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Summary New forms of careers have received increased attention in contemporary organizational
research. A prominent focus in this research has been whether and how, in an increasingly
unpredictable career environment, individuals are taking responsibility for their own career
development. The implication is that career is becoming less central to organizational
management practices. At the same time there is evidence that organizational changes
typically described in this literature (such as delayering the organization in a quest for
flexibility) have had a negative impact on career progress, resulting in resistance to change.
The implication here is that career concerns are more central to organizational management
practices. This in-depth qualitative case study examines whether individuals do in fact take
more responsibility for their career development during times of organizational change. We
also examine whether this does indeed mean that the organization takes less responsibility for
career management. Our data indicate that individuals are, in fact, taking more responsibility
for their own careers. At the same time we found that the organization in our case study also
became more actively involved in career development and management. However, this active
approach did not resemble traditional top-down career management and development. To us,
the pattern of organizational and individual career development actions appear to constitute a
kind of ‘organizational dance,’ a highly interactive mutual influence process, in which both
parties are at once the agent and the target of career influence. Strengths and limitations of the
study are discussed, as are directions for future research. Copyright # 2007 John Wiley &
Sons, Ltd.
Introduction
Is the organizational career dead? Recent writings have argued that the field of careers has moved
beyond organizations to flexible and individual approaches such as the boundaryless, Protean, and
post-corporate career (Arthur, Inkson, & Pringle, 1999; Baruch & Peiperl, 2000; Hall, Zhu, & Yan,
2002). ‘The bulk of research in the careers area has moved beyond organizations to focus on more
flexible, individual models’ (Baruch & Peiperl, 2000, p. 347). The message is that the individual is in
* Correspondence to: Marjolein Lips-Wiersma, Department of Management, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800,
Christchurch 8020, New Zealand. E-mail: marjo.lips-wiersma@canterbury.ac.nz
charge of her or his career and is taking increasing responsibility for it. As a result, it is suggested,
careers are becoming less central to organizational management practices.
At the same time, there is evidence that organizational changes typically described in this literature
(such as delayering the organization in a quest for flexibility) have impacted individual career progress
and as a result have created employee resistance to change (Mills & Ungson, 2003). Changes in
organizational structures influence the nature of careers (Brousseau, Driver, Eneroth, & Larsson, 1996;
Kelly, Brannick, Hulpke, Levine, & To, 2003) and individual career concerns influence ‘buy-in’ to the
change process. The implication here, quite the opposite of recent career writings, is that career
concerns are more, rather than less, central to organizational management practices.
Our case study organization has gone through a process of change that included many of the new career
realities. The change process has been driven by a need for flexibility and adaptability and has resulted in
flatter decentralized structures, boundary-crossing assignments, and curbing of tenure-based promotion.
Our first objective is to study whether employees adapt to this new career environment by taking more
responsibility for their careers. Our second objective is to study whether, if individuals do indeed take more
responsibility, this also means the organization is taking less responsibility for career management.
During the 1990’s a wide range of new ideas in career dynamics entered the field of organizational
studies. We have been introduced to concepts such as the boundaryless career (Arthur & Rousseau,
1996), the Protean career (Hall, 1996), and the post-corporate career (Peiperl & Baruch, 1997).
Boundaryless career theory addresses changes in the inter- and intra-organizational career environment
and the career competencies one should have to be successful in this changing environment (Arthur &
Rousseau, 1996). We are interested in who takes responsibility for developing these competencies
during organizational change. Protean career theory addresses career adaptability, and we draw on
Protean career concepts in the context of an organization in which individuals have to adapt their
mental models of career success. The post-corporate career (Peiperl & Baruch, 1997) focuses
somewhat more on the corporate delayering and restructuring that have led to changes in career. We are
interested in the effect of those changes in one organizational context. We use the term ‘new career’ to
broadly indicate that we are drawing on a range of concepts introduced by the boundaryless,
post-corporate, and Protean career.
