Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- PART I CURRENT APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF CAREERS
- PART II NEW IDEAS FOR THE STUDY OF CAREERS
- Introduction to Part II
- 11 People as sculptors versus sculpture: the roles of personality and personal control in organizations
- 12 Work, stress, and careers: a preventive approach to maintaining organizational health
- 13 Re-visioning career concepts: a feminist invitation
- 14 Reciprocity at work: the separate, yet inseparable possibilities for individual and organizational development
- 15 Career improvisation in self-designing organizations
- 16 Organization career systems and employee misperceptions
- 17 Blue-collar careers: meaning and choice in a world of constraints
- 18 A political perspective on careers: interests, networks, and environments
- 19 Rites of passage in work careers
- 20 Pin stripes, power ties, and personal relationships: the economics of career strategy
- 21 Rhetoric in bureaucratic careers: managing the meaning of management success
- 22 The internal and external career: a theoretical and cross-cultural perspective
- PART III FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAREER THEORY
- Name index
- Subject index
11 - People as sculptors versus sculpture: the roles of personality and personal control in organizations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- PART I CURRENT APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF CAREERS
- PART II NEW IDEAS FOR THE STUDY OF CAREERS
- Introduction to Part II
- 11 People as sculptors versus sculpture: the roles of personality and personal control in organizations
- 12 Work, stress, and careers: a preventive approach to maintaining organizational health
- 13 Re-visioning career concepts: a feminist invitation
- 14 Reciprocity at work: the separate, yet inseparable possibilities for individual and organizational development
- 15 Career improvisation in self-designing organizations
- 16 Organization career systems and employee misperceptions
- 17 Blue-collar careers: meaning and choice in a world of constraints
- 18 A political perspective on careers: interests, networks, and environments
- 19 Rites of passage in work careers
- 20 Pin stripes, power ties, and personal relationships: the economics of career strategy
- 21 Rhetoric in bureaucratic careers: managing the meaning of management success
- 22 The internal and external career: a theoretical and cross-cultural perspective
- PART III FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAREER THEORY
- Name index
- Subject index
Summary
The popular literature on careers advises individuals to take charge of their situations – to be active agents in shaping their work environments and career opportunities.
We believe you will improve your effectiveness and your sense of yourself as a person 300% if you can learn to think (or if you already think) of yourself as an active agent helping to mould your own present environment and your own future, rather than a passive agent, waiting for your environment to mould you.
(Bolles 1980:74)You have to take over the management of your own job-hunt or career-change, if it is to be successful.
(Bolles 1988:43)You can create opportunity for the future by putting yourself in charge of your career. Your initial commitment is to take full control of your actions.
(Greco 1975:19)In contrast, a major school of thought in the academic literature on careers, the socialization literature, views individuals as much more passive and malleable. Often, individuals are portrayed as if they join the organization practically as lumps of clay, ready to be shaped by all those around them, from co-worker to supervisor to mentor. As mainly receivers of influence, individuals attempt to “learn the ropes” in the organization, modeling not only their behaviors but also their attitudes on those who appear to be successful participants:
Like a sculptor's mold, certain forms of socialization can produce remarkably similar outcomes no matter what individual ingredients are used to fill the mold.
(Van Maanen and Schein 1979:231)To be fair, we recognize that the academic literature does not totally ignore the individual in its treatment of careers.
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- Handbook of Career Theory , pp. 232 - 251Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989
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