Journal of Career Development, Vol. 28, No. 1, Fall 2001 ( 2001) Self-Renewal and Inter-Organizational Transition Among Women Principals Izhar Oplatka Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel The study outlines several elements of the self-renewal process among women principals who made inter-organizational transition in mid-career. Based on findings from an exploratory study, conducted among Israeli women school principals in mid-career, the study presents the process of self-renewal that was experienced by these managers in their mid-career. This process included coping with a lack of self-fulfillment, setting new goals, reframing of their managerial perspectives, energy replenishing, reinforcing of their innovative behavior and looking for new sources of challenge. An emphasis is given to the contextual and biographic determinants promoting and enabling the exis- tence of the process of renewal among mid-career changers. KEYWORDS: self-renewal; inter-organizational career transition; mid-career change; mid-career. One of the career transitions often neglected in the writings and studies of mid-career is the inter-organizational transition (IOT) (Sul- livan, 1999). Several issues regarding the IOT in mid-career relate to what happens to professionals who make an IOT, and how phenomena such as burnout and self-renewal might be connected to that transi- tion. One issue, the process of self-renewal, which might be experi- enced in mid-career stage (Bejian & Salomone, 1995), was the focus of the current study that explored the internal experiences of women principals in mid-career. This research was conducted as a doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Pro- fessor David Bargal and Professor Dan Inbar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Address correspondence to Izhar Oplatka, Ben Gurion University, Dept. of Education, P.O.B. 653, Beer Sheva, Israel; e-mail: oplatkai@bgumail.bgu.ac.il. 59 0894-8453/01/0900-0059$19.50/0  2001 Human Sciences Press, Inc.