Synopses & Reviews
In this timely book, Peter Herriot draws together a number of current ideas about career development and brings a fresh approach to understanding the concept of 'careers' in the increasingly uncertain and volatile business environments of the 1990s. The book also offers some solutions to the inevitable tensions which arise between individual career aspirations and the often one-sided use which organizations make of 'their' human resources. . . . It is clear, well-written and contains some imaginative insights into the nature of professional careers in the 1990s. The book is likely to be of use to forward thinking companies and HRM specialists, students on management and business degree schemes, and to academics interested in career development issues, HRM, and organizational behaviour. --International Journal of Human Resource Management Herriot's nice, relaxed writing style would admirably suit the busy general manager. --International Journal of Career Management Reading this, individuals will find a wealth of thought-provoking guidance in terms of how to ensure the most effective psychological contract for them. --Management Education and Development The book] is persuasively argued with a wealth of illustration and an approach both logical and level-headed which this reviewer found most attractive. . . . Students following courses on human resource management (or personnel management for the unenlightened) will find it immensely valuable. Above all, it should be required reading for all college senior management students as they prepare themselves to face the challenges of incorporation, not to mention directorates within the university sector. --The Vocational Aspect ofEducation With its suitably ambiguous title, the career management message of this book is directed at both organisations and individuals. The author provides a new definition of an organizational career based on the agreed expectations of both parties. . . . This view of careers overcomes many of the problems often identified by writers in the field in that it incorporates both the individual's and the organisation's perspectives, and that it is dynamic, enabling more sense to be made of what both parties want in a changing environment. . . . It is a compelling and stimulating framework which provides important practical insights, since the way we think about careers influences how we manage our own and those of others. . . . This book deserves to be widely read. For practicing managers it achieves the rare feat of making current theory and research accessible and relevant. For researchers it provides a welcome coherence in a fragmented field. Above all it is a highly enjoyable and refreshing read. --The Occupational Psychologist Careers have traditionally been viewed either from the organization's or from the individual's point of view. While organizations have seen employees as human resources to be developed and deployed to achieve organizational objectives, individuals have seen their careers as something they own and develop themselves. The Career Management Challenge combines both of these viewpoints in its examination of the individual and strategic organizational dimensions of career management. The author argues that organizations will increasingly need to manage a complex individual-organizational balancing act as an essential ingredient of their human resource strategies.Using the concept of a psychological contract, Herriot shows how organizations and individuals make contracts with each other based on the expectations each holds of the other. He goes on to identify how key current and future economic and technological trends are raising organizational and individual expectations, and how a satisfactory balance can and must be reached for organizational survival. Innovative and stimulating, The Career Management Challenge is important reading for managers and students of human resource management, occupational psychology, and organizational behavior.
Synopsis
In this highly readable book, Peter Herriot looks at the individual and strategic organizational dimensions of career management. In particular, he argues that organizations will increasingly need to manage a complex individual-organizational balancing act' as an essential ingredient of their human resource strategies.
Herriot shows how key current and future trends will lead organizations to make increasing demands on employees. Individual employees will also come to expect more from their organizations. He discusses the balances that need to be struck between individual and organizational expectations and the human resource management implications of achieving this, both in organizational cultures and values, and