The new career emphasizes individual responsibility (Arthur et al., 1999). For the individual the new
career is a ‘tabula rasa of fresh opportunity’ (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996, p. 4) where one is freed from
stifling organizational determinants of career success and where it is acceptable to make major moves
across occupational areas and disciplines (Brousseau et al., 1996). The various theories underpinning
the new career have in common that they argue that the individual can and should take more
responsibility for her career. Being responsible means to ‘achieve goals that are personally meaningful
to the individual, rather than those set by parents, peers, an organization, or society’ (Mirvis & Hall,
1996, p. 138). It also means internalizing a measure of career success that is not measured by
hierarchical progress in one particular organization, but measured by marketability and employability
(Viney, Adamson, & Doherty, 1995). It entails the individual assuming greater responsibility for
Copyright # 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 28, 771–792 (2007)
DOI: 10.1002/job
MANAGING THE NEW CAREER DURING CHANGE 773
developing portable skills and investing in ongoing education and other means of acquiring flexible
know-how (DeFillippi & Arthur, 1994). The individual is responsible for developing not only
marketable skills, but also new attitudes, such as career resilience and adaptability (Hall, 2002).
Critics argue that in the new career too much responsibility is placed with the individual and that the
organization is morally responsible for softening possible negative effects for the individual. These
negative effects may include job insecurity, decline in employability as a result of an organization
investing less in training, and decline of the benefits that come with long-term employment
relationships, such as organizational contributions to superannuation (Humphries & Dyer, 2001;
Meyer, 1996; Perrow, 1996; Van Buren, 2003).
While the new career has proven to be a remarkably popular and influential concept, it is argued to be
theoretically and empirically undeveloped, limiting its explanatory potential (Pringle & Mallon, 2003).
With empirical studies primarily focusing on the individual perspective, the new career in an
organizational context, in particular, lacks empirical investigation.
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774 M. LIPS-WIERSMA AND D. T. HALL
In summary, new career theorists provide two future scenarios. One is that the organization
withdraws from career management and development, and that both individual and organizational
needs are met as individuals take over this responsibility. The other is that while career management
and development may no longer be a straightforward function of HR, the organization still remains
involved in career management. In the next section we focus on careers within the context of
organizational change in order to understand why organizations would, or would not, want to take
responsibility for career management and development.
An enduring finding in the change management research is that most organizations do not manage
change well (Nilakant & Ramnarayan, 2006). A primary concern is how to overcome employee
resistance to change. In this section we explore the possible contribution career theory can make to
overcome resistance to change. The strengths of career theory are several. Career links the aspirations
of the individual to the organization in both subjective and objective ways (Barley, 1989), thus
capturing the effect of change on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. This is important, as in order to
understand resistance to change we need to pay closer attention to the intrinsic values of the people
involved in organizational change (Doorewaard & Benschop, 2003). Furthermore, career highlights a
series of relationships and interactions between the person and the workplace, and between economic
trends and workplace attitudes (Ornstein & Isabella, 1993). It therefore also captures the effect of
alterations in the relationship between the individual and the organization during times of change.
The new career is driven (at least partially) by changing organizational contexts such as flatter
organizations. A summary of change management theory shows that ‘change occurs at the individual
level but is significantly influenced by organizational norms and culture’, and that at the same time ‘the
literature has not fully identified how the individual change process occurs’ (Whelan-Berry, Gordon, &
Hinings, 2003, p. 190). Career provides one lens to study the effect of changes on individual behavior
and attitudes. However, there are few studies of the new career in the context of the organizational
changes that drive it.
