Career Narratives Research Articles

Becoming a Young Farmer in the Digital Age—An Island Perspective*

AbstractThis study investigates the career construction paths of young farmers and aims to contribute to the literature on the “young farmer problem.” Of particular relevance is this study's focus on the potential of islands as a new career landscape in the digital age. Young farmers' subjective experiences toward careers were analyzed based on narrative interviews, quantitative surveys and expert interviews from two EU islands: Crete and the Azores. Firstly, the study provides insights on the behavioral and cognitive dimensions of the career construction model by identifying followed career paths. Secondly, we turn our focus to the role of digital communications in career construction and, thirdly, the study examines the geographical dimension of the model. We find that involvement with farming entails complex career patterns that evolve into passion. Whether their involvement follows planned or unplanned paths, protean career attitudes, desire to experiment, and a strong sense of career self‐concept play significant roles in shaping the career narratives. “Experience” and “management” dimensions of online communication drive the construction of careers as a part of a professional identity mechanism. Our results reveal that the “island effect” (maintaining a part‐time farming culture) plays a role in cohesive singular and multiple career self‐concepts.

Whistleblowing as a Career Crisis: Recovering from Retaliatory Job Loss through a Process of Bifurcation

Although whistleblowing is presented as an ethical action, the fate of the employee who has blown the whistle is often marked by reprisals, such as job loss. The literature has so far shown little interest in the whistleblower’s subsequent career. This article investigates how retaliatory job loss impacts his or her career path and the process for re-integrating into the labour market. Based on 11 career narratives focused on the professional experience of French whistleblowers, this article shows that they faced a bifurcation that can be schematized in six stages (event, moratorium, reassessment, job search, insertion, stabilization) as their emotions and actions change over time. As with any job loss, individuals face psychological difficulties associated with the grievance, but this article also highlights specificities, particularly in terms of isolation, reputation and trust in the business world. Their presence threatening the dominant norms, whistleblowers face contradictions and need the support of the social and institutional environment for their professional reintegration.

Music Video Gothic: Fragmentary Form at the Dawn of MTV

This article argues that the modern music video at the dawn of the MTV era embraces a logic of the Gothic fragment. Mobilizing an archive of gothic archetypes of haunting and monstrosity, the music video of the early 1980s confronts anxieties about its unshaped aesthetic character and discursive placelessness and its strained connections to absent textual wholes, performance cultures, and marginalized histories. Through a close reading of four seminal music videos from this time period – The Buggles' Video Killed the Radio Star (1979), David Bowie's Ashes to Ashes (1980), Blondie's Rapture (1981), and Michael Jackson's Thriller (1983) – I argue that the early music video incarnates a tradition of production, circulation, and decoding that I want to call Music Video Gothic. This tradition expresses latent concerns about the music video's aesthetic borders and intertextual relations with cultural and career narratives.

Understanding the career decision making of university students enrolled in STEM disciplines

This study investigated why university students choose to major in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine/health (STEM(M)) disciplines, and how their study and career-related confidence compares with that of their peers. The study engaged 12,576 students enrolled at Australian universities. The findings suggest that STEM(M) students’ career decision making is guided by their interest in the subject and their intentions to help people. Within the STEM(M) cohort, students in medicine and health were more confident in their career decision making than either their STEM or non-STEM(M) peers. Of interest, they were less aware of alternative career pathways and less prepared to reorient their careers should this be necessary. Female students reported greater confidence than male students in their career decision making, career identity, and career commitment. Implications include the need for career narratives beyond the STEM industries and for career development initiatives that are mindful of disciplinary and gendered differences.

