A Study on Career Management Aspects

Introduction
In the developed countries, we have moved a long way beyond times past when most people had
“employment” or “jobs” rather than careers. A career is often defined as “the evolving sequence
of a person’s work experiences over time” (Arthur, Hall, & Lawrence, 1989, p. 8). The term
evolving sequence tells us that a career is more than just a string of jobs: These jobs are linked
together over time and patterned so that we can see a career as a single meaningful entity, for
example, “a career in banking,” “getting to the top of the organization,” or “from hairdresser to
salon owner.” Careers are cumulative in that experience, skills, and interests developed in one
job can be carried over into the next.
Career management is like the organizational management; after all an organization is nothing
but an assortment of individuals! The process of career management begins with the formulation
of goals and objectives those that are short term or meant to be achieved in the short run. Career
management involves regularly checking in on established goals and the movement being made.
This helps prevent stagnation and ensures career goals are being methodically incorporated.
Career management was first defined in a social work doctoral thesis by Mary Valentich as the
implementation of a career strategy through application of career tactics in relation to chosen
career orientation (Valentich & Gripton, 1978).
The outcome of successful career management should include personal fulfillment, work/life
balance, goal achievement and financial security. Successful career management is accomplished
through regular habits of building relationships, engaging in career development conversations,
updating your career development plan, and setting new goals as life and career needs change.
Career management issues have been widely studies by researchers (e.g. Birasnav & Rangnekar,
2012; Budhwar & Baruch, 2003; Henderson, 2013; Rees, Järvalt & Metcalfe, 2005). Career
management is a key factor for accomplishing both personal goals and organizational goals
(Atkinson, 2002; Barnett & Bradley, 2007). Many companies consider career management as
important to contemporary HRM practice and they assist employees to manage careers
(Cappellen & Janssens, 2010; Kong, Cheung & Zhang, 2010; Sturges, Conway, Guest &
Lifefooghe, 2005). Most companies value skilled employees and need to retain them for long-
term employment (Hemdi & Abdul Rahim, 2011; Mohsin, Lengler & Kumar, 2013). OCM
ensures the long-term availability of skilled and competent employees to reach business goals
(Appelbaum, Ayre & Shapiro, 2002; De Vos, Dewettinck & Buyens, 2008). This is OCM
facilitates employee development as well as employee performance (Appelbaum et al., 2002;
Lewis & Arnold, 2012).
While companies pay attention to establishment and implementation of career management
programs (Kong, Cheung & Song, 2012b; Verbruggen, Sels & Forrier, 2007), individuals can
also develop themselves without waiting for career development support from their organizations
(Quigley & Tymon Jr., 2006). Individuals who focus on occupational goals prefer long-term
career development and want to be successful in their careers (Nie, Lian & Huang, 2012).
Individual career management (also referred to as career self-management) has been noted as
important to employee’s career success (De Vos & Soens, 2008; Selmer, Ebrahimi & Mingtao,
2002; Weng & McElroy, 2010). However, many people put less effort into career self-
management (Chiaburu, Baker & Pitariu, 2006). These people normally reactively respond to
changing career environments (Prabhu, 2007). The notion of career self-management behaviors
was found to be crucial for HR practitioners since it influences individuals’ career outcomes
(Bambacas & Bordia, 2009; Chiaburu et al., 2006). Employees who concentrate on career self-
management seem to be more proactive than those people who do not take action on their own
career management (King, 2004; Raabe, Frese & Beehr, 2007). Proactive behaviors of
employees support both individual and organizational success (Bjorklund, Bhatli & Laakso,
2013; Converse, Pathak, DePaul-Haddock, Gotlib & Merbedone, 2012; Crant, 2000; Prabhu,
2007). The concept of career management is discussed in this paper. It provides knowledge and
idea to those who are interested in and involved in this issue.
Career management is an important facet of management in general. If individuals are to become
and to remain committed to organizational objectives and to effective completion of their work
tasks, they have to gain not just immediate rewards but ongoing personal benefits for their
careers in doing so. If careers are not managed or are managed badly, they, like organizations,
can become aimless, disorganized, and dysfunctional.
The key aspect of career management relates to whether the career is regarded as an individual
activity or as part of a collective activity. In some cultures, and in some families, careers are seen
as an expression of collective will and advantage. Individuals may be expected to cede their
control over their careers to wider and more important forces. This was true in some of the
former communist and other totalitarian societies where the state controlled important aspects of
many careers. It is also true in societies that have a strong emphasis on collectivism rather than
on individualism and where family businesses or traditions determine careers. In contrast, in the
United States, a career is typically regarded as a major individual project or series of projects:
The person is very much in charge, and in the end, while he or she may seek support and
guidance, he or she must take personal responsibility for the career.