The few studies that have linked career to change show that, on the whole, organizational changes are
perceived to be threatening to career progress (Kelly et al., 2003) and career security (Ogbonna &
Wilkinson, 2003). Organizational change disrupts the organizing principles around which individuals
structure both their public and private lives (upward movement, tenure-related increase in income,
status, and power), and often changes take away secure, predictable, and rewarding career paths from
many, causing mental anxiety (Wajcman & Martin, 2001). Career concerns may therefore be one factor
explaining why change resistance occurs at an individual level. The new career literature, as well as the
organizational change literature, indicates shifts in organizational structure from hierarchical to flat
organizations (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996; Nilakant & Ramnarayan, 2006). At the organizational level
of analysis, career refers to the flow of people through organizations (Gunz, 2000); thus a change in
structure is likely to lead to a change in flow. Structure provides us with a sense of security (Giddens,
1984), including career path security. Fear of the unknown is a primary factor in individual change
resistance (Dent & Goldberg, 1999). Therefore, unknown career futures as a result of structural changes
are likely to cause resistance. Limited research available on changing structures of career (Cascio,
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MANAGING THE NEW CAREER DURING CHANGE 775
1993) has shown that delayering reduced the career horizons of many managers, which resulted in
limited career prospects, substantial risk of retrenchment, disillusionment, and low morale.
Successful change involves altering mental models (Lewin, 1948). Career paths can be
conceptualized as a mental model. For example, moving up a vertical ladder is one mental model
of career success (Gunz, 2000). Successful buy-in to organizational change is likely to necessitate
individuals adjusting their mental models of what may constitute a successful, secure, or fulfilling
career. At the same time, it is likely to necessitate organizational awareness and management of
individual career needs during a time of change. King and Inkson (2001) argue that in the new career
literature we need to acknowledge that there may be differences of interest between employers or
managers and employees. There are compelling arguments to understand the nature of these
differences and how they are addressed in the context of organizational change.
Organizational Context
The Organization
The research site is a medium size (2400 employees) public organization in New Zealand and has a
demographically and occupationally diverse workforce. We will call it ‘Metro’. Metro was selected
for study not only because it is representative of many of the changes documented in the new career
literature, but also because it has been going through an ongoing incremental change process in
which it desires to obtain staff buy-in. The objective of the change was to create a ‘more effective,
creative, responsive, and change adaptive organization’ (Strategic Plan, 1999) through creating a
more adaptive culture. Gunz (2000) argues that culture is central to any model linking career
aspirations to organizational outcomes and we therefore also anticipate that the particular nature of
the change will highlight issues of career responsibility during a change process.
Metro restructured and went from five to four levels in late 1995, taking out one level of middle
managers (30 middle managers in total, of which 13 were redeployed in other roles). At the same
time, the hierarchical and functional structure of the organization was decentralized into a
team-based design.
In order to achieve strategic objectives of creating a more flexible and adaptive culture, it was
communicated to employees that non-hierarchical reward systems would become more prevalent
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776 M. LIPS-WIERSMA AND D. T. HALL
and that employees were expected to take more responsibility for their own career development.
Automatic tenure-based pay increase and promotion were curbed where possible in the context of
collective employment contracts to ‘meet organizational and individual needs for flexibility’
(Strategic Plan, 1999). While prior to 1995 almost all employees were on collective and permanent
contracts, at the time of study 75.5% of staff were on collective contracts, with new employees at all
levels showing more interest in, and being more actively encouraged to, enter individual contracts.
Career Adaptability
We could not exclude the possibility that some of the career concerns made visible through the
climate survey arose because individuals in this type of organization are not adaptable and will resist
change regardless of the effects on their careers. In order to test this we applied the adaptability scale
from the work of Morrison (1995) in the United States Navy. The adaptability instrument assesses
two aspects of the person’s orientation toward change: motivation to change and perceived
competence in dealing with change. We also applied the Protean career attitude scale developed by
Briscoe and Hall (2003). The Protean career attitude measures self-direction (being in charge of
one’s career), and being value-driven (making career choices based on personal values as opposed to
external influences).
On the one hand, we found a relatively high level of adaptability in our research participants.
