Climbing the corporate ladder: What happens after you reach the top?

Abstract

Climbing the corporate ladder has long been a focus of many individuals' careers. This paper addresses what happens to those individuals once they reach the most senior positions in their career, or a career plateau. Based on interviews with 59 men and women employed in the accounting profession in Australia, the research shows that these participants report feeling disillusioned, dissatisfied, and unsure of their future career direction. The message for organisations is that just because an individual has reached the maintenance phase of their career, it does not mean that they are no longer interested in further development. In fact, the participants in the research were interested in prolonging their careers and wanted their organisations to provide greater support in the area of career development.