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Mind the setback! Enacted sensemaking in young workers’ early career transitions

Mind the setback! Enacted sensemaking in young workers’ early career transitions
Mind the setback! Enacted sensemaking in young workers’ early career transitions
Setbacks at career transitions can have an enduring impact on how people enact their subsequent careers. Drawing on an enacted sensemaking perspective, we examine the micro-mechanisms of career choice and navigation with and without a setback experience. Empirically, we conducted 42 interviews with Austrian apprentices and compared their career transitions and subsequent navigation through abductive analysis. We found that the apprentices overcoming setbacks at the outset of their careers engaged in more deliberate sensemaking, leading them to aspirations and expectations associated with thriving and career growth. Conceptually, we present a model of enacted sensemaking during career transitions, showing how the expectations and aspirations people enact lead to different kinds of possibilities within their career space. Contributing to career setback and sensemaking literature, we further show how deliberate sensemaking continues to shape individuals’ awareness of possibility beyond the setback experience.
career boundaries, career space, early career transitions, enacted sensemaking, growth-based careers, setbacks, work
0170-8406
1127-1149
Kutscher, Gloria
55a9f26b-87ea-4d0d-b8e8-c02caa10bf7d
Mayrhofer, Wolfgang
090b52d5-7d2a-4b0a-91a1-411a8b3bc5e6
Kutscher, Gloria
55a9f26b-87ea-4d0d-b8e8-c02caa10bf7d
Mayrhofer, Wolfgang
090b52d5-7d2a-4b0a-91a1-411a8b3bc5e6

Kutscher, Gloria and Mayrhofer, Wolfgang (2023) Mind the setback! Enacted sensemaking in young workers’ early career transitions. Organization Studies, 44 (7), 1127-1149. (doi:10.1177/01708406231151495).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Setbacks at career transitions can have an enduring impact on how people enact their subsequent careers. Drawing on an enacted sensemaking perspective, we examine the micro-mechanisms of career choice and navigation with and without a setback experience. Empirically, we conducted 42 interviews with Austrian apprentices and compared their career transitions and subsequent navigation through abductive analysis. We found that the apprentices overcoming setbacks at the outset of their careers engaged in more deliberate sensemaking, leading them to aspirations and expectations associated with thriving and career growth. Conceptually, we present a model of enacted sensemaking during career transitions, showing how the expectations and aspirations people enact lead to different kinds of possibilities within their career space. Contributing to career setback and sensemaking literature, we further show how deliberate sensemaking continues to shape individuals’ awareness of possibility beyond the setback experience.

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Accepted/In Press date: 9 January 2023
e-pub ahead of print date: 9 January 2023
Published date: July 2023
Additional Information: Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The first author received support for this research by a grant from the Austrian Chamber of Labour.
Keywords: career boundaries, career space, early career transitions, enacted sensemaking, growth-based careers, setbacks, work

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 475955
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/475955
ISSN: 0170-8406
PURE UUID: efc6f920-eb9a-49aa-a22e-095c863bc083
ORCID for Gloria Kutscher: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-5712-8959

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Date deposited: 03 Apr 2023 16:32
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 04:09

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Contributors

Author: Gloria Kutscher ORCID iD
Author: Wolfgang Mayrhofer

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