1 - Patricia Bock Bandeira UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL (UFRGS) - Escola de Administração
2 - Camila Vieira Müller Atitus Educação - Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração da Atitus Educação
3 - Marcia Cristiane Vaclavik INSTITUTO FEDERAL DE EDUCAÇÃO, CIÊNCIA E TECNOLOGIA DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL (IFRS) - PROFNIT - Programa de Pós-Graduação em PI e TT para a Inovação
4 - Angela Beatriz Busato Scheffer UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL (UFRGS) - Escola de Administração
Reumo
Contemporary careers unfold in an increasingly complex world characterized by rapid transformations and changes in the workplace. Historically, various perspectives have been developed to understand the unpredictability of careers, considering not only the individual perspective but also the contextual influences and their interaction. These events have been studied in career research and have been referred to as serendipity, happenstance chance events, and, more recently, career shocks. The Covid-19 pandemic has revitalized the exploration of unexpected events’ influences on careers.
Despite its significance, these approaches are fragmented and have not gained prominence. We argue that advancing contextual discussion in career studies must explore the central ideas from these perspectives that handle the events’ influence on careers. Therefore, this study aims to analyze how the academic literature addresses the discussion of career shocks within the field of careers research over time. We conducted a software-supported systematic literature review with 85 studies from the Web of Science and Scopus databases and the Rayyan, VOSviewer, Excel, and Iramuteq software.
Serendipity is one of the earliest attempts to address the influence of unpredictability, referring to unexpected events that influence careers. Happenstance is an unplanned event that impacts behavior, recognizing that career choice is influenced by chance, luck, or accidental. Chance events emphasize the influence of unplanned and fortuitous events on career behavior and consider positive and negative effects. Career shock is the latest concept associated with the influence of disruptive and extraordinary events in careers caused by factors outside the focal individual’s control.
Based on Iramuteq’s results, we structured the discussion in three axes (a, b, and c). The contextual approach (a) relates to structural, organizational, and personal contexts. The individual approach (b), is structured on how people manage career shocks, professional projections, and career stages. The processual approach (c), addresses the interplay and impacts of career shocks, interventions and strategies, influences in leadership, and skills. Some papers have adopted multiple perspectives and helped to improve existing theories.
Research on career shocks has become crucial for understanding the processes involved in career development in contemporary times, given the work context’s complexity, dynamicity, and unpredictability. We evaluated career shock research and developed a categorization that provides a foundation for understanding the different perspectives on the theme. As a work-in-progress study, it has some limitations. There is a need for a detailed explanation to support future studies. Further research must address the issues to consolidate an academic corpus and advance existing research.
Akkermans, J., Seibert, S. E., & Mol, S. T. (2018). Tales of the unexpected: Integrating career shocks in the contemporary careers literature. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 44.
Miller, M. J. (1983). THE ROLE OF HAPPENSTANCE IN CAREER CHOICE. Vocational Guidance Quarterly, 32(1).
Kindsiko, E., & Baruch, Y. (2019). Careers of PhD graduates: The role of chance events and how to manage them. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 112.
Lee, T. W., & Mitchell, T. R. (1994). An Alternative Approach: The Unfolding Model of Voluntary Employee Turnover. Academy of Management Review, 19(1).