SOCIAL ENTERPRISE MANAGER'S CAREER PATH PREFERENCES: FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Purpose - this paper explores the career path preferences of third sector social enterprise managers in the UK. The literature suggests that understanding of managers' career path preferences (a variety of trajectories an employee is willing to take inter/intra organisational that fulfils his/her career needs) will provide organisations with the ability to design an effective career path options that will match individual managers' career needs with organisational needs (Petroni, 2000; Vos et al., 2007). However, there is insufficient research that has explored the career path preferences of third sector social enterprise managers. Given this gap in research, this paper seeks to identify whether we can conceptualize third sector social enterprise manager's career path preferences as vertical, horizontal, cross-functional (Petroni, 2000; Vos et al., 2007) or a combination of these types of career paths. Design/methodology - a mixed method research design was employed. A survey and semi-structured interviews were conducted with forty operational managers working in eight social enterprise organisations to ascertain their career path preferences. In addition, eight HR managers working in the same eight organisations were interviewed to provide insight into managerial career path management systems in small social enterprise organisations. Originality/value - The research makes a significant contribution in the field of career paths management in small third sector social enterprise organisations; by identifying career path of operational managers' which are not linked to monetary needs of individual's. This is significant for small social enterprise organisations seeking to retain managers; not through the promise of high salaries and bonuses but instead through proving opportunities that will match manager's career path needs