Theory

Work Adjustmentof

Prepared by: Jeel Christine C. de Egurrola

Originally developed by René Dawis, George England and Lloyd Lofquist from the University of Minnesota in 1964.

Theory of Work Adjustment

Career choice and development continuous process of adjustment and accommodation in which:

A person (P) looks for work organizations and

environments (E) that would match his/her

“requirements” in terms of needs

E in turn looks for individuals who have the

capabilities to meeting the “requirements” of the

organization

Anchored on the person-environment correspondence/ person-environment fit theory

Theory of Work Adjustment

Theory of Work Adjustment

The more closely a person’s abilities (skills, knowledge, experience, attitude, behaviors, etc.) correspond with the requirements of the role or the organization, the more likely it is that they will perform the job well and be perceived as satisfactory by the employer.

To P, the most central requirements to meet from E are his/her needs (or reinforcers) – psychological and physical needs (Values)

Theory of Work Adjustment

Dis-correspondence may occur for either the person and the environment.

Clients may enter career counseling expressing dissatisfaction with their jobs or career choices, but counselors are adviced to remember that these employees may be unsatisfactory; that is, the environment may be dissatisfied with him/her.

Theory of Work Adjustment

Adjustment Style

• P’s level of tolerance to P-E dis-correspondence

• Whether P has tendency to become easily dissatisfied

Flexibility

• Whether P has a tendency to actively change or actively change or act on E to reduce dis-correspondence and dis-satisfaction

Activeness

• Whether P would resort to self-adjustment in order to deal with dis-correspondence without actively changing or acting on E

Reactiveness

• P’s degree of resolve and persistence to adjust and accommodate before choosing to exit E.Perseverance

The person and the work environment act on and react to each other "in a mutual give and take" (Dawis, 2005; Dawis & Lofquist, 1984) to achieve and maintain correspondence with each other (Capuzzi & Stauffer, 2012)

Career choice and development is thus conceptualized as a continuous process or cycles of work adjustment initiated by the dis-satisfaction and dis-satisfactoriness. (Leung, 2008)

Theory of Work Adjustment

Google Book• Brown, S.D. & Lent, R. W. (2012). Career development and counseling"

Putting theory and research to work [Google Books version]. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=U_9315vv3d8C&dq=person+-+environment+did-correspondence&source=gbs_navlinks_s

• Capuzzi, D. & Stauffer M.D. (2012). Career counseling: Foundations, perspectives, and applications [Google Books version]. Retrieved from: http://books.google.com.ph/books?id=Pq0JILHV0TIC&dq=person+-+environment+did-correspondence&source=gbs_navlinks_s

• Leung, S.A. (2008). The big five career theories. Internatonal Handbook of Career Guidance. 115-132. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-6230-8_6

Internet• Winter, D. (n.d.). Theory of work adjustment. Retrieved from

https://careersintheory.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/theories_twa.pdf

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