Neoliberalism and Knowledge Interests in Boubdaryless Career - Work Employment Society-2010-Roper-661-79

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Neoliberalism and knowledge interests in boundaryless careers discourse

Juliet Roper, Shiv Ganesh and Kerr Inkson
Work Employment Society 2010 24: 661
DOI: 10.1177/0950017010380630
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Volume 24(4): 661679
[DOI: 10.1177/0950017010380630]
Neoliberalism and knowledge interests in

boundaryless careers discourse
Juliet Roper
University of Waikato
Shiv Ganesh
Kerr Inkson
A B S T R AC T
Decades of critical research have established that economic and political ideolo-
gies permeate and shape thought, text and action, and academic knowledge
production is no exception. This article examines how ideologies might permeate
academic texts, by assessing the reach and influence of neoliberalism in research
on boundaryless careers. Specifically, it asks: did the emergence and growth of
scholarship on boundaryless careers support, challenge, or merely run parallel
to the rising dominance of neoliberal ideology? It was found that a diversity of
knowledge interests, including managerial, agentic, curatorial and critical interests
underlie the production of research on boundaryless careers. However, all four
of these knowledge interests are complicit in discursively constructing and
aligning the notion of boundaryless careers with neoliberalism in two specific
ways. Implications for scholarship on careers and work are discussed.
K E Y WO R D S
boundaryless careers / discourse / knowledge interests / neoliberalism
Introduction
F
rom the early 1980s, most Western nations adopted a path towards greater
globalisation of trade, accompanied by extended powers of market forces
that go hand in hand with the laissez-faire political and economic policies
661
662 Work, employment and societyVolume 24 Number 4 December 2010
of neoliberalism. Importantly, changes included privatisation of state assets and

the deregulation of markets, including the labour market (Gray, 1998). The
neoliberal project however went far beyond the realm of markets and the
limitation of government intervention. As Stuart Hall (1988) maintained, it was
a social project through which notions of individualism were to be embedded
in everyday thinking. Neoliberalism has always had its critics, most intensely in
the late 1990s when there were riots in Seattle and elsewhere against global
corporations and the economic policies that empowered them (Roper, 2002).
Nevertheless, the fundamental success of the project is demonstrated by the
degree to which basic tenets of neoliberalism continue to be upheld today
(Berezin, 2009; Dupuis and Gareau, 2008; Kotz, 2009). As a set of political and
moral beliefs neoliberalism has had a pervasive discursive impact on many
social institutions and practices (Du Gay, 2004).
This article attempts, by means of an assessment and critique of aca-
demic discourse about work, to understand how, even in the supposedly
neutral ground of the academy, neoliberalism is intimately related to proc-
esses of knowledge production. The specific focus of the article is the concept
of boundaryless careers, prominent in career studies since 1996. Similarities
between macro-level precepts of neoliberal ideology and micro-level theories
about the conduct of individual careers are noted, leading to the question:
did the emergence and growth of scholarship on boundaryless careers sup-
port, challenge, or merely run parallel to the rising dominance of neoliberal
ideology?
This question is first addressed by means of an overview of research on
boundaryless careers, and a summary of issues and processes in neoliberalism.
The analytical method is then described. In the analysis, a series of knowledge
interests (Habermas, 1984) are first outlined that appear to underlie research
and theory on boundaryless careers. Then the article focuses on understanding
potential connections and disjunctures between neoliberalism and this body
of knowledge.
Neoliberalism and boundaryless careers
Boundaryless careers
In recent years the concept of the boundaryless career has become influential in
career and management studies, and is now claimed to frame the thinking of
academics and career practitioners (Briscoe and Hall, 2006: 5). The originators
of the term (Arthur and Rousseau 1996), mention six specific meanings for the
boundaryless career:
Movement across the boundaries of separate employers;
Drawing validation from outside the present employer;
Sustained by networks or information that are external to the current
employer;

Neoliberalism and knowledge interests in careers discourse Roper et al. 663
Breaking traditional organisational career boundaries;

Rejection of traditional career opportunities for personal or family reasons;
Perceiving a boundaryless future regardless of structural constraints.
Thus, the boundaryless career has been characterised as the opposite of the
organizational career (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996: 5). People in boundaryless
careers are seen to have career goals, expertise and networks that go beyond
their current employer, so that their careers are sequences of opportunities that
go beyond the boundaries of single employment settings (DeFillippi and Arthur,
1996: 116). Boundaryless career proponents typically argue that, as organisa-
tions pursue ever increasing flexibility, careers must also become more flexible.
As organisations assume progressively less responsibility for their members
careers, individuals must correspondingly assume more. In a changed environ-
ment, it is argued, boundaryless careers may offer better prospects of career
success (Eby et al., 2003).
Boundaryless career theory characterises changed environments for new
careers by listing changes in economic systems, global integration, growing
competition, new technologies, new occupations and organisational restructur-
ing. All of these factors, according to boundaryless careers proponents, dra-
matically change the terrain in which individuals career journeys must be
enacted (Inkson and Elkin, 2008), resulting in new, free-form careers in which
individuals must take greater responsibility and show greater proactivity than
traditional, organisational approaches dictate.
Neoliberalism
Research on boundaryless careers emerged around 1994 (Arthur and Rousseau,
1996). The previous 15 years had witnessed the rise of neoliberalism as a
global economic and political force. While the meaning of liberalism varies
between national contexts (Barry et al., 1996), neoliberalism is commonly
understood to advocate self-regulating free markets and a reduced role for
governments, with businesses main responsibility being to return dividends to
their shareholders (Friedman, 1970). Rather than the collective view of societal
welfare espoused by Keynesian economics, which enjoyed hegemonic status
following World War Two, neoliberalism stresses individual responsibility, free
markets, liberalisation and enterprise. As referred to above, of particular rele-
vance to this article is Halls (1988) core premise that the embedding of neolib-
eralism in social institutions and practices was a discursive project. Hall was
especially concerned with the process by which neoliberalism was effected
through discourse in Thatchers Britain, but the process in that country ran
parallel to similar projects elsewhere, with similar ideological acceptance of
neoliberal economics as common sense (Gramsci, 1971).
In accordance with the precepts of the ideology, the introduction of neolib-
eralism led to the deregulation of markets, both trade and financial, the priva-
tisation of state-owned companies, reduction of the power of trade unions,

reduction of social welfare, employment structures favouring individual rather

than collective contracts and the consequent opening of labour markets.
Indeed, for firms to remain competitive, a fluid labour market was considered
essential, for with competition for jobs, facilitated by the downsizing of corpo-
rations and government departments, wages could be kept low.
Further, under neoliberalism individuals were considered actors with
freedom of choice, emancipated from the fetters of unnecessary regulations.
Employees competed in a free labour market, with reduced welfare provision
for those who failed. The unemployed could be either blamed for their failure
to find employment or positioned as having chosen not to work (Hall, 1988).
Stiglitz (2002) describes the neoliberal version of the competitive market model
from neo-classical economics as one where supply always equals demand,
including for labour. Thus, unemployment is implicitly positioned as a matter
of choice. This, then, was the social and political context in which academics
first wrote of the boundaryless career, a context that Arthur and Rousseau
(1996: 3) described as the new economy. From a careers perspective, this new
economy was characterised by a call for company innovation through flexibil-
ity, particularly through employee mobility (Friedman, 1988; Porter, 1990).
Neoliberalism and academic knowledge production

In addition to the many broad-reaching critical studies by social science scholars
of the effects of neoliberal policies, much has been written about the influences
of neoliberalism upon contemporary work practices (Du Gay, 2004; Rose,
1996). Some have argued that neoliberalism is also a mode of knowledge
production that privileges and rewards knowledge about markets (Simpson and
Cheney, 2007), with society itself narrowly understood in terms of consumers,
choice, competition, upskilling, market positioning, etc. (Roberts, 2004). Others
have critiqued vested interests that make academic investigations inherently
selective (Harding, 1997). However, the image of academic research as impartial
and disinterested persists, both in the popular imagination and in the work
of academics themselves (Ragin, 1994).
There are good reasons to pay attention to how academic research may be
produced and reinforced by larger historical forces, and to understand how
particular interests may constitute what counts as academic knowledge. Most
researchers teach students, and arguably the main social significance of schol-
arly work is pedagogical (Burbules, 1993). Also, greater awareness about
potential connections and tensions between ones research and larger economic,
political and historical forces fosters more reflexive and careful scholarship
(Harter et al., 2007). Identifying the processes by which economic discourses
can potentially become embedded in other apparently unrelated discourses
facilitates understanding of how those economic discourses work, proliferate
and are resisted (Cheney, 1999).
Given these broad concerns about the relationship between neoliberalism
and work practices, and about connections between economic systems and

academic discourse, the particular domain of concern in this article is the

connections and disjunctures between neoliberalism and scholarly research on
boundaryless careers. To facilitate this task, critical discourse analysis (CDA) is
employed as a mode of analysis.
Method
Critical Discourse Analysis

