Ingress: Hvordan kan faktorer som påvirker den enkeltes beslutningsprosesser, som endring, tilfeldigheter og kompleksitet, bli forstått og praktisk drøftet i karriereveiledning? Dr. Anouk J. Albien presenterer hvordan «Chaos Theory of Careers» kan tjene som et teoretisk og praktisk bidrag i karriereveiledning.

Introductory paragraph: How can the numerous contextual factors that influence individuals’ career decision-making processes, which include change, chance and complexity, be understood and practically addressed in career guidance support? Dr. Anouk J. Albien presents how the Chaos Theory of Careers (CTC) serves as a theoretical and practical contribution to the career guidance and counselling field.  

This paper explores leadership as a dynamic phenomenon, characterized by dialogical and negotiation processes. The study focuses on a company that differentiates itself with a non-hierarchical business structure promoting collective responsibility and self-leadership. Operating as a complex network without formally appointed managers, except for the legally mandated CEO, the organization embodies principles of agility, teamwork, and continuous reinvention. Taking departure in the results of our recent case study in the present organization (Bergmo-Prvulovic et al., forthcoming), this paper aims to understand how Holacracy (Robertson, 2007) as an analytical framework addresses the balance between autonomy and control, the distribution of power and of responsibilities, expectations on engagement, and different leader roles. What can the insights and lessons from Holacracy offer for managing the paradoxes in today's complex organizational environments?

Bergmo-Prvulovic and colleagues (forthcoming) employed a social representations theory approach to reveal and address the implicit values, ideas, and practices that shape leadership development among employees in the present company. Social representations are defined as: “a system of values, ideas and practices” (Moscovici 1973, xiii), with a dual function: establishing an order which enables individuals to orientate themselves and enabling communication among members of a community. Representations are socially, culturally, and contextually shaped through individuals’ communicative actions and daily practice (Jovchelovitch 2019; Marková 2003; Moscovici 2001). The study revealed a web of social representations of leadership and leadership development that shape the company’s values, ideas, and practices, forming a contextually characterized leadership development system. Furthermore, showing that the representations were both stable and dynamic, reflecting ongoing negotiations and conflicts in understanding. The results clearly show how the shared responsibilities distributed along with both various leadership roles and self-leadership causes confusions and conflicts. In contrast, leadership research typically emphasizes a functional perspective, focusing on individual leaders and their performance improvement (Fraher and Grint, 2018), which possible overlook the social, cultural, and contextual shaping of leadership and leadership development (Alvesson and Spicer 2012; Carroll 2019; Mabey 2013; Uhl-Bien and Ospina 2012). The results of the study demonstrated that uncovering hidden values, ideas, and perspectives can support organizational learning and cultivate a deliberate and purposeful approach to leadership development.

To explore how leadership can be both understood, practiced and developed in a flat business structure, this study applies the practice concept and management philosophy of Holocracy (Robertson, 2007) on the results of our recent study (Bergmo-Prvulovic et al., forthcoming). Holacracy redistributes authority and decision-making across an organization, promoting self-organization and autonomy (Robertson, 2007). By structuring teams around specific tasks and granting individuals the freedom to make decisions within their roles, Holacracy aims to foster innovation, enhance employee engagement, and drive organizational growth. The approach offers several benefits, including increased autonomy, improved agility, clarity in roles, and enhanced collaboration. Academic researchers have begun to examine sociocratic and holacratic organisations (Salovaara et al., 2024) and theorize new organizational forms that offers alternatives to hierarchy (Puranam et al., 2014). While practically employed in organizations, holacracy have been found to be technical and quite 'managerial,' often pushing pre-given solutions rather than supporting local approaches to self-organizing (ibid.) Challenges such as role ambiguity, decentralized decision-making, potential cultural shifts, and increased workloads can arise, as noted by Bergmo-Prvulovic and colleagues (forthcoming). Contrary to popular belief, voices have been raised that Holacracy is not non-hierarchical. Instead, it features a rigid hierarchy of self-governing circles, each subordinate to a higher circle that dictates its purpose and can modify or dissolve it if it fails to meet expectations.

