ATTITUDES TOWARDS CAREER: AN EXPLICATIVE TYPOLOGY OF EVALUATIVE DISPOSITIONS FOR EMPLOYEE

Abstract

Professional mobility is an important issue
for managers to increase companies’ adaptation to
their environment. There has been a lot of research
on this subject, but the conceptual tools have been
subject to criticism. In this paper, we propose the
concept of attitude towards a career. We define it
as an evaluating disposition for employees that
is favorable (or unfavourable) to a type of professional project and trajectory, including occupational
mobility and stability. An employees attitude towards
his/her career is developed through the cognitive
and emotive evaluation activity about their past
experiences and their life project, which includes
information about the content of their work that is
used to build their identity. We justify this concept
by treating information collected in three social sector
entities. Four types of career attitudes are deduced:
independence, authenticity, honorability and stability.
We also explain this typology by identifying three
determining factors: employment and work conditions, professional project and recognition. Finally,
we propose several sequences of attitudes towards a
career, ex