THE SELF-DIRECTED CAREER IN AN ERA OF ECONOMIC INSTABILITY: OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS IN CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON

Abstract

 This paper seeks to explore and provide critical commentary on the notion of the self-directed career in light of empirical findings on the changing landscape of work and working Germany and Korea. Couched in the broader discourse of employability, self-directed career behavior includes a range of affordances, including increased autonomy in employment settings, job crafting, intra-preneurship, and the boundaryless or protean career. While much research, particularly that situated in organizational behavior and industrial psychology, assigns positive meaning to these new forms of work and working, a more critical reading of the literature suggest that self-directed career may be the exception rather than the rule, may be reserved for an elite set of occupations and roles in organizations, and may run counter to the expectations and needs of a majority of the workforce. The paper concludes with a call for the careful evaluation of the costs and benefits of self-directed career, and the need for HRD research and theory to address the implications of the changing nature of work in scholarship and models for practice. 

Keywords

• Career Research

THE SELF-DIRECTED CAREER IN AN ERA OF ECONOMIC INSTABILITY OPPORTUNITIES AND LIMITATIONS IN CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON

Abstract

 This paper seeks to explore and provide critical commentary on the notion of the self-directed career in light of empirical findings on the changing landscape of work and working Germany and Korea. Couched in the broader discourse of employability, self-directed career behavior includes a range of affordances, including increased autonomy in employment settings, job crafting, intra-preneurship, and the boundaryless or protean career. While much research, particularly that situated in organizational behavior and industrial psychology, assigns positive meaning to these new forms of work and working, a more critical reading of the literature suggest that self-directed career may be the exception rather than the rule, may be reserved for an elite set of occupations and roles in organizations, and may run counter to the expectations and needs of a majority of the workforce. The paper concludes with a call for the careful evaluation of the costs and benefits of self-directed career, and the need for HRD research and theory to address the implications of the changing nature of work in scholarship and models for practice. 

Keywords

• Career Research,Protean career,Employability,Critical HRD,New Work

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35. Running head: CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE