Edgar Schein - Schein's 'Career Anchors'

Schein's 'Career Anchors'

A career anchor is one's self concept, and consists of one's perceptions of one's talents and abilities, one's basic values and one's perceptions of motives and needs as they pertain to career.

In Schein's original research from the mid-1970s he identified five possible career anchor constructs: (1) autonomy/independence, (2) security/stability, (3) technical-functional competence, (4) general managerial competence, and (5) entrepreneurial creativity. Follow-up studies in the 1980s identified three additional constructs: (6) service or dedication to a cause, (7) pure challenge, and (8) life style.

A 2008 study distinguishes between entrepreneurship and creativity to form nine possible constructs.

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