Career scripts in clusters: A social position approach

Abstract

This article examines the career scripts held by individuals working in clusters by studying the careers seen as desirable and possible by 42 micro-nanotechnology and computer science researchers in the 'Minalogic' cluster, the French equivalent of Silicon Valley. We consider the links between the researchers' career scripts and their social positions and identify six discrete career scripts that we label organizational nomad, entrepreneurial, organizational extension, cloister, escape and conversion. Central social positions in the cluster are linked with boundaryless career scripts (organizational nomad and entrepreneurial scripts), but individuals also use the resources associated with their central social positions to envisage both extending their careers and the range of tasks they undertake (organizational extension script) within their employing organizations. Others − those holding peripheral social positions − may be unable to match the cluster's expectations, and so feel trapped in involuntary immobility (cloister script), constrained to leave the cluster (escape script) or to change their occupations or broaden their skill sets to advance their careers within it (conversion script). Our article goes beyond simply using scripts as descriptions to propose a more comprehensive approach by highlighting the social dimension of career scripts. Our results qualify the supposed predominance of the boundaryless career notion by confronting it with the wider generic notion of the career script, so proposing a more complete description of how a cluster shapes individuals' career definitions and aspirations, as well as a more complex theorization of how those careers are influenced by the cluster context.

Against boundarylessness: The liminal career of the flexible employee

“…The second critique of the concept of boundaryless career concerns the lack of empirical support for the premise that careers today now operate without boundaries (Rodrigues and Guest, 2010;King et al, 2005;Inkson, 2006). Typically, boundaryless careers have been associated with knowledge workers or high-tech professionals in Silicon Valley-like setting (Valette and Culié, 2015). In reality, such sectors are not representative for the larger Western economies as a whole.…”

Women's career equality and leadership in organizations: Creating an evidence‐based positive change

“…Women's career equality and leadership in organizations can be studied from a variety of career and leadership perspectives providing insights into the complicated nature of women's advancement, spanning decades with numerous definitions and interdisciplinary theories of career. These conceptualizations range from traditional advancement throughout career as narrative, scripts, contracts, relationships, competitions, and callings over the course of lifespans (e.g., Arthur, Hall, & Lawrence, ; Arthur, Inkson, & Pringle, ; Arthur & Rousseau, ; Berkelaar & Buzzanell, ; Buzzanell & Lucas, , ; Greenhaus & Kossek, ; Hall, ; Hall & Chandler, ; Inkson, Dries, & Arnold, ; Lee, Kossek, Hall, & Litrico, ; Rosenbaum, ; and Valette & Culié, ). This expansion is notable because it highlights the point that singular career models, especially those originally designed for men in corporations with the assumption that one has limited to no caregiving responsibilities—gave rise to the ideal worker, ideal leader, and ideal career conceptualizations (Acker, ; Eagly & Karau, ).…”

How careers change: understanding the role of structure and agency in career change. The case of the humanitarian sector

“…From a theory building perspective, this enables our study to go beyond the work of Dany et al (2011), Valette & Culié (2015) and by providing an examination of the complex interplay between structure and agency involved in the creation and modification of career scripts and suggesting a greater potential role for agency over time than has been proposed in previous structuration studies. More specifically, data is collected from both an individual humanitarian worker and organizational (NGO) perspective in order to track the interactions and their mutual influence upon career changes.…”

“…Defined as a "schematic knowledge structure held in the memory that specifies behaviors or event sequences that are appropriate for specific situations" (Gioia & Poole, 1984, p. 449), underpinning the concept of career scripts is the idea that career stability and change (and as a result institutional stability and change) are the result of an interplay between structure and agency. While a number of papers utilize the concept of scripts (Dany et al, 2011;Valette & Culié, 2015), few of them actually explore empirically the way in which they change.…”