Sub-theme 26:

Organizations and Careers: Interactions and their Implications

Convenors:

Call for papers

For many years there has been congruence between organization theory that promoted social cohesion, commitment and success, and career theory that placed career development, growth and advancement within the supporting structure of an organizational frame. The interaction between organizations and careers has been perceived, researched and reported as beneficial and constructive as individuals progressed personally while contributing to organizational productivity. The conference theme for the 24th EGOS Colloquium suggests that it is time to reconsider both the interactions and their implications.

In the 1990s observers noticed a radical shift in organizations' structure and processes in response to the environmental changes of increased competition, globalisation and improved technologies. New organizational strategies, policies and practices emerged which profoundly affected the expectations and career behaviour of individuals. The challenge to traditional views of career unsettled the seemingly perfect and constructive relationship between organizations and careers. Individuals were tasked with taking charge and assuming personal responsibility for their careers and their employment settings and new career theories such as the boundaryless career (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996) and protean career (Hall, 1996) emerged to explain new phenomena.

The shift has been unsettling for all concerned. Organizations upset careers as they impose their own moulds onto career prints, or when they adopt practices that affect opportunities for individuals to learn and grow and develop. What is the impact of changed psychological contracts on organizations and individuals? How has the erosion of organizational commitment affected career development? On the other hand, careers upset organizations as they confront them with newness and unpredictability, for example as free-floating outsiders come and go and seek weaker attachments while retaining a strong sense of autonomy. Integration with the remainder of the workforce upsets the socialization process and organizational culture. Gen X and Y workers upset organizations when they bring different expectations about work, loyalty, commitment and success.

What now constitutes mainstream thinking in career studies is less clear than before and the 24th EGOS colloquium invites us to consider critically and reflexively, the interactions that exists in the relationship between careers and organizations today and the consequences of them..
We invite a spectrum of papers that address this issue. Topics for the prospective papers may include but are not restricted to:

• The interaction, interdependence of organization-individual career relationships including different types of relationships between organizations, individual career actors and other social groupings
• The impact of cross-cultural differences on the relationship between organizations and individuals and the effect on particular types of career relationships
• Effects on career patterns and forms, e.g., career derailing, self-destructive behavior
• Employees' life and work satisfaction, psychological health and consequent outcomes, e.g., depression, suicide, stress, etc.
• Effects on work-life balance
• Increasing expatriate and self-initiated overseas mobility

Career sub-themes at EGOS have traditionally been highly participative and encourage new and established researchers to present diverse and innovative approaches to the study of career. The 2008 sub-theme will continue that trend by encouraging submissions from a broad range of perspectives and disciplines. We particularly invite contributions from career researchers, career practitioners and individuals in other disciplines.

Key readings

Arthur, M.B. & D.M. Rousseau (eds.) (1996): The Boundaryless Career. A New Employment Principle for a New Organizational Era. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hall, D.T. (1996): Long Live the Career! In: D.T. & Associates (ed.): The Career is Dead. Long Live the Career. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass Inc.

Mirvis, P. & D. Hall (1994): Psychological Success and the Boundaryless Career. Journal of Organizational Behaviour, 15: 365-380.

About the convenors

Polly Parker is Director of MBA and Postgraduate Programs at UQ Business School, University of Queensland, in Brisbane, Australia. Her research interests include career learning through peer coaching, career crafting and the intersection of careers and leadership. Polly has previously co-convened the careers sub-themes at the EGOS colloquia in Lubjiana, Bergen and Vienna.

Michael Dickmann is a senior lecturer at Cranfield University, School of Management, UK. He is director of the M.Sc International HRM and head of the Centre for Research into the Management of Expatriation (CReME). His research interests include international mobility and global careers.

Svetlana Khapova is Assistant Professor of Cross-Cultural Management and Organizational Behavior at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research concerns contemporary careers and career behaviors of highly qualified (talented) individuals. In addition to researching career behaviors across conventional organizations and industries, she also researches careers in the contexts of the Internet and the globe.