Career anchors of social enterprise managers in the UK-an empirical analysis

This paper examines the dominant career anchors of third sector social enterprise managers and the relation of their career anchors with the job environment. The research found that autonomy career anchor was ranked significantly higher than any other career anchor, which suggests that social enterprise managers have a higher need for a job environment that allows them to set their own work pace and develop expertise. The findings make an important contribution to new knowledge and provides an empirical support for the use of Schein’s (1978, 1990) career anchor model as a tool to measure social enterprise managerial career anchors in the third sector. A mixed method research design was employed. A survey and semi-structured interviews were conducted with forty social enterprise managers working in the UK. The paper concludes with implications for theory and practice.