but by comparison under the transactional contract the locus of responsibility is
squarely on the individual. Thus, he or she is employed based on current value to the
organisation and the resulting sense of self-responsibility means that people can
attribute continued employment to their own efforts and achievements. This will also
put added responsibility on them to continue to learn new skills, take on developmental
projects and further develop their core identities but this may become a virtuous cycle
wherein people continue to add value to themselves and are seen as adding value to
their employer.
The emergence of new protean or transactional careers in organisations is
supported by some studies. For example, Lepak and Snell (1999) have argued that
organisations have moved away from internal labour markets demarcated on
hierarchical lines to demarcations on the basis of “core” and “periphery” with core
workers being privileged employees who still may be said to have a “career” with the
organisation, while peripheral workers provide labour to the firm as and when
required. In a similar vein, Maguire’s (2002) research into the banking industry found
that the relational aspects of the psychological contract between employees and the
organisation had generally decreased while Stroh et al. (1996) found that satisfaction
with the employing organisation had decreased but job involvement and job
satisfaction had increased, in line with some of the elements of the protean careers
described.
Others, however, have argued that careers are merely adapting to changing
economic conditions (Jacoby, 1999) while King (2003) has asserted that the “new
career” may be reflected in people’s expectations rather than actual experience in the
labour market. Even Peiperl and Baruch (1997) who coined the term “post corporate
career” concede that “big company” or mainstream careers still exist alongside new
career patterns. This is confirmed by McDonald et al.’s (2005) Australian study which
suggests that the dominant model in some public sector organisations is still one which
relies on length of service, geographic mobility and a steady climb up the corporate
ladder.
Changing HR careers
Previous studies of HR careers have provided some evidence that HR careers were
changing towards a more market-driven focus. Thomson et al. (2001) report the
findings of their study of some 500 human resource development (HRD) practitioners
where only a third of employing organisations provided a planned career structure,
while both small and large organisations alike reported that they kept only a low
proportion of HRD managers for most of their careers. In the main, career development
was not seen as an employer responsibility, but rather as an activity to be shared
between companies and individuals. Our previous research considered HR careers
from a different perspective, exploring in particular the impact of an HR professional
qualification on career progression (Ackah and Heaton, 2003). While most respondents
in this survey reported that the qualification had helped their career to a great extent,
this was not entirely supported by objective measures of success since, some five years
after graduating, there was only limited evidence of promotion to a senior management
position.
We have already referred to the idea of “business partnering” and this is highlighted
in research by Tamkin et al. (2006) which tells us that many large HR functions have