Career life as a game: an overlooked metaphor for successful career transitions

ABSTRACT Meeting the psychological, social, and economic challenges of career transitions requires people to be increasingly flexible and hardy. In this article, we propose that envisioning one’s life as a game can foster well-being, coping strategies, and success with career transitions. The SuperBetter approach (McGonigal, 2015. Superbetter: A revolutionary approach to getting stronger, happier, braver and more resilient. Penguin) is presented as a metaphor that can provide clients with a new perspective for their lives and career narratives. The way each component of this metaphor can contribute to individuals’ well-being, motivation and success throughout career transitions is detailed. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

Attending to Clients' Psychological Needs During Career Construction Counseling

Attending to clients' psychological needs during career counseling merits more attention in career theory and practice. We describe how the elaboration of clients' needs during career construction counseling supports clients' problem formulation. After reviewing the literature on the psychology of needs, we present and illustrate an intervention strategy with a case example. Counseling vignettes from the initial counseling task of problem formulation illustrate how to facilitate clients' narrative symbolization of their emotional experiences and associated needs. We explain how this strategy contributes to deepening clients' understanding of their problems and facilitates both the rewriting of a career narrative and the construction of new career plans. Analysis of the possibilities and limits of this practice merits attention in career counseling process research.

Understanding social constructions of becoming an academic through women’s collective career narratives

ABSTRACT The transition of early career researchers into academic posts is understood to be a crucial career step and marks a point at which representation of women declines significantly. The research adopts a participatory qualitative research methodology through career narrative interviews and group discussions with women engineers recently appointed into academic posts. It was found that academic careers are ‘hoped for’, but not described as a straightforward option in terms of either securing tenure or future career development. The collective career paths outlined were rarely linear and featured key moments of crisis and self-doubt, culminating in ‘tentative’ career identity formation in the face of gendered career structures. There is evidence of a pre-emptive and continuing uncertainty about the feasibility of an academic career that begins years before embarking on a PhD. The distinctive contribution of the study is the consideration of gendered early processes of forming an academic identity and ongoing collective experiences of becoming an academic.

Enacting Scales: Reflections from an Anthropologist Working in Asia's Ad World

The conference theme for EPIC2020 is all about scale. For many, scale will probably evoke images of sizing up, moving forward, getting better. But does scale carry the same meaning in all contexts? Could scaling back be the key to enacting scales successfully? And is it possible to enact scales when ethnography and the broader topic of anthropology are unheard among those around you? Reflecting on my own experience working in Thailand and China and my encounters with other design and business anthropologists working in Asia, I share an honest career narrative about enacting scales. My PechaKucha speaks truthfully about the struggles in applying ethnography, and inspires with learnings on how anthropologists can adapt the broader practice of anthropology and find ways to continue contributing to organisations across societies in Asia.

A lifetime in the workplace: Continuity and change in image management of working women in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota

Professional women engage with individual and social issues of ageing, appearance and identity throughout their lives. The challenges professional women have faced since the 1970s have changed as to how they view themselves in new and varied contemporary careers and their perceptions of how others view them. Eleven career women in the Twin Cities, MN, were interviewed about how they managed their appearances throughout their careers. Responses were organized into groups built around the women’s early career narratives – 20s–30s, mid-career narratives – 40s–60s, late and post-career narratives – 70s–90s. We found that these women consciously thought about the meaning and impact of work and their work wardrobe as they passed through each career stage, especially in terms of impression and identity management. We learned through the stories they told how the art, practice and meaning around dressing for work changed over time – with both continuity and change in their expressed outcomes.

‘What Next’? Career Narratives of Women University Graduates in Times of Precarity

Building on emerging research on women’s careers and precarious employment, we conducted a longitudinal qualitative study of 16 young educated women over two years in the Greek post-crisis economy. By tracing their career trajectories and navigation of job-related experiences, we examine the subjective meanings these women attach to their career transitions. We find evidence of five career narratives, each indicative of the paths followed and the meanings they attribute to them as these women seek stable employment. These paths constitute trajectories, more cyclical than linear, based on goals predominant at the time, and influenced by situational constraints and coping responses to professional identity threat. Dysfunctional effects of persistence of old career identities contrast with a more resilient adjustment and pursuit of new identities. Results support the need to contextualize the study of career trajectory narratives and how they can change over time in accordance with individual goals, needs and opportunities.

