The Boundaryless Career: A New Employment Principle for a New Organizational Era

Michael B. Arthur · Denise M. Rousseau

Jul 2001 · Oxford University Press

About this ebook

Organizational restructuring and global, hypercompetition have revolutionized careers and destroyed the traditional blueprint for advancement and career success. This book details the new forms work takes in the new organizational era where worker mobility has become critical to the well-being and learning of both people and firms. The Boundaryless Career approaches the new principle of the boundaryless career in five directions. The first section helps the reader explore the nature of boundaryless careers by highlighting some of their essential elements. The second section turns to competitive advantage and the role of workers' knowledge. The thirs section concentrates on the role of the social structure in the organizing of work. The fourth section turns to focus on how boundaryless careers affect personal development and growth. The fifth section addresses the demands boundaryless careers create for schools, communities, and other social institutions. Introductory and concluding chapters by the editors offer frameworks for conceptualizing careers now and in the future. The Boundaryless Career provides a conceptual map of new career and employment forms to the prospective benefit of people making career choices, companies re-crafting human resource practices, schools and universities re-considering their roles, and policy-makers concerned with regional or national competitiveness. It will be essential reading for scholars in a range of social science disciplines spanning themes of economics, management, education, organizational behavior, and the psychology and sociology of work. It will also appeal broadly to free thinkers interested in the changing nature of careers and employment as both people and firms tackle the realities of increasingly open markets and global competition.