While there are many approaches to discourse analysis, CDA has its roots in
socio-linguistics, semiotics and other approaches to language use. CDA is based
on the understanding that it is through language that world views are con-
structed (Berger and Luckmann, 1966) and, conversely, that evidence of the
influence of the socio-political and historical context will be uncovered through
micro-analysis of texts. Accordingly, CDA examines written and spoken texts
within their social and political contexts, combining micro-level textual analysis
with macro-analysis of the wider socio-political practices and contexts that
both shape the texts and are influenced by them (Fairclough, 1992; Van Dijk,
2005). Discourses, in this context, are the aggregation of particular views of the
world in action, often represented as stories in everyday language. Discourses
as stories make assumptions about relationships between key entities (such as
between people and nature, or between government and society), establish
certain subject positions and their relationships, e.g. employer-employee
(Fairclough, 1992) and employ rhetorical devices such as metaphors that serve
to normalise such positions and relationships. The subject positions given to
those who figure in the discourse (the storys actors) very often also suggest
agency for particular circumstances or actions, such as when people are por-
trayed as those who failed to help themselves as opposed to victims of circum-
stance. Significantly, CDA also involves assessing and understanding how
information is strategically arranged and omitted in order to promote particular
interpretations and narratives.
Discourses are said to be both constituted by, and constitutive of, social
realities, with the power to construct and control discourse having material
consequences (Fairclough, 1992): hence their very practical relevance. Of inter-
est to critical discourse analysts are instances of discursive control resulting in
domination, inequality and social abuse. Analysis of written or spoken texts,
where such discourses are evidenced, can reveal the mechanisms by which
power relations are enacted, reproduced and eventually normalised as com-
mon sense. As Hall (1988: 8) put it, in normalisation, common sense is simply
taken for granted in practice and thought, and forms the starting-point
(never examined or questioned) from which every conversation begins. Once
a particular discourse becomes normalised, the actors involved cease to ques-
tion and challenge their own subject positions relative to those of others (Van
Dijk, 2005).

Finally, critical discourse analysts seek to understand how the discursive

identification and elaboration of any social phenomenon is governed and
produced by particular world views. Habermas (1984) captures this process in
the term knowledge interests, drawing attention to ways in which human
inquiry is discursively aligned with moral and cultural worldviews, thus pro-
ducing bodies of knowledge that reinforce particular ideologies.
Corpus selection
The body of academic articles analysed was constituted as follows. To identify
academic texts where boundaryless careers appeared to be an important part of
the subject matter, in October 2008 articles from the Proquest ABI/Inform
(Business Studies), Education and Social Science databases, and the EBSCO
social science and psychology collections were selected that contained the term
boundaryless career in either the title or the abstract and that were classed as
scholarly in the databases. This search yielded a total of 63 publications 57
from ABI/Inform (14 of them also included in the Proquest education database),
and three additional publications each from the Proquest social science database
and the EBSCO social science and psychology collection. Fourteen items were
then removed five book reviews, and nine articles, theses and dissertations that
were available only in abstract form. This filter left a body of 49 articles.
In the analysis, particular attention was paid to sections containing ration-
ales and discussions of boundaryless careers, with a focus on arguments (both
pro and con) made about the relevance, existence and importance of bounda-
ryless careers. On this basis, a set of four distinct knowledge interests was
identified managerial, agentic, curatorial and critical that appeared to
underlie the production of knowledge about boundaryless careers. The defini-
tions of each knowledge interest are provided below. All three authors separately
coded each essay according to which of these knowledge interests appeared to
primarily drive the essay, and what secondary interests, if any, were evident.
The authors then discussed all discrepancies in their respective judgments until
consensus was reached. The knowledge interests were then examined to further
understand how they might be related to key neoliberal precepts. Thus, in the
first section of the analysis below, four key knowledge interests are described
that in the authors view have shaped scholarly discourse on boundaryless careers.
The subsequent discussion notes some continuities that span these interests in
terms of how boundaryless careers are represented, and in what contexts.
Analysis: knowledge interests
Analysing the interests that work to construct boundarylessness enables us to

attend to a range of motivations and impulses that might be at stake in the pro-
duction of knowledge about boundaryless careers. Research on boundaryless
careers has been published predominantly in journals of management and

organisational studies, in which researchers based in management schools tend

to publish. Interestingly, however, four distinct knowledge interests that underlie
these studies were identified: managerial, agentic, curatorial and critical, with
more than 30 percent of the articles driven by multiple knowledge interests.
Managerial interests
Studies driven by managerial interests often articulate a need to be useful to
senior organisational managers. This focus on management involves several
related discursive moves (Deetz and Mumby, 1990): a tendency to universalise
managerial interests, in that it is assumed that managerial realities and priorities
hold true for all organisational members; an orientation toward practice more
than theory; and a desire to solve organisational problems in terms of efficiency
and effectiveness.
Seventeen out of 49 studies were found to be driven primarily by manage-
rial interests. For example, Cappellen and Janssens (2005: 355) conducted a
theoretical analysis of boundaryless international careers to address the organ-
isational capability to design and manage HR and organisational systems that
further allow global managers to function effectively. Loogma et al. (2004)
focused on the implications of boundaryless careers for the management of
skilled IT professionals, and Currie et al. (2006) and Yamashita and Uenoyama
(2006) both detailed the HRM challenges that boundaryless careers create for
employers. These studies all present the boundaryless career as a management
problem for organisations, principally through their generation of high labour
turnover among skilled and professional staff. Sometimes they accept that in the
face of increased career mobility, organisations can do little more than intervene
indirectly in careers through the contextual incentives they offer.
It was also found that most of the studies of boundaryless careers reviewed
focused upon managerial careers. For instance, Ackah and Heaton (2004),
attempting to establish the extent to which contemporary careers are boundary-
less, relied on a sample of participants in a postgraduate, post-experience pro-
gramme in management, but generalised their results. Studies of non-managers
were largely restricted to professional and highly educated personnel. And in
an extension of the focus on managers careers, several scholars studied the
boundary-crossing of international managers and its impact on career and
organisational success; and their mentoring and resocialisation needs upon their
return (e.g. Banai and Harry, 2004; Mezias and Scandura, 2005; Stahl et al.,
2002). While such a focus could arguably be justified on the grounds that
boundaryless careers are more feasible for well qualified people, such justification
is largely absent in these studies.
Agentic interests
Several studies provided discursive evidence of what, borrowing from Giddens
(1998), might be termed an agentic interest. For Giddens, agency refers to the

ability of individuals to make, and act upon, free and independent choices. An
agentic knowledge interest refers to knowledge that is geared towards facilitat-
ing individuals ability to make these choices. In career studies, these interests
are distinct from managerial interests in that they are centred upon the self-
development of individual career actors, rather than on organisational manage-
ment. Such studies focus on contemporary work patterns, trends and values in
terms of their implications for the career needs and trajectories of individuals,
and translate this analysis into advice for individuals on how to survive in, and
benefit from, a boundaryless career. For example, Forret and Sullivans (2002)
study of career networking concludes with a set of detailed recommendations
for career actors, using such headings as determine your career goals, assess
your current social capital, network in your organisation, profession and com-
munity and be prepared to give.
A total of 14 out of 49 studies were driven primarily by agentic interests.
Again, such studies were conducted primarily of managerial and professional
career actors, who are highly educated and skilled. For instance, Cohen and
Mallon (1999) focused on the problem of professionals transitioning from per-
manent to contract employment, and Inkson and Arthur (2001) recommended
individual career capitalism career self-management aimed at building up
personal career competencies. Discourse in such articles also accepts the nor-
malisation of the proposition that individuals must take maximum responsibil-
ity for their own careers. For instance, Zikic et al. (2006) constructed repatriated
managers as hopeful and active career agents who engage in proactive career
exploration and career goal-oriented behaviour.
Curatorial interests
Curatorial interests are driven by scholarly wishes to categorise, label and
explain social phenomena. It is easily arguable that curatorial impulses are
inherent in all academic inquiry. However, in the present analysis curatorial
studies were considered as being those where the primary motivation is not so
much to be relevant to management or to individual career actors; rather, such
studies are motivated explicitly by intellectual curiosity (Ganesh, 2008; Sen,
2005). For example, Sullivan and Arthur (2006: 20) sought to clarify and
elaborate the meaning of the boundaryless career, (and) explore the possible
interaction of mobility across (a) physical and (b) psychological boundaries.
Thirteen out of 49 studies of boundaryless careers were found to be pri-
marily curatorial, in that their focus was upon theoretical or empirical catego-
risation of phenomena. Such studies are more explicitly oriented to developing
typologies, vocabularies and measures of boundaryless careers than to pro-
moting managerial knowledge interests. For instance, Sullivan and Arthur
(2006) attempted to construct a career typology based upon both physical and
psychological mobility of career actors. Their essay is curatorial, with the
emphasis upon the creation of analytical typologies. The relevance of the
typology itself is constructed in terms of its implications for future research,

rather than its relevance for organisational managers or highly educated

managers or professionals. Certainly, such studies might sometimes be latently
managerial, agentic or even critical in orientation, but the predominant focus
is upon academic theory and research rather than practice: that is, the particular
knowledge interest at work appears to have much more to do with boundary-
lessness as interesting, than as potentially lucrative, practical or problematic.
Such scholarship thus emphasises everyday careers as well as boundary-
less careers. For instance, Briscoe and Halls (2006) analysis of combinations
of protean and boundaryless careers is explicitly geared toward generating
profiles of various career types, rather than an ideal profile per se. Their eight-
fold typology divides career types into: trapped/lost, fortressed, idealist, wan-
derer, solid citizen, organisational man/woman, hired gun and protean career
architect. Their manifest intent is to discern and acknowledge a range of career
types. However, the typology appears latently oriented towards an agentic
interest as well, implicitly setting up protean career architect as the most nor-
matively desirable position.
Critical interests
Critical interests have larger concerns with social justice and equality
(Habermas, 1984). In this context such studies therefore focus on issues of
power and resistance that are manifested in the world of work. These studies
are critical of systems of power that constitute organisational realities, and
often look for organisational practices that can create just, egalitarian and
transformative social relationships. For example, a key feature of Pringle
and Mallons (2003) article is their counter discourse of advocacy for ordinary
workers, expressed as a need to consider boundaryless careers in relation to the
economically disadvantaged and those marginalised in insecure, low-skill jobs
(p. 842).
Critical studies of boundaryless careers tend to be less prevalent than cura-
torial, agentic or managerial studies. Five articles were identified that were
primarily critical. However, critical interests were secondary in four other stud-
ies that were predominantly agentic or curatorial. In these articles there was
usually explicit or implicit recognition that for some individuals, particularly
unskilled, underprivileged and casual workers, being boundaryless may lead to
disastrous marginalisation. In general, studies are limitedly critical of one or
another aspect or consequence of boundaryless careers, and the grounds of
critique are sometimes ideological and sometimes couched in terms of theory
and science. For instance, Cabreras (2007) study of the experiences of profes-
sional women, while primarily agentic, also engages in an ideological critique
of gender issues as they pertain to boundaryless careers.
Other critical studies have emphasised the differential effects of boundary-
lessness across occupational categories, basing their critique in method and
science. For instance, Peel and Inkson (2004) noted the very different effects of
boundaryless contracting in samples of skilled engineers versus unskilled

meter readers in public utilities. Dany (2003) combined both ideological and
theoretical critique in assessing both the desirability of individuals being free to
invent their careers ... unfettered by traditional career boundaries (p. 835) and
the reality of the shift towards boundaryless careers claimed by new career
advocates.
Analysis: multiple interests, common features
Of the 49 articles analysed, 15 were driven by multiple knowledge interests.

Two points about multiple knowledge interests are in order. First, while mana-
gerial interests were the most prevalent of the primary knowledge interests,
agentic interests were most often evident as a secondary knowledge interest, in
eight out of 49 articles. In sum, managerial interests were identified in 20 articles
and agentic interests in 22. In broad terms, therefore, studies of boundaryless
careers cannot easily be cast as purely managerial, and agentic interests should
either be considered as an equivalent interest or as a very close second. Further,
critical interests were only evident as a secondary interest in studies where either
agentic or curatorial interests were dominant. In the five instances where critical
interests were primary, they were the only knowledge interests driving the study.
Thus, critical interests could be said to lie in tension with managerial interests
much more than with agentic or curatorial interests.
Interestingly and pivotally, the diverse knowledge interests that underlay
the production of these studies did not result in equally diverse ideological out-
comes. That is, despite the manifest diversity in knowledge interests underlying
academic writing on boundaryless careers, it was found that all four knowledge
interests were complicit, in varying degrees, in discursively constructing,
reinforcing and aligning boundaryless careers with a broader neoliberal
paradigm. This occurred in two ways:
a) the normalisation of boundarylessness; and

b) the creation of neoliberal subject positions.
Normalisation
As discussed above, normalisation is a process by which a set of beliefs an
ideology becomes so integrated into the psyche of discourse participants that
they no longer question its precepts. With that in mind, consider the following
quotation, which was found to be a typical example of boundaryless careers
discourse:
Many staff prefer to work on a part-time, flexitime, or time-sharing basis. Jobs
have been redesigned in terms of projects the relational psycholgical contract
of employees with the organisation has turned into a transactional contract.
Organisational commitment has been replaced with a business transaction. The
impact of ... [restructuring] has diminished the ties of loyalty to employers. Employees

have embarked on professional and entrepreneurial careers ... Boundaryless careers

have become predominant. (Banai and Harry, 2004: 98)
The language here is of factual information, evident in the use of verbs

without qualifiers. Thus, for example, staff prefer to work; the relational con-
tract has been replaced and employees have embarked on a different model
of career. Such a presentation of fact leaves little room for dissent or critique.
Note further the agency of employees who are said to have diminished their
loyalty to employers rather than the other way around, and who have, by impli-
cation, chosen to embark on another form of career.
It was considered that these commentaries are part of a process of normali-
sation effected through lack of critique of the circumstances of boundarylessness,
or of any discussion of viable alternatives. While there was some evidence of a
systematic counter narrative to the normalisation of boundaryless careers, this
counter was limited to two of the five studies identified as representing solely
critical interests (Dany, 2003; Pringle and Mallon, 2003). Studies of boundary-
less careers pay varying degrees of attention to the contextual conditions in
which these careers are believed to have grown and, regardless of knowledge
interest, very often preclude the issue of responsibility for job security on the part
of employing organisations. Some articles, mostly curatorial, describe the alleged
transformation from organisational to boundaryless careers with little consid-
eration of contextual causes. Others note causal factors such as globalisation,
hypercompetition, pressures for flexibility and organisational restructuring, but
fail to acknowledge the wider socio-political contexts for boundarylessness.
Some refer to broad contexts such as modern economic life (Briscoe and
Hall, 2006: 12), and the rapidly changing organisational and employment
context at the end of the 20th century, the context some scholars have called the
boundaryless career environment (Higgins, 2001: 255). Without reference
to any discernible agent of change, the context here is constructed as inevitable,
immutable and likely to continue into the future. If it had been acknowledged,
for example, that change was implemented by drivers of a particular economi-
cally based ideology, then change itself would be more open to scrutiny.
Thus, the majority of articles reviewed take the boundaryless career as an
accepted and inevitable environmental phenomenon in the light of which some
other issue, such as expatriation (Stahl and Cerdin, 2004) or networking (Higgins,
2001) may take on a new dynamic or urgency. Unlike some upbeat commentaries
in the original book on boundaryless careers (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996), our
analysis found little overt advocacy or celebration of boundarylessness. Instead,
the implicit message is one of inevitability and thus acceptance.
Boundaryless careers are also normalised in other ways. Many descriptions
compare them with traditional hierarchical career patterns (Becker and
Haunschild, 2003: 714). For example:
Given todays more volatile and unstable organisational environment, individuals

can no longer expect lifetime employment within one organisation. (Eby et al.,
2003: 689, emphasis added)

Again the language is in factual terms, dismissing any consideration of or

commentary on the passing of traditional career forms, although assumptions
of the demise of organisational careers are nowhere in this literature supported
by strong empirical evidence, such as dramatically increased labour turnover
rates.
Even Cohen and Mallons (1999) critical study of the specific problem of
professionals transitioning from old (permanent) to new (contract) employ-
ment normalises the progression through a lack of critique. The differences
are discussed, and in some cases the context globalisation, downsizing,
restructuring leading to the change is also discussed, but power relations
and responsibilities are not mentioned. Instead, the solution is identified as
the need for individuals to adapt to the new environment. Thus, to the extent
that studies of boundaryless careers, regardless of their knowledge interest,
construct boundaryless careers as new and give them ontological validity,
they reinforce neoliberalism.
Subject positions/agency
As stated earlier, the notion of subject positions is integral to the notion of dis-
course. Following Michel Foucaults (1972) idea of orders of discourse,
socially determined ways of understanding and talking about issues and social
entities, such as education, economic systems and government, cover a range of
possibilities, one of which, at any given time and place, is likely to be dominant.
Within an order of discourse, social relationships are determined and played
out in both language and practice. An integral part of the process of the hierar-
chical ordering of social relationships is the construction, through language, of
particular subject positions for individuals and other entities, and their relation-
ships to each other.
The subject positions given to employees in academic articles on boundary-
less careers fit squarely within a neoliberal discourse, and can be understood as
part of its order. In boundaryless careers discourse employees are constructed
as individuals with personal responsibility for their own success, who should
be held accountable for their behaviour in a way that encourages and reinforces
autonomy (Briscoe and Hall, 2006: 12). This prescription is presented as a
statement of fact. Further, the use of the word should denotes advocacy for
actively repositioning (Roper, 2005) employees towards autonomy.
Briscoe and Hall (2006: 16) explicitly acknowledge that the boundaryless
metaphor speaks to [individual] agency, individualism, and opportunity, all of
which implicitly support neoliberal ideology. Instead, individualism and the
associated concepts are described as cultural values and objective possibilities.
The understanding of individualism and its associated concepts as cultural val-
ues is consistent with Stuart Halls (1988) description of neoliberalism as a
social project, described above. Because culture is considered an integral part
of an individuals identity rather than any imposed externality, these construc-
tions effectively disregard or dismiss any agency beyond the individual, and it

becomes difficult to speak or conceive of cultural values as held by communi-

ties, groups and societies. Through a highly individualised notion of culture,
subject positions that accord high degrees of agency to individuals are crafted
and set.
As a final example, Banai and Harry (2004: 98) state: Under this para-
digm, employees unilaterally take charge over their careers. Again agency for
the change is placed upon employees, ignoring the contextual circumstances of
downsizing, globalisation, outsourcing etc. that were uncritically described just
two paragraphs prior. Further, the above article is consistent with most in our
corpus in referring to employees generically, when in fact the empirical data
presented covers mainly educated elites who are more likely to have some
power in negotiating autonomous contract-based careers than are their less
qualified and less skilled counterparts.
Discussion and conclusions
Our analysis suggests, in sum, that boundaryless careers discourse, despite the
range of knowledge interests that create it, is often a manifestation of wider
neoliberal discourse that emphasises individual rather than societal or organisa-
tional responsibility for economic and career outcomes. The idea of a boundary-
less career has, however, gained little traction outside limited academic mainly
business school circles, and has limited empirical support (Inkson et al., 2008).
Nevertheless, many academic writers on boundaryless careers have tended not
to question the prevalence and importance of the concept but to accept it as
common sense. While authors personal beliefs regarding neoliberalism cannot
be assumed, the evidence in the above analysis suggests their tacit or uncon-
scious support for the notion that careers increasingly develop in a free labour
market in which individuals must take prime responsibility for their own career.
As noted by Fairclough (1992: 90):
It should not be assumed that people are aware of the ideological dimensions of
their own practice. Ideologies built into conventions may be more or less naturalised
and automatised, and people may find it difficult to comprehend that their normal
practices could have specific ideological investments.
However, the opposite can also be the case, with agents consciously support-
ing and reproducing ideologies which serve their own interests. Regardless of
motive, the fact that seemingly objective academic writing can consciously or
unconsciously support ideologically constructed social relations to the poten-
tial detriment of some members of society requires examination. It is for this
reason that Fairclough (1992) advocated the teaching of critical thinking about
language in schools and certainly for its practice in academic institutions.
In line with a critical perspective, thinking and research about boundaryless
careers needs to be contextualised, organisationally, socially and politically, in
order to uncover the broader influences that may have resulted in particular

constructions, such as the image of the responsible and innovative career actor that
is embedded in boundaryless career discourse. A view of the context for careers as
consisting of the employing organisation and a few broader economic structures
and trends is not going far enough: all these levels are influenced by a context of
ideas, in this case the neoliberal discourse that the evidence in this article suggests
is taken for granted by an academic group dominated by business schools (and by
implication their customers in the business community, their MBA programmes
etc.). Career studies too has failed to take proper consideration of the wider eco-
nomic and socio-political systems in which careers are embedded (Mayrhofer
et al., 2007). There are other, closely related, areas of study, such as boundaryless
employability security, that career studies scholars would do well to take note of,
that treat employability as a social rather than an economic issue (Verhaar and
Smulders, 1999), or point out that opportunities for career movement for low
skilled workers are in practice likely to be only intra organisational (Rothwell and
Arnold, 2007; Sanders and De Grip, 2004). Recent calls by career studies scholars
(Arthur, 2008) for interdisciplinary research to broaden definitions of careers,
methodological orientations, theoretical suppositions and empirical analyses
indicate that such dialogue could well be forthcoming.
The reproduction of a discourse that posits the inevitability of ideologically
invested precepts in this case, boundaryless careers has material conse-
quences as that discourse is enacted in practice. Its acceptance legitimises inse-
curity for employees who may not choose a working life based on temporary
contracts. The fact that career boundarylessness disadvantages at least as many
people as it advantages must be recognised. Currently, the literature still reflects
a broad consensus that boundaryless careers have generally been regarded as
positive for employees, leading to increased self-determination (Eby, 2001:
344) and other benefits, a notion that is not challenged in the light of changing
social and political contexts. There is, however, recognition that some actors
within the discourse may not have positive outcomes (Eby, 2001: 344), and
that these have the greatest need in adapting (Briscoe and Hall, 2006: 12). In
discussing the boundarylessness metaphor, these authors acknowledge that
there is insecurity for some employees but the means for reducing this insecurity
is based very much on action that may be taken by individuals to help them-
selves, or (occasionally) by enlightened and socially responsible organisations.
Our critical, contextually based examination of empirical data leads us to
question the normality of boundaryless careers. As stated already, most studies
focus on executives or MBA students. Some examine the situation for women
and there are other exceptions as noted above. But for the most part the basic
issue of the career effects of neoliberal values on those who have few skills to
market, as well as the issue of the forms of behaviour or intervention most
likely to de-marginalise them (self-development? militant trade unionism?
publicly funded education?) are largely unaddressed.
Finally, in the first decade of the new century, governments and businesses
alike have moved back from single-minded adherence to market values and are
placing more value in business social responsibility. Organisations are moving

to a resource based view of the firm (Barney and Clark, 2007) and focusing
on the long-term preservation of an organisational core (e.g. Pfeffer, 1998). This
shift does not appear to have been recognised by or to have influenced the
majority stance of boundaryless career studies. This lack of recognition is sur-
prising, especially given that employee welfare is an important component of
social responsibility, and that in many countries labour supply, until the current
economic downturn has not been meeting demand. Academics also have a
social responsibility, and that is to critically examine the broader contextual
circumstances of their scholarship. In doing so, they need to uncover, recognise
and acknowledge the range of ideological biases in their own perspectives.
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Juliet Roper
Juliet Roper is Professor of Management Communication and Associate Dean,

Sustainability, at the University of Waikato Management School, New Zealand. She is
also President of the Asia Pacific Academy of Business in Society (APABIS). Her research
interests encompass social and environmental aspects of sustainability, examining issues
of cross sector engagement, public relations, influences on public policy, government and
corporate discourses on sustainability and social responsibility. She is co-editor of The
Debate over Corporate Social Responsibility (2007) and co-author of The Politics of
Representation: Election Campaigning and Proportional Representation (2004). Her articles
have been published in books and journals in Europe and the USA, including Journal of
Public Relations Research, Public Relations Review, Journal of Applied Communication
Research, Journal of Public Affairs and Corporate Governance.
Address: Dept of Management Communication, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3214,
New Zealand.
Email: jroper@waikato.ac.nz

Shiv Ganesh
Shiv Ganesh is Associate Professor at the University of Waikato, and the editor of
the National Communication Associations Journal of International and Intercultural
Communication. Shiv studies communication issues embedded in globalisation, civil soci-
ety organisations, social movements and technology. His work appears in such outlets
as Communication Monographs, Communication Yearbook, Human Relations, Journal of
Applied Communication Research and Management Communication Quarterly, among oth-
ers. He is co-author, with George Cheney, Lars Christiansen and Ted Zorn, of
Organizational Communication in an Age of Globalization: Issues, Reflections, Practices, now
in its second edition.
Address: University of Waikato, Management Communication, Private Bag 3105,
Hamilton 3214, New Zealand.
Email: sganesh@waikato.ac.nz
Kerr Inkson
Kerr Inkson is Adjunct Professor of Management at the University of Waikato and a

research advisor at The University of Auckland School of Business. Kerrs research
focuses on career studies (particularly career theory, metaphorical representations of
career and international careers), and leadership. His work appears in such journals as
Journal of Vocational Behavior, Career Development Quarterly, Human Relations, Journal of
Organizational Behavior and Journal of World Business. He has authored or co-authored
14 books, of which the most recent are Understanding Careers: The Metaphors of Working
Lives (Sage, 2007), and Cultural Intelligence: Living and Working Globally (second edition,
co-authored with David C. Thomas, Berrett-Kohler, 2009).
Address: Dept of Strategy and Human Resource Management, Private Bag 3105,
Hamilton 3214, New Zealand.
Email: kinkson@waikato.ac.nz
Date submitted April 2009

Date accepted February 2010

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