Their responses on the adaptability scale were skewed toward the high end of the scale, with a mean
score of 30.91. In contrast, in a study of 179 American MBA and executive MBA students, using the
same measure, the mean adaptability score was 28.51. The mean adaptability score in the current
organization was significantly higher than the comparison group (t ¼ 3.83, p < 0.01). On the other
hand, participants in this study scored toward the low end of the Protean scale. Whereas the overall
mean of our international comparison sample (professionals, executives, and MBA and under-
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MANAGING THE NEW CAREER DURING CHANGE 777
graduate students, both in the U.S. and in New Zealand) was 90.31, the mean for the sample in this
organization was 81.49, which was significantly lower ( p < 0.01). This meant that our participants
had less of a sense of being in charge of their own careers than the comparison sample. There was no
correlation between Protean score and age or gender. How do we account for this finding, that
people who are quite adaptable are not inclined toward the flexible, adaptable Protean career?
The Protean attitude scale measures attitudes towards career moves within the organization
(internal labor market), as well as across organizations (external labor market). One explanation
may be that, although these people have the adaptive capacity to be Protean, they may prefer to enact
their careers in this organization for a variety of reasons. The specialists expressed the view that this
organization does the best work in the world in their occupational field (in fact, the organization has
won international prizes for being the best in its field). Those who combine other life roles with paid
work may enjoy flexible working hours while maintaining security at the same time. Those who are
interested in lifestyle advantages (for which the locality of our organization is well known) may not
want to relocate. It could also be that our definition of Protean, that is that flexibility and adaptability
express themselves in intra-organizational job changes, is too narrow a definition. Perhaps these
individuals are hoping to be Protean within one organization that offers the benefits of autonomy
and growth together with the security benefits of long-term employment.
Method overview
We took an in-depth, qualitative, instrumental case study approach. We use the term case study not as a
methodological choice, but as the object to be studied to provide insight into an issue and refinement of
theory (Stake, 1998). Yin (1994) suggests that case study research is best suited to the examination of
why and how contemporary, real-life (organizational) phenomena occur. We focus on the
contemporary phenomenon of the new career in the context of real-life change. The research site
(a) experienced the type of organizational change described by new career theorists, (b) experienced
the mixed reactions to the impact of change on career described by organizational change theorists, and
(c) went through a lengthy strategic process (7 years) of attempting to align career needs with the
desired cultural and strategic change outcomes of the organization.
To capture the emerging new career identities, behaviors, and rules it is suggested we require
perspectives that pay attention to careers simultaneously from an individual and organizational point of
view (Paradeise, 2003). To capture both points of view, we spoke to a representative sample of
employees, team-leaders (representing middle management), and various members of the Human
Resource Management group including its director. The primary data collection took place within 6
months; subsequent data gathering and a final meeting discussing the relevance and accuracy of our
findings with research participants took place within 18 months of our collection of the quantitative
data on Protean Career and Career Adaptability.
Our research journey was partly planned and partly opportunistic. The organization was first
approached in 1999 when the first author heard about the changes in this organization and the messages
given to individuals within it to take more responsibility for their own career development. Through a
series of meetings, we came to an understanding of the research objective, the second author joined the
research team, ethical approval was obtained, and data collection was started in 2001, with final
feedback given to the organization in October 2003.
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778 M. LIPS-WIERSMA AND D. T. HALL
In the first 4 years since the introduction of the change initiatives (1995–1999) these were not
matched by increased attention to career development. However, when we started our data gathering in
2001 some changes were taking place. In the words of the HR director:
When the restructuring started in 1995, we addressed career reality obliquely by asking how people
needed to be different and act differently to meet the expectations of our new cultural values
statement. Our emphasis was on self-management. Although we have always invested significantly
in training, we did not have such a thing as career support in any formal sense of the word until 2000
when we started to offer formal development. At every opportunity we promote the value of
individual stocktaking and we now show a connection between our annual planning and budgeting
processes and individual job descriptions and performance plans. We have become aware we still
need to be involved in career development of employees.
Thus, when we started gathering our data in March 2001, the organization was still focused on
employees taking on more responsibility for career development and management. The primary
objective of training and development was to increase ‘self-awareness’ and ‘self-management,’
balanced with ‘social awareness’ and ‘social skill’ (HR Director Presentation, 2001). Our initial
research question—to confirm whether or not individuals were taking on more career development
responsibility—was therefore still relevant. However, it was now also becoming apparent that an
increased focus on the individual did not automatically mean that the organization would take a
hands-off approach. Given this new information, we added our second research objective. Our research
was done at a time of transition in which some individuals across our sample groups had already been
affected by increased career support and others had not.
