A protean career has been characterized as (Hall, 1996) involving greater flexibility, a more whole-life perception, and a developmental progression. The protean career model, have been characterized as it involving both a values-motivated attitude and a self-directed attitude toward career management. The most essential characteristic of the protean career is that it is a reflection and manifestation of the individual career actor. An individual with a protean career—or one who is protean—is supposed to put self-fulfillment and psychological success overhead concerns and means that would have their source outside of the individual. In addition, Individuals who with protean career attitudes are determined upon using their own values (against
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While a protean career might be identified externally as a definable career pattern, the literature and this entry are mostly concerned with how the career is enacted, managed, defined, and evaluated from the individual’s subjective perception. This is because the accentuation upon following one’s own career path, authors in the field have often associated the protean career with careers and lifestyles that are independent of a heavy commitment to or reliance upon an employing organization, or upon traditional status symbols such as income.
Historical and Cultural Context of the Protean Career
In understanding the original and evolving definition of the protean career, it is important to realize that it began at a time when organizations and their influ¬ence upon careers were relatively dominant as com¬pared to today’s standards.
Interest in the protean career concept grew in part due to the unrestrained organizational and business environment of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Because of downsizing, quickly changing economic conditions, globalization, advances in tech¬nology (that allowed things such as telecommuting), increased importance upon contingent workers, and changing societal values around the importance of work and nonwork priorities, careers …show more content…
A shift was seen from the traditional and “relational” contract that stressed loy-alty on both sides of the contract to a “transactional” contract in which employers do not guarantee employment but provide opportunities, and employ¬ees do not promise loyalty but do promise to high per¬formance. Some have ranted that these general developments are overstated; others suggest that developing con¬tracts mix aspects of both the traditional and relational perceptions. What is indisputable is that the psycho-logical contract is supposed to have shifted in a way that encourages individual management of a career.
Research has shown that it takes many organizations and employees more than a few years to recognize and handle with the changing psychological contract and to make related changes in career development efforts. Such organizations start with stages characterized by suffering before they are later able to adapt to the new contract. A minority of organizations are able to control a learn¬ing culture into a less dramatic evolution based upon continuous employee and organizational
While a protean career might be identified externally as a definable career pattern, the literature and this entry are mostly concerned with how the career is enacted, managed, defined, and evaluated from the individual’s subjective perception. This is because the accentuation upon following one’s own career path, authors in the field have often associated the protean career with careers and lifestyles that are independent of a heavy commitment to or reliance upon an employing organization, or upon traditional status symbols such as income.
Historical and Cultural Context of the Protean Career
In understanding the original and evolving definition of the protean career, it is important to realize that it began at a time when organizations and their influ¬ence upon careers were relatively dominant as com¬pared to today’s standards.
Interest in the protean career concept grew in part due to the unrestrained organizational and business environment of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Because of downsizing, quickly changing economic conditions, globalization, advances in tech¬nology (that allowed things such as telecommuting), increased importance upon contingent workers, and changing societal values around the importance of work and nonwork priorities, careers …show more content…
A shift was seen from the traditional and “relational” contract that stressed loy-alty on both sides of the contract to a “transactional” contract in which employers do not guarantee employment but provide opportunities, and employ¬ees do not promise loyalty but do promise to high per¬formance. Some have ranted that these general developments are overstated; others suggest that developing con¬tracts mix aspects of both the traditional and relational perceptions. What is indisputable is that the psycho-logical contract is supposed to have shifted in a way that encourages individual management of a career.
Research has shown that it takes many organizations and employees more than a few years to recognize and handle with the changing psychological contract and to make related changes in career development efforts. Such organizations start with stages characterized by suffering before they are later able to adapt to the new contract. A minority of organizations are able to control a learn¬ing culture into a less dramatic evolution based upon continuous employee and organizational