Zeitschrift für Personalforschung, 26. Jahrgang, Heft 1, 2012 ZfP … · Zeitschrift für Personalforschung, 26(1), 2012 3 Zeitschrift für Personalforschung, 26. Jahrgang, Heft

Zeitschrift für Personalforschung, 26(1), 2012 3

Zeitschrift für Personalforschung, 26. Jahrgang, Heft 1, 2012 ZfP 26(1)

Originalbeiträge

Lisa-Marie Eberz, Matthias Baum, Rüdiger Kabst Der Einfluss von Rekrutiererverhaltensweisen auf den Bewerber:

Ein mediierter Prozess 5 Hans-Dieter Gerner Die Produktivitätsentwicklung und die Rolle von Arbeitszeitkonten

während der Großen Rezession 2008/2009: Ergebnisse auf der Grundlage des IAB Betriebspanels 30

Alexander Paul Schudey, Ove Jensen, Steffen Sachs 20 Jahre Rückanpassungsforschung – eine Metaanalyse 48 Discourse 74-92

Jürgen Weibler: Career Expectations – In a Constant State of Flux? 74

Wolfgang Mayrhofer: Falling for the Change Hype – or: (Career, HR, and OB) Research Should Know Better 77

Ronald Hartz: ‘Everything must change in order to stay the same’ 82

Frank Schabel : Managers’ Career Expectations Are an Individual Matter 87

References 91 Rezensionen

Yin, Robert K.: Case Study Research. Design and Methods (von Hans-Gerd Ridder) 93

Meardi, Guglielmo: Social Failures of EU Enlargement. A Case of Workers Voting with Their Feet (von Berndt Keller) 95

Müller-Jentsch, Walther: Gewerkschaften und Soziale Marktwirtschaft seit 1945 (von Werner Nienhüser) 98

Call for Papers 102 Neuerscheinungen 109

Zeitschrift für Personalforschung, 26(1), 74-92 DOI 10.1688/1862-0000_ZfP_2012_01_Discourse ISSN (print) 0179-6437, ISSN (internet) 1862-0000, © Rainer Hampp Verlag, www.Hampp-Verlag.de

Jürgen Weibler*

Career Expectations – In a Constant State of Flux?

“We have only limited understanding of the interplay between context and career pat-terns, and of how social backgrounds affect the perception of work and of one’s movements through different social positions” (Gunz, Mayrhofer, & Tolbert 2011, p. 1614).

The significance of this verdict has increased following the study from Katten-bach, Lücke, Schlese and Schramm (20111). Until now, many scholars were at least quite confident that career patterns had changed in the last decades with respect to changing environments. This contingency approach suggests a more flexible work-force as a result of enhanced work pressures and requirements of (international) labor markets, especially for managers. “Boundaryless career” (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996) or “protean career” (Hall, 1996) were two prominent catchwords for their proponents.

Following some empirical evidence, Kattenbach et al. showed instead in their study that nothing has changed dramatically regarding managers’ career expectations in the last decade. Therefore, career patterns have not changed either, because, all things being equal, career expectations transform into career patterns in time. This means that the last assumed certainty has also faded from a central building block of this research field. This gives Wolfgang Mayrhofer and Ronald Hartz later in this dis-course cause for concern to reflect on the affectation of a noteworthy group of scho-lars who proclaim change as the most informative criterion for understanding eco-nomic behavior. Moreover, they hold a mirror up to us, and warn us to be cautious about possible personalized effects based on simplifications of environmental obser-vations. Sometimes, they argue, we only produce statements about change through narrations, whereby promising alternatives would be eliminated, to some intents and purposes for ideological reasons (see Klein, 2008; more generally: Nienhüser, 2011). Their questioning of stable career expectations, and, in consequence, unaltered career patterns, is echoed by Frank Schnabel, who doubts that uniform career expectations can be detected at all because of their very individual shaping, which is caused by an as yet intransparent multifaceted framework.

Admittedly, the study referred to has specific limitations, and should only be seen as an initial starting point for more in-depth-studies. These in-depth-studies should acknowledge the working individual as embedded in its economic and social environ-ment. Regarding the unsatisfied situation in this specific research, I suggest leading the sometimes pure descriptive discussion about career expectation under the umbrella of

* Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jürgen Weibler, Chair of Business Administration, Leadership and Organization, University of Hagen, Profilstr.8, D – 58084 Hagen, Germany. E-Mail: [email protected].