Sampling
We did semi-structured interviews with members of a wide range of occupational groups including
specialist and generalists, skilled and unskilled individuals (determined by years of training required for the
job), individuals at different levels in the hierarchy, and individuals at different career stages (determined by
age). Regular climate surveys indicated that, between 1995 and 2001, change had affected career aspirations
in some work units more positively than in others, and that across occupational groups career support was
received in different measures. We decided to interview individuals from eight work units: four that
averaged relatively high scores on career satisfaction (>5.5 out of 7), and four work units that scored
relatively low (<4 out of 7). Within each occupational group, we took a representative sample of the total
number of employees per unit, as well as the age and gender diversity within it. We interviewed 50
individuals in total. See Table 1 for a list of demographics of participants.
Data collection
We did four orientation interviews with representatives of the HRM department, including the HR
director, and studied background strategic documents to understand the extent and purpose of the
organizational change and HRM’s role in the change process. As we obtained data from the employees,
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MANAGING THE NEW CAREER DURING CHANGE 779
we sought further feedback from the HR director on the workings of specific initiatives that were
relevant to our research. Finally, we presented our findings and discussions to the HR team and all
research participants and gained further feedback on the authenticity, accuracy, and relevance of our
findings. This feedback is also incorporated in the paper.
The interviews lasted 60–90 minutes and utilized a combination of existing questions from the
climate survey mentioned above and additional questions to obtain an in-depth picture of why events
occurred as they did and how people felt about them. So where, for example, in a climate survey there
was an item on career development, such as ‘I am encouraged to put new learning into practice’, we
would ask what putting new learning into practice entailed or what had aided or inhibited a person from
doing so, to obtain information on opportunities and barriers to career development within a flatter
organization. This process enabled us to access a range of career-related information that went beyond
narrow categories of career development and career management. It also ensured our findings made
sense to the organization. This was important for the continuing collaboration required, and to justify
the significant amount of time and energy given by the organization to our research project.
Findings
In summary, we did indeed find evidence that individuals are taking more responsibility for their own
career development. At the same time, our case study organization did not take a ‘hands-off’ approach
but clearly took responsibility for various aspects of career management. We found that this new career
management is not a straightforward HRM function, but that it is integrated in a range of five core
management practices. These are: ‘Developing Capacity and Employability’, ‘Strategic and Structural
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780 M. LIPS-WIERSMA AND D. T. HALL
Cultural integration
Individual employees took responsibility for considering whether the (changing) culture was fitting
their career direction. HR started taking responsibility to ensure that individual career aspirations were
(where possible) linked to the desired organizational culture. The overall strategic aim of this particular
organization was to create a collaborative organizational culture. This meant it had to take
responsibility for putting some boundaries around overly individualistic approaches to career
development to minimize potential conflict between ‘taking responsibility for your own career’ and
‘strongly subscribing to the organizational culture’ (Table 4).
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Table 2. Employee and employer responsibility in developing capacity and employability
great.”
Table 2. (Continued)
Diversity management
Individuals took responsibility for finding a balance between work and other roles and for accurately
assessing the personal costs and benefits of moving up the hierarchy. The organization took
responsibility for providing flexible working hours and took some responsibility for creating flexible
structures and a culture in which it was becoming acceptable for individuals to move up, down, or
sideways (Table 5).
Communication
Individuals took responsibility for communicating their career aspirations and this was enhanced by
discussing their personal development plans with their unit-managers or team-leaders. Employees built
relationships with trusted others to sustain their career and communicate across networks to enhance it.
The organization was starting to take responsibility for clearly and realistically communicating the
meaning, implications and opportunities of the new career reality (Table 6).
