Hura N. A. Organizational and psychological factors of career development and interruption. - Manuscript of the Qualifying Scientific Paper.

The thesis for PhD in Psychology, Specialty 19.00.10 «Organizational Psychology, Economic Psychology». - Higher Educational Institution University of Economics and Law «KROK», Kyiv, 2019.

The thesis updates the understanding of a career as a socio-psychological phenomenon: describes its essential features and procedural characteristics, examines external and internal factors that influence professional advancement.

A career is seen as the unity of a subjectively meaningful purpose and a socially beneficial result of professional activity. In a post-industrial society traditional concepts of career development need to be revised, first of all, they require taking into account paths that imply multiplicity of trials, turns and career interruptions. Individual career path can be non-linear in nature, be an alternation of ups and downs, spanning several spheres of life. Changes in its progressive trajectory and positive vector are reflected in professional crises, career suspension or interruption. At the same time, crises stimulate the emergence of new scenarios of the future, lead to the transition to alternative career paths.

A career interruption, that was considered an extraordinary, forced, mostly negative event decades ago, has become a common way of building a life path. The source of voluntary occupational mobility is a sense of dissatisfaction with one’s professional position and working conditions, which, at a critical level, encourages appropriate activity. The latent factors that influence the subjective perception of working conditions were identified: 1) social support in the organizational environment; 2) possibility and effectiveness of personal and professional development efforts; 3) social utility, prestige of a profession; 4) balance of professional and non-professional spheres of life. Smart, clear workflow organization has a global positive impact on career satisfaction.

Two behavioural patterns that determine the dynamics of career development have been identified: interruption patterns and workplace stability patterns. These are alternative career paths that are used by people with different motivational, personal, and adaptation resources. The characteristics that distinguish between professionally-mobile and professionally-stable persons have been clarified, and diagnostic markers for inclination to a career interruption have been identified.

The influence of external and internal factors on the career is polymodal and depends, on the one hand, on the content of specific activity, on the other hand – on the stage of professionalization. Among the external career factors, the early family influence (parental behaviour, attitude towards the child) deserves special attention, since it has not yet been considered in organizational psychology. Separate theories and results of empirical studies are analyzed to explain how parental influences in childhood determine the vector of person’s movement along the life path.

It has been empirically proven that parents’ attitude towards their child has a significant impact on their careers. A retrospective analysis of five aspects of family upbringing (positive interest, directivity, hostility, autonomy and inconsistency) was conducted, the degree of agreement of paternal and maternal attitudes was determined. Correlation analysis shows that maternal attitude influences professional promotion indirectly – through the general life script of an individual, his confidence in himself and the world, subjective position. The mother’s behaviour determines the internal career resources and components of psychological well-being: self-acceptance, self-efficacy, locus of control, sustainability, coping strategies, style of interpersonal interaction. The role of the father’s behaviour is to form specific career orientations and the ability to achieve the set goals.

A comprehensive psychological assistance program is proposed to address professional development crises and career competence formation. The tasks of formative corrective is: expanding the understanding of a career as a way of self-realization; formation of optimal professional mobility; building career strategies based on consistent motivation; correction of cognitive attitudes and life scenarios; activation of internal resources of professional promotion, increase of adaptation potential and sustainability; optimizing coping strategies. The obtained results expand the idea of the ways of professional self-realization in post-industrial society.

Keywords: personal and professional development, professional career, external and internal factors of career trajectories, professional mobility, professional stability, career interruptions, parental career factor.