Review and Prospect on Boundaryless Career Based on Two Decades of Studies

Li-Rong LONG

Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2015, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (1) : 243-248.

PDF(1098 KB)
PDF(1098 KB)
Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2015, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (1) : 243-248.

Review and Prospect on Boundaryless Career Based on Two Decades of Studies

  • 1, Li-Rong LONG3
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Abstract

Under the circumstances of unpredictable market and organization, the background of career management currently is in a dramatical change. Thus, it contributes to a new way to think about career—boundaryless career, which refers to a series of career opportunities unfolding in a single employment settings, and it contains two types: physical mobility and psychological mobility. This article arranges all the related literatures about boundaryless career from the following points: concept development, measurement, influencing factors, effect, summary of past controversies, and reviews and future prospects about the domestic researches. Boundaryless career can be divided into six aspects: (1) movement across the boundaries of separate employers; (2) recognition and marketability from outside as well as the present employer; (3) supported by “external” networks or information; (4) breaking the traditional career boundaries in organization; (5) rejection of immediate career opportunities for personal or family reasons; (6) perceiving a boundaryless future regardless of structural constraints. For the new career model, this article states the differences and similarities among traditional career, protean career and boundaryless career in a simple way. Measurements on the boundaryless career concern about two attitudes—boundaryless mindset (BM) and organizational mobility preference (OMP), and they are both included in the psychological mobility. The former refers to people's preference toward initiating and pursuing work-related relationships across departmental and organizational boundaries. And the later refers to the inclination to physically crossing organizational boundaries in employment mobility. The article generalizes four influencing factors from individual and cultural dimensions: demography, personality, human capital and cultural. The four factors influence people’s choice of careers from the different sides. Also three effects are summed up: the impact on career success, job mobility and the organization. Boundaryless career has both advantages and disadvantages over personal career success. For example, it is beneficial to the accumulation of organizational knowledge, but leads to the loss of important knowledge. Besides, it increases individual job mobility. That is, OMP decreases three types organizational commitment (affected commitment, normative commitment, continuous commitment) and BM is moderated in its relationship to normative commitment in that lower development opportunities. Despite that, some controversies still exists in previous studies: (1) the concept is difficult to operate for its multiplicity and obscureness; (2) whether this kind of career has played the dominant role still remains to be discussed; (3) previous studies mainly focus on the physical mobility and the psychological mobility separately, ignoring the relationship between the two; (4) too much emphasis has been put on the person in organizations. The above disputes show us the fact that researches about boundaryless career are very significant but far from adequate. In contemporary China, native studies based on our national conditions should be conducted so as to develop our own theories and empirical studies. Since the employment-organization relationship (EOR) is becoming a more and more important issue on constructing the harmonious society, future native studies should pay close attention to the interaction between three career models, psychological contract and EOR.

Key words

Boundaryless career / protean career / traditional career / boundary / mobility

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Li-Rong LONG. Review and Prospect on Boundaryless Career Based on Two Decades of Studies[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2015, 38(1): 243-248
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