BOOK REVIEW

The New Careers : Individual Action And Economic Change
ISBM 0-7619-5932-7
By Michael B. Arthur, Kerr Inkson and Judith K. Pringle
P 1,925.00

The New Careers offers a major new approach to the concept of employment and the relation of the individual to the contemporary workplace. It shows that our traditional conceptions of careers are rooted at the stable conditions of the Industrial State model which was dominant in the 20th century and that new models, better attuned to the New Economy of the late 20th and early 21st centuries are now needed.

Current data show that individuals are more mobile in their careers than would be assumed under established models. It suggests that far from having their careers determined for them by larger corporate forces, most people enact their careers, improvisationally, but purposefully, upon the texture of economic institutions.

In these processes, the traditional assumption of enduring symbiotic relationships between individuals and their employers is increasingly problematic. People enact their careers, and also help to enact the companies, occupations, industries, and society through which their careers unfold.

This book points to careers as actions rather than structures, as a means of learning rather than a means of earning, and as boundary-less entities rather than constrained ones. It also points to the return of the career as a key concept in social analysis, but shows that in the light of new phenomena, the 'career' as we traditionally know it will never be the same again.

About the Author:

Michael B. Arthur is a Professor of Management at the Sawyer School of Management, Suffolk University, Boston.

Kerr Inkson is a Professor of Management Studies at the University of Auckland.

Judith K. Pringle is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management and Employment Relations at the University of Auckland.