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There has long been an “ideal” model of the profession in the sociology of the professions. Our point of departure is that the independent professional is something of a vanishing species, and professional practice is increasingly carried out within non-professional organizations (organizations not managed nor largely staffed by fellow professionals). Indeed, can we expect to recognize our “ideal” professional at all whether in the multi-disciplinary professional service practice or more focussed large private practices? Might in fact there be something fundamentally flawed about both in this model? This chapter explores these issues and their implications for how ethical dilemmas are resolved.

Provides a brief history of the ways companies have reduced staffing in the past. Considers the difficulties experienced during these reduction programmes. Discusses the effects that new style company and structures have had with their flatter shapes. Suggests that not all expected benefits of downsizing are realized and asks at what cost to society? Concludes by looking at the effect this procedure has on the remaining workforce and lists the ten common mistakes which companies should avoid.

This is a conceptual paper, intended to link the constructs self-initiated expatriation (SIE) and career. The author suggests that regarding SIE as an episode in a career allows one to use ideas from the careers literature to suggest novel areas for research on SIE, thereby contributing to the SIE literature. The author employs a particular perspective on career – the social chronology framework (SCF) – to show how the framework can suggest these novel areas of research on self-initiated expatriation. The SCF views careers through three perspectives related to the space within which the career takes place, the career actor who “has” the career, and the time over which the career plays out. By looking at SIEs through each of these perspectives in turn a number of research questions are suggested that have the potential to enrich the SIE literature.

The paper first considers the construct of career and shows how self-initiated expatriation fits with it. Next, it introduces the SCF, and finally shows how it can be used to derive ideas for research on self-initiated expatriation.

There are none, given that this is a conceptual paper.

The paper suggests future directions for research on SIEs.

The author believes that the application of the SCF to the study of self-initiated expatriation is novel.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce further clarity to career scholarship and to support the development of career studies by complementing earlier theoretical literature reviews with an evidence-based historical analysis of career-related terms.

Data from 12 career scholars were collected using the historical Delphi method to find consensus on the career terms that have shaped career studies between 1990 and 2012. The authors then explored the literature by collecting data on the occurrence of these terms, analyzing frequencies and trends via citations and indexes of citation using a mixed-method combination of historical literature review and performance analysis.

Career scholarship is indeed a descriptive field, in which metaphors dominate the discipline. Career success and employability are basic terms within the field. The discipline tends to focus narrowly on career agents. There is a plethora of terminology, and, contrary to the expectations, concepts introduced tend not to fade away.

The authors offer an overarching perspective of the field with a novel mixed-method analysis which is useful for theory development and will help unify career studies. Earlier comprehensive literature reviews were mostly based on theoretical reasoning or qualitative data. The authors complement them with results based on quantitative data. Lastly, the authors identify new research directions for the career scholarship community.

A new approach to understanding managerial careers is described in which the organisation is seen as a kind of climbing frame or “jungle gym” over which managers scramble to make their careers. Different kinds of organisations have differently shaped frames depending on their structures and the way they have grown, making different kinds of careers possible. Four basic frame shapes are described, each of which is likely to develop different skills in the managers scrambling over it. Improved understanding of an organisation′s frames helps an executive in various ways, including better data for designing organisational development programmes and executive recruitment strategies.

There is a curiously static quality to the debate about management education. For example, over 20 years ago Lord Franks was commissioned to report on whether one or more business schools should be founded in the UK. His recommendation (for two schools) was based on an analysis which referred to the need for more managers who were competent to respond to a rapidly changing environment, the accelerating pace of technological innovation, and the growing international competition facing British business. This list sounds nothing if not contemporary.