The popular literature on careers advises individuals to take charge of their situations – to be active agents in shaping their work environments and career opportunities.

In contrast, a major school of thought in the academic literature on careers, the socialization literature, views individuals as much more passive and malleable. Often, individuals are portrayed as if they join the organization practically as lumps of clay, ready to be shaped by all those around them, from co-worker to supervisor to mentor. As mainly receivers of influence, individuals attempt to “learn the ropes” in the organization, modeling not only their behaviors but also their attitudes on those who appear to be successful participants:

To be fair, we recognize that the academic literature does not totally ignore the individual in its treatment of careers.

The concept of the career has never been more popular. Once viewed mainly as a synonym for initial job choice, it is now widely accepted as a central feature in employment arrangements. Career development and human resource management programs are not only widely accepted but also seen as critical to both individuals and organizations. Such programs cover a wide range of issues, from individual careers and work–family accommodation, to policy and strategic concerns such as the aging of the work force, adaptation to new technology, and organizational productivity (Gutteridge, 1986; Mills, 1985). However, these trends mean that much of the practice of managing careers has come close to catching up with the body of theory that inspired it (Hall and Associates, 1986). Either career theory has served its purpose and should be laid to rest or it needs a good shot in the arm.

We believe this state of affairs exists not because we are done explaining careers, but because work on the topic has moved away from its conceptually rich heritage. As a result, career studies are at risk of addressing increasingly narrow and decreasingly innovative questions. Our view is that a good shot in the arm will help rejuvenate career theory and also help us adapt to the dynamic character of modern industrial society.

Developmentally, women are different from men. The claim has surfaced so often, it can no longer be denied. Whether the charted gender differences have been framed as inherent female defects in biology (Freud, 1925), feminine deficiencies in reasoning (Kohlberg, 1976), learned responses to a political reality (French, 1985; Schaef, 1981), the recognition of a distinct developmental voice for men and women (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule, 1986; Gilligan, 1977), or cause for celebrating a new psychology of women (Miller, 1976), the theme is the same. Women construct their conceptions of themselves, their lives, and the world around them differently from men.

During the fragile early years of the Women's Movement, it was taboo to acknowledge any basic differences between men and women other than the most obvious biological ones. Equality between the sexes required a lock-step belief in what now seems a simplistic definition of equity as sameness. While we spoke of increasing human freedom by challenging stereotypic conceptions of men and women, we implicitly sold the male model of life and work as women's salvation from their second-class citizenship.

But the time has come to move beyond the debate of whether women and men are developmentally different and to focus more clearly on understanding the differences and their implications. Masking these developmental differences serves neither gender. We have begun to admit (Friedan, 1981; Marshall, Chapter 13) that the male model of work and success may be a dead end (and health statistics say that literally may be true).

In Part II we look at careers through a different lens. Whereas in Part I we considered different streams in the career literature, in Part II we examine career theory through the multiple lenses provided by social science disciplines. As we said in the Preface, the concept of Part II was to ask scholars not necessarily associated with the study of careers to look at the domain of their particular fields and to “think careers” while they did so. We asked them to pull out concepts from their area that they thought could be useful in understanding how people's work behaviors and attitudes change over time as a career unfolds.

While it is clear to us why each of the following chapters is important, we have been unable to come up with any obvious sequence in which to present them. If Part I of this handbook showed us the present landscape of career theory, Part II is the garden store of new materials with which the landscape might be changed. And we hope readers will agree the store is full and the materials tempting. To preview the selections, there are ideas drawn principally from psychology (Bell and Staw, Latack, and Marshall, Chapters 11–13, respectively), organizational behavior (Arthur and Kram, Derr and Laurent, Chapters 14 and 22), social psychology (Weick and Berlinger, Chapter 15), sociology (Rosenbaum, Thomas, Chapters 16 and 17), political science (Pfeffer, Chapter 18), anthropology (Trice and Morand, Chapter 19), economics (Barney and Lawrence, Chapter 20), and rhetoric (Gowler and Legge, Chapter 21).

The careers literature, like much of the literature in organizational behavior (Pfeffer, 1982), is dominated by a perspective that focuses on the individual or organization in isolation and argues either implicitly or explicitly from an efficiency-oriented or value or goal attainment perspective. Thus, individual career choices are presumed to reflect individual goals, needs, personality, or interests (Hall, 1976: Ch. 2), and the applications literature deriving from such a focus is oriented to self-assessment and self-discovery procedures to enhance individual career planning (Crites, 1973; Hall, 1976: Ch. 2; Strong, 1943). The organization's task is seen as one of defining the relevant abilities, which derive from the technical requirements of work, devising screening and selection systems to pick the most able applicants and then devising training programs, job rotation, and promotion ladders that motivate and retain as well as develop skills in the work force (Hall, 1976: Ch. 6; Schein, 1977; Schneider, 1976). The applicationsoriented literature developing from this perspective focuses both on the analysis of jobs in terms of skill requirements and task attributes (McCormick and Tiffin, 1974; Schneider, 1976: Ch. 2) and on screening procedures (e.g., Bray and Grant, 1966; Hall, 1976: Ch. 4), promotion and job rotation practices (Katz, 1982; Pelz and Andrews, 1966; Wellbank et al., 1978), and training and socialization efforts (e.g., Bass and Vaughan, 1966; Berlew and Hall, 1966; Morgan, Hall, and Martier, 1979; Van Maanen, 1982) to produce a motivated and skilled work force.

The purpose of this chapter is to propose an alternative perspective on understanding careers and career processes.