Organizational Career Management
Organizational career management (OCM) refers to the programs or activities provided by
organizations to support their employees’ career success (Kong et al., 2010). OCM includes
organizational practices in employees’ career development (Verbruggen et al., 2007). OCM
techniques (such as training and educational opportunities, performance appraisal for career
planning, and mentoring program) which were identified in the literature could be adopted by
companies to help employees to manage their careers (Crawshaw, 2006; Lewis & Arnold, 2012).
OCM practices have an impact on employees’ career satisfaction, for example, a study of hotel
career management in China by Kong, Cheung and Song (2012a) found that hotel career
management practices (e.g. training and career development programs) are positively related to
career satisfaction. Employees’ career satisfaction occurs when the organization provides them
with the expected programs (Chiaburu, Diaz & De Vos, 2013). Yap, Holmes, Hannan and Cukier
(2010) contend that employees were more satisfied with their careers when they perceived
effective diversity training. Furthermore, OCM practices can improve employees’ organizational
commitment levels (Bambacas, 2010). The previous studies (e.g. Bambacas, 2010; Hsiao &
Chen, 2012; Morrow, 2011; Shibin, 2006) maintain that OCM strengthens employees’
organizational commitment.
OCM is not only related to career satisfaction and career commitment (De Vos et al., 2008;
Sabourin, 2009), but it is also associated with job involvement (Zhou & Li, 2008). Job
involvement refers to the extent to which individuals express psychological identification with
their jobs (Zhou & Li, 2008). Zhou and Li (2008) assert that there is a relationship between
OCM and job involvement since OCM enhances employees’ job involvement. Job involvement
has a significant impact on employees’ performance (Rotenberry & Moberg, 2007). Highly job-
involved employees put a lot of effort to achieve organizational objectives (Rotenberry &
Moberg, 2007). Career planning is a part of OCM (Baruch, 2003; Tzabbar, Vardi & Baruch,
2003). Organizations that rely on formal career planning try to match individual career plans
with organizational career management (Mayrhofer, Meyer, Iellatchitch & Schiffinger, 2004;
Tzabbar et al., 2003). Career planning is important tool for companies to make sure that
employees will have required skills and knowledge when they are needed (Martín, Romero, Valle
& Dolan, 2001). Career planning is helpful for matching organizational objectives and
individuals’ goals (MacDonald & Arthur, 2005). Organizations should be concerned with career
planning because employees’ career advancement depends on effective career planning
(Arokiasamy, Ismail, Ahmad & Othman, 2011; Tlaiss & Kauser, 2011). As OCM provides career
development programs for employees, they can develop competencies (e.g. technical and
interpersonal competencies (McQuade & Maguire, 2005)) that promote their employability (De
Vos, De Hauw & Van de Heijden, 2011; Kong et al., 2012a). Individuals’ competencies are
required for promoting career advancement (Mihail & Elefterie, 2006) and sustaining their future
employability (McQuade & Maguire, 2005; Mihail & Elefterie, 2006; Pinnington, 2011).
However, many organizations need to adapt to environmental changes (Gustavsson, 2012; Lee &
Corbett, 2006; Zhao, Rust, McKinley & Edwards, 2010). They may improve their profitability
and competitiveness by implementing organizational strategies (such as restructuring and
downsizing) that can influence organizational career management practices (Gustavsson, 2012;
Muňoz-Bullon & Sanchez-Bueno, 2010; Sheaffer, Carmeli, Steiner-Revivo & Zionit, 2009). As a
result, traditional career management which is directed by organizations shifted to career self-
management (Barnett & Bradley, 2007; Wickramasinghe & Jayaweera, 2011).
Individual Career Management
According to changing nature of career and unstable employment, there is an increasing idea that
individuals’ career progression is the responsibility of themselves, not the organization’s
responsibility (Clarke, 2008; Enache, Sallán, Simo & Fernandez, 2013). Particularly, highly
educated people are capable and able to management their own career (Dittmann, 2009; Mihail,
2008). Individual employees who are graduates can encourage themselves to remain employable
and marketable, not only for developing a career in a particular organization, but also for
developing lifelong transferable skills in job market (Bridgstock, 2011; Dittmann, 2009; Mihail,
2008). Based on the concept of individual career management (ICM), employees are the central
actors in managing their own careers (De Vos & Segers, 2013; King, 2004). ICM enhances
individuals’ perceptions of control over their careers, which in turn leads to career satisfaction
(King, 2004; Raabe et al., 2007). Career satisfaction is “a person’s subjective attitudes about a
lifetime of work” (Lounsbury, Foster, Carmody, Kim, Gibson & Drost, 2012, p. 520). It
represents the extent to which individuals perceive career progress as consistent with their
personal career goals (Barnett & Bradley, 2007; Chiaburu et al., 2013). Career satisfaction has
been regarded as a key factor for individual and organizational success (Joo & Park, 2010; Oh,
2013). Whereas people who have a sense of career satisfaction need to remain in their profession
and also contribute to career growth, people who lack career satisfaction may leave their
profession (Mariani, 2007). Since career self-management is related to individuals’ proactive
behaviors and self-control (King, 2004; Raabe et al., 2007), a study by Converse et al. (2012)
contends that proactive personality and self-control are the predictors of career success.
