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Allen, T.D., Eby, L.T., Poteet, M.L. et al.(2004). Career benefits associatedwith mentoring for protgs: A meta-analysis. Journal of AppliedPsychology, 89, 127136.

Arnold, J. & Cohen, L. (2008). Thepsychology of careers in industrial-organizational settings: A critical butappreciative analysis. In G.P.Hodgkinson & J.K. Ford (Eds.)International Review of

Industrial/Organizational Psychology,Vol. 23 (pp.144). Chichester: Wiley.

Arthur, M.B., Hall, D.T. & Lawrence, B.S.(Eds.) (1989). Handbook of careertheory. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Arthur, M.B., Inkson, K. & Pringle, J.(1999). The new careers. London:Sage.

Arthur, M.B. & Rousseau, D. (Eds.)(1996). The boundaryless career.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.Bosley, S., Arnold, J. & Cohen, L. (2009).

How other people shape our careers:A typology drawn from careernarratives. Human Relations, 62,14871520.

Briscoe, J.P., Hall, D.T. & FrautschyDeMuth, R.L. (2006). Protean andboundaryless careers: An empiricalexploration. Journal of VocationalBehavior, 69, 3047.

Byron, K. (2005). A meta-analytic reviewof workfamily conflict and itsantecedents. Journal of VocationalBehavior, 67, 169198.

Collin, A. & Patton, W. (Eds.) Vocationalpsychological and organisationalperspectives on career. Rotterdam:Sense.

Collin, A. & Watts, A.G. (1996). The deathand transfiguration of career and ofcareer guidance? British Journal of

The consistent and sometimesexaggerated emphasis on theunpredictability of careers thesedays has prompted an assertion of the need and the capacity ofindividuals to take control. In turn,this helpfully exposes a number oftensions and ambiguities in thestudy of career. These need to beexplored rather than bypassed by a new orthodoxy. Exploration canlead to innovative and balancedanalyses of how people and theircareers develop, how the notion ofcareer success can be construed,how career is an inherently socialprocess, and how career and otherarenas of life interact.

What does career mean to you?Perhaps it conjures notions ofstatus, advancement, and intrinsicsatisfaction. Perhaps there is an implicitcontrast with job, meaning somethingyou do (probably somewhat grudgingly)to earn a living. For some years now,most psychologists have tried toovercome this divide by defining careermore inclusively. For example Arthur etal. (1989, p.8) have provided a nowwidely used definition The evolvingsequence of a persons work experiencesover time, whilst Collin and Watts (1996,p.386) offer The individuals developmentin learning and work throughout life.The notions of time and sequence, notstatus or advancement, are whatdifferentiates career from other work-related concepts.

These inclusive definitions of careerare intended to legitimise everyonesjourneys through the labour market. Theyare also a response to a widespread viewthat for many people careers are lesspredictable and secure than they were inthe post World War II era (Arthur et al.,1999). They open up to psychologists thepossibility of studying and facilitating thework lives of everyone, not just theprivileged. To some extent they alsoincorporate life outside work. Forexample, leading US vocationalpsychologist Mark Savickas refers to lifedesign in preference to career choice orcareer development (Savickas et al., 2009).

Within psychology, there is a clearand long-established divide between thestudy of decisions about what occupationto enter (often called vocational

psychology), and the study of careers inorganisational settings, which is part oforganisational psychology (Erdheim et al.,2007). In my view, most of the recentinnovative thinking in careers psychologyhas originated in its organisational wing,perhaps because recent technological andeconomic changes have producedturbulence in the ways in which careersin organisations are played out.

Some argue that bettercommunication, if not integration, of both vocational and organisationalpsychology would be helpful (Collin &Patton, 2009). Even so, in recent yearssome key concepts have been developedthat can be used in both traditions. Morespecifically, much of the agenda has for thelast 15 years or so been dominated by twoinfluential but speculative concepts ofcareer. The first is the boundaryless career(Arthur & Rousseau, 1989). This ispresented as a contrast to what hadtraditionally been considered a career. It is seen as transcending the boundaries oforganisations and occupations, sustainedby social networks, intertwined with otherparts of peoples lives, and under personalcontrol if a person chooses to exert it. Theboundaryless career is portrayed as anentity, something out there waiting to bediscovered.

