The role of chance events in career decision making

Bright, Jim; Pryor, Robert; Harpham, Lucy

doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2004.05.001

Cited by 167 publications

(158 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…These events are oftentimes unexpected, meaning either that they cannot be anticipated and proactively acted upon or, even when anticipated, the effects of the event are not anticipated. Such events have been called chance events (Bright, Pryor, & Harpham, 2005), serendipity (Betsworth & Hansen, 1996), happenstance (Miller, 1983) and, most recently, career shocks (Seibert, Kraimer, Holtom, & Pierotti, 2013). Examples of these events include unexpectedly losing one's job or a close relative passing away-as examples of negative shocks -or receiving an unexpected promotion or receiving an award -as examples of positive shocks.…”

Section: The Role Of Career Shocks In Career Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tales of the unexpected: Integrating career shocks in the contemporary careers literature

Akkermans

Seibert

Mol

2018

SA j. ind. psychol.

181

381

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Orientation: This article addresses the interplay between individual agency and contextual factors in contemporary career development processes. In light of the prominence of the former in the contemporary scholarly debate, we present a case for a more comprehensive approach by heeding the latter as well. Research purpose:The main aim of this article was to provide a definition and conceptualisation of career shocks, as well as an agenda for future research on this topic.Motivation for the study: Most of the contemporary careers literature has overemphasised the role of individual agency in career development. While certainly important, we argue that we also need to address the role of context -in this case, career shocks -in order to gain a fuller appreciation of career development processes. Main conclusions and implications:We provide a definition of career shocks based on the existing literature related to chance events and turnover. In addition, we provide an overview of attributes of career shocks, potentially valuable theoretical perspectives and key issues for future research.Contribution: This article brings together several existing streams of literature related to career shocks and provides an integrative definition and conceptualisation. We hope that this will ignite future research on an important but often overlooked topic.

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Section: The Role Of Career Shocks In Career Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tales of the unexpected: Integrating career shocks in the contemporary careers literature

Akkermans

Seibert

Mol

2018

SA j. ind. psychol.

181

381

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Nicholson and West (1989) noted that career paths can be both planless and planned, and the initial planlessness in the accounts here evolved into identification and subsequent pursuit of the desired new occupation. This links to arguments for the salience of happenstance and chance in career (Bright et al, 2004;Miller, 1983).…”

Section: Planless Actions and Positive Emotionsmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…In contrast to the assumption of rational models that people could access salient aspects of self-knowledge on which to base their decision, Krieshok argued that this information is not necessarily available to individuals and decision making can be partially unconscious. Mitchell et al (1999) and Bright et al (2004) argued for the importance of context in career decisions, both sets of scholars focusing on chance events. At a metatheoretical level, McMahon and Patton (1995) proposed a systems framework that acknowledged chance, context and individual attributes as components of a dynamic and open system of career decisions.…”

Section: Other-than-rational Perspectives On Career Decision Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Beach and Connolly (2005) noted that the concept of a decision as happening at one point in time is merely "a useful fiction" and the AAC framework instantiates their notion of decision making feeling its way along. The centrality of action (Ibarra, 2004;Young & Valach, 2000) is recognized, as are the influence of context and the unpredictability of the outcome (Amundson, 1995;Bright et al, 2004;Gelatt, 1989;Mitchell et al, 1999;McMahon & Patton, 1995).…”

Section: Career Decision Making 15mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Decision Making in Voluntary Career Change: An Other‐Than‐Rational Perspective

Murtagh

Lopes

Lyons

2011

The Career Development Quart

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The authors present a qualitative study of voluntary career change, which highlighted the importance of positive emotions, unplanned action, and building certainty and perceiving continuity in the realization of change. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to broaden theoretical understanding of real-life career decision making. The accounts of 8 women who had changed careers were explored, and the analysis supported other-than-rational perspectives of career decision making. An action-affect-cognition framework of decision making is proposed. The framework adds the role of emotion and the importance of self-regulation to existing theory of career decision making. Implications for career counseling are discussed

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“…Bright, Pryor, and Harpham (2005) argued that given their apparent ubiquity, dismissing chance events as merely error, will continue the tradition of providing accounts of career behavior so far removed from the actual career development experience of individuals and their counselors, that such accounts will remain fundamentally irrelevant to both. (p. 574) Our study lends support to chance events approaches to boundaryless careers, especially those approaches that juxtapose chance encounters, social networks, and protean orientations (e.g., Grimland et al, 2012).…”

Section: Alternative Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surviving a Boundaryless Creative Career

Mainemelis

Nolas

Tsirogianni

2015

Journal of Management Inquiry

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Previous research has examined how mobility and career competencies influence success in boundaryless careers. In this study, we flip the direction of those relationships and we explore how the interplay between success and failure relates to subsequent mobility, career competencies, and career evolution through the life span. Using a biographical design, we conceptualize success and failure as critical moments that influence the unfolding of the boundaryless careers of Oscar-nominated film directors. While the dominant metaphors of boundaryless careers are those of “paths,” “ladders,” “trajectories,” and “plateaus,” our findings suggest a new metaphor: the roller coaster.

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The role of chance events in career decision making

Cited by 167 publications

References 30 publications

Tales of the unexpected: Integrating career shocks in the contemporary careers literature

Tales of the unexpected: Integrating career shocks in the contemporary careers literature

Decision Making in Voluntary Career Change: An Other‐Than‐Rational Perspective

Surviving a Boundaryless Creative Career

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