The fifth theme to be outlined, careering as both contextualised and individual, helps to bring together each of the other themes discussed in the preceding sections of this chapter. The first two chapters have demonstrated limited consideration of the impact of context upon career and career change within scholarly literature. However,
developing careering as a theoretical construct directs attention to the contextualised nature of careers whilst also sensitising the researcher to a comprehension of careering as an individual journey constituted of differing responses to the multiple different levels of context which interact within this. Consequently, in developing greater insight into the significance of context upon career, and change within, it is necessary to study an individual’s interpretation of their own experiences. As demonstrated within the preceding discussion which outlined careering as part of the life-world, Tiedeman (1999) recognises careering as an individual strategy within the context of the lifeworld to demonstrate how it is interwoven with other aspects of the individual’s life. The following section will review how other careering literature encompasses alternative levels of context whilst also accentuating the individual nature of careering.
The above-mentioned research of Clarke and Knights (2015) argues careering is an individualistic strategy in response to contextual influences. Specifically, in response to pressures arising from the wider social context within which the professional careers under study are enacted within. Clarke et al., recognise the immediate professional and organisational context as a condition of the wider social context. Managerial pressures upon academics within Business Schools and the public sector were acknowledged as being a consequence of new managerial regimes drawn from private sectors, themselves a consequence of neo-liberal culture. Clarke et al., recognise responses to such pressures as individualised whilst also recognising elements of careerism within each of these individual strategies, to suggest that the professional group under study are in pursuit of a single illusive goal; securing a stable and secure identity (or at the very least ethical subjectivity). The findings revealed that whilst some participants conformed with managerial regimes premised upon technologies of visibility and self-discipline a small number demonstrated resistance and sought a more embodied engagement with their work. Clarke et al., draw upon the alternative sense of careering discussed above to describe individual responses to contextual influences as ‘frantic and frenetic’ (2015:1865), describing academics as “hurtling out of control” (2015:1866). However, they also propose that individuals were; “heading for one specific goal that obscures all else” (2015:1866) and consequently also introduce aspects of control. This juxtaposition makes an interesting contribution to the advancement of careering as a theoretical construct.
In demonstrating an evident careerist orientation within their research findings Clarke et al., (2015) indicate a high degree of individual autonomy, personal agency, choice and drive in the pursuit of career. However, it is interesting to question the extent to which this outcome is driven by the research population under investigation; and to consider how this would emerge across a broader range of professional, occupational or organisational groups. Academics are subject to rigorous professional entry structures requiring a high level of academic qualification, undertaken over a number of years, prior to admission to professional academic hierarchical structures which provide a clear path to progression. Nevertheless, Clarke and Knights application of careering facilitates a perspective upon career which embraces aspects of uncontrollability, demonstrating the influence of contextual factors arising from multiple factors within which the individual, their occupational group and employing organisation interact, and recognises both commonality and individuality within responses and ensuing strategies of careering.
Likewise, Arthur et al., (1999) recognise the contextual influence of the ‘new economy’; characterised by “dynamic, competitive and technology-driven forces in which the creation and flow of knowledge is a key consideration” across a range of occupational groups (1999:x). Arthur et al acknowledge the term ‘careering’ but alternatively draw upon the construct of ‘enactment’ (Weick, 1995) as a theoretical framework through which to study the career stories of participants. However, they conceptualise the two as overlapping constructs, to understand; “‘careering’ or at least the enactment of careers as a process which creates, but also constantly modifies, the structures of institutions and of individual lives” (Arthur et al., 1999:165). The discourse of ‘enactment’ facilitates the integration of a theatrical analogy to illustrate the enactment of careers upon the stage of the new economic ‘theater’; a new employment environment within which employment ties are loosened and become more temporary and organisations are developing wider networks. Arthur et al., draw upon Barley (1989) to suggest that historical institutional scripts fail to equip career actors for the “novel, improvisation parts” they are to enact within the new economy ((1999:18). Thereby Arthur et al., bring together the contextualised but individualised nature of careering by emphasising personal agency within such processes of improvisation in response to the contextual influences of the new economy. The practical value of such an approach is also recognised by Arthur et al., in suggesting that careers can be better
understood by employers if they are considered “not as structures predetermined by the company, but as processes driven by individuals. Like organizing, ‘careering’ can be regarded as a process enacted by autonomous individuals, linked in turn to other individuals through relationships in networks” (1999:172). Drawing upon Arthur et al.’s study of enactment within the career is evidently insightful in informing the construct of careering, particularly in the way in which it draws upon everyday experiences of career, endeavouring to study how these experiences become linked in patterns which come to constitute career.