| Through a phenomenological study of 32 mid-career professionals enrolled in a one-year executive education program, this dissertation demonstrates (1) how work-related failure is experienced as a disorienting dilemma in career development and (2) processes by which failure may become a catalyst for transformational learning. A grounded theory analysis reveals that significant failure experiences can sufficiently disrupt one's meaning schema for interpreting career experience (including assumptions stemming from one's success orientation, cultural and social history, and occupational context) to generate conditions conducive to transformational learning (Mezirow, 1978, 1991, 2000; Kegan, 1982, 1994). Epistemological analyses suggest that a capacity for psychological ownership (or "self-authorship," Kegan, 1982) of the failure experience corresponds with an ability to identify the assumptions in question, reassess and reconstruct those assumptions to accommodate novel insight, and integrate this new understanding into an enhanced meaning schema for interpreting future career experience and vocational identity.; Informed by the preliminary findings of a pilot study and a literature review of the methodologies guiding traditional studies in performance attribution theory, this research analyzed learning narratives collected through a series of transcribed audio-taped interviews, reflective writing exercises, and a 40-question survey including both multiple choice and open-ended items. Viewing the story as the unit of analysis, hermeneutic techniques consistent with the principles of grounded theory guided emic and etic coding schemas, contextual and cross-case analyses (Maxwell, 1994; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Strauss & Corbin, 1998), and profiles of individuals' substantive and structural learning frameworks (Mezirow, 1978, 1991; Kegan & Lahey, 1988).; Theoretically, this dissertation's phenomenological contribution stands in contrast to the large volume of simulated clinical trials that form the basis of attribution theory as the dominant body of achievement motivation literature today. The practical aim of this inquiry is to assist adult educators (including workplace trainers, executive coaches, business professors, and continuing/adult educators) in constructing life-based curricular models in which experiences from the adult learners' own work history provide the basis for study, reflection, and transformational learning outcomes (Harbison, 2002; Harbison & Kegan, 1999). |
