Organizational Careers: A forward theory

In general, organizations obtain work from people by offering them some kind of career within their structures. The operation of organizations, therefore, depends on people’s assuming a career orientation toward them. To generate this orientation, organizations distribute rewards, working conditions, and prestige to their members according to career level; thus these benefits are properties of the organizational career. To advance in this career is to receive more or better of all or some of these benefits. Generally speaking, therefore, people work to advance their organizational careers. But also, generally speaking, people do not like to talk about their careers or to be asked about them in everyday conversations with many or unknown people. In this sense, a person’s own organizational career is a sensitive or “taboo topic.” Discussions with others about one’s career occur only under the most private, discreet conditions. As a result, while people may talk abstractly and generally about careers, these discussions are typically based on a combination of the little they know of their own career and much speculation. They often have very little particular or general knowledge based on actual careers. These observations apply also to a large sector or the sociological community, as indicated by a brief perusal of the table of contents of sociological monographs and readers on organizations. The topic of careers is seldom discussed and almost never concertedly focused upon