Conflicted Careers, Authors, and Reader

Reviews the book, Orientation and Conflict in Career by Abraham Zaleznik, Gene W. Dalton, Louis B. Barnes, and Pierre Laurin (1970). This book looks at the large matter of career development through an interesting peephole, namely that of oriented and conflicted career evolvement in one of today's knowledge-oriented industries. The book essentially contrasts these groups according to (a) a man's retrospectively reported and projectively revealed early life experiences, (b) his recognition by his associates and his eminence in his field, and (c) his present attitude toward his work and future. Conflict in overt and covert manifestations of action and value divert psychic energy from productive accomplishment and, according to Zaleznik, cannot be creatively dealt with by the person. This book's strong consistency between developmental theory and data also rests its fascination as a saga in scientific development. We, thus, end up with an example in which each of the three gentlemen remains true to himself and the ethic of science to which he is sworn. But in exposing themselves, while being scientists, all three also give us a beautiful example of the possibility that man is both somewhat determined by his past and his current organization and somewhat able to overcome both a little. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)