Our findings confirmed a central tenet of new career theory—that individuals are indeed taking more
responsibility for their own career development (Arthur et al., 1999; Arthur & Rousseau, 1996; Hall,
1996). Research participants showed significant willingness to change mental models (Gunz, 2000)
and, on the whole, talked about ‘taking responsibility’ as a positive development and an empowering
process that did indeed enable them to take charge of their own careers. Our research adds several
insights to extant new career theory.
During the change process, our case organization first withdrew from active career management
altogether (Arthur et al., 1999). However, it found that this did not provide the desired employee and
organizational outcome because individuals perceived the lack of structure and guidance to be negative
(Mills & Ungson, 2003). The organization also found it needed to be directive in order to develop the
right capabilities for the desired organizational change outcomes (Nilakant & Ramnarayan, 2006).
Thus when the organization merely withdrew from its commitments to employees (in terms of actual or
psychological contracts such as training opportunities, collective employment contracts, tenure-related
superannuation, and upward career opportunities) and tried to sell this as a ‘new career opportunity’,
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786
whole.”
individuals did not buy into this. However, when the organization decided that it still needed to remain
actively involved in career development, individuals could see the benefits of the new career and
became more positive about the changes. We therefore suggest that careers provide an important lens
through which to study how change occurs at an individual level (Whelan-Berry et al., 2003) and in
understanding resistance to change (Nilakant & Ramnarayan, 2006). In this case, we saw that career
concerns are central to planned organizational change, as they account for a gap in the change literature
asking how individuals change. Introducing desired change outcomes into the research mix also
accounts for a gap in ‘new career’ theory which does not adequately explain the conditions under which
organizations would still want to remain involved in career development and support. The organization
takes responsibility for career development because it is in the best interest of the organization to obtain
buy-in and direct some of this development towards desirable change outcomes, even though it might
expect less loyalty of employees as a result of encouraging more flexible careers. Individuals take on
more responsibility not only to meet organizational change needs, but also to follow their own career
aspirations, and are therefore only likely to buy into the change to the extent that they see these aligned.
Organizational investment into developing capacity and employability makes the individual feel
valued, and produces a higher level of motivation and commitment on his or her part. Thus, during the
change process, if the right conditions are created, individuals adapt mental models where they see
these aligned with their own goals (Larsson et al., 2003). At the same time, when given the opportunity,
they provide feedback to the organization on what they require from the organization to realize these
goals, thus integrating career concerns into organizational management (Gunz, 2000). At that point our
organization responded by providing the necessary support, training, and opportunities that enabled
individuals to realize their career goals, and the organization to align these goals with desired flexibility
and know-how (Arthur et al., 1999). This involvement enabled individuals to more proactively plan
their careers, align their careers with the strategic direction of the organization, obtain transferable
skills, and have more flexibility in moving upwards or downwards.
We found that, contrary to prior questioning, the organizational career is not dead. However, we also
found that career management is no longer a straightforward HR function (Parker & Inkson, 1999).
Instead, it has a new and subtler identity, masquerading as the functioning of a well-integrated
organizational management system. The new process is not as one-sided as the old form of
organizational career management, in which responsibility resided primarily with the organization. At
the same time, it is more demanding of the organization, as it requires a systemic approach where the
whole system is able to respond competently and flexibly to the career aspirations of the individual
while also integrating these with the strategic direction of the organization. Our organization
recognized that ‘bureaucracy needed to get out of the way’ to provide flexible career opportunities and
achieve a flexible organizational climate. One way in which it attempted to do this was by putting
responsibility for career planning and feedback further down the organizational structure. We saw that
this had variable results, as some team-leaders took on this role whereas others did not. This example of
‘bureaucracy getting out of the way’ shows that career development still requires careful planning so
that not only responsibility, but also accountability is systematically integrated.
Our research participants embraced new career realities while at the same time choosing to be loyal to
one organization. However, their choice to stay with this organization, even through confusing times, was
likely to be influenced by their trust in this particular organization. This organization continued to take
responsibility to provide a certain level of security and benefits (Humphries & Dyer, 2001; Meyer, 1996;
Perrow, 1996) and clearly still invested heavily in training in transferable skills (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996).