The other career concept is theprotean career, first mentioned by Hall in1975 but not developed until years later(e.g. Hall, 2002). The protean career is saidto be self-directed and values-driven: theperson both takes responsibility and hasthe power to shape the form their careertakes, and this responsibility and power isexerted in order to express what mattersmost to the person. The default values arefreedom and growth.

These two concepts have shapedresearch in careers psychology in at leastthree ways. First, many writers use them as a backdrop an uncontroversialdescription of the way things are and areason to focus on phenomena related tothem. This is common. Despite scholarsclaims that they are taking a criticalapproach, the boundaryless and protean

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Arnold, J. & Cohen, L. (2008). Thepsychology of careers in industrial-organizational settings: A critical butappreciative analysis. In G.P.Hodgkinson & J.K. Ford (Eds.)International Review ofIndustrial/Organizational Psychology,Vol. 23 (pp.144). Chichester: Wiley.

Academy of Management CareersDivision: www.cardiv.org

On the basis of what is presented in thisarticle, what insights from other areasof psychology is careers psychologymissing out on?

ARTI

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Career concepts in the 21st century John Arnold reviews psychological and social definitions of career and careersuccess and their implications for research

career concepts seem on the whole to havefound acceptance with remarkable ease(see, for example, a recent review bySullivan & Baruch, 2009). This mayhowever be undeserved.

Second, a few writers have tested theconcepts by investigating the extent andways in which the careers experienced and enacted by people match with theconcepts. For example, analyses of theapplicability of the protean andboundaryless career concepts to somewhatless individualist cultures have notsurprisingly revealed some limitations,(e.g. Pringle & Mallon, 2003), mostnotably how peoples community andfamily affiliations influence the values andpriorities they bring to their career. In arare test of the assumptions underlying theconcepts, Rodrigues and Guest (2010)examine data on job stability and find that,contrary to much of the rhetoric, mobilitybetween employers has not beenincreasing during the nineties andnoughties.

Third, some scholars, especiallyArthur, Hall and close colleagues, haveexpounded further on the nature andimplications of boundaryless and proteancareers and tried to develop questionnaireassessments of the extent to whichindividuals endorse the two conceptsand/or experience their careers in waysthat reflect them (e.g. Briscoe et al., 2006).

Pros and cons of the protean andboundaryless career conceptsThe concepts of the boundaryless andprotean career certainly have their meritsand their uses, but they are problematicin many ways as bases for guidingresearch and practice. My colleagueLaurie Cohen and I have discussed this in some depth (Arnold & Cohen, 2008),and recently a very good overview ofissues surrounding the boundarylesscareer concept has been provided byInkson et al. (2010). In general, there is confusion and ambiguity regardingwhether the concepts I provide descriptions of how careers are

these days, or prescriptions of howthey should be;

I offer analyses of observable behaviouror of states of mind;

I represent unitary constructs or clustersof specific features of careers that mayor may not co-occur; and

I construe peoples career behaviour asunfettered individual action or acreative response to the unpredictabledemands of free-market economies.

The last of these issues is partiallyaddressed by Hall (2002), who positionsthe need to know ones own values as part of a discourse of personal flexibilitywhilst hanging on to ones core sense ofself in times of unpredictable change. The location of this in an individualistfree-market economy is confirmed by hisstatement that we must consider both the persons path with a heart and theemployers path to profits (Hall, 2002,p.303). There is also an obvious tendencyto focus on people with marketable skillsand experience whilst neglecting thosewith less room for manoeuvre, andindeed arguably also overlooking the

ways in which even more privilegedpeople dance to tunes played by those in economic power (Hirsch & Shanley,1996).

Despite the problems noted above, theboundaryless and protean career conceptsclearly resonate with many people, at leastin Western liberal democracies. Mycolleague Martin Gubler has found in hisdoctoral research that they capture theinterest of potential participants in hisstudy of IT professionals careers in three

European countries.One problem is how toturn the boundarylesscareer and proteancareer into constructsand measures thatmeet social scientificrequirements. As yetthis is unresolved. Asone US researcher saidto me: It seems youcan either have themagic or the measure,but not both. Thereference to magicsupports what manyreaders may already bethinking: that there is a

lot of management gurutype hand-waving andreferences to poorlydefined but appealingconcepts.

On the other hand,by picking up on what real people arethinking and saying, careers scholars are at least offering the possibility that thisparticular tributary of social science willengage with the public. The concepts alsofocus attention on some significantphenomena within careers that havesometimes been noted but rarely pursued.One of these is the interplay betweensequences of work experiences and what ishappening (and what the person is seekingto do) in other arenas of their life. Thereare interesting discussions about how workand other arenas of life may interact (e.g.Greenhaus & Powell, 2006). These extendthe well-established workfamily conflict

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Guidance and Counselling, 24,385398.

Dries, N., Pepermans, R. & Carlier, O.(2008). Career success: Constructinga multi-dimensional model. Journalof Vocational Behavior, 73, 254267.

Erdheim, J., Zickar, M.J. & Yankelevich,M. (2007). Remembering Donald GPaterson: Before the separation ofindustrial-organizational andvocational psychology. Journal of

Vocational Behavior, 70, 205221. Forrier, A., Sels, L. & Stynen, D. (2009).

Career mobility at the intersectionbetween agent and structure: Aconceptual model. Journal ofOccupational and OrganizationalPsychology, 82, 739759.

Fried, Y., Grant, A.M., Levi, A.S. et al.(2007). Job design in temporalcontext: A career dynamicsperspective. Journal of Organizational

Behavior, 28, 911927.Greenhaus, J.H. & Powell, G.N. (2006).

When work and family are allies: Atheory of workfamily enrichment.Academy of Management Review, 31,7292.

Hall, D.T. (2002). Careers in and out oforganizations. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage.

Hamori, M. & Kakarika, M. (2009)External labor market strategy and

career success: CEO careers inEurope and the United States.Human Resource Management, 48,355378.

Harris, L.C. & Ogbonna, E. (2006).Approaches to career success: Anexploration of surreptitious careersuccess strategies. Human ResourceManagement, 45, 4365.

Hartung, P.J. & Taber, B.J. (2008). Careerconstruction and subjective well-

Mobility between employers has not been increasing duringthe nineties and noughties

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literature (see, for example Byron, 2005)and explicitly consider the ways in whichfacilitation might occur. They alsopotentially expand the arena of careerspsychology beyond the study of sequencesof roles to include interplay betweencontemporaneous ones. More empiricalresearch on how these arenas of life affecteach other over time would combine thesequential and contemporaneousperspectives, as well as facilitating a much-needed rapprochement of career andlifespan developmental psychology(Lachman, 2004; Posthuma & Campion,2009).

The concepts also encourage moreattention to the role of boundaries incareers. Writers on the boundaryless careersee boundaries as bad because they hempeople in. But do they really mean abarrier? Could boundaries actually be goodin some ways? For example, boundariesmay provide a much-needed cognitive mapthat helps people construct narratives oftheir career. Indeed, the construction ofsatisfactory and satisfying narratives is seenby some as a key career development taskthese days (Hartung & Taber, 2008).

Anchors and craftingHow do people navigate and experiencethe mix of individual action andstructural constraints, and the ways inwhich they feel they can be self-directed?What values do they pursue in doing so are these necessarily freedom and growth?Schein (1993) developed a scheme ofeight clusters of values that he referred to as career anchors (e.g. autonomy/independence, security/stability, anddedication to a cause). Investigation of how each anchor does or does not fitwith the pursuit of careers that can bedescribed as Boundaryless or Protean islong overdue.

Also, Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001) have discussed what they called jobcrafting. This refers to the ways in whichpeople seek to do their job in their ownway. They may mould the job to fit theirpersonal preferences and plans, and often

of course this can bein service of theirfuture career beyondthis present job(Fried et al., 2007).Again, the notion ofjob crafting speaksto the ways in whichindividual agencyand structuralfeatures of theworkplace interactin practice. Butalthough theWrzesniewski andDutton article isfrequently cited,empirical researchon job crafting isthin on the ground.

Similar potential is evident in theincreasingly popular construct of careeradaptability (Savickas, 1997; Savickas etal., 2009). This is defined as self-regulationin response to the need to adapt todisequilibrium, and has four proposedcomponents: concern, control, curiosity,and confidence. If embraced rather thanignored, the tension between individualagency and personal development on theone hand and the dictates of the labourmarket on the other can lead to theoreticaland practical advances.

