Abstract
The purpose of this study was to develop a taxonomy of the competencies necessary to women's pursuit of professional-level, especially academic, careers. During the first phase of the study two research activities, a review of literature in the areas of career development, career counseling, and the psychology of women, and a semistructured “critical incidents” interview with each of 50 female faculty members from a large midwestern university, resulted in a list of 620 career-relevant behaviors and skills. This pool of career competencies was then examined by three counseling psychologists, and a classification scheme to describe the data was developed. Finally, rates attempted to assign the original competency items to the proposed categories in order to validate the taxonomy. The final, refined version of the taxonomy is presented, and the utility of these results for counseling and research in the area of women's career development is discussed.
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This research was supported by grant R03MH35687-01 from the National Institute of Mental Health. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Anne Crimmings, Sally Hardesty, Deborah Konitsney, and Karen Taylor. A previous version of this manuscript was presented as part of a symposium entitled “New Research Directions in Vocational Psychology” at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C., August 1982.
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Hackett, G., Betz, N.E. & Doty, M.S. The development of a taxonomy of career competencies for professional women. Sex Roles 12, 393–409 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287604
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287604