Understanding Careers

by J. H. "Kerr" Inkson, Nicky Dries, John Arnold

Overview

In the hotly anticipated second edition of Understanding Careers, Kerr Inkson has teamed up with Nicky Dries and John Arnold to take readers on a fascinating journey through the field of Career Studies.

• Interdisciplinary – the text brings together and critiques a range of perspectives, allowing for a broader and more holistic understanding of the field.
• Theory and practice – comprehensive coverage of all the key theories and cutting edge research is related to the real world through over 50 cases studies. A new ‘Careers in Practice’ section contains chapters devoted to self-development, career counselling, and organizational practices.
• International perspective – contains examples, cases, research, references and statistics from a range of countries.
• Use of metaphor – the text is structured around commonly used metaphors for careers, helping students relate to the ideas presented and providing a framework for analysis and comparison.

Ideal reading for students considering their own career and personal development, as well as those studying career development, career guidance or human resource management within a psychology, education, counselling or business degree.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781446282922
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	12/01/2014
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Kerr Inkson (Ph D University of Otago, New Zealand) is an Emeritus Professor in the University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand. His 55-year academic career included 32 years as full Professor, at five New Zealand universities. He has expertise in management, organizational behavior and career development, and his careers research includes work on new forms of career, the use of metaphor in career theory and practice, and international careers. He was first author of a paper “Expatriate assignment versus overseas experience: contrasting models of human resource development” which was awarded Best International Paper by the Academy of Management in 1997. He is a former Chair of the Careers Division, Academy of Management.

Kerr has been the author or co-author of 18 books, over 50 book chapters and 75 refereed journal articles. His journal credits include Administrative Science Quarterly, British Journal of Management, Human Relations, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Journal of World Business, Organizational Dynamics, and Organization Studies. His latest books are Understanding Careers, 2^nd edition, co-authored with Nicky Dries and John Arnold, SAGE, 2015; Cultural Intelligence, 3^rd edition, co-authored with David C Thomas, Berrett-Koehler, 2017; and Laugh out Loud: A Users’ Guide to Workplace Humor, co-authored with Barbara Plester, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Recently retired, he lives in Auckland with his wife Nan, plays some golf, and writes, directs and acts in plays on the local amateur drama scene.

Nicky Dries is a Research Professor at the KU Leuven, Faculty of Business and Economics (Belgium). She conducted her doctoral research on talent management and (subjective) career success at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium), during which time she was also a visiting scholar at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands). Since then, she has been a visiting scholar at the University of Tilburg (the Netherlands), at Wirtschaftsuniversität Vienna (Austria), at Reykjavik University (Iceland), and a Fulbright scholar at Boston University School of Management (US). Nicky has published articles in international journals in the areas of career management, human resource management, and vocational psychology, and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Vocational Behavior (JVB) and the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology (EJWOP). Nicky's primary research interests are talent, potential, and success - and more generally, the interplay of organizational-strategic and individual-psychological factors in shaping careers. She is actively involved in two large-scale cross-cultural projects on contemporary careers, i.e. 5C (Consortium for the Cross-Cultural Study of Contemporary Careers) and the Career Adaptability/Life Design project.

John Arnold is Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Loughborough University, and a member of the School’s Research Centre for Professional Work and Society. From 2011 to 2013 he was head of the Institute of Work Psychology (IWP), at the University of Sheffield, and prior to that had extensive experience at Loughborough University Business School (15 years), and Manchester University School of Management (8 years). John is a Fellow and Chartered Psychologist of the British Psychological Society, and a Registered Psychologist. He was editor of Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (JOOP) from 2004 to 2008, and is currently a consulting editor with JOOP, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Human Relations, and Organizational Psychology Review. He has been Principal or Co-investigator on 21 externally funded research projects and has published over 70 refereed journal articles. John is author or co-author of a number of books including Managing Careers into the Twenty-first Century (1997), and lead author for the first five editions of the textbook Work Psychology. He was a member of the Business and Management panel in the UK’s 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, and is repeating that role in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework process.