Ideal or Idiosyncratic? How Women Manage Work-Family Role Conflict

By connecting research on managing work-family role conflict with research on role theory and relational identities, I explore the relationship between different domestic role set enactments and approaches to managing the work-family interface. Using the career narratives of 70 executive and non-executive women from the Middle East and Africa, I examine how their work-family strategies interacted with their career trajectories. At the core of my theoretical model is the process by which idiosyncratic versus ideal enactment of role sets between focal women and their multiple role senders result in distinct strategies for managing work-family role conflict. Whether women enacted an ideal or idiosyncratic version of their role was not up to them alone. It also mattered where multiple role senders were on a spectrum ranging from rejecting to cooperating. Women interacted with multiple domestic role senders and these role senders were particularly consequential because women’s roles at home (e.g., wife, daughter, sister) are rooted in relational identities. The consequences of these strategies on women’s career trajectories are discussed. This paper contributes to theories of relational elements of roles, work-family and gender in work and careers.

Sink or swim: career narratives of two African American athletes from underserved communities in the United States

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to explore the career narratives of professional athletes from underserved communities in the United States. Two African American athletes (named Marcus and Imari for the study), who both met the criteria of playing at least one year in a professional league and spending their formative years in an underserved community, participated in this study. Life story interviews lasting about two hours were explored through the principles of narrative analysis, focusing on both content and structure. Each participant constructed a sink or swim narrative typology termed risk, descent, and gain that focused more on the environmental context in an underserved community than their athletic development, which opposes the performance narrative often depicted by professional athletes. Although the contextualised nature of risk manifested differently for Marcus and Imari, their life courses both reflected low points precipitated by risky decisions or circumstances followed by gainful moments ultimately culminating in professional contracts. The analysis also uncovered the realities and challenges associated with having the intersecting identity of being a poor, Black aspiring athlete in a racially charged atmosphere. Finally, the athletes’ perceptions of how their challenging formative development influenced their professional career pathway as well as the ramifications of sink or swim narratives in popular American culture are considered.

A 20 dollar note: ‘success stories’ of Swedish business actors with Iranian origin

ABSTRACTThis article examines the career narratives of entrepreneurs with migrant background in the Swedish business sector. Statistics show that the proportion of individuals with a migrant background who reach so-called top-positions in Swedish society is in general low. Migrants with Iranian background is an exception as many of them have reached high positions as professionals in business corporations and themselves established high-profile businesses in Sweden. Based on in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs and managers with Iranian origin, we will in this article look at how their background is made relevant when reflecting upon professional success and failure. The article is concerned with their exceptional professional achievements and, in particular, the individuals’ positioning in relation to their ‘society of migration’, their society of origin, and the social networks are embedded in as migrants with an Iranian origin. The article shows how narratives of success tend to emphasize the struggles of a ‘lonely fighter’ while at the same time dismiss discrimination as an explanatory factor. The entrepreneurs’ success stories nevertheless focus on how one’s career path as innovators and ‘agents of social change’ is intimately linked with a migrant past and experience.

Academic career construction: personnel documents as personal documents

ABSTRACTIn this essay, I consider the implications of career construction theory for the writing and peer review of academic career narratives. I take tenure and promotion essays, employment letters, vitas, website profiles, publication bios, and other self-authored documents required, written, and reviewed for determining and maintaining academic careers to be a form of professional life writing. While these forms of self-reflective writing are not typically considered autobiographical, they are a required method of self-identifying that determines belonging in the academy. My research question is: How does the way we write and witness the academic career narrative change when we frame it as a form of life writing? I confront matters of privacy practice and the false security promised by closed review that can leave academics vulnerable and unprotected no matter how they self-identify in their career narratives. I argue that this method offers a model career narrative that, if geared toward inclusive understandings of individual and collective identity, can aid in transforming career review by focusing not on limiting self-identifying life experience to protect against bias, but on how the process can evolve to safeguard against the threat of bias.

Institutional embeddedness of mumpreneurship in the UK: A career narrative approach

The recent rise in the number of mothers who have started a business from home along with an increase in publicly available profiles of these women has led to the trend of mumpreneurship, i.e., women who set up and manage a business around their child caring role. This research employs a career narrative approach to examine the stories told by a group of 12 British mumpreneurs within the context of UK’s regulatory institutions. The findings suggest that despite having dual responsibility of motherhood and business ownership, mumpreneurs work hard to achieve their aspirations and career objectives. However, their ability to do so is severely constrained by the institutional support, more specifically in terms of child-care provisions and training and financial support.

