Leadership development is a multi-billion-dollar industry with a strong focus on learning through experiences, yet most experiential leadership development efforts typically center on work-based experiences and not personal life experiences. This study delves into the relationships among significant life experiences, leader identity, and adult…

Self-awareness is often seen as a critical component in leadership and career success, and has therefore become a feature in MBAs, leadership development, and management education. It has become a popular "buzzword" in management literature, yet when reviewing this literature, there appears to be no consistent definition of the…

Previous research documented positive associations between cognitively stimulating work and levels of cognitive performance, while longitudinal associations are less clear. We used 20-year longitudinal data from the Interdisciplinary Longitudinal Study of Adult Development and Aging (ILSE) to examine the role of perceived work environment…

Purpose: Much research to date on professional transitions has focused on predicting them and then preparing individual practitioners to navigate transitions as sites of struggle. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine, within the context of professional practice and learning, diverse theoretical approaches that are currently prominent…

As workers face a changing and ever-complex employment landscape, traditional career theories and approaches may not be sufficient in meeting career challenges. Calls for integrated career theories have emerged as more people seek meaning and purpose in their lives and careers. This article proposes a career counseling option that integrates…

One aspect of personality, perceptions of internal versus external control of reinforcement, shifts under conditions of change. This review of the literature examines the relationship between planned organizational change and locus of control. The review includes literature from the disciplines of clinical and social psychology, adult development,…

An oral history of the workplace learning experiences of 17 women revealed that central to these experiences was exploration of self. Themes included recognizing and naming the self, confronting and breaking free of constraining workplace structures, and recovering an authentic self. (SK)

The article argues the case for rethinking the way we look at the process of ageing in the work place and the images we use to describe the nature of life for people over 50. Rather than there being more old and frail people in the community, many more people are experiencing an extended middle age, and their numbers are increasing. There are in…

Recognition of the importance of the workplace derives from the pervasive influence of work on adult development, the substantial scale of education and training carried out at work, changes in the nature of work and occupations, and new forms and content in worker education. (SK)

Offers seven methodologically distinct delivery concepts visible in preretirement education today, suggests their distinguishing qualities in terms of methodological principles and leader-training issues, and illustrates the more influential concepts with examples of established program models. The contexts are the university-gerontology arena,…

Examined validity of Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI) and Career Adjustment and Development Inventory (CADI) as measures of adult vocational development by comparing responses of 124 salespeople to inventories and to measures of work adjustment. CADI clearly seemed to measure vocational development; ACCI seemed to measure concern about…

The Piagetian perspective of adult cognitive development and adult education could have implications for how work and formal reasoning can be related to adult education programs and policy. During adolescence and adulthood, many individuals enter the cognitive period of formal operations (the last of three stages in Piaget's conceptual framework…

Little attention has been given to how adults develop through their lifetimes and what roles their workplace environments play in that development. Research and theory regarding adult psychosocial development have confirmed the developmental life-cycle phases of adulthood. These are: leaving the family (ages 16-22), getting into the adult world…

Drinking problems among college faculty are discussed, and selective information is presented about alcohol abuse, employee assistance programs, adulthood stages, and futuristic changes in U.S. society. The idea that work obsession and alcoholism can be linked for university professors who have a high need for achievement is discussed. Enabling…

Reports a study of 20 Canadian associate professors, aged 41-59, which explored how faculty experience the mid-career and mid-life period in academic and community work, personal and family relationships, and sense of self. Identifies a variety of difficult issues for this population, but proposes that adult development theory suggests potential…