Managing Self-management: Successful Transitions to Portfolio Careers

Abstract

Various economic and social pressures have, arguably, combined to effect a shift in both the reality and perceptions of career structures. Recent debates have centred on the extent to which traditional organizational careers have given way to self-employment for a client portfolio. This article builds on distinctions between `subjective', `objective' and `organizational' careers to analyse how individuals manage the transition from a traditional to a portfolio-based career. It focuses on freelance translators, a group of workers with a long history of working outside organizations, and draws out some of the factors involved in their successful transition from employment to self-employment. It evaluates the constraints on creating portfolio careers, particularly the role of safety nets and professional networks, and explores the `organizing principles' to which translators refer in creating coherent narratives of their working lives. The article concludes that, in the absence of an organizational structure, clear identification of such principles proves to be critical for translators in defining both successful transitions and successful careers.

Ageing and entrepreneurial preferences

“…Last, in terms of policy implications, the principal limitation of our research is its static nature: it reports on what is, and not on what will be. Our study suggests that if current economic and employment trends continue, older self-employers will likely become more prominent in the future, especially given the rise of the service economy and the outsourcing and downsizing trends (Gold and Fraser 2002;Román et al 2011). Of course the middle-aged of today will face different labour market choices in the future, as will those young individuals who enter middle age.…”

Women’s Learning in Contract Work: Practicing Contradictions in Boundaryless Conditions

“…In terms of self-employed workers such as the contractors featured in this article, studies have found that their practices are constituted in multiple fluid networks (virtual, social and material) rather than boundaried organisational hierarchies, and that they learn largely through practice-based experimentation in these networks (Cope and Watts 2000;Gold and Fraser 2002). The knowledge and identities yielded are flexible, provisional and reflexive.…”

“…For this reason, the term 'boundaryless contract work' is used here rather than 'self-employment'. Three common elements that distinguish boundaryless contract work are: (1) a commitment to long-term, rather than temporary freelance employment -as a way of life rather than a 'stop-gap' measure; (2) a sense of specialised expertise being developed and offered; and most important, and (3) job mobility across Boundaryless careers have been studied most often in terms of the personal transitions involved, and the construction of a career identity outside of organisational definitions (Cohen and Mallon 1999;Gold and Fraser 2002;Sullivan 1999). Contract workers may struggle with anxiety, lack of income security and non-income benefits, and continuous competition (Gold and Fraser 2002).…”

Psychologischer Vertrag und Anerkennung. Das Beispiel Expatriates

“…Ein Ausdruck dessen ist die vor allem in der anglo-amerikanischen Karriereforschung ausgemachte umfassende Erosion der Organisationsgebundenheit von Personen: Hier werden Karrieren als "boundaryless" (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996;Stahl, Miller, & Tung, 2002;Collings, Scullion, & Morley, 2007) oder als "protean" (Inkson, 2006) bezeichnet. Es ist die Rede von "portfolio careers" (Mallon, 1998;Gold & Fraser, 2002) und Manager werden zu "itinerants" (Banai & Harry, 2004) erklärt. Das "neue" Austauschverhältnis scheint zunehmend zur Norm zu werden (Yan, Zhu, & Hall, 2002).…”