A lifespan perspective on multi-professional musicians: does music education prepare classical musicians for their careers?

ABSTRACTMany professional musicians would describe their careers as somewhat different to the careers they imagined when they were students. This study sought to understand the relationships between musicians’ higher music education experiences and their professional work, and to expose the adaptive strategies they employ to sustain their work. The researchers amassed in-depth career narratives from eight musicians who were highly respected international performers. The musicians were also ‘multi-professional’ musicians in that they were recognised as highly proficient in multiple different roles. Narratives were analysed using selection, optimisation and compensation (SOC) theory. The results suggest that essential professional capabilities should be emphasised in the core curriculum of higher music education. A novel finding is that musicians who identify themselves as learners may be better able to create and sustain a career in music.

From bench to board-side: Academic teaching careers

Teaching positions provide a rewarding career pathway for Ph.D.s wishing to stay in academia outside of the research-focused position. The balance of teaching and research expectations on faculty can vary greatly depending on the type of institution. Faculty at primarily undergraduate institutions may be required to be researchactive and mentor undergraduates in the laboratory, while teaching faculty at a research-centered university may not have a research lab. In addition, faculty are expected to actively contribute to the shared governance of the institution, in the name of service. The career in teaching has become highly competitive and offers unexpected rewards and benefits. Considered here are the differences found among teaching positions to serve as a guide when considering teaching as a career option. We include our personal career narratives to illustrate the driving forces that led each of us to this challenging yet fulfilling academic path.

Technology, change, and uncertainty: maintaining career confidence in the early 21st century

Over the coming decades, technology and automation are expected to dramatically transform how work will be undertaken. While many of these developments will improve productivity and provide new opportunities, some jobs will likely disappear. In this article, we report data from in‐depth interviews undertaken with 51 young Australians about their strategies for managing the possibility of technological disruption in the workplace. In the face of future uncertainties, we found that the majority of our participants remained confident in their ability to maintain for themselves a ‘good’ career story. We posit, however, that those who could neither avoid nor reduce the possibility that technological advancements might jeopardise their career plans demonstrated an outlook of career malleability whereby they accepted the risk yet remained subjectively confident in their own capacity to rewrite their career narrative if, or when, circumstances demanded.

The ‘shelf-life’ of a media career: a study of the long-term career narratives of media graduates

Despite scholarly interest in the disruptive changes to have affected media industries, and a growing understanding of how Creative Industries now operate as labour markets, to date there has been little consideration of the way in which media careers are navigated over the longer-term. This article focuses on the subjective experience of media work over time. We report on a study of a single cohort of Media Production graduates of a UK university, who are now in mid-career. They reflect on: their transition from University into work; freelancing; job satisfaction; industry changes; and work-life balance. In our analysis we note the way in which the demands of media work are experienced through the prism of age, and life stage. Contrary to our presumption that the most significant challenges are experienced in early career, our findings suggest that media careers may become increasingly difficult to sustain over time, and are characterised by a limited ‘shelf life’: the rate of attrition from media work by mid-career is particularly striking. We suggest that this under-reported feature of media work is likely to be systemic and to have wider implications.

Institutions and moral agency: the case of Scottish banking

AbstractIt has been an enduring concern of institutional economics and critical realism to understand how individuals are able to exercise agency in the context of social structures, and to maintain appropriate connections, separations and balances between these two levels of causal power. This paper explores the contribution of Alasdair MacIntyre's neo-Aristotelian philosophy to the topic. Empirical data are provided from the career narratives of senior Scottish bankers recalled in the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007/8. The method of the study is interpretive, using themes drawn from MacIntyre's writings. These bankers faced moral choices as tensions developed between their own professional standards and the new corporate goals of the banks. We discuss MacIntyre's understanding of individual moral agency as a narrative quest in the context of different types of institution with different and often conflicting ideas about what constitutes good or right action. Habituation and deliberation are important in enabling action, but fully developed moral agency also depends on individuals being able to make choices in the space opened up by tensions within and between institutions.