Similarly, the studies by Joo and Ready (2012) and Prabhu (2013) found that individuals’
proactive personality can promote their career success. Proactive employees are likely to engage
in improvement opportunities and innovative behaviors that are significantly related to career
success (Owens, 2009).
ICM guides individuals’ career development, enhances self-awareness and environmental
awareness, and clarifies individuals’ career goals, all of these functions lead to better career
decision (Weng & McElroy, 2010). People who focus on career self-management gather
information, plan for solving career problems, and make a decision in their careers (Converse et
al., 2012; Weng & McElroy, 2010). They are self-directed or self-managed people who are
actively involved with lifelong learning (Muja & Appelbaum, 2012). Self-directed or self-
managed career attitude of employees is important to their career success (De Vos & Soens,
2008; Enache, Sallan, Simo & Fernandez, 2011; Park, 2009). Career management strategies are
crucial to managing individuals’ successful careers (Kahnweiler, 2006). Firstly, career self-
management training programs should be designed to assist employees to play more effective
role in their careers (Kossek, Robert, Fisher & Demarr, 1998). Secondly, HR professionals could
be the leaders for individual career management (Kahnweiler, 2006; Van Veldhoven &
Dorenbosch, 2008). In practice, HR professionals are the key actors for promoting employees’
career self-management (Kahnweiler, 2006; Van Veldhoven & Dorenbosch, 2008). HR
professionals usually assist other employees to manage their careers (Kahnweiler, 2006).
Therefore, HR professionals should act effectively in their own career self-management so as
they can show credibility with other employees and managers (Kahnweiler, 2006). If HR
professionals are ineffective in their own career self-management, those employees may not trust
them (Kahnweiler, 2006). Particularly, the concept of career self-management is crucial to
individuals who work for temporary jobs (Skilton & Bravo, 2008). In the project-based careers,
individuals are responsible themselves for career management (e.g. developing skills and seeking
opportunities to work in other organizations) while they are working for temporary projects
(Skilton & Bravo, 2008). The concept of career self-management is very applicable to project-
based workers (Clarke & Patrickson, 2008).
Career Management: Organizational or Individual?
In the organizations that you join, you will seldom find a career management department. Rather,
it may be assumed that if the organization in general is managed effectively, employees’ careers
will look after themselves. For example, if the organization is successful in developing itself, it
will most likely grow in size and, thereby, will provide expanding career opportunities for its
members. The human resource management (HRM) area, which involves policy and practice in
recruitment, staff selection, employee training and development, performance evaluation,
promotions, and planning for future staffing, is key to providing an organization in which people
are able to maximize their career opportunities. Many HRM textbooks have research-papers on
career management viewed as an organizational function on behalf of the organization’s
members.
But individuals have an important role to play in the management of their own careers. For a
person’s career to work, it is not enough for that person to respond passively to whatever career
development the organization seeks to offer or impose. He or she should indulge in career
planning and should be proactive in thinking strategically about his or her future, setting personal
goals, making effective decisions about career moves, and seeking new opportunities for learning
and advancement. Thus, career management has two distinct meanings: the individual’s
management of his or her own career and the organization’s management of all its employees’
careers. An employee’s personal career management is often done in partnership with the
organization as a joint manager of the career. Managers themselves have to manage their own
careers while simultaneously contributing to the management of the careers of their subordinates.
Career management using either meaning encompasses a range of techniques for imposing order
on what might otherwise be a series of disconnected noncumulative employment experiences.
Career management seeks to utilize management ideas such as strategy, planning, goal setting,
rational decision making, assessment, feedback, personal development, and control to maximize
the individual’s long-term fulfillment of his or her potential and of his or her long-term
contribution to the organization or organizations in which he or she works. But career
management can be practiced by individuals and their organizations either separately or
collaboratively. It will succeed best for both parties when this collaboration is strong, and each
party appreciates what the other is trying to do.
