Theory and Practice
Stephen J. Adamson, Noeleen Doherty and Claire Viney
Human Resources Research Centre, School of Management, Cranfield University,
Cranfield, Bedford MK43 0AL, UK
In everyday conversation, the term ‘career’ is generally understood to refer to the
sequence of work-related experiences one has over the course of one’s working life-
time. For many people, a career is distinct from a job, since it also conjures up images
of steady, even logical, progression up organizational hierarchies. It is not simply about
what one does for a living, but about what one has done, does now and might do in the
future; the notion of career therefore embraces the dimension of time. In light of wide-
spread organizational restructuring and economic uncertainty since the late 1980s, many
of the taken-for-granted assumptions which have underpinned traditional notions of
career, and in particular the organizational career, no longer seem valid. Both in-
dividuals and organizations are finding it increasingly difficult to conceptualize the idea
of a logical, long-term sequence of work-related experiences; there is thus no longer a
clear and mutual understanding of what the career means to both. This paper argues
that individuals and organizations can meaningfully redefine the notion of career by
reconsidering its broader, theoretical underpinnings.
© 1998 British Academy of Management
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