Table of Contents

Part I: Background to Career Studies
Chapter 1: Career and Metaphor
Chapter 2: Careers in Context
Part II: Images of Career
Chapter 3: Careers as Inheritances
Chapter 4: Careers as Cycles
Chapter 5: Careers as Action
Chapter 6: Careers as Fit
Chapter 7: Careers as Journeys
Chapter 8: Careers as Roles
Chapter 9: Careers as Relationships
Chapter 10: Careers as Resources
Chapter 11: Careers as Stories
Part III: Careers in Practice
Chapter 12: Career Self-Management
Chapter 13: Career Counseling and Helping
Chapter 14: Organizational Career Management

Editorial Reviews

A really valuable contribution....very effective in integrating the different branches of career studies. Very clear, and well argued. Right on the mark!

Gareth Morgan

A masterful blend of carer theory and practice, Understanding Careers offers a wonderfully comprehensive and magnificently engaging look at work and careers in contemporary times. Kerr Inkson, Nicky Dries, and John Arnold offer in this book both the best careers scholarship for the serious career studies educator and researcher as well as the most useful career intervention strategies for career practitioners, students, and anyone interested in fostering their own career development. Packed with theory, history, case studies, and practical material, this book is a must read that will serve as an invaluable resource for years to come.

Paul Hartung

In this timely update of an iconic book, the authors deepen our understanding of career by inspecting its meaning from multiple perspectives on work lives. The innovations and elaborations in this second edition maintain Understanding Careers’ reputation as a fundamental text in vocational and organizational psychology as well as keystone volume in career counseling.

Mark L. Savickas

A wonderfully original, rich, thoughtful, intelligent and helpful exploration of the complexities of making one's way through life, with excellent practical advice on how to go about doing so. The authors recognize the complexity of career, but use Inkson's framework of career metaphors to provide ways of making sense of it without trivializing as so many books about career do. Anyone using this book to teach or to learn about careers will find it immensely useful, rewarding, and enjoyable.

Hugh Gunz

This is a wonderful resource on careers for students, practitioners, and academics – a rich mix of current research, cases, practical examples, and creative lenses (metaphors) for seeing careers in a new way. It is equally accessible and stimulating for all levels of reader and it’s all presented in lively, clear, and compelling writing - an extremely reader-friendly book!

Douglas T. (Tim) Hall

A first class text combining the strengths of the earlier version with new ideas from contemporary research and practice. The new chapters on career self-management and organizational management systems are perfect additions making the book an invaluable resource for scholars, practitioners and students alike. Kudos to the authors for this excellent piece of work, and lucky us being able to benefit from their collaboration! The teaching aids offer are an excellent 'toolkit' for educators seeking to prepare students for their future careers: innovative, engaging and thought provoking.

Julia Richardson

Understanding Careers is the essential career studies textbook for general college and university-level courses. As with the first edition, the writing is crystal clear with a highly impressive range of scholarship skilfully marshalled from a number of disciplines relevant to career studies. I have used this excellent book for several years in my teaching and find it helps students easily make sense of the career studies field by linking images with contemporary case studies and exercises. This is a superb introductory text for career development professionals and their clients. This wonderful book has revolutionised the design and content of career management programmes in schools, colleges, university and the workplace.

Phil McCash

Making an excellent book even better is difficult - but the new edition of 'Understanding Careers' has done exactly that. The authors keep the highly praised core of the first edition - powerful metaphors underlying careers - and add new perspectives on context and careers in practice, leading to a must-read not only for students and researchers of careers, but also for career practitioners. Absolutely recommendable!

Wolfgang Mayrhofer

In a series of fourteen highly readable chapters, Kerr Inkson and his colleagues present a metaphorical approach to careers. The result is a series of insightful and contrasting views, each informative in its own right, and together a call for further conversation. Readers will be both entertained and enlightened by this book.

Michael B Arthur

Understanding Careers is the essential career studies textbook for general college and university-level courses. As with the first edition, the writing is crystal clear with a highly impressive range of scholarship skilfully marshalled from a number of disciplines relevant to career studies. I have used this excellent book for several years in my teaching and find it helps students easily make sense of the career studies field by linking images with contemporary case studies and exercises. This is a superb introductory text for career development professionals and their clients. This wonderful book has revolutionised the design and content of career management programmes in schools, colleges, university and the workplace.

Phil Mc Cash