Career Self-Management as a Key Factor for Career Wellbeing

Abstract

Career self-management (CSM) is an important factor for achieving career wellbeing and is becoming increasingly crucial in career environments characterized by higher volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. In this chapter, we provide an overview of current research on CSM, and conceptually and empirically clarify its relation to career wellbeing. First, we define CSM and delineate its dimensionality. Second, we concisely summarize the empirical research on predictors and career wellbeing related outcomes of CSM. Third, based on our literature review, we suggest how CSM can be promoted through interventions, and how organizations can create synergies between organizational and individual career management. Finally, we suggest avenues for further research addressing identified research gaps: conceptual refinement, investigating facilitators of CSM at different action stages, broadening the scope of investigated career wellbeing outcomes of CSM, conducting theory-based intervention studies to systematically promote CSM, and examining contextual influences emerging in Industry 4.0 worklife spaces.

Resources to respond: A career construction theory perspective on demands, adaptability, and career crafting

“…The landscape for careers today is mainly characterized by decreased stability (Van der Heijden & De Vos, 2015) and increased unpredictability (Van der Horst et al, 2017). This instability and unpredictability lead to heightened demands of career self-management (Hall, 1996;Wilhelm & Hirschi, 2019). Thus, careers are often characterized by increasing demands for individuals to be adaptable and self-directed in their work lives (Akkermans & Kubasch, 2017;Akkermans & Tims, 2017;Brown et al, 2012).…”

Keeping an Insecure Career under Control: The Longitudinal Interplay of Career Insecurity, Self-Management, and Self-Efficacy

“…From theoretical perspectives of developmental regulation (Heckhausen, Wrosch, & Schulz, 2010) and self-regulation (Bandura, 1986(Bandura, , 1991(Bandura, , 1997, we suggest self-management strategies and self-efficacy beliefs to represent particularly promising candidates. In fact, in the context of protean and boundaryless careers, as well as with regard to the anticipated changes emerging from the digitization and automation of work (also known as the fourth industrial revolution; Schwab, 2016), career self-management has been proposed as a coping mechanism suitable for handling career uncertainty and change (e.g., Briscoe, Henagan, Burton, & Murphy, 2012;Wilhelm & Hirschi, 2019). Similarly, self-efficacy is considered an important resource for coping with the unpredictability of today's work and career environment (e.g., Garcia, Restubog, Bordia, Bordia, & Roxas, 2015;Hirschi, Lee, Porfeli, & Vondracek, 2013).…”

The Forgotten Ones: Crafting for Meaning and for Affiliation in the Context of Finnish and Japanese Employees' Off-Job Lives

“…Human capital helps employees to self-manage their careers and work-home boundaries (Sturges, 2008). As education and tenure can produce skills that translate to the off-job domain (e.g., Wilhelm and Hirschi, 2019), they make OJC efforts potentially more likely and efficient. Moreover, experiencing successes through skillful crafting efforts may promote further crafting .…”