Career sustainability of digital micro-entrepreneurs: strategic insights from YouTubers in India
Career sustainability of digital micro-entrepreneurs: strategic insights from YouTubers in India
Drawing on a framework of sustainable career theory, this paper aims to understand the interplay of agentic and contextual factors for digital micro-entrepreneurs to lead sustainable careers. Eighteen YouTube content creators in India participated in semi-structured interviews, offering coverage of digital content creators across acting, cosmetics, finance, fitness, food, law, modelling, music, teaching, travel, and video games. The findings showed three agentic and three contextual themes associated with the career sustainability of a digital micro-entrepreneur. Additionally, four paradoxes were identified, capturing the interplay between the agentic and contextual themes. The career of a digital micro-entrepreneur is a dichotomy of promising hope, stardom, and flexibility while concealing challenges like precarity, hate comments, and financial instability. Knowing this can help individuals make better-informed career decisions. The study advances sustainable career theory by capturing insights from digital micro-entrepreneurs in India to understand the interplay of agentic and contextual factors that create a series of paradoxes for such individuals to navigate over time.
Mishra, Abhyudaya
783e9a9c-5668-403a-93ec-2a7047b704ba
Maheshwari, Mridul
6406b061-06b6-40a7-a37c-bdacedab0174
Donald, William E.
0b3cb4ca-8ed9-4a5f-9c10-359923469eec
Mishra, Abhyudaya
783e9a9c-5668-403a-93ec-2a7047b704ba
Maheshwari, Mridul
6406b061-06b6-40a7-a37c-bdacedab0174
Donald, William E.
0b3cb4ca-8ed9-4a5f-9c10-359923469eec
Mishra, Abhyudaya, Maheshwari, Mridul and Donald, William E.
(2024)
Career sustainability of digital micro-entrepreneurs: strategic insights from YouTubers in India.
Career Development International.
(doi:10.1108/CDI-09-2023-0334).
(In Press)
Abstract
Drawing on a framework of sustainable career theory, this paper aims to understand the interplay of agentic and contextual factors for digital micro-entrepreneurs to lead sustainable careers. Eighteen YouTube content creators in India participated in semi-structured interviews, offering coverage of digital content creators across acting, cosmetics, finance, fitness, food, law, modelling, music, teaching, travel, and video games. The findings showed three agentic and three contextual themes associated with the career sustainability of a digital micro-entrepreneur. Additionally, four paradoxes were identified, capturing the interplay between the agentic and contextual themes. The career of a digital micro-entrepreneur is a dichotomy of promising hope, stardom, and flexibility while concealing challenges like precarity, hate comments, and financial instability. Knowing this can help individuals make better-informed career decisions. The study advances sustainable career theory by capturing insights from digital micro-entrepreneurs in India to understand the interplay of agentic and contextual factors that create a series of paradoxes for such individuals to navigate over time.
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Mishra et al. (2024)
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Accepted/In Press date: 20 February 2024
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Local EPrints ID: 487842
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/487842
ISSN: 1362-0436
PURE UUID: 18f76954-3fd1-4c93-ad9d-04d44e35f418
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Date deposited: 06 Mar 2024 17:43
Last modified: 30 Apr 2024 02:05
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Author:
Abhyudaya Mishra
Author:
Mridul Maheshwari
Author:
William E. Donald
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