Thus, since a holacratic system emphasizes democratic procedures within each circle, its structure is inherently hierarchical and inward-looking, focusing on internal governance rather than customer feedback or external outcomes. This critique underscores the complexity and potential limitations of adopting Holacracy as an organizational strategy. The results of the uncovered leadership representations in the specific business environment explored here reveal tensions regarding responsibilities and commitments, as well as between leadership as an individual or a collective act. Additionally, fostering a self-leadership culture presents both difficulties and possibilities, challenging traditional divisions of labor, roles, and responsibilities. Koistinen and Vuori (2024) underscores this, exploring five organizations that experimented with more self-managing practices. When authority relations between 'leaders' and 'followers' were weakened, it created asymmetries of responsibility, pushing the authoring of organizational arrangements to include both shared and hierarchical forms of control.

Our study illustrates the changing nature of leadership and how the meaning of leadership needs to be continuously renegotiated and recaptured in practice, especially in times of growth. The circular structure is in constant movement, and when new employees enter the circle of structure, they bring their own meanings ascribed to leadership as a phenomenon, not always compatible with the meanings of leadership that Holocracy aims at. 

The paper seeks to identify patterns of leadership development in different organization contexts with the aim of contributing to improved understanding of how the context shapes the leadership development system (LDS).

Design/methodology/approach: This study is based on the initial phase of a 4-year collaborative research project on LDSs. Data was collected in the five collaborative partner organizations and based on four data sources: 1) company visits; 2) internal documentation; 3) external information (websites); and 4) company presentations at an on-line workshop.

Findings: The results show a strong focus on individual leader development, and at least partly, confirms the under-use of developmental assignments and relationships as shown in previous studies. All organizations outsource leadership development to different degrees. However, leadership development is not only structured through different methods, it is also dependent on the organization context in the form of leader forums and meetings. An identified pattern is that the smaller organizations are more dependent on external resources, and the larger organizations tailor company-wide programs for their unique needs together with external consultants. Furthermore, the LDS is believed to be an effective change agent in the adaptive process of transforming.

Originality: This study contributes to the research on leadership development by advancing the current understanding of how leadership development interacts with the context of the organization.

Practical implications: This study highlights the need for leaders and HR professionals to acknowledge contextual issues when choosing practices used for developing the leadership in the organization.

In Sweden as well as in many European countries, increased pressure is put on individuals to manage their own careers. EU Council Resolutions (2004, 2008), stresses the development of citizens lifelong and life-wide learning and also management skills. The importance of citizen-focused, impartial counselling is pointed out (CEDEFOP, 2005). Lifelong guidance is expected to improve the matching of both individuals´ interests, abilities and competencies with learning opportunities for educational and labor market efficiency. Furthermore guidance is considered to support their lifelong career transitions. In Sweden, there has been an extensive political focus the past year, concerning companies abilities of adapting to societal changes in an innovative manner, in order to serve them with future requested competencies. The need for utilizing competence, transition and adjustment abilities for adapting to constantly changes, is intensively discussed among different political areas, but mostly from the perspective of the companies, with economical efficiency aspect as the main one. From an adult career development and counselling perspective, the main focus is the individual in transition and change. Thus, societal changes and changing working life conditions indicates a need for working preventive (Plant, 2005) and preparatory in career counselling practice, in the meaning of preparing for change. Although educational and vocational choices still are important issues for career counselling practice, there is an increasing need for supporting also employed adults in dealing with other career-related issues concerning substantial change of work-conditions, responsibilities and work-roles.

Adult career development can be understood from several different perspectives and theoretical approaches. The provision of career support for adult career development can be offered, organized and expressed in different ways and settings, also differing between countries and within countries. European Union employ guidance as an umbrella concept for several activities concerning career development in their publications. In Sweden, career counselling for adults has a tradition of being offered within municipal adult education, often connected to educational/vocational choice and decisions. For many years, vocational counselling has been offered in employment services. During the past decade, there has been an increased development of organizing career counselling/guidance in specific career centres or guidance centers and the last years, different coaching practices, organized both in private and public sector, has developed.  Nevertheless, they are all a part of our changing society, dealing with different career-related issues, brought into light by adults with different dilemmas and stories to tell, different goals to reach.

