Chapter 4: Career Management in the 21st Century

The way in which many individuals construct their careers has been transformed in recent years due to a number of significant environmental and attitudinal changes. Traditional career theories have generally been unable to explain or interpret these novel and burgeoning career paths, and therefore new approaches – such as the protean and boundaryless perspectives of careers and more recently, the kaleidoscope career model (KCM) – have emerged. This chapter describes the changes that have impacted on careers, and explains the modern protean, boundaryless and kaleidoscope career perspectives of career development. Some commentators (e.g. Baruch, 2003) have suggested that there has been inordinate emphasis in the careers literature on individual initiatives for managing non-traditional careers without sufficient consideration of organisational practices. To redress this oversight, this chapter examines the human resource management functions that can positively influence career management in the twenty-first century.