Abstract
In business conditions that are increasingly unstable, managers are expected to be constantly ‘in learning mode’ (Heslin and Keating, 2017) through a ‘growth mindset’ (Dweck 2016; Heslin, Keating, and Ashford, 2020) in which the individual is open to adaptation and transformation. Constructive development theory offers a way to understand how individuals adapt and develop by exploring manager’s experiences of critical events during their career. Many studies have confirmed the transformative effect of life crisis by disturbing the normal course of activity (Argyris and Schön, 1978) because they force the individual to combine previous experiences and new insights, while re-evaluating existing thoughts and actions (Flanagan, 1954). Of course, not all career events are negative or traumatic; some may be positive or neutral and some events have a more self-constructive flavour. But they may be sufficiently disruptive to trigger reflection on meaning making schemes leading to greater self-awareness and adaptability (Haynie and Shepherd, 2011; Lee and Mitchell, 1994 ). From a constructive development point of view, the nature of these events appears to be sufficient enough to move individuals into a more unsettled (liminal) stage between epistemologies that enables individuals to objectively reflect on their development and shift meaning and frames of reference. In this study we examine how that reframing process occurs as a response to critical events in their career.
We collected stories about significant career episodes from mature managers who were all MBA alumni. We analysed interview transcripts adopting a constructive development lens to understand which epistemological dimensions shape the meaning making process and pinpoint how individual progress in terms of mindset development as a response to a career event –according to whether the event was positive or negative and whether self-initiated or externally driven. Our findings suggest that the nature of the event - externally imposed or self-initiated - has implications on individuals progression through mindsets. Overall the results give a picture of how managers progress through mind set changes that emerge form critical events during their career.