|
...involving transition examined these articles quite diverse, pertaining, successively, to entry into an organization, the rise to a managerial position, the return to work following mental health problems, the end of a career, or the closure of an organization after an industrial disaster, the transition processes studied here highlight the relationship between some individual trajectories, specific modes of career development, and the emergence of new relationships with the work organization.
*********
GENERAL SET OF PROBLEMS COVERED IN THE THEMATIC ISSUE
Informed readers will not fail to question the originality of these new articles collected within one special issue devoted to occupational transitions. "Not another one!" as some might be tempted to think. Although academic articles which seek to understand the transition processes characteristic of the career development of individuals are indeed numerous, few of them use approaches which take into account one of the major challenges in these transitions, namely (re)constructing new relationships with work and with the various organizations involved in these multiform career transitions. The entry into an organization, the rise to a managerial position, the return to work following mental health problems, the end of a career, or the closure of an organization after an industrial disaster constitute many examples of situations involving transition which can mark a career. Whether initiated or subjected to, foreseen or sudden, expected or unexpected according to a worker's age group, these situations generally give rise to a period of instability which leads to major changes in a person's life and in his or her relationship with self and with others, with work and with the employing organization. They all have the common characteristic of exposing workers to dual uncertainty, that is, in the employment trajectory and in the employment relationship. With reference to the first, the uncertainty to which many employees are exposed during their working life is shown through individual occupational trajectories which are increasingly split up, a significant increase in role transitions (vertical or horizontal mobility, career shift), greater individual responsibility for managing one's own work experience (order to draw up a project) and lesser supervision on the part of organizations in defining occupational development trajectories. As regards the second, the development of new forms of work organization and the flexibilization of all the production factors capable of increasing productivity gains have profoundly shaken the traditional relationship between individuals and the organization. One after another, the employment link becomes precarious, mutual obligations tying workers to the organization to which they belong become more complex, production rates speed up, the pressure for inter-organizational mobility such as the requirements related to flexibility, multi-skilling and commitment to the organization intensifies, but without stability, security and social protection necessarily being offered to employees. The individual and collective consequences of this transformation of the employment relationship are numerous: feelings of injustice and lack of recognition of the occupational activity for the employees involved, dissatisfaction and demotivation at work, disinvolvement from the organization, more competitive relationships between coworkers, conflicts over values, deterioration of the work climate, and stress and suffering at work that can lead to absence from work and/ or departure from the organization or exit from the labour market in the relatively near future ...
In this general context, research on occupational transitions should therefore approach the career from the dual perspective of the employment trajectory and the employment relationship. Beyond the specific nature of the transition examined and the research methodologies used, the articles in this issue are all approached from this angle. While the transition calls into question the continuity or discontinuity between the various work experiences, it also raises issues about the individual's relationship with the organization for which he/she works. Thus, a "career" can be viewed as a psychosocial process in its own right (Depolo, 1991) which is at the interface between personal and societal needs, between individual aspirations and structural opportunities, and between the worker's personal identity and social identity (Sverko and Super, 1995; Watts, 1996). This conception of a career which implies a close interrelation between the work, social and private spheres, requires that the various levels of analysis be distinguished and linked up: first, a career should be viewed as a sequence of occupational situations and successive acquisitions of social roles throughout one's working life; second, it involves subjective interactions between an individual and an occupational activity; third, it refers to all interactions between a subject and various specific organizational contexts. By analyzing the transition processes on at least one of these levels, the following studies shed light on the inter-structuring of the individual's development and the transformation of organizations. At the initiative of Genevieve Fournier, at the Centre de recherche et d'intervention sur l'education et la vie au travail (CRIEVAT, Universite Laval, Quebec City, Canada) and of Alexis le Blanc, at the Laboratoire de Psychologie du Developpement et Processus de Socialisation (PDPS, Universite Toulouse-Le Mirail, Toulouse, France) who coordinated this issue, the studies collected here are conducted from an international perspective of developing research on career transitions, by Canadian, French and Italian researchers reputed for their work in this field.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS
Each of the articles collected in this issue provides some input for answering one or several of the following questions: How do individuals succeed in defining or reconstructing their relationship with the work organization at different stages of their careers? To what extent and under which conditions can workers adjust to the new realities of work as well as contributing to transforming them? What role can individual...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
More articles from Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations
Labour law/Droit du travail.(Recent Publications/Publications recentes..., September 22, 2007
Human resources management and organizations/Gestion des ressources hu..., September 22, 2007
Sociology of work/Sociologie du travail.(Recent Publications / Publica..., September 22, 2007
Labour economics, employment and social security/Economique du travail..., September 22, 2007
Equity at work/Equite au travail.(Recent Publications/Publications rec..., September 22, 2007
Looking for additional articles?
Search our database of over 3 million articles.
Looking for more in-depth information on this industry?
Search our complete database of Industry & Market reports by text, subject, publication
name or publication date.
About Goliath
Whether you're looking for sales prospects, competitive information, company
analysis or best practices in managing your organization,
Goliath can help you meet your business needs.
Our extensive business information databases empower business
professionals with both the breadth and depth of credible,
authoritative information they need to support their business
goals. Whether it be strategic planning, sales prospecting,
company research or defining management best practices -
Goliath is your leading source for accurate information.
|
%20%20&position=1)