Studies on the career paths of municipal police officers have revealed an emergence of four distinct phases which officers pass through during their professional careers, phases where the perception of their profession changes. These phases are more constant at the patrol officer level where most officers begin and finish their career. Among these four phases is the disillusion phase (between 6 and 13 years), where the expectations at work are not met. The perception of the police administration, the public and the criminal justice system, all become negative and the hope for promotions diminish. These studies were mainly conducted in a period where there were very few or no women in policing. Through a feminist perspective and a social constructionist theoretical framework, this thesis makes the hypothesis that because women have different expectations at work, a varying work/life balance and a contrasting aspiration to attain positions of power, women will live this second phase differently. To explore this hypothesis, data was collected from ten semi-structured interviews with female patrol officers having worked between 6 and 13 years in municipal police departments. A discourse analysis effectively shows significant differences for the reasons underlying our hypotheses. Even if they have some frustrations about certain aspects of their work, we did not see any disillusionment from any women in this phase.

Dans un contexte international changeant et peu prévisible, des événements non contrôlés peuvent intervenir sur le cursus professionnel de l’individu qui peut, alors, engager une « seconde carrière ». Toutefois, ce ré-enclenchement de carrière est plus compliqué pour une catégorie d’individu : les seniors. Le taux d’emploi des seniors de 55 à 64 ans est de 38,9 % en 2009, ce qui montre la difficulté pour ces individus de prolonger leurs vies professionnelles. La littérature sur les carrières propose deux approches sur le sujet : objective et subjective, et introduit le concept de « cycle de carrière ». Notre recherche consiste à expliquer la structuration du cycle de carrière objectif et celle du cycle de carrière subjectif à travers l’identification des événements non contrôlés par l’individu, appelés « incidents critiques de carrière ». L’étude réalisée à partir du cas Worldwide Express a montré l’existence de cycles de carrière objectifs et subjectifs monocyclique et multi-cyclique. Elle a également mis en évidence des incidents critiques de carrière individuels et organisationnels ayant une influence « positive » ou « négative » sur le cours de carrière de l’individu. Cette recherche a permis d’identifier des caractéristiques communes et propres à la structuration des cycles de carrière objectifs et subjectifs. Enfin, l’étude empirique a montré qu’il était impossible pour les seniors de 50 ans et plus de réenclencher un nouveau cycle de carrière objectif ou subjectif. En effet, à partir de cet âge, les incidents critiques de carrière influent toujours négativement sur la vie professionnelle de ces individus. Cette recherche propose aux seniors et aux organisations de se saisir des incidents critiques de carrière afin de pouvoir réenclencher une nouvelle « partie » de carrière. Pour cela, il leur est suggéré d’« oublier » la notion d’âge et de considérer plutôt l’âge de carrière, c'est-à-dire les expériences vécues, comme critère déterminant dans la gestion de carrière. / In a changing and unpredictable international environment, uncontrolled events may occur in an individual’s career which results in the beginning of a “second career”. However, this restarting career is more complicated for a category of persons: the old workers. In 2009, the employment rate was 38.9% for individuals aged 55 to 64 which shows the difficulty for those people to prolong their working life. The literature proposes two approaches for this subject: objective and subjective, and introduces the “career lifecycle” concept. Our research is to explain the objective and subjective career cycle structures by identifying events uncontrolled by individuals, called “critical career incident”. The study based on the Worldwide Express case, showed the existence of mono-cycle and multi-cycle objective and subjective career lifecycle. It also highlighted critical incidents of individual and organizational careers which could be “positive” or “negative” for the individual’s career. This research has identified common characteristics that are appropriate to the objective and subjective career cycle structures. Finally, the empirical study showed that it was impossible for the old workers aged 50 or more to restart a new objective or subjective career cycle. Indeed, from this age the critical incidents in their career always influence negatively the professional life on these persons. This study proposes to the old workers and the organizations to understand the critical incidents of their career in order to start with a new “step” for the latter. For this reason it is suggested to “forget” the notion of age but rather to the age of the carreer, i.e. experiences as a decisive criterion in career management.

Studies on the career paths of municipal police officers have revealed an emergence of four distinct phases which officers pass through during their professional careers, phases where the perception of their profession changes. These phases are more constant at the patrol officer level where most officers begin and finish their career. Among these four phases is the disillusion phase (between 6 and 13 years), where the expectations at work are not met. The perception of the police administration, the public and the criminal justice system, all become negative and the hope for promotions diminish. These studies were mainly conducted in a period where there were very few or no women in policing. Through a feminist perspective and a social constructionist theoretical framework, this thesis makes the hypothesis that because women have different expectations at work, a varying work/life balance and a contrasting aspiration to attain positions of power, women will live this second phase differently. To explore this hypothesis, data was collected from ten semi-structured interviews with female patrol officers having worked between 6 and 13 years in municipal police departments. A discourse analysis effectively shows significant differences for the reasons underlying our hypotheses. Even if they have some frustrations about certain aspects of their work, we did not see any disillusionment from any women in this phase.

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