Have careers become boundaryless?

Abstract

The idea the boundaryless career has recently permeated the careers literature. However, critics have claimed that the concept is fuzzy and difficult to operationalize. Moreover, one of the core assumptions, namely the collapse of traditional organizational careers allied to increasing mobility across organizational boundaries, has rarely been seriously analysed in the careers literature. This article aims to take forward the analysis of the boundaryless career concept in two ways. First, we discuss its conceptual and operational problems. We argue that the current debate, focused on the permeability of organizational boundaries, fails fully to address the complexity of contemporary careers. Second, we integrate contributions from labour economics on job stability to argue that the assumption of the collapse of the traditional career model is not supported by the evidence. In our conclusions, we draw on boundary theory to outline the potential of a different approach to the conceptualization of career boundaries.