Sustainable career development for R&D professionals: Applying a career development system in Basque country

Abstract

The goal of this study is to measure the effectiveness of a career development system implemented at a research and technology organization at satisfying the context requirements of a decree issued by the Basque Country government. Through in-depth surveying of 80 R&D professionals over the five years, the authors aimed to determine whether a career development system, when it is linked to context requirements and researchers’ contributions, could offer researchers feedback about their career aims and increase their job satisfaction. During the five years of the study, the researchers’ capacity to meet career requirements improved by 20%, and job satisfaction, although it declined at first, increased substantially in the last two years, reaching a historic high for the employee satisfaction survey.

Keywords

• Career development
• R&D personnel
• Research and technology organization
• Knowledge-intensive firms
• Employee job satisfaction