Career successMost of us are interested in knowing howwe could be more successful, and careersuccess (but not failure) is a longstandingand hugely popular research topic. In ameta-analysis, Ng et al. (2005) found thatvariables reflecting personality and socialsupport or affirmation tended to becorrelated with career satisfaction but notsalary, whilst the reverse was true forsocio-demographic and human capitalvariables, such as gender and educationalqualifications. They also found that menwere paid higher salaries than women onaverage, though the gap was smaller inmore recent studies than in older ones. In the UK, eye-catching headlines such as

Gender equality is 57 years away (fromthe Chartered Institute of Management inAugust 2010) suggest that the gapreduction is a slow process indeed.According to Ng and colleagues, levels ofcareer satisfaction did not differ betweenmen and women, but some predictors ofsuccess did differ. For example,education, hours worked andAgreeableness were stronger correlates of womens salaries than mens.

Unfortunately, much of this research is fairly unimaginative, in that success isusually measured by position in and/orprogress through an organisationalhierarchy or pay structure. Careersatisfaction is most often measured interms of satisfaction with status and pay, orunspecified other criteria. Ironically giventhe prominence of notions of sequence andtime in career, most research on careersuccess (and careers in general) is notlongitudinal, so what are often referred toas predictors of success would be betterdescribed as correlates. More sophisticatedand differentiated operationalisations ofcareer success are needed, such as thatoffered by Dries et al. (2008). Thisincludes additional criteria that manypeople appear to value, such as (forexample) being creative, making ameaningful contribution, and job security.

being. Journal of Career Assessment,16, 7585.

Harvey, M. & Moeller, M. (2009).Expatriate managers: A historicalreview. International Journal ofManagement Reviews, 11, 275296.

Hirsch, P.M. & Shanley, M. (1996). Therhetoric of boundaryless or, howthe newly empowered managerialclass bought into its ownmarginalisation. In M.B. Arthur &

D.M. Rousseau (Eds.) Theboundaryless career: A newemployment principle for a neworganizational era (pp.218234).Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Inkson, K., Ganesh, S., Roper, J. & Gunz,H. (2010, August). The boundarylesscareer: A productive concept thatmay have outlived its usefulness.Paper presented at the Academy ofManagement conference, Montreal.

Judge, T.A., Cable, D.M., Boudreau, J. &Bretz, R.D. (1995). An empiricalinvestigation of the predictors ofexecutive career success. PersonnelPsychology, 48, 485519.

Kidd, J.M., Hirsh, W. & Jackson, C.(2004). Straight talking: The nature ofeffective career discussion at work.Journal of Career Development, 30,231245.

Lachman, M.E. (2004). Development in

midlife. Annual Review of Psychology,55, 305331.

Ng, T., Eby, L.T., Sorensen, K.L. &Feldman, D.C. (2005). Predictors ofobjective and subjective careersuccess: A meta-analysis. PersonnelPsychology, 58, 367408.

Posthuma, R.A. & Campion, M.A. (2009).Age stereotypes in the workplace:Common stereotypes, moderators,and future research directions.

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Work of this kind is especially important ifwe are taking seriously the general point inthe protean and boundaryless careerliterature that people need to and oftendo define their own personal criteria ofcareer success.

The career success literature is also crying out for a stronger and moregenerally applicable theoretical frameworkin which to interpret the many potentialpredictors. Without it much research begs as many questions as it answers. A favourite of mine is an article by Judge et al. (1995), who calculated the cashvalue of various predictors of the salariesof a sample of American managers. Theyfound that being a graduate of a top USuniversity was worth an impressive$31,000 and having a non-working spouse$22,000 (predictors were not cumulative!).Working one evening a week over andabove normal work hours was worth a more modest $4000. Of course, thequestion in each case is, why?

The possible explanations revolvearound what is usually called careercapital. This refers to peoplesaccumulations of assets that can help themto be successful. These include not onlypersonal attributes but also social contactsand relationships, and their significancedepends on how an individual deploysthem and how other people evaluate andprioritise them. Recently, the notion ofcapital has been developed further byForrier et al. (2009), who refer tomovement capital and locate it both inpersonal attributes and social structures.