1 In this discourse, a single reference list for all contributions is given at the end.

Zeitschrift für Personalforschung, 26(1), 74-92 DOI 10.1688/1862-0000_ZfP_2012_01_Discourse 75

a far more theoretical elaborated construct, namely identity. Identity is one of the most popular constructs in organizational research, and has been well developed theo-retically. There can be hardly any doubt that individual and societal considerations about career have a significant impact on one’s own expectations and behavior in this matter (see e.g. Kotthoff/Wagner 2008, p. 145-164). Sveningsson/Alvesson already pleaded for this way of thinking in 2003, and addressed the interplay between the or-ganizational context, role expectations, and the narrative (work) self-identity. Among other things, they advocate a process-oriented understanding of emerged identities that requires a concept of multiple, (discursive) constructed identities. With this they “contribute to the detailed investigations of identity constructions in the context of specific forms of organizational preconditions and coherence, as well as contradic-tions in construction work”, and “do not try to explain acts and processes either ex-clusively through subjection to discourses, identification with social groups and orga-nizational role scripts (…), or solely through a likewise narrow psychological approach based on a distinct, integrated and separate identity”. Their approach “differs from a psychoanalytic focus, emphasizing inner psychological processes, based on early de-velopment, life history and the unconscious (…) as central to how work life is expe-rienced and acted upon” (p. 1168). Taking this methodological approach seriously leads, hopefully, to new insights “for the contexts, complexities and processes of iden-tity constructions in workplaces“(p. 1190), where positioning oneself with respect to career is an important one. With such a social constructionist methodology we will enhance the chance of acquiring a closer inside view on the self-creation process on career expectations and their (in)dependency on work relevant environmental changes; for example we would learn more “where subjectivities and prescribed identities do not overlap and what happens in these identity spaces of tension and contradiction” (Sinclair 2011, p. 508) provoked by such changes.

Although I concede that there are a variety of methods applicable for going ahead on this path, I suggest qualitative interpretive approaches like grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) at this stage of theory development. Grounded theory is seen to be exceedingly effective in revealing the particular and si-tuated dynamics of social phenomena that can neither be separated from context nor isolated to one level of examination (e.g., Rowland & Parry, 2009). Further, grounded theory is highly recommended when studying processes by which individuals create meaning out of their social experience (Suddaby, 2006, p. 634), and leads us towards more sophisticated theory-building approaches (e.g., Charmaz, 2006). Instead of get-ting caught in “the trap of reification”, where Sveningsson and Alvesson (2003, p. 1164) see much of existing organizational analysis still remaining, grounded theory comes closer to the dynamics of social phenomena and our participants’ lived expe-rience and emerging interpretations. Thus, I would recommend grounded theory for developing models about how individuals construct and possibly change career expec-tations and attitudes or cognitions, as well as emotional and behavioral responses in relation to their social context. As we can see, such an approach not only highlights the dynamic, interpretive nature of interactions and meanings, but further assumes that research findings are created from dialogue and shared experiences with research participants (Charmaz 2006). In a similar vein, and in answer to one of the most im-

76 Discourse: Jürgen Weibler: Career Expectations – In a Constant State of Flux?

portant and challenging implications for studying change and development in organi-zations (at least taking change and development as a possibility into account), Petti-grew, Woodman and Cameron (2001) emphasized that scholars should forge a sophis-ticated context-sensitive engagement with practice.

Taking such methodological implications seriously while incorporating process-oriented models about identity or identity construction, for example in relation to the concept of identity work (Sveningsson & Alvesson, 2003; Ibarra & Barbulescu, 2010), might hopefully enhance our contextual understanding on how and why individuals construct and/or change their career expectations out of their intersubjective expe-riences and in response to contextual cues and demands.

Wolfgang Mayrhofer*

Falling for the Change Hype – or: (Career, HR, and OB) Research Should Know Better**

1. Intro Changing skies Ch-ch-ch-changing Changing skies Ch-ch-ch-changing Changing skies Changing skies Changing skies Ch-ch-ch-changing Oooooooh Oh Oh Oh, Oooooooh Oh Oh Oh, Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh

Lady Gaga, Changing Skies, 2010

2. Change hype – or: is ‘no change’ no issue? We live in an age of hype. With little, if any, relationship to their respective signifi-cance and moral value, society and its sub-systems feast on hypes: Cristiano Ronaldo, university-related excellence initiatives, Lady Gaga, the European safety net for the Euro, Julian Assange, journal rating lists, Paris Hilton – you name it.

Science is part of society. Consequently, it would hardly be surprising to find ‘hype’ an essential part of the scientific game, too. And, indeed, we do. Of course, in research and its rites and rituals it is not yet as blunt, presumptuous and blatant as in other societal sub-systems. But still, it is there (and judging by some of my colleagues’ CVs posted on their web-sites and the number and kinds of awards in our field, we’re keen on rapidly closing the gap).

‘Change’ is a good example for such hype. Practitioner journals love it. A few re-cent examples include “Fire, Snowball, Mask, Movie: How Leaders Spark and Sustain Change” (Vermeulen, Puranam, & Gulati, 2010 1 ), “Change for Change’s Sake“ (Vermeulen et al., 2010), or “Mega Issues Drive Local Changes“ (Kellar, 2011). Our

* o. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Mayrhofer, Interdisziplinäre Abteilung für Verhaltenswissen-schaftlich Orientiertes Management, WU Wien, Österreich, Althanstr. 51, A – 1090 Wien. E-Mail: [email protected].

** My thanks go to Hugh Gunz (University of Toronto) and Thomas M. Schneidhofer (WU/University of Hamburg) for helpful suggestions after reading an earlier draft of the paper.


78 Discourse: Wolfgang Mayrhofer: Falling for the Change Hype

super-A+-high impact-top notch journals are not too chaste, either, when falling for change. A thoughtful “We’re changing – or are we?” (Sonenshein, 2010), a somewhat hesitant “The Fog of Change” (Hannan, Pólos, & Carroll, 2003) or a straightforward “Being the change” (Creed, Dejordy, & Lok, 2010) are just a few examples.

Some try to go beyond hype and put action at the centre of managerial practice (Eccles & Nohria, 1992). More sober observers move even beyond that and inevitably raise a couple of questions: Is it really all about change, does change not require areas which remain stable in order to make change possible and/or prevent systems from changing too rapidly? And: Who looks at – and explains – no change?

Kattenbach, Lücke, Schlese, & Schramm (2011) do. They show that – horribile dictu – career expectations of German employees have not changed. And they leave no doubt about it: “In summary, career expectations have a volatile pattern over the years with no clear trend detectable … results are quite homogenous for males and for fe-males” (304), and “[i]n general, there is no clear trend in career expectations detectable in the period from 1999 to 2009 in Germany” (306). What should we, the scientific community looking at careers, human resource management (HRM) and organisa-tional behaviour (OB), make of this?

Learn, and learn in a threefold way – for in my reading, the paper by Kattenbach et al. constitutes an opportunity for single-loop, double-loop and deutero-learning. A brief reminder: building on the work of Bateson (2000, Orig. 1972), Argyris and Schön (1978) propose a simple causal model where governing variables lead to an ac-tion strategy which prompts consequences. In case of a mismatch between governing variables and outcomes, single-loop learning involves changing the action strategy (‘first order change’) whereas double-loop examines and changes the governing values themselves (‘second order change’). Deutero-learning, while being understood in vari-ous ways, builds on the notion that actors are capable of adaptive change and that “change and learning must be dealt with at the level of context and relationship and cannot be reduced to the individual level.” (Visser, 2007: 660). Consequently, it “im-plies that they learn about the context in which these consequences are formed, main-tained, and altered.” (ibidem)

The remainder of the paper uses these three forms of learning in a broad sense as lenses for my argument. My focus on double- and deutero-learning has a simple rea-son: in this setting it is more important.

3. Single-loop learning – or: what is wrong with the argument? As with every other article, and in particular with one presenting contra-intuitive find-ings, the initial reaction of the professional sceptic is (and should be): what might be wrong with the argument and the results? The study in question is no exception to the rule that every study is subject to a fair amount of criticism. The usual suspects are the design of the study, its conceptual foundation as well as data collection and analysis.

Taking an existing data set such as the German SOEP with all its well-known strengths and weaknesses and using it ex post for one’s own specific purposes always requires some compromise in terms of the constructs-variables-link. This is the case here (and acknowledged by the authors), too. In addition, one might argue that Ger-many is such a special context that in spite of the findings the basic argument of


changing career expectations still holds on a more global level. Maybe most important, one could argue that the time period chosen is inadequate. Critics could build quite an argument that the ‘true’ change happened before the turn of the millennium. Looking at the time period chosen in the study just captures the tail end of this change, show-ing little or no movement but not shattering the ‘everything changes’-assumption.

All this (and more, if one wants to be picky) is valid criticism of the study. Still, I can go along with the reasoning of the authors: if there is substantial change, it should show in the data despite all the criticism regarding design and details. Yet, it does not.

4. Double-loop learning – or: why are we surprised? The findings of the study – no change – raise eyebrows and produce surprise because the governing variables (not only) in this area of management research favour change. Rather than being surprised by the result, however, it would be more appropriate to be surprised about the surprise.

Of course, there is substantial evidence about change in career related areas in Germany. Some of the hard facts alone make that crystal clear. Two examples shall suffice here. The participation of women in the German work force has noticeably changed during the past decade. While in 2001 every other woman between 15 and 64 was employed (49.8 per cent), nearly two out of three women are employed in 2010 (66.1 per cent; OECD, 2012). Or take the example of employment relationships. Since the mid-1990s, available forms of employment contracts and their practical use have clearly changed in Germany. In line with changes in labour law and collective agree-ments, the rise of temporary employment agencies, and a decreasing degree of unioni-sation, a greater variety of forms of employment – often called atypical employment such as part-time work, fixed-term contracts, ‘mini-jobs’ – is available. Within a 15 year period, the proportion of employees with such contracts in Germany has nearly doubled from about 19 per cent in 1994 to about 37 per cent in 2007 (Brehmer & Seifert, 2008; for a more in-depth discussion see e.g. Nienhüser, 2005 and the contri-butions in the related special issue).

Yet, besides these changes, there is a lot of evidence about stability with regard to career issues. Kattenbach et al. have gathered a substantial number of studies using different data sources to support their scepticism about change in careers. Issues in-clude the boundaryless career per se, job tenure in industrialised countries, job stabil-ity, vocational mobility or intra-organisational mobility. In addition, stability even within a dynamic and fast-changing environment is not limited to careers and Ger-many alone. In the broader field of comparative HRM (Brewster & Mayrhofer, 2012), various pieces of research indicate that besides some changes there are a number of areas in HRM showing remarkable stasis in a number of European countries, includ-ing the size of the HR department relative to the number of employees and the organ-isational investment in training and development measures (for example Mayrhofer, Brewster, Morley, & Ledolter, 2011).

In the light of this evidence, sober observers go one step further. They start to wonder why the governing variables of our discipline favour change so much that contradictory findings pointing towards stasis have to explain themselves. In other

80 Discourse: Wolfgang Mayrhofer: Falling for the Change Hype

words: we look at the context in which our research unfolds and move on to deutero-learning.

5. Deutero-learning – or: what’s the trouble with the context of our research?

Everyday experience, popular rhetoric and, sadly, substantial parts of career, HRM and OB research at least implicitly take it for granted that ‘things’ are constantly changing and that, compared to previous decades or centuries, our current situation is unique and highly dynamic. As Collin (1998) succinctly and in a slightly ironical man-ner put it: “the present is always an exciting, challenging time to be contrasted with a stable past” (412). Out of a myriad of possible reasons for this, three seem particularly important to me when it comes to change in the area of career, HRM and OB.

First, focusing on change secures our existence as researchers and as scientific discipline. Change, ideally dramatic and fundamental change, signals that something is different from what we already know. Immediately, researchers have a field day. No longer looking for the umpteenth variation of an effect which is already well docu-mented, no longer tweaking the numbers with the most sophisticated analytical tools to get at least a trace of significant change, but – at long last – sky-rocketing levels of significance and effect sizes. In turn, this increases our chance to report something important, meaningful and robust to the journals of our desire which will boost our publication record to levels we (let us be forced to) dream of.

Second, dealing with change makes us sexy both as individuals and as a discipline. It profits from the attractiveness of the unknown, exploiting our conviction that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Conversely, it raises attention because it plays with our individual and collective fear of the unknown threatening the status quo, something actors, and especially successful actors, are not too fond of. Last, but definitely not least, it demonstrates to relevant stakeholders – our deans and rectors, the business community, the other scientific disciplines, ah, and yes, our fellow re-searchers, all of them, by the way, drawing a lot of legitimacy from their own battle with change – that we are on top of the wave, true members of the vanguards who an-ticipate what is coming towards us. And as a wonderful by-product it shows we are not only sexy, but stay forever young since the young are most capable – and dare – to face change, even long for it. Only the old and fainthearted conjure stability.

Third, having a go at change protects our individual and collective identity. When we grasp something through our research which turns out to be relevant, if we even have anticipated something in time and in the right way – whoa, look at what we can do? If we fail in seizing change in the nets of our research – who can blame us? Since even our highly acclaimed siblings from economics get it wrong most of the time and especially when it really counts, what do you expect from us humble management re-searchers? We are much younger as a discipline and still on our way up. Focusing on change, then, puts us in a perfect position regardless of the content and effects of our findings. And even if there is nothing new: change is the flashy label which allows to sell old wine in new skins (see also Kieser, 1996).

Of course, a bigger question lurks beneath: why, for heaven’s sake, do individual researchers and respectable scientific disciplines worry about their existence and rele-


vance, strive to become sexy and stay young, and fear for their identity? Dealing with this question is both a major task and the opening of our individual and collective Pandora’s box. Suddenly, we are in the middle of a discussion about the role of social science in current German-speaking countries; about the ethical quality of a discipline bending over backwards to accommodate an all-pervasive hype, be it change or some-thing else; about the degree of closeness and distance management research must have to its field, in particular practice; about the increasingly market-oriented transforma-tion of the production of knowledge in the academic system and the accompanying restructuring of universities in the German language area. Yet, as the saying goes, space and occasion to not permit to pursue this bigger question any further than with a quote: “‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’” (Tolkien, 1980, Orig. 1965, p. 82 – The Fellowship of the Ring, second chapter, “The Shadow of the Past”, just after the Elvish writing and poem that describes the One Ring).

6. Outro Through winter-time we call on spring, And through the spring on summer call, And when abounding hedges ring Declare that winter’s best of all; And after that there’s nothing good Because the spring-time has not come— Nor know that what disturbs our blood Is but its longing for the tomb.

William Butler Yeats, The Wheel, 1928

Ronald Hartz*

‘Everything must change in order to stay the same’**

The contribution of Kattenbach, Lücke, Schlese, & Schramm (20111) points to one of the basic narratives about capitalism nowadays, the seemingly inescapable demand of mobility and flexibility of employees, managers and organisations of all kinds (Lemke, 2004). From quite different points of view, this diagnosis of the times is for example articulated by sociologists (e.g. Sennett, 1998; Rosa, 2005), organisational scholars (e.g. Clegg, 1990) and management theorists (e.g. Hamel & Prahalad, 1996). Not surpris-ingly, the proclaimed ‘boundaryless organisation’ finds its echo in the field of HRM in the concept of the ‘boundaryless career’. My following remarks and suggestions should be read as small and more or less critical reflections about the discourse on flexibility and mobility in general and the concept of the boundaryless career in par-ticular. To outline the specific strengths of the contribution of Kattenbach et al. from a critical perspective, I will first link their study to some basic ideas of the so-called Critical Management Studies (CMS). At once, this is a plea for more plurality in the re-search field. Second, I will make two empirical suggestions to differentiate the picture drawn by Kattenbach et al. In my main comment, I suggest an alternative reframing of the concept of boundaryless career as another possible way of providing critical reflec-tion.