While the majority of employees were indeed positive about taking on more responsibility for their own
career development, we also found evidence of pluralism as suggested by King and Inkson (2001). As we
saw, the HR director recognized that often ‘the new career’ and ‘flexibility’ are employer concepts and that
employees also preferred boundaries, certainty, and security to build their families and lives upon. Some
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MANAGING THE NEW CAREER DURING CHANGE 789
employees did indeed argue that the advantages were greater for the employer than the employee. On the
whole, however, mutuality was intrinsic within each of the organizational variables impacting on career.
Thus, in this one organization at least, it does appear that the ethical employer takes responsibility for
providing ongoing skills development, as advocated by Van Buren (2003). It takes responsibility not only
out of moral considerations, but also out of utilitarian considerations, in that it finds that the desired
strategic direction and culture cannot be obtained without buy-in to change and developing capacity to
sustain change.
The findings show that there is significant merit in conceptualizing and researching the new career
forms, such as Protean career, within an organizational context. Our research shows that career
management and development has a significant role to play in achieving mutuality of organizational
and individual interests. Organizations that want to obtain buy-in to the change process we therefore
argue, need to proactively and systemically create mechanisms through which career concerns are
integrated into organizational management.
Our findings should be considered in the light of several limitations. While our case study
methodology provided rich data, its findings should be generalized with caution. The public service
setting may have influenced the loyalty of employees and their desire to work with the organization to
make the changes work for both themselves and their organization. It would be useful to do
comparative case studies (Miles & Huberman, 1995) to better understand the conditions under which
employees are or are not prepared to work with the organization to integrate individual career needs and
desired organizational change outcomes. Our organization went through incremental change that
required very few lay-offs. Further study that distinguishes between the impacts of extreme versus
gradual change on the new career would add to its explanatory potential. Our organization obtained
buy-in because, on the whole, its intentions were trusted by employees. Our organization was aiming to
establish a culture in which individuals felt valued. The impact of trust and other cultural variables on
individual readiness or reluctance to adopt new career mental models also requires further study.
In spite of its limitations, we hope to have confirmed that a study that seeks career convergence, even
though it is complex and the amount of data is at times overwhelming, provides useful insights and
avenues for future study.
In this study we have identified five career development practices that collectively represent a ‘career
dance’ between the two ‘partners’—the employee and the organization. The steps of this dance are the
mutual effects between organizational change and employee career development that are played out on
the foundation, or ‘ballroom floor’, of the five career practices that we have identified: Developing
Capacity and Employability, Strategic Integration, Cultural Integration, Managing Diversity,
and Communication. Our hope is that the identification of these practices encourages organiza-
tions to take a more active and caring role during change management processes and find their
own ways to share responsibility for careers with their employees. We also hope it will encourage
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DOI: 10.1002/job
790 M. LIPS-WIERSMA AND D. T. HALL
researchers to continue to pay attention to the functioning of organizational contexts in which careers
are enacted.
Author biographies
Dr. Marjo Lips-Wiersma is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management at the University of
Canterbury, New Zealand. Her research focuses on the new career, organizational purpose, critical
management, and existential questions underpinning organizational behavior.
Douglas T. (Tim) Hall is the Morton H. and Charlotte Friedman Professor of Management in the
School of Management at Boston University. He has held faculty positions at Yale, York, Michigan
State and Northwestern Universities, as well as visiting positions at Columbia, Minnesota, Boston
College, and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Tim is the author of Careers In and Out of
Organizations (Sage, 2002). He is the co-author, with Brad Harrington, of Career Management and
Work-Life Integration (Sage, 2007), The Career is Dead—Long Live the Career, as well as other books
and articles on careers and management. He is a recipient of the American Psychological Association’s
Ghiselli Award for research design, the ASTD’s Walter Storey Professional Practice Award, and the
Academy of Management’s Everett C. Hughes Award for Career Research. He is currently the H. Smith
Richardson, Jr., Visiting Fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership.
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