City context and subjective career success: How does creative workers’ need for recognition filter city identity?

Abstract

How do creative workers draw on their city context as they interpret their subjective career success over time? This article aims to answer this question with a qualitative study of 140 creative workers in Reggio Emilia, Italy. The results illuminate how subjective career success stems from a need for recognition that draws on a city’s identity. Mobilising Lotman’s concept of semiosphere, we propose that creative workers use city identity to understand what ‘soft’ factors they can harness from the city context. They filter city identity based on three recognition-related needs that are contingent on their level of work experience. Our contribution is threefold. First, we provide a nuanced view of the social and symbolic context in which careers are embedded, highlighting its multilayered, multivocal and multimodal nature. Second, we provide a fine-grained understanding of the interplay between an individual’s career need for recognition and their interpretation of city identity. Third, we shed light on recognition as a facet of subjective career success, which is particularly relevant to creative workers.

Careers in cities: An interdisciplinary space for advancing the contextual turn in career studies

“…Two articles in this special issue illustrate different perspectives on the relationship between a city's identity and careers. Montanari et al (2020) observe that material aspects of a city's identity can form part of creative workers' assessment of career success. In contrast, Curseu, Semeijn and Nikolova (2020) argue that the focus of smart cities on technology and material infrastructure fails to manage social and career-related consequences.…”

“…For example, it may offer a more systematic understanding of the ways by which organizations can attract, develop and create projects with skilled workers in partnership with other dedicated organizations, ranging from vocational schools, universities, and co-training schemes to local business associations, start-up accelerator programs, innovation labs, and co-working spaces (Chan, Lim & Uy, 2020;Mariotti et al, 2017;Stolarick and Florida, 2006)). The importance to career success of non-material aspects of cities, such as city identity (Montanari et al, 2020) and institutional freedom (Guo and Baruch, 2020) have important implications for city leaders. Knowledge about careers in cities enables urban policy-makers to consider the ways by which individuals' employment and employability, as well as career ecosystems are implicated in co-creating solutions to increasingly complex urban challenges, associated with issues such as: pandemics, population growth, migration, climate change adaptation, limited resources, inequality of opportunity, while also ensuring quality of life and sustainable careers for all citizens (Alacovska et al, 2020;Curseu et al, 2020;Guo and Baruch, 2020).…”

“…In company towns, like Wolfsburg, Germany, home to Volkswagen, organizations design the city’s material infrastructure to control workers and institutionalize career scripts, with housing and transport systems designed to reproduce workplace hierarchies (Moonesirust and Brown, 2019; see also Garner, 1992; Roy, 2007). In addition, a city’s material infrastructure forms part of its ‘city identity’ (Jones and Svejenova, 2017; Montanari et al, 2021). Thus, the city’s material and technological sphere is increasingly being managed as part of its marketing and branding to place it on the map of a global economy (Kotler et al, 1993; Lucarelli and Berg, 2011).…”

“…Similarly, Montanari et al (2021) propose creative workers’ construal of city and subjective career success as entwined and mutually constituting. The authors draw on the notion of city identity (Jones and Svejenova, 2017) and Lotman’s (2005) concept of the semiosphere to examine the ways by which creative workers construct their city context to make sense of their recognition by others.…”

“…Thus, careers in cities involve physical movements and virtual connections to and from other localities (Alacovska et al, 2021). Moreover, potential movement to other localities may also figure in the evaluation and imagination of one's career (Montanari et al, 2021). Careers in cities are undertaken by city folk and by commuters.…”