Career Development: A Human Resource Development Perspective (Second Edition)

Career Development: A Human Resource Development Perspective (Second Edition) by Kimberly S. McDonald and Linda M. Hite

Overview

This book provides an integrated framework for career development within the Human Resource function, offering an interdisciplinary perspective on contemporary career challenges. It emphasizes the influence of contextual factors, individual attributes, and support mechanisms on career development. The second edition includes cases, discussion questions, supplementary materials, an enhanced chapter on ethics and social justice, and a concluding chapter exploring ongoing trends. McDonald is a professor emerita of organizational leadership and supervision, while Hite is a professor emerita with experience as a career counselor.

Key Highlights

  • Dr. Brad Shuck's Endorsement: A highly recommended resource for anyone interested in career development and progression.
  • Integrated Framework: Offers a cohesive framework for career development within HR.
  • Contemporary Challenges: Explores modern career challenges influenced by contextual factors, individual traits, and support systems.
  • Theory and Application: Integrates theoretical insights with practical applications.
  • New Additions in this Edition: Cases for reflection, supplementary material with discussion questions and resources, an enhanced ethics and social justice chapter, and a concluding chapter on ongoing trends.
  • Target Audience: Suitable for HRD students, scholars, and practitioners, helping them develop successful career development programs and innovative research.
  • Authors' Backgrounds: Kimberly S. McDonald has extensive experience at Purdue University Fort Wayne and has contributed significantly to HRD publications and boards. Linda M. Hite's background in career counseling enriches her academic contributions.

Dedication

  • Dedicated to loved ones and mentors by both authors.

Table of Contents

  1. An Introduction to Career Development: What Does It Mean to Have a Career?
  2. Career Theory and Concepts
  3. Strategic Career Development
  4. Career Development Interventions
  5. Career Development Links to Career Psychology
  6. Career Development and Diverse Populations
  7. Career Challenges
  8. Ethical and Social Justice Considerations
  9. Concluding Thoughts: The Ongoing Career Conversation

Case Studies

  • A: Jake Jackson’s First Day (prepared by: Michael J. Kirchner)
  • B: The New Training Specialist (prepared by: Michael J. Kirchner)
  • C: The Employee, The Social Media Policy, and The Post (prepared by: Kimberly W. O’Connor)
  • D: The Remote Worker (prepared by: Kimberly W. O’Connor)
  • E: Elise Morgan – Vice President of Operations (prepared by: Linda Hite)
  • F: Staying Valued Over a Long Career (prepared by: Paresh Mishra)
  • G: Social Justice and the Office of Racial Equality and Social Unity at Corning (contributors/authors: Millicent Ruffin, Crystal Brown, Henriette Lundgren and Cathy Mazan Murata)

Figures

  • 3.1: A Framework for Organizational Career Development
  • 3.2: Complete Framework for Organizational Career Development

Tables

  • 2.1: Career Perspectives
  • 2.2: Career Concepts
  • 3.1 Careers
  • 3.2: Organizational Career Development Practices
  • 5.1: Psychology-Based Career Theories and Frameworks
  • 7.1: Stress Interventions
  • 7.2: Organizational Work-Life Initiatives
  • 8.1: Codes of Ethics Relevant to Career Development

Preface to the Second Edition

The second edition builds upon the first with the goal of furthering the career development conversation, noting the continuously changing environment, global COVID-19 pandemic recovery, the rise of virtual/remote work and flexible schedules, wage and work inequities, and reflection on career goals. The goal is to provide current, relevant, and useful information to prompt exploration and encourage HRD to incorporate career development in work in a significant way.

Key changes include a separate chapter on ethics and social justice, a concluding chapter to explore ongoing trends, supplemental material to encourage reflection, application, and further exploration with case studies, discussion questions, and additional resources and reading lists.

Authors

  • Kimberly S. McDonald: Professor Emerita with extensive teaching and administrative experience at Purdue University Fort Wayne. She has published numerous works in career and HRD and served on the AHRD Board of Directors.
  • Linda M. Hite: Professor Emerita, whose early career counseling experience led to a focus on career development and research at Purdue University Fort Wayne. She has published multiple book chapters and journals.

