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jillian on Dec 1, 2010 in
Issue no.3, December 2010,
Volume 09 |
Comments Off on Organizational Careers: A forward theory
[ The following paper is extracted from Glaser, B.G. (1968). Organizational careers: A sourcebook for theory. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company. The full text is available through www.sociologypress.com] Barney G. Glaser, Ph.D., Hon. Ph.D. Introduction 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. Several sociologists, however, have written on careers in general in their focus on problems of work and professionals. Many of their discussions, of course, clearly refer to organizational careers, though these sociologists are writing on the general topic of occupational careers. There is a difference between these two topics. An occupational career is a very general category referring to a patterned path of mobility wherever it may take people geographically, organizationally, and socially while following a certain type of work. An organizational career, in contrast, is a specific entity offered by an organization to people working in it, using its services, or buying its goods. Purpose of This Reader Since so much of what we all do is linked with organizations, it is very important to consider an organizational career as a special entity and develop our understanding of it. We hope to achieve this purpose partially by bringing together many articles on careers that fit the category of organizational work careers. This act itself will initiate much general understanding. We also wish to start the generation of a formal, grounded theory of organizational careers by initiating comparative analysis of these articles (Glaser & Strauss, 1967, Part I). In its beginning operation, a comparative analysis for generating theory starts with the general understandings gained by reading about the same problem from the perspective of several different organizational careers. Pursuit of the comparative analysis brings out several other purposes of this reader. For the interested reader, whether sociologist or non-sociologist, this book brings together a very rich body of comparative knowledge, experience, and thought on organizational careers. The general understandings, concepts, and strategies gained by merely reading it will aid the reader in “making it” in his own career. With little information on which to base our decisions, we are continually trying to decide and manage how to move through the organization to some advantage. The comparative analysis...