Making Career Stories: Navigating Work and a Sense of Security

by Mark Scillio

Overview

This book is about how people construct career stories: the stories we use to make sense of our work life. Mark Scillio explores the idea of security in the current turbulent employment climate, investigating employment experiences in developed, wealthy countries like Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom—where careers have become fragmented, complex, and uncertain. Using Anthony Giddens’ notion of ontological security, Scillio develops a concept of career security that goes beyond economic and financial concerns and encompasses the personal and social meaning of work. The ramifications of succeeding (or failing) to forge a good career narrative are explored through a series of detailed case studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319551791
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	06/27/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	238
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Mark Scillio has worked as a university lecturer, adult educator, policy advisor, and social researcher. He currently teaches sociology at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Situating the Study 2. Conceptualizing Career Security
Part I. Being in Organizations
3. Entangled Work Motivations4. How Routines Shape Career Stories 5. Organizations as Places of Learning and Self-Development 6. Narrative Crises 
Part II. Going it Alone 
7. Developing an Entrepreneurial Story 8. Creating your own Structures: Implications for the Self 9. Personalizing Social Problems 10. The Audience as a Social Context and Form of Grounding
Part III. In-Between Places
11. Possible Selves and Career Stories 12. Structure and Coherence in Career Stories 13. Conclusion: Career Security and Keeping a Good Story Going

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Mark Scillio vividly tells the stories of middle Australians and how they are negotiating changing work worlds. Their experiences are recounted with precision and theoretical virtuosity, but also with care and sensitivity. I got to know these people.” (Nicholas Hookway, Lecturer in Sociology, University of Tasmania, Australia)

“In this timely, empirically rich study, Scillio provides a sophisticated account of the career stories that we tell ourselves in order to make sense of our lives and our work trajectories. He innovates by developing the concept of career security which enables us to reach beyond the objective factors associated with income and employment conditions to consider also the subjective meanings that are forged as individuals grasp the social and personal meanings of work. This book is highly recommended for students and specialists in the field.” (Simon Stewart, Deputy Director of the Centre for European and International Studies Research, University of Portsmouth, UK)