The New Careers: Individual Action and Economic Change Book

`To career used to mean to swerve wildly or to go swiftly. In this beautifully argued, richly documented, original, liberating work, Arthur, Inkson, and Pringle demonstrate that the new careers once more are about swift swerves, unexpected agency, and enacted opportunities and constraints. Readers will think about the future in ways they never imagined possible. This is a good book. People need to get it in their hands to see how good it is'- Karl Weick, University of Michigan TheNew Careers offers a major new approach to the concept of career and the relation of the individual to the contemporary workplace. It shows that our traditional conceptions of careers are rooted in the stable conditions of the Industrial State model which has dominated the 20th century and that new models, better attuned to the New Economy of the late 20th and early 21st centuries are now needed. Current data show that individuals are much more mobile in their careers than would be assumed under established models. It suggests that far from having their careers determined for them by larger corporate forces, most people enact their careers, improvisationally but purposefully, upon the texture of economic institutions. In these processes the traditional assumption of enduring symbiotic relationships between individuals and their employers is increasingly problematic. People enact their careers, and also help to enact the companies, occupations, industries and society through which careers unfold.This book points to careers as actions rather than structures, as a means of learning rather than means of earning, and as boundaryless entities rather than constrained ones. It also points to the return of the career as a key concept in social analysis, but shows that in the light of new phenomena, the 'career' as we traditionally know it will never be the same again.This innovative and accessible book is based on work for which Michael Arthur, Kerr Inkson and Judith Pringle won the Academy of Management prize for best section paper, which forms the core of this book.Read More