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Survivor employees and senior management perceptions of career development issues were examined in a downsizing organization. It emerged that the organization lacked a coherent strategy for survivors’ career development. The main career development structure, the performance management and appraisal scheme, was generally viewed as inadequate, while the other structures in place, although generally perceived as useful, were underutilized. A substantial proportion of employees considered lateral moves to potentially undermine advancement and security, and senior management views implied a potential lack of wide managerial support for widespread use of this tool. A senior management attitude for selective career development, targeted on an élite group of key employees, was also detected. The study concluded that proper downsizing planning must include a coherent career development strategy for survivors.

In this practitioner-focused essay, we combine traditional narrative storytelling approaches with Artificial Intelligence’s (AI) innovative abilities to enable career development professionals to support individuals across their lifespan.

We propose a three-phase career exploration approach, developed and tested in a real-world setting for career development professionals to support their clients to consider various career-related options as well as identify strengths and opportunities for personal development.

In phase one, the client recounts 7–10 positive narrative stories about engaging in activities they enjoyed. In phase two, the career development professional uses AI with tailored prompts to generate a personalised client report based on these narrative stories. In phase three, the report serves as the basis for further discussion and exploration with the client.

The approach provides a practical guide for career development professionals to increase their capability to support their clients in response to technological advancement and the contemporary world of work. A training document incorporating a worked example of the approach is provided in “Supplementary Material Appendix 1”.

Our approach acknowledges AI as a new actor and career development professionals as undervalued actors in supporting individuals to foster a sustainable career ecosystem.

Explores the effects of organizational transformation on career development. Through a case study of a large blue chip company in the brewing industry, illustrates that organizational and managers’ expectations of promotion, responsibility for career development and the role of the line manager in career guidance can be substantially mismatched at the current time. Highlights that this can be seriously disadvantageous to individual motivation and organizational effectiveness. Suggests that the principles of social marketing could inform initiatives to change attitudes to careers and to encourage the valuing of lateral career moves. Considers the implications of this for management developers and career management specialists within organizations and suggests a role for government agencies such as the TEC/LEC network in the UK. Concludes that a range of initiatives should be considered to address this important issue.

Many of the situational factors affecting career motivation are under the boss's control. The perception of several bosses of their role in management development in two companies is examined. The cases are derived from interviews with bosses of young first‐line managers. Interviews were also conducted with one subordinate of each boss. Company A did not have a management development programme, company B did. The boss's role in a subordinate's management development should be viewed in relation to the career development policies and programmes of the organisation. He or she can have a positive effect on career motivation even in an environment which is not conducive to career development. Boss training should focus on how to enhance subordinates' career motivation by encouraging individual contribution and personal growth. Bosses should be evaluated on the attention they give to subordinate career development.

Demonstrates how to build commitment and retain employees through a career-development strategy.

Shows how organizations often mismanage career development and how they could do better.

Describes the five “Ps” of poor career development, the foundations of a career-development strategy and a number of career-development activities.

Highlights the importance of beginning early, communicating clearly, partnering employees, facilitating internal movements and taking action frequently.

Advances the view that employee disengagement and high employee turnover are expensive and often avoidable.

Argues that the lack of career development continues to be a major cause of employee dissatisfaction and turnover and shows how this can be avoided.

A fair amount of evidence has been amassed concerning the reliability, validity and fairness of assessment centres when used for selection purposes. Selection‐oriented assessment centres provide valid predictions of managerial performance and success, and seem not to generate significant adverse impact against black or female candidates. Assessment centres increasingly, however, seem to be used for purposes other than immediate job selection. In particular, they are often used for the identification of long‐term managerial potential, and for the diagnosis of training and development needs, perhaps as a part of an overall audit of managerial strengths and weaknesses or as a part of a wider organisational development effort. Two studies of participants′ reactions to development centres are presented. These are followed by two longitudinal studies of the impact on a range of career and organisational attitudes held by participants of two development centres run by two major UK financial services organisations.

All management development programmes set out to train managers to manage the link between a stable, loyal workforce, cost control and the organisation's overall strategy. This career development is a catalyst which leads to assertive action to provide employment security rather than job security. This in turn leads to redeployment of human resources based on a more sophisticated match between profitability needs of the organisation and the expressed work, job and career needs of each employee. The steps of the career‐counselling process and the kinds of managerial competencies a management development programme should help managers acquire are outlined. Through explicit managerial attention to career development and counselling these will have a positive, organisation‐wide impact.

The culture of an organization can be positive and supportive, or threatening and destructive. A career development culture helps address productivity, competitiveness, affirmative action, and succession planning. It helps people redefine their talents to realize the full potential of their jobs. Supervisors should play a key role in creating a career development culture, but many feel their careers are going nowhere and see career development efforts to be an added burden. Supervisors seldom do performance appraisals properly because they are afraid of their workers and the workers are virtually paranoid about the slightest negative note on their files. A better way is to organize a system of mentorship. Evaluation of initiatives can be calculated on the basis of savings that can be attributed to the program and its actual costs. A managed career development culture can pay great rewards to an organization and the people working in it.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of SIEs’ career development through international assignment. In particular, the research focus is on career capital acquirement and development of SIEs through their international assignment in China.

We review studies on SIEs and comparative studies between SIEs and OEs. We apply the career capital theory to discuss SIEs’ career capital development in terms of knowing-how, knowing-why and knowing-whom through expatriation assignment in China.

This chapter focuses on SIEs’ career capital accumulation through international assignments in China, and we develop three propositions that will guide future studies: the knowing-whom career capital development of SIEs through expatriation is increased more in network quantity than network quality in China; the knowing-why career capital development of SIEs through expatriation is influenced by the age and career stage of SIEs; and the knowing-how career capital development of SIEs through expatriation — task-related skills and local engagement skills — is influenced by the SIE’s intercultural ability and organization support respectively.

In practice, a better understanding of SIEs’ career capital development in terms of knowing-how, knowing-why and knowing-whom help companies make the decision to select the relevant staffing pattern. This study also has practical implications in relation to the design and selection of the training, learning and development activities provided to the employees.

The chapter contributes to the expatriate management literature by focusing on SIEs’ career development through their international assignment in China. SIEs’ career development is related to their cross-cultural adjustment and has impacts on the completion and success of the expatriation assignment.