Given that moves between jobs areoften undertaken as a means of achievingmore career success, it seems helpful toexamine predictors and outcomes of suchmoves. One much-studied arena in thisrespect is corporate expatriation, wheremuch research has focused on who isselected for international moves, whoaccepts them, what happens upon return,and the ways in which expats (and theiremploying organisations) gain and/or losecareer capital and future prospects (Harvey& Moeller, 2009). These moves do notalways live up to the it will be good for

your CV sales pitch. Regarding movesbetween employers, recent work byHamori and Kakarika (2009) suggests,perhaps surprisingly, that on both sides ofthe Atlantic sticking with one or a smallnumber of employers is better thanfrequent moves for making it to the top.Note again how easily the researchersconstrue careers in the narrow sense ofhierarchical advancement.

Social aspects of careersFor many years there has been somethingof an obsession amongst both researchersand practitioners with the role thatmentoring can play in careers, primarilyfor the person being mentored, but alsoon occasions for the mentor. Enthusiasmhas frequently outstripped empiricalevidence, but meta-analysis does suggestthat receiving mentoring does have(typically modest) career benefits for thementee (Allen et al., 2004). Building onthis, there has been increasing interest inso-called developmental networks whichreflect the entire array of relationshipsthat can contribute to a persons careerdevelopment. However, the impact ofthese networks has not yet beenexamined thoroughly, even though hereagain there is a tendency to assume thatdevelopmental networks must be a goodthing.

The role of social networks in careersuccess is a topic of longstanding interest,but again somewhat limited rigorousresearch. Some of the theorising here isquite sophisticated (e.g. Seibert et al.,2001), but at the same time the majority ofempirical research is cross-sectional. Thisis also true of careers research in general,and is a serious limitation given thecentrality of sequence and time indefinitions of career. There are someinteresting questions regarding the ways inwhich network features, such as structuralholes and weak vs. strong ties, might affectcareer success.

Structural holes refers to the extent towhich a person knows people who do notknow each other. This is thought to be

good because it enhances the range ofinformation and perspectives available tothe individual. Weak vs. strong ties refersto the depth of relationship between thefocal person and others. Weak ties are notan advantage in themselves, but they arepreferable to strong ties with only a fewother people (an implicit assumption hereis that most people will not have theresources to form and maintain a largenumber of strong ties). In other words,weak ties may be a surrogate for thenumber of other people a person has somekind of link with.

In a simultaneously refreshing andchilling piece of research, Harris andOgbonna (2006) have exposed the darkside of careers by eliciting the surreptitiouscareer strategies that staff in twoorganisations reported using. Most of thesewere social in nature and included creatinga sense of obligation in the boss by doinghim/her a favour, and subtly underminingrivals in conversation with influentialothers.

In a more wholesome vein, in recentyears research has begun to examine whatit is about relationships and interactions atwork that make them helpful for careerdevelopment (e.g. Bosley et al., 2009; Kiddet al., 2004). This reflects a welcomeexpansion of career thinking fromintrapersonal to interpersonal. It also alertsus to the potentially crucial nature ofrelationships in careers, as well as (morebroadly) the social construction that goesinto our understanding of our own careerand the careers of others. Along with large-scale cross-cultural longitudinal studies ofhow careers unfold, these are much-needed developments if careers research isto fulfil its potential.

Journal of Management, 35, 158188.Pringle, J.K. & Mallon, M. (2003)

Challenges for the boundarylesscareer odyssey. International Journalof Human Resource Management, 14,839853.

Rodrigues, R.A. & Guest, D. (2010). Havecareers become boundaryless?Human Relations, 63, 11571175.

Savickas, M.L., Nota, L., Rossier, J. et al.(2009). Life designing: A paradigm for

career construction in the 21stcentury. Journal of VocationalBehavior, 75, 239250.

Schein, E.H. (1993). Career anchors:Discovering your real values (rev. edn).London: Pfeiffer and Co.

Seibert, S.E., Kraimer, M.L. & Liden, R.C.(2001). A social capital theory ofcareer success. Academy ofManagement Journal, 44, 219237.

Sullivan, S.E. & Baruch, Y. (2009).

Advances in career theory andresearch: A critical review andagenda for future exploration. Journalof Management, 35, 15421571.

Wrzesniewski, A. & Dutton, J.E. (2001).Crafting a job: Revisioning employeesas active crafters of their work.Academy of Management Review, 26,179201.

John Arnoldis Professor of OrganisationalBehaviour and Director ofResearch, School of Businessand Economics,Loughborough Universityj.m.arnold@lboro.ac.uk