Abstract: | Cultural factors influence career patterns in a variety of ways. Societal, occupational, and organizational cultures influence the structure of the external career, prestige associated with given careers, the legitimacy of certain motives underlying careers, success criteria, the clarity of the career concept itself, and the importance attached to career versus family and self development. How career occupants view their careers and the degree of variation in such views within given societies, occupations, and organizations is also culturally patterned. Both managers and career researchers must become more familiar with these cultural influences. |