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Career Development

  • Work and careers are integral to life, influencing self-perception and happiness. Perspectives on work meaning can be subjective (individual) or objective (external markers of success). The study of careers is important.
  • Defining Careers and Career Development
    • 'Career' refers to the evolving sequence of a person’s work experiences over time, encompassing paid and unpaid work.
    • 'Career development' (CD) integrates individual interests and organizational productivity, aiming to match individual and organizational needs.
    • Career development is the process of planned and unplanned activities that support the attainment of life and work goals.
  • Historical Context
    • The concept of 'career' evolved significantly, gaining prominence in the 20th century.
    • The industrial revolution and increasing immigration prompted the need for vocational training.
    • Key figures like Frank Parsons introduced "vocational guidance," advocating matching individual interests and skills with job requirements.
    • The testing movement in the early 20th century aimed to identify the best matches between people and jobs through intelligence, aptitude, and interest testing.
    • The mid-20th century saw developmental psychologists like Donald Super challenging the rationale matching idea advocating a longitudinal process.
    • Later years brought legislation promoting workplace diversity and an interest in finding meaningful work.
  • A Changed Career Landscape
    • Economic turmoil, technological advances, and societal influences have created a turbulent career environment.
    • The rise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and artificial intelligence (AI) is changing jobs and work patterns and scope.
    • Demographic shifts and global access to workers have diversified the workforce that resulted in a complex and potentially precarious career environment.
    • The psychological contract between employers and employees was broken, leading individuals to take control of their career trajectories and resulted in Hall’s (1996) protean career pursuing and Arthur’s (1994) boundaryless career.
    • The concepts of career shocks and "the Great Resignation" illustrate the challenges facing HRD in career development.
  • Career Development and HRD
    • Career development was officially recognized as a sub-area of HRD by Patricia McLagen (1989).
    • The interdisciplinary character led to confusion and lack of collaboration, with multiple fields claiming CD without a unified approached.
    • The need for HRD to balance organizational needs with individual career flexibility is crucial for a responsive approach.
  • Competencies for the New Era of CD
    • Career practitioners need extensive skills like knowledge of career models, current environments, planning processes, assessment, ethical practices, and technology.
    • Continuous learning and advocating for inclusive development and career opportunities are essential.
  • Overview of the Book
    • The book is split into three parts: fundamentals, HR resources, and critical issues.
      • Key assumptions include: HRD's integral role, ROI consideration, inclusivity, formal/informal development, influence of life priorities, career complexity, individual responsibility, and program evolution.
  • This new era emphasized individual involvement and organizations' adaptation to offer growth opportunities without long-term commitment expectations.

Chapter 2: Career Theory and Concepts

  • Economic, technological, and social changes, along with global events, have significantly impacted careers. New approaches and concepts include the protean career, boundaryless career, kaleidoscope career, and sustainable career. These help understand evolving careers, provide varied tools and perspectives for practitioners, and offer a framework for more research.
  • The Protean Career
    • The protean career is flexible and adaptable, managed by the individual, not the organization.
    • It involves an internally focused career orientation with intrinsic values and self-direction (reflective and behavioral components).
    • Studies show a protean career orientation (PCO) is positively related to career satisfaction, employability, performance, success, and well-being.
    • Criticism includes that a protean approach may not fit for many types of work and those with sufficient capital or education.
  • The Boundaryless Career
    • Boundaryless career has characterized as independence from traditional arrangements, constructed around personal and family commitments.
    • Early studies focused on physical mobility, but the Boundaryless Career Attitudes scale measures psychological mobility.
    • Career relations are found to be complicated with both positive and negatives effects depending on the number of facilitating or containing factors.
      • Individuals with high PCO engaged in more organizational citizenship behavior in comparison.
        *Some critics believe that the concept to be overly ambiguous due to various was it is defined.
  • The Kaleidoscope Career
    * Career evolves in patterns based on kaleidoscope Career decisions are influenced by authenticity, balance, and challenge.
    Mainiero and Sullivan found evidence relationism dominate women’s career and gender differences in what issues dominate at different times for career.
    *There is the support for notions of authenticity balance and challenge will change at different times in one's career yet other contextual factors impact these perceptions.
  • The Sustainable Career * Sustainable career, has been defined as the sequence of individual, career experiences over times character by providing meaning to the individual
    • Sustainability reinforces the idea that career development requires both shared efforts and responsibilities in meeting the needs of individuals and are organizations. (aligns with strength integrates continuous over lifespan
  • recognition of important role contacts can play in people's careers, also the three indicators of successful career success. Happiness which involves matching work with one's strength. Health which builds on a foundation for supporting physical and mental well begin and productivity which incorporates current performance in the future.