Organizational Careers

Abstract

Careers are shaped, constrained, and conditioned by organization. People's work lives in organizations may be customarily thought to illustrate the career concept, but careers have broader applicability. The sociological study of careers owes much of its origin to Everett Hughes and the Chicago School of sociology. A leading perspective emphasized the two‐sidedness of careers, in which people are characterized by interactive objective and subjective career characteristics. Central to the career concept are the ideas of turning points, status transitions, organizational age norms, and timetables. “Cooling out” is a central process by which career adaptations are socially executed. This process is endemic in American and in other Western societies, which calls attention to an under‐considered paradox: Careers simultaneously link individuals to stable social structures but are also vehicles by which culture engenders social pathology. Future work is necessary to examine careers as a fraught site of interchange between micro and macro dynamics.