Debate has arisen in recent years as to the respective roles of organization and individual in
managing the individual and as to which one has the strongest influence. One formulation
contrasts career self-management (CSM) with organizational career management (OCM) and
notes that, while these may be regarded as competing interests battling for the control of a
person’s career, it is possible for the individual and the organization, respectively, to practice
them collaboratively so that both parties benefit (Sturges, Guest, Conway, & Mackenzie Davey,
2002). For example, a company accountant, bored with figures, might seek to direct her career
more into marketing; her employing organization might recognize both her aspirations and her
potential and might offer her a suitable job move within the company.

Theory and Applications 1: The Context of Careers

Like all management, career management is occasionally assisted and often constrained by
contextual forces that are broader and stronger than individual careerists and the organizations
that employ them are. People cannot always go exactly where they want in their careers.
Careerists have been likened to travelers moving across a landscape (Ink-son & Elkin, in press).
Like travelers, they must plan and traverse their routes taking due account of the topography—
for example, the hills, mountains, and rivers to be crossed and the paths available. There may be
severe constraints, and the topography may change unexpectedly.
First, forces such as economic development, technological change, and new public tastes both
constitute and change the landscape as the traveler proceeds. The careerist must pay attention.
Decisions taken by career beginners now may have consequences for them in 40 years.
Occupations, organizations, and even industries that seem attractive now may cease to exist or
may change beyond recognition. Current trends that are relevant are the move toward temporary
and part-time forms of work, to contracting rather than employment, the continuing
emancipation of women in the workplace, the continuing restructuring of work due to
information technology, the aging of societies, the increasing gap between the “haves” and
“have-nots,” and the rise of the creative industries (Inkson & Elkin, in press). These trends
change the labor market and career development must fit in with what the market wants: There
are many more wannabe dress designers, rock stars, and astronauts out there than their respective
markets can absorb.
Second, factors such as social class, gender, ethnicity, and education often determine whether
people can reach their career aspirations or even what aspirations they develop in the first place
(Johnson & Mortimer, 2002). If you are poor, Black, female, and uneducated, you may not even
think of the possibility of eventually becoming the CEO of a large corporation, let alone trying to
do it: If you do try, there are many barriers to stop you from succeeding. But if you are from a
well-off family, White, male, and Harvard educated, it will not be surprising if you have both the
aspiration to “get to the top” and a reasonable chance of doing it one day. This does not
necessarily mean that the less privileged should give up on their dreams, but they will have to
find ways to manage and overcome the barriers to their aspirations, as well as the aspirations
themselves.
Third, organizations are themselves part of the context. They have important structural features
that influence careers. In one sense, organizations can be representations of features of the wider
society. For example, an organization may embody societal biases against minorities or against
women and may express these, possibly unconsciously, in its personnel selection and
advancement decisions. But organization structures also have an influence. The jobs that are the
building blocks of careers are linked in structures that provide career pathways. After serving as
a management trainee, you may move up the hierarchy to become a first line manager. Next, you
may volunteer for an assignment to another department or overseas, and then you may apply for
promotion. Here, you are dependent on the structures and job opportunities created by the
organization. A restructuring of your organization may have the collateral effect of restructuring
your career. The ways in which organizations manage the careers of their members are spelled
out in the second half of this research-paper. If you want to manage your career, you must
manage aspects of the organization or organizations in which your career is enacted.
Theory and Applications 2: Career Self-Management
CSM—sometimes called career development—includes personal career planning and decision
making. The career development movement, whose theories are summarized periodically by
Brown and Associates (2002), focuses on individual psychology and decision making. A person’s
choices (e.g., choice of school subjects, of university degree, and of first job or occupation) have
strong influences on his or her subsequent career yet are often made at a relatively young age
without much to support them by way of information or logic. The founder of the career
development movement, Parsons (1909) believed that individuals should maximize their
knowledge of their skills and interests, maximize their knowledge of the world of work and the
alternatives open to them, and use what he called “true reasoning” (rational decision making) to
find the match between the two. Nearly 100 years later, that is still the rationale for much career
theory and guidance.
Theory and Applications 3: Organizational Career Management
According to many experts on HRM, careers should be determined, at least in part, by the
employer’s staffing priorities. A business that pays an employee his or her salary is a legitimate
stakeholder in that employee’s career and will often seek to develop, control, and exploit that
career for commercial advantage, while no doubt also hoping that the employee too will benefit.