It is first and foremost refreshing that Kattenbach et al. question the overall valid-ity and scope of this narration. It seems to me that their scepticism about the truth claim of the ‘historical a priori’ (Foucault, 1981) of flexibility and mobility serves as a leitmotiv of their own empirical investigation as well as their recommendations for de-signing HR strategies. Personally, I have a lot of sympathy with their scepticism which comes close to some principles of the Critical Management Studies (e.g. Fournier & Grey, 2000; Adler, Forbes, & Willmott, 2007). I am not sure if the authors will agree, but I would argue that they follow a ‘dissent orientation’ (Alvesson & Deetz 1996) and a strategy of ‘de-naturalization’ (Fournier & Grey, 2000) of the aforementioned basic narration of flexibility. According to Alvesson and Deetz (1996, p. 196), a dissent ori-entation is not primarily about disagreement but about ‘disruption of a coherent dominant discourse’, deriving from the argument ‘that people, orders, and objects are constructed in work, social interaction, and the process of research’. In reference to the principle of de-naturalisation, Fournier and Grey (2000, p. 18) state that ‘whilst in mainstream management theories various “imperatives” are invoked (e.g. globaliza-tion, competitiveness) to legitimize a proposed course of action and to suggest (im-

* Ronald Hartz, Chemnitz University of Technology, Juniorprofessur Europäisches Man-agement, Thüringer Weg 7, D – 09126 Chemnitz, Germany. E-Mail: [email protected].

** Guiseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa: Il Gattopardo. 1 In this discourse, a single reference list for all contributions is given at the end.


plicitly or explicitly) that “there is no alternative”, CMS is committed to uncovering the alternatives that have been effaced by management knowledge and practice’. From such a point of view, it is a major strength of the study of Kattenbach et al. to pro-mote on the basis of their empirical results an alternative view to the widespread con-cept of boundaryless careers. In their own words:

Job stability and intraorganisational career paths are still of importance to German white collar workers. Career and talent management even gain in importance given the pheno-menon of an aging workforce as well as the strong negative impact of growing age on mobility. […] Company vision and HR strategies should not promote transactional, pro-tean and boundaryless oriented employees. HR development, diversity and age manage-ment should be enforced and in today’s de-layered organisations there is a need to devel-op new internal career concepts e.g. by using side-step promotions or skill and compe-tence related human resource development. (Kattenbach et al., 2011, p. 309).

The second strength of their study is its general interest in the perspective and voices of employees, although empirically restricted to the framework of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). The results indicate the still existing and fundamental relevance of job satisfaction and security as intraorganisational variables for career ex-pectations (ibid., p. 307), and the authors highlight the importance of age, gender, and household and private life data for future career research (ibid., p. 308). Recently, Werner Nienhüser vividly argues that empirical research on HRM as a ‘collective body of statements’ (Nienhüser 2011, p. 369) ‘creates a one-sided, distorted image of the re-ality of work and thus generates ideology’ (ibid., p. 367). In contrast, Kattenbachs et al. take an interest in the perspective of employees and call for transcending the firm level (Nienhüser, 2011, p. 379), i.e. to take the lifeworld of the employees more seri-ously. This in my view is a small, but welcomed contribution toward changing the overall picture to a more pluralistic and critical one.

In order to deepen and especially to differentiate their empirical argument, I see at least two further directions for research and reflection. First, the authors are aware that the results are restricted to the decade 1999 – 2009 (Kattenbach et al., 2011, p. 306). Whilst during this decade ‘no clear trend [is] detectable’ (ibid., p. 304) in refer-ence to career expectations, historical points of reference beyond the restrictions of the GSOEP-Panel could help to establish a more convincing diachronic view on turnover intentions, and so forth. Given the longstanding discussion about the post-industrial society from the midst of the 1960s onwards, this time horizon could probably help to identify long-term shifts or continuities in employee expectations. Second, it is empirically comprehensible but in reference to its explanatory power a pity that the study excludes marginally employed people and civil servants from its sample (ibid., p. 300). This is especially problematic in the context of the authors’ gen-eralising hypothesis: ‘There is no trend in career expectations (regarding turnover in-tention, job insecurity, and promotion and demotion expectation) among employees in the German labour market’ (ibid., p. 287). Although the notion of ‘career expecta-tions’ in reference to marginally employed people is in some way a euphemism, their inclusion could help to depict a more complex as well as a more realistic picture of the subjective consequences of factors such as organisational downsizing and delayering. The inclusion of civil servants could help to clarify the effects of the ongoing restruc-

84 Discourse: Ronald Hartz: ‘Everything must change in order to stay the same’

turing of the public sector in Germany. For example, on the basis of my own personal experience, we are in need of studies which investigate the consequences of ‘academic capitalism’, the ‘entrepreneurial university’ and the ‘economization of education’ (e.g. Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004; Münch, 2011) from the viewpoint of the academic work-force.

The study of Kattenbach et al. presents one possible way to question HR strate-gies and their underlying academic concepts. The authors implicitly follow the as-sumption that the concept of boundaryless career was brought into the academic dis-cussion to respond to societal changes and re-adjust careers research in order to repre-sent the reality of careers and organisations more adequately. In line with this onto-logical realism, Kattenbach et al. consequently scrutinise the range and ‘truth’ of the concept (i.e. the (mis-)match between the academic discourse and the subjective and organisational reality). The lack of empirical evidence then seems to falsify the concept for this specific empirical case and calls for different HR strategies as discussed above.

