THE BIFURCATION OF EXECUTIVES-TURNED- COACHES: A FOUCAULDIAN PERSPECTIVE BEYOND THE NORMS OF CAREER TRANSITION IN MANAGERIAL THEORETICAL MODELS

Abstract

The experience of executives-turned coaches can be characterized as involving a turning point. In a Foucauldian perspective, we analyse the underlying subjective process of this career transition with 25 life narratives. This exploratory research shows that the career as an apparatus of power has effects including professional overinvestment, several difficulties and dissonance at work. These effects caused a saturation (one might even say exhaustion) that fostered a realization followed by a turning point. This lived transition is a crisis that led our interviewees to become coaches. The analyse of this complex process justifies the sociological perspective of the turning point which goes beyond the norms of career transition posited by managerial theoretical models. Our grounded theorisation offers an important reflexive support for aspiring coaches. Furthermore it’s a recruitment tool of coaches for HRD plus an help for managing career transitions.