OCM, therefore, is the counterpart of CSM: It is the activities that organizations undertake to
manage the careers of their employees to mutual advantage. Thus, while most people would
understand that ultimately any individual is responsible for his or her own career, the
organization provides a vital framework of opportunities for and constraints on its employees’
careers and, often, intervenes actively through HRM activities such as hiring, transferring,
developing, promoting, and laying off staff. Sophisticated organizations can achieve a degree of
certainty and stability for their future requirements for staff, skills, and commitment in the long
run by encouraging its employees to develop long-term, lifetime careers as loyal servants of and
as developing contributors to the organization.
The idea of organizational career management organizations is an important effect of what
Barney (1991) called the “resource-based view of the firm.” This view of company strategy
focuses on its human resources—for example, their skill, expertise, experience, motivation, and
teamwork—as a major basis of competitive advantage and on the fact that human resources can
be systematically increased in value over time by appropriate experience and development in the
company. That is, as their careers provide employees with new experiences and expertise, their
value to the organization is increased. Careers, therefore, are “repositories of knowledge” (Bird,
1996), specifically knowledge of value to the organization. Therefore, organizations must know
of and plan for the competencies they need in order to succeed and must either capture them in
the careers of the people they recruit from outside the organization or develop them in the careers
of present employees. So organizations have a very good reason to intervene actively to
influence the careers of individuals, by attracting outsiders with the right expertise to join, by
persuading insiders with the right expertise to stay, and by placing and developing these people
where they will have greatest effect.
A key aspect is the enhancing of employees’ commitment to the organization (Meyer & Allen,
1997). In an environment of high labor turnover, organizations often need at least a core group of
long-term staff that has a sense of the organization’s past, its culture, and its key skills to provide
continuity and act as guardians to this institutional memory. The package of rewards and
incentives that the organization offers is very important here. By offering benefits such as good
holidays, health programs, savings programs, recreational activities in company facilities, social
and country club memberships, travel and educational benefits, access to housing loans, and
employee assistance programs, employers can make it difficult for their staff to contemplate
leaving. Equally important are arrangements for remuneration: An employee on a flat salary level
has a considerable incentive to leave the organization; another on a constantly increasing salary
with a pension plan tied to the organization and a long-service gratuity has every reason to stay.
Lastly, strong, appealing “organization cultures” can be used to engage the individual
psychologically and socially in being part of a greater enterprise.
Against this, there is always the possibility that, in the future, the organization will run into
difficulties and will be forced to downsize or to change its strategic direction in a way that would
render its long-service staff obsolete. Severing those long-term relationships is likely to be
painful for both the organization and its people. A smart organization looks ahead and tries to
achieve the right balance of organizational careers and flexible careers among its people.
Organizational career management is often based on the development of an internal labor market
in which, wherever possible, vacancies are filled from within the organization. That way,
positions at the lower levels of the organization can be filled from external sources, and these
new recruits can be socialized and developed so that they gain the right background knowledge,
skills, and attitude to move up to higher positions. The configuration of the hierarchical structure
of the organization can provide a “career system,” or a set of career pathways. That way,
members’ progress through the hierarchy and between departments in pursuit of their career
goals can simultaneously develop them in ways conducive to meeting company goals and their
goals.
These powerful internal labor markets reached their high point in the 1970s and 1980s in many
giant corporations in the United States, Europe, and Japan. In many Japanese organizations, for
example, young entrants to the organization were offered “lifetime employment”—a career in a
paternalistic employing organization in which their continuing employment with substantial
benefits and a supportive social environment for themselves and their families was guaranteed.
Conclusion
OCM and ICM are highlighted as important to career success, since the concepts of OCM and
ICM support the ability of employees to achieve career advancement whether to progress in one
organization or to move across organizations. However, the career management issue should be
explored further in order to find out factors that thwart career growth. It would be helpful for HR
professionals to design suitable career management programs that can assist employees to attain
career goals. An understanding of the two concepts provides employers with the capability to
reach competitive advantage.
Much career development theory and practice is in the CSM tradition. It assumes that career
management should be practiced by individuals in relation to their own careers and that the
career management can therefore be improved by empowering individuals to take charge of their
careers, maximize their information about themselves and the world of work, improve their
career decision-making ability, and offer them the support and services of skilled counselors.
Readers considering their own careers are urged to research and to adopt such strategies.
On the other hand, managers and organizations can manage the organizational careers
environment in which individuals pursue careers, to mutual advantage, in a wide variety of ways
broadly derived from the principles of strategic management and HRM. Managers can make a
difference directly as mentors and confidantes of their staff and by seeing the career development
of their subordinates as a key part of their responsibilities. They can also do so indirectly through
the background activities on which careers depend, in areas such as human resource planning,
employee hiring, socialization, remuneration, and the development of a structure and culture
sympathetic to members’ career aspirations. All managers have their own careers to think about
—as they would be done by, so should they do.