However, in reading the article, I have the suspicion that from the point of view of the concept of boundaryless career the results do not speak against the concept it-self but point to the lack of its realisation. The twisted punch line is that some could bring into play the empirical results to argue for additional efforts and the promotion of boundaryless careers (e.g. to face global competition, enhance organisational com-petitiveness, etc.). Thus, not the concept but the stable trend in career expectations among white collar workers is problematic. Against the backdrop of this 'thought ex-periment', I would like to outline an alternative, additional critical reading or re-framing of the concept of boundaryless career. Due to the character of the ‘ZfP-Diskurs’, this should be understood as an invitation for further discussion about the status of our scientific concepts and respective worldviews.

This re-reading takes its first inspiration from a basic argument in the study about the ‘entrepreneurial self’ by Ulrich Bröckling (2007), which was itself inspired by the work of Michel Foucault and the studies of governmentality. In short and quite roughly, Foucault rejects a realistic ontology and follows a rather nominalist impulse, which sees language and discourses (e.g. about discipline, sexuality or madness) not as representations of a reality outside the discourse but as producers of reality (Foucault, 1972). Consequently, the exploration of the historically contingent rules of discursive sense-making and their truth claims is a prior object of inquiry. Accordingly, Bröckling characterises the discourse about the entrepreneurial self not as a representation of a changed economic or social reality but as ‘Realfiktion’ (Hutter & Teubner, 1994), which addresses people as entrepreneurial self and simultaneously calls them to be-come one: ‘One is not an entrepreneurial self, but should become one. But you can only become one because of your invocation as entrepreneurial self’ (Bröckling, 2007, p. 47; own transl.). It seems possible to reframe the concept of the boundaryless ca-reer as well as the ‘protean career’ following the same logic. They both make truth claims about a new reality for careers and organisations whilst actively giving advice to HR strategists and employees about how to cope with this reality. To paraphrase Bröckling: ‘One is not a boundaryless employee, but should become one. But you can only become one because of your invocation as boundaryless employee’. Kattenbach et al. (2011, p. 308) are quite aware of this performativity of scientific concepts; that is,


the power to bring their ‘objects into being’: ‘Overemphasis on an ever-changing soci-ety and growing market dynamics in theoretical concepts … as well as in public dis-cussion could emerge as an inappropriate guideline in designing HR strategies. More-over, it could even result in a self-fulfilling prophecy if employees proactively react to the calls for being more boundaryless’.

Given this argument, another question is of interest: How does a scientific con-cept get performativity? One way to deal with this question is to take a closer look at the rhetoric of science. My suggestion to re-read the concept of boundaryless career takes its second inspiration from the work of Deirdre McCloskey (1998) about the 'rhetoric of economics': ‘Science is an instance of writing with intent, the intent to persuade other scientist’s […]. The study of such writing with intent was called by the Greeks “rhetoric”’ (ibid., p. 4). To get at least an idea about two rhetorical means of science, I will discuss the rhetorical establishment of a scientific ethos (ibid., p. 7) and the equa-tion of the authors point of view with a ‘represented reality’ (ibid., p. 9-10) in the con-text of the boundaryless career concept. For this purpose, I will take a closer, but in-evitably rough look at an article of Michael B. Arthur (1994) ‘The boundaryless career: A new perspective for organizational inquiry’, which could be seen as one of the initial contri-butions to the concept. To avoid any misinterpretation, I would like to emphasise that my aim is not to blame the article of Arthur for its rhetorical means. Science is always about persuasion and rhetoric is an unavoidable part of any scientific writing.

Establishing an ethos ‘The exordium, or beginning, of any speech must establish an ethos worth believing. An established ethos is the most persuasive of scientific arguments, and scientists are there-fore very busy establishing it’ (McCloskey, 1998, p. 7),

Arthur opens his article with a baseball story (1994, p. 295). In short: Don Baylor was an ageing slugger, recruited via a short-term arrangement by the Boston Red Sox in 1986. Baylor quickly became an informal leader but ‘rigid assumptions about roles and careers’ hampered his assignment in the decisive sixth game of the World Series. The team lost its motivation and so the game. As with any story, the plot demands moral reasoning (McCloskey, 1998, p. 15). Consequently, Arthur introduces an ethos of (scien-tific) self doubt and critic and invites us, i.e. the scientific audience to this critical self-assessment, whilst introducing at the same time the solution to overcome our contri-tion–the concept of a boundaryless career:

How much of our empirical work has explored the kind of issues the Don Baylor story raises? To what extent have temporary, market-driven employment arrangements cap-tured our interest? Have we considered what careers […] can mean for organizational learning? The purpose of this issue is to highlight questions such as these, and to promote a new point of departure for careers research, namely the 'boundaryless career' (ibid., p. 296).

