Douglas T. Hall

Retirement, as a major life transition, can be both thrilling and challenging in unexpected ways. Written by acclaimed authors in the fields of business leadership, careers, and work, this book goes beyond the typical financial and health-related advice on retirement, providing insights to guide you in broader areas of your life – identity issues, relationship challenges, and questions about creating a new retirement life structure that works for you. With lively, engaging writing, the book tells the detailed retirement transition stories of 14 people – and draws on over 200 interviews with 120 people – to explore how retiring involves a reconstruction of both the person and their life structure. You’ll gain wisdom on the common themes and the wildly different approaches people take to the four big tasks of retiring: making the retirement decision, detaching from work both tangibly and psychologically, building a new life structure for retirement, and settling into a relatively stable retirement life – but prepared to restructure again as life unfolds into the future. Throughout each chapter, you’ll see how the dynamic interplay of self, life structure, and external context affect a retiring person’s day-to-day experience in the final months of their career, as well as their early years of retirement – and how life satisfaction depends largely on alignment among the three. At the same time, you’ll learn how family, friends, and colleagues, as well as the organization the person is retiring from, can play a crucial role. This book is for you if you are seeking deep, nuanced insight into – and practical advice on – the psychological, social, and life-restructuring aspects of retirement that can make all the difference for life satisfaction. It is also for you if you are a family member or friend of a retiring person, a helping professional, or an organizational leader who cares about your older workers and the value they bring to your organization even as they depart.

Retirement, as a major life transition, can be both thrilling and challenging in unexpected ways. Written by acclaimed authors in the fields of business leadership, careers, and work, this book goes beyond the typical financial and health-related advice on retirement, providing insights to guide you in broader areas of your life – identity issues, relationship challenges, and questions about creating a new retirement life structure that works for you. With lively, engaging writing, the book tells the detailed retirement transition stories of 14 people – and draws on over 200 interviews with 120 people – to explore how retiring involves a reconstruction of both the person and their life structure. You’ll gain wisdom on the common themes and the wildly different approaches people take to the four big tasks of retiring: making the retirement decision, detaching from work both tangibly and psychologically, building a new life structure for retirement, and settling into a relatively stable retirement life – but prepared to restructure again as life unfolds into the future. Throughout each chapter, you’ll see how the dynamic interplay of self, life structure, and external context affect a retiring person’s day-to-day experience in the final months of their career, as well as their early years of retirement – and how life satisfaction depends largely on alignment among the three. At the same time, you’ll learn how family, friends, and colleagues, as well as the organization the person is retiring from, can play a crucial role. This book is for you if you are seeking deep, nuanced insight into – and practical advice on – the psychological, social, and life-restructuring aspects of retirement that can make all the difference for life satisfaction. It is also for you if you are a family member or friend of a retiring person, a helping professional, or an organizational leader who cares about your older workers and the value they bring to your organization even as they depart.

Companies are becoming more global and international, and commerce and information flow seamlessly across national borders. In addition, modernization, rapid technological change, an increasingly (shared) global culture, and shifting socio-demographic values have created conditions in which career stability is more threatened, while the importance of managing the career well is paramount. But, what do we know about careers in different contexts and how those career experiences vary in different regions and countries of the world? The goal of this book is to develop new understandings of career from the vantage point of those who live in diverse cultures, and who belong to different generations. Careers Around the World explores the very meaning of what a career for individuals is in different countries, cultures, professions and age groups. What does career success mean for people around the world? What are key career transitions, and how are they best managed in different cultures? As those questions have not yet been investigated in the literature of careers across cultures and generations, the authors have taken an approach that led to hearing the answers directly from working people around the globe. This book presents the answers to these questions from each of the seven major cultural regions of the world and the practical implications of these differences for those who manage human resources in organizations that cross national boundaries, as well as those who advise on careers.

Companies are becoming more global and international, and commerce and information flow seamlessly across national borders. In addition, modernization, rapid technological change, an increasingly (shared) global culture, and shifting socio-demographic values have created conditions in which career stability is more threatened, while the importance of managing the career well is paramount. But, what do we know about careers in different contexts and how those career experiences vary in different regions and countries of the world? The goal of this book is to develop new understandings of career from the vantage point of those who live in diverse cultures, and who belong to different generations. Careers Around the World explores the very meaning of what a career for individuals is in different countries, cultures, professions and age groups. What does career success mean for people around the world? What are key career transitions, and how are they best managed in different cultures? As those questions have not yet been investigated in the literature of careers across cultures and generations, the authors have taken an approach that led to hearing the answers directly from working people around the globe. This book presents the answers to these questions from each of the seven major cultural regions of the world and the practical implications of these differences for those who manage human resources in organizations that cross national boundaries, as well as those who advise on careers.

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What are the individual and organizational influences on career choices and adult development? Careers In and Out of Organizations provides an overview of the changing context of careers and describes the role of interpersonal relationships as influences on development of a person's identity and learning. The author examines the nature of the new career contract and the different approaches that have been taken to studying career decision making. He explores how career choices are made, the developmental stages people pass through during the course of their working lives in organizations, and the factors related to career effectiveness including integrating career and personal life. The latter third of the book turns from research to the practical issues involved in applying theory including a look at how an understanding of career dynamics can be employed to make careers work better for individuals and for the work communities where they are employed.

What are the individual and organizational influences on career choices and adult development? Careers In and Out of Organizations provides an overview of the changing context of careers and describes the role of interpersonal relationships as influences on development of a person's identity and learning. The author examines the nature of the new career contract and the different approaches that have been taken to studying career decision making. He explores how career choices are made, the developmental stages people pass through during the course of their working lives in organizations, and the factors related to career effectiveness including integrating career and personal life. The latter third of the book turns from research to the practical issues involved in applying theory including a look at how an understanding of career dynamics can be employed to make careers work better for individuals and for the work communities where they are employed.