This theoretical paper, is concerned with the conjunctions between the societal changes as they are expressed in EU Policy goals concerning lifelong learning and guidance and theoretical approaches concerning change and transition. The main focus will be put on the work of Nicholson (1990) and his transition cycle model, aiming at analyzing the model as an analytical framework for adult career counselling practice, according to the demands put on individuals to self-manage their careers and develop career management skills.

Against the background of societal changes affecting work- and career-paths in today’s globalized and knowledge-based economy, this study examines the conceptual and terminological parallels between various European policy documents concerning lifelong learning and career guidance and the theoretical framework proposed by Nigel Nicholson in his work, The Transition Cycle: Causes, Outcomes, Processes and Forms (1990).  Parallels are drawn between the way the texts characterize contemporary demands imposed from (and on) individual, organizational and societal levels, and between the ways the texts treat of current issues in the area of individual career development.  Finally, the study looks at what implications such parallels might have for the field of guidance counselling.

Introductory paragraph: Recent theoretical contributions at Veilederforum indicate a need to explore and addnew theoretical perspectives to career guidance. Ingela Bergmo Prvulovic presents aframework for understanding these needs by addressing conflicting perspectives oncareer, why these increasingly collide and why learning is increasingly on the agenda.

The traditional take on ‘a career’ is that it is a climb upwards in terms of position and pay, but such traditional career pathways are rapidly disappearing. Today, organisations place emphasis on learning, adaptability, and flexibility. Attempts to redefine 'career' as a personal development have not been adopted by most employees. When stable working conditions; employment contracts; and predictable, transparent career pathways disappear, this results in insecurity and the impression that there is no reward for increased effort. This, in turn, creates dissatisfaction and frustration. To re-establish the balance between effort and reward, organisations need to revise the career pathways that they offer their employees.

This paper will discuss the understanding of career phenomena in the 21^st century by using the result from a critical content analysis of the way European policy documents regarding career guidance describe individuals’ career and career development, as these documents will influence policy development of career guidance practice at both national, regional and local level in European countries. The career field seems to be challenged in several ways. For instance, new approaches to career intervention have been suggested in order to fit the knowledge based, postmodern economy, as current approaches are supposed to be no longer functional because they are rooted in assumptions of stable personal characteristics, predictability and fixed organizations. Theories, models and the core concepts, that serve career guidance practitioners, seem to face a crisis as they are based upon the division of labour conditions of the 20^th century, influenced by the consequences of industrialization. The social contract between employers and employees has been characterized by hierarchical dependence, stable organizations and relationships, loyalty, lifelong employment and job security.  The transition to the knowledge based society has resulted in the emergence of a new division of labour, where occupational and educational prospects are no longer linear, predictable or stable; employments are no longer secure or lifelong. Instead insecure workers shall become lifelong learners and create their own opportunities. Consequently, the transition to the knowledge based postmodern economy put new challenges on individuals in their career prospects as well as on career guidance practice. In addition, career supportive activities are organized in ways that might differ both within and between countries, as well as their directions for practice might differ according to the aims of career guidance. Besides, it is not to be taken for granted, that the aims of career guidance within each working field are clearly defined or articulated. The aims in turn, are important for the directions of practice and express some kind of ideology behind. However, the understanding of career phenomena is neither common nor clarified among practitioners, clients or policymakers, organizations and institutions. The notion of career lacks a definition in the literature, have multiple meanings and can be understood from different perspectives and disciplines. It is also an everyday word among people, and also used for different purposes. The aim with this paper is to contribute to Trans disciplinary and trans-national debates of understanding career phenomena in the 21^st century, among and between working fields concerned with career guidance, by discussing the following questions:  What core essence of the phenomenon of individuals’ career and career development can be disclosed in European policy documents regarding career guidance? What perspectives on career and career development appear to be the guiding directions for career guidance practice in European countries in the 21st century? What significance and consequences will these guiding directions have for the role of future career guidance practice?

