People Management & Development

People Management & Development

People Management & Development

Introduction

This entry considers the relationship between people management and development. The discussion centers on what has been theorized and researched connecting the internal drivers of behavior and decision making to career outcomes and career satisfaction.

Generally, motivation can be defined as a force or energy that exists within a person and influences effort, directs behaviors, and ultimately affects performance and other individual outcomes. Researchers believe the importance of personal motivation in career development has grown in recent years for a variety of reasons (Hall, Chandler, 2005, 155-176). For example, work roles have become more flexible, less well-defined, and subject to increasing change both within organizations and across the span of a career, which often involves multiple organizations. Career transitions appear to be more frequent and involve larger qualitative differences than in years past. These more significant qualitative differences reflect a transition from one career to another, for example, a person moving from an occupation as an engineer to one as a teacher.

Self-management of one's own career development is seen as increasingly important in this more uncertain environment. Individuals are being urged to take responsibility for their own careers not only by the popular press and career counselors but also by the organizations in which they presently reside. Researchers have argued that people want to feel in control of the direction of their own careers, with a sense that they can significantly impact their own destinies. However, this desire varies across individuals, and some find the prospect of having control of their own destinies frightening in what seems to be an increasingly uncertain world. The direction and intensity of personal motivation to influence one's career development varies across individuals. Personal motivation and career self-direction affect not only career success but also other factors, such as mental health and life satisfaction (Crites, 1976, 105-118).

Recent researchers have emphasized careers as involving multiple, short learning cycles over one's life span. An individual's career can be viewed as a series of ministages of exploration, trial, mastery, and exit across functions and organizations. New cycles are motivated by constant learning and mastery. Douglas T. Hall and associates have argued that a shift has occurred from the organizational career to the “protean career.” From this perspective, careers are seen as driven by the person, not the organization. In addition, careers are reinvented by the individual over time as the person and environment change. In this sense, the career of the twenty-first century is not measured by chronological age and stages in life, but by continuous learning and identity changes. Thus, during a model career in the twenty-first century, growth is motivating and involves a process of continuous learning fueled by a combination of personal characteristics, work challenges, and relationships. The following is a further description of the protean career and what motivates the individual's career development (Day, Allen, 2004, 72-91).

Recently, Hall and Dawn E. Chandler expanded on the concepts of the protean career and psychological success in their ...