In turn, Arthur draws a picture of scientific marginalisation if we persist in our orthodox approaches. To stand at the forefront of scientific progress is another invitation to the reader and part of a scientific ethos as well. Arthur's questions are (again) of a rhetori-cal nature:

The suggestion from the preceding discussion is that careers research has maintained its orthodox approach despite the emergent pace of organizational change. Should careers

86 Discourse: Ronald Hartz: ‘Everything must change in order to stay the same’

research persist in this approach, and accept a smaller place in the overall organizational studies agenda? Or can there be a change in emphasis of careers research to accommo-date the changing realities of organizational life? (ibid., p. 300).

Point of view = ‘represented reality’ ‘The scientists says, it is not I the scientist who make these assertions but reality itself (Nature's words in the scientists mouth)’ (McCloskey, 1998, p. 9),

In the case of the article of Arthur, he strings together statistics and data from seem-ingly all over the world to impress (and to persuade) upon the reader a new reality for employees and organisations. Unsurprisingly, this reality calls (again) for the concept of boundaryless careers. However, the rhetorically informed reader should be aware of words and phrases such as ‘evidence’, ‘just’, ‘only’, ‘in sum’, ‘old’, ‘new’, ‘fading’ in the following quotations:

How significant are boundaryless careers? Direct evidence stems from several sources. The median employment tenure for all U.S. workers is just four and a half years […] In Japan […] the median for male workers is only eight years […]. Firms of under 500 em-ployees […] account for 56 per cent of U.S. private employment … predicted to rise to 70 per cent by the year 2000 […]. A similar shift has already occurred in the U.K. … and other European countries […]. […] In sum, the old picture of stable employment and as-sociated organizational careers is fading. A new picture of dynamic employment and boundaryless careers calls for our attention (Arthur, 1994, p. 296-97) [...] the unpredictable, market-sensitive world in which so many careers now unfold (ibid., p. 297). The presumption of stable contexts associated with 'organizational careers' was evidently fading (ibid., p. 300). Further evidence about Japanese and other East Asian forms of organization also chal-lenged large firm assumptions (ibid., p. 300). In sum, recent familiar assumptions about the employment world have suddenly become distant (ibid., p. 300).

To sum up, both the proclaimed scientific ethos and the ‘represented reality’, indistin-guishable from the ‘point of view’ of the boundaryless career approach, seem to play a role in reference to the persuasive power of the concept. Moreover, these rhetorical means support its performativity; that is, to make truth claims about a new reality for careers and organisations whilst actively producing this reality. Granted, this suggested re-framing of a scientific concept needs further work and elaboration. However, I am convinced that such a perspective can support critical reflections about the ontological and the political status of science. In turning to the title of my comment, borrowed from the novel of Lampedusa, such reflections possibly question a common logic of science, and that is that everything must change (our reality and our concepts) in order to maintain the same scientific community.

Frank Schabel *

Managers’ Career Expectations Are an Individual Matter

1. Introduction The image of the manager who systematically plans and pursues his career is, without a doubt, an enduring cliché. But then, clichés usually do contain a certain degree of truth. In this case, however, the cliché fails to take into account that managers’ careers are directly related to the individual’s current employer, the general job market, the given economic climate, society’s perception of the individual’s profession and the in-dividual’s personal environment as well as his own professional background. When we speak of how managers’ careers change, we must always bear these points in mind, because careers do not exist in a vacuum. On the contrary: By means of the above in-teractions, they can be explained, to a great degree, on an individual basis and not just through the use of broad generalisations.

With this in mind, I would like to further differentiate, due to my continuing communication with managers, the image presented by Kattenbach, Lücke, Schlese, & Schramm (20111) of largely stable career expectations by managers over the years. For this purpose the above points of reference will play a central role. Through changes in the market, career prospects or personal circumstances, one’s career expectations will also correspondingly change. Therefore, these are only ever snapshots and have no claim to being a stable pattern.

2. Career expectations and their benchmarks A fundamental factor is the individual’s current work environment. Whether managers are prepared to change employers or not depends mostly on whether they believe their current employers offer them sufficient opportunities. If this is the case and if they find their overall work environment to be agreeable, managers are less motivated to pursue a career path outside their current companies. This means that the more businesses make the effort to look after and involve their management talent and offer them interesting assignments, the more willing these managers are, at least in the mid term, to develop their careers internally. Of course, the converse is equally valid: If ca-reer expectations are not in accord with their current duties, managers will begin con-sidering their external options. Managers’ career expectations and the associated ques-tion of how willing they are to change employers, depends in large part on how man-agers view their current employers and the options these employers can offer them.

How current professional satisfaction affects the long-term career expectations of managers is, by contrast, more difficult to judge. In my experience only a small pro-

* Frank Schabel, HAYS AG, Head of Marketing/Corporate Communications, Willy-Brandt-Platz 1-3, D - 68161 Mannheim. E-Mail: [email protected].


88 Discourse: Frank Schabel: Managers’ Career Expectations Are an Individual Matter

portion of managers plan their careers over decades, because the overall economic en-vironment has long since become too unstable. Since companies still continue to count on short-term success, long-term career expectations on the part of managers are simply no longer valid.

With regard to how managers’ career expectations compare with their current situations, one must, of course, take into account certain important “objective” ele-ments: Is the company a mid-sized firm that offers a greater degree of operational freedom, but fewer formal job titles or is it a corporation that, as part of its structure, offers managers promotions at regular intervals? These sorts of considerations colour managers’ career expectations.

The situation is similar for the various business sectors: Managers who work in IT or commerce more often pursue jobs outside their firms, because this corresponds to the dynamic perception of their industries. This applies less for managers in chemi-cal firms, for example, because this field is characterised more by an image of con-stancy and internal further development. In general, the following can be observed: The more sales-related a business or business sector is, the more willing managers are to change employers.

A further benchmark for gauging managers’ career expectations are the macro-economic conditions that influence an individual’s career planning - over both the short and mid term. Here we see some diametrically opposed trends. The global economy’s growing vulnerability to crisis, which we have experienced in recent years, has changed managers’ career planning and aspirations. It is scarcely still possible to systematically plan careers because companies swiftly change and, for example, sell business sectors, fuse with other companies or change owners. In such an environ-ment persistent career development is becoming increasingly more rare. Managers must, on the contrary, expect disruptions and swift rises and falls in their careers. Against this background the traditionally-held concept of what a manager’s career ac-tually is means less and less.

However difficult the economic climate may actually be, the demographic trend puts the risks for managers into perspective. Highly-qualified professionals - and this includes managers - hold the best cards, because in future they will be a rare breed. And this will have a positive effect on their career expectations: The individual’s job and chances of promotion with his current employer could be put at risk, however, due both to their qualifications and to demographic trends, there are enough other at-tractive career opportunities open to managers.

Manager’s career expectations are not just influenced by hard factors, but also by the image that society has of their careers. This has changed in recent years and is the reason why the subject of work-life balance is at the top of the career wish list for uni-versity graduates. The classical notion of having a high salary and continuous career progression went out with the baby boomer generation. Purely focusing on a career is now no longer fashionable and this trend does not seem to be just a fad. However, exactly what effect this will have on managers’ career expectations cannot yet be fore-seen. Do young people change their expectations over the course of their careers or do they remain true to their needs?


If they remain constant, the greater focus for managers will be on life-phase ori-ented career planning. This includes raising children and taking care of parents, pursu-ing a second degree or taking an extended break from work so that individuals can re-orientate themselves. Thus in future, careers will no longer be linear, but rather ser-pentine, and the number of managers who fluctuate back and forth between perma-nent and interim management positions is already increasing. Career expectations, therefore, are part of a larger societal context than they were previously.

Managers with families are presented with another set of challenges when it comes to reconciling their professional and private lives. Their geographical flexibility is limited, which affects their career demands. For these managers, job security is of greater importance than further career progression. Moreover, they must consult more and more with their partners about what they want out of their careers and about how these choices affect the entire family. By contrast, the younger and less tied down the manager is, the more prepared he or she is to make greater efforts to advance his or her career, i.e. these sorts of factors also shape and influence managers’ career expec-tations: Are they deeply involved in stable, long-term personal relationships and net-works or is this less the case?

The individual’s personal background, likewise, plays an important role in decid-ing what managers expect from their careers. By this I mean not just whether one’s parents were themselves managers, but also the individual’s own experience of dealing with disruption and change. If managers have been confronted with similar difficulties previously in their lives, their willingness to embark on new challenges grows and, in terms of their careers, so does their willingness to change employers. And of course age plays a significant role when managers are planning their careers. Changing em-ployers is viewed more critically and arguments for and against such a move are given greater consideration the older a manager is. There are risks associated with moving to a new company and for older managers, job security is most often more important than the prospect of a possible further promotion, be it internally or externally.

In addition to age and personal background, one’s chosen profession has an im-pact on career expectations. Finance managers regard careers differently than market-ing managers or a manager who works in research and development. Finance manag-ers are more likely to tend toward stability while, for marketing managers, it is simply understood that they will go through a series of companies during their employment life. Developers, by contrast, are more likely to associate the content of their actual work with their careers.

3. Conclusion It is our view that the expectations managers have for their careers depend on many factors. Because these factors change continuously, the understanding managers have of their careers also varies. In other words, this understanding is reflected in these changes. When career expectations change, it is due first and foremost to these fac-tors. For example, because of the changing impression society has of careers, it is no longer just about careers themselves, but rather about gaining a balance between the different areas of an individual’s life. In other words, a kind of holistic integration as opposed to the previous, more encapsulated or cloistered impression of careers. This

90 Discourse: Frank Schabel: Managers’ Career Expectations Are an Individual Matter

new pattern also includes a stronger life-phase oriented planning of careers closely bound up with discontinuities. How strongly pronounced these are depends, in turn, on many factors such as one’s own background, business sector or profession.

Blanket statements about career expectations also do not serve much of a pur-pose; what is needed is a differentiated view that reflects the interdependence between these various career benchmarks; for example: a comparison of how the career expec-tations of managers from various business sectors, from large and small businesses or from individual professions differ from one another.

For HR departments it would be important to clarify these points with managers openly and to find a shared way to harmonise career expectations with the company’s own corporate interests. This would be an interesting contribution to the topic of tal-ent management and gaining manager commitment. However, we are only just at the very beginning and both sides have yet to fully lay their cards on the negotiation table.


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