I will focus on how a career can be understood as a bridging phenomenon, that links together different fields, and involves different actors and professionals along people’s career navigation. I will specifically pay attention to the role of learning in career guidance support. The need for transition learning possibilities will be addressed as a key potential for students’ movement from education into working life.

This paper will present an on-going research project concerned with social representations of careers in today´s working life. Organizational structure has been characterized by hierarchical dependence, fixed and stable organizations, influenced by the industrialization and working life conditions of the 20^th century. Furthermore, our understanding of career phenomena is based upon theories, models and concepts developed during the past century. Today, companies and working places need to relate their activities to new conditions of a globalized, knowledge based society, characterized by rapid and constant changes. These conditions appears to reinforce a transformation of working life, that consequently challenges the career field when new demands are imposed upon individuals in their careers. Occupational and educational prospects are no longer linear, predictable or stable. Employments are no longer secure or lifelong. Practitioners in different countries and working fields of career guidance, counselling and human resource departments, are all concerned with career related issues among adults. However, the understanding of career phenomena is neither common nor clarified; the notion of career lacks a definition, has multiple meanings and is also an everyday word, used for different purposes. Because of this lack of clarity and conceptual confusion, together with the on-going transformation of working life, there is a need to deepen our understanding of careers related to these new conditions, as they seem to be caught somewhere between the past and the future. With social representation theory, as both theoretical and methodological approach, this study explores social representations of career among workplaces and employees in processes of work related changes. The purpose of this study is to illuminate how social representation theory can contribute to our understanding of career phenomena in today´s working life, with relevance for both Nordic and international contexts.

This study explores previous research about extended working lives and later careers, as consequences of demographic changes alongside with a changing working life. Issues and themes visible in recent research on midlife and older adults’ careers opportunities are explored. A traditional literature review is conducted, in which peer reviewed articles on midlife and older adults’ careers issues and opportunities in an extended and changing working life are localized and downloaded as material for this study. This paper presents an analysis of empirical material downloaded from the Academic Search Elite database. The process of locating material from databases resulted in 141 articles selected for a deeper screening. Among these, 63 were finally selected as empirical material for analysis. Initially, the content of each article was identified, mapped, coded and categorized with content analysis as the basic method. The codes and categories with same or similar content were then brought together, and resulted in five overall themes: the need for all-age-career guidance services, career issues among certain professions, immigrants’ career paths, later careers and factors of well-being, and longitudinal correlations between early life conditions and late career. These themes are then discussed in terms of perspectives and interests that seem to dominate, and possible gaps and challenges for future research are also discussed.

An ageing population creates challenges for society, organizations and individuals. People live longer and are healthier, and many adults of retirement age are still able to continue to work. Some of them want to continue and to prolong their working lives; others are not so keen on the idea. An extended working life is clearly an issue of increasing interest in society. Politicians argue for changes in the retirement system and suggest a raising of the retirement age. This paper is a first step towards a mapping of previous research about extended working lives and later careers as consequences of demographic changes. This study explores the character of issues and themes visible in recent research regarding older adults’ career opportunities, and such issues and themes are critically analysed according to the following research questions: In whose interests are the identified issues and themes highlighted? What possible gaps and challenges are identified for future research?

Comprehensive databases, including peer-reviewed scientific articles, were used to search relevant research literature. The selection followed several steps. A brief review of the context and themes of extended working life in the literature was first explored. Thereafter, keywords were tested, revised, and finally selected for the final search procedure, which focused on scholarly, peer-reviewed articles published in the past ten years. Titles and abstracts were examined according to inclusion/exclusion criteria. This procedure resulted in a final selection of relevant articles that were included in the material for analysis. The analysis procedure resulted in several synthesised themes. These themes are critically analysed, and challenges for future research are discussed.

This paper addresses the need to characterize and strengthen career guidance as being a welfare profession. The past decades' influences of neoliberal ideas and the dominance of market principles as the overriding societal goals, have challenged the welfare society, including the underlying logics of welfare professions and their autonomy. Such challenges also go for the career guidance professionals, and their core mission. Based on several empirical studies exploring the transformation of the meaning of career in working life and in public debates and transnational policies, along with demographic changes, and its effects on peoples’ careers, and for career guidance professionals’, this paper develops a bridging guidance approach to support people in times of transitions. Such bridging guidance approach addresses the need to clarify what type of learning content that is in focus within the guidance mission, what meaning of the concept and phenomenon of learning, that such approach mainly entails, and for whom career learning is supported.

This paper explores the essential understanding and underlying perspectives of career implicit in EU career guidance policy in the twenty-first century, as well as the possible implications of these for the future mission of guidance. Career theories, models and concepts that serve career guidance are shaped on the twentieth-century industrial division of labour and now face a crisis due to the influence of globalization on working life. The transition to a knowledge-based society also challenges the traditional view of career: vocational and educational paths are no longer linear, predictable or stable. The analyses of EU policy documents and ethical declarations discussed here indicate that meanings of career are under reconstruction and that these documents fail to clarify the underlying meanings or perspectives on career contained therein. The essential meaning of career, as communicated through characterizations and dominating underlying perspectives in EU policy, puts greater emphasis on career guidance as being conducted on behalf of society, rather than the individual. Ethical tensions within the career guidance profession appear to have increased, and the profession is also challenged in its professionalization by contradictions and broadened areas, activities and functions.

Ingress: I en serie artikler på Veilederforum.no belyses behovet for å utforske og ta i bruk nye teoretiske perspektiver i karriereveiledning. Ingela Bergmo-Prvulovic presenterer en forståelsesramme for dette behovet ved å drøfte motstridende perspektiver på karriere, hvorfor disse i økende grad kolliderer og hvorfor læring oftere er på dagsordenen.

Karriär är något både självklart och svårfångat på samma gång. Det är dess­utom något som vi både pratar om och undviker att prata om. Den här boken handlar om detta mångfasetterade fenomen. Här analyseras karriär tvärveten­skapligt, i övergången till den globala kunskapsekonomi som dikterar de kom­plexa villkoren för människors karriärnavigering och lärande idag.

Karriär: ett livslångt perspektiv visar hur individens karriärrörelser, genom utbildning och arbetsliv och med sina många övergångar däremellan, överbryggar flera områden och parter och ofta resulterar i kollisioner mellan olika synsätt.

Boken vänder sig till dem som har en uttryckt funktion och roll längs med individers karriärrörelser genom utbildning, arbetsmarknad och arbetsliv: studie- och yrkesvägledare, karriärvägledare, arbetsförmedlare, karriärcoacher, omställningsrådgivare, yrkesverksamma inom HR, ledare och chefer – alla som behöver en fördjupad bild av hur karriär kan förstås och hanteras i detta nya arbetsliv.

Background and Aim: The discussion about extended working lives and later careers are high on the policy agenda in several countries. There is, however, scarce research on this area. To provide knowledge to the current discussion, a literature review of peer reviewed articles on midlife and older adults’ careers issues has been conducted.

Method: The process of locating material from databases resulted in 141 articles selected for a deeper screening. Among these, 63 were finally selected as empirical material for analysis. Initially, the content of each article was identified, mapped, coded and categorized with content analysis as the basic method. The codes and categories with same or similar content were then brought together.

Results: Five overall themes were identified: the need for all-age-career guidance services, career issues among certain professions, immigrants’ career paths, later careers and factors of well-being, and longitudinal correlations between early life conditions and late career.

Discussion and implications: The presentations discuss the role of and need for guidance and learning later in working life.

This study explores the career challenges individuals are facing and the type of managing strategies proposed on a public arena in Swedish media. The study investigates advice columns published between 2011 and 2015. Qualitative content analysis was used followed by an analysis based on the theoretical framework of career as a social and professional representation. The results uncovered several dilemmas of career navigation. These dilemmas were classified into five categories: 1) need for recognition, 2) how to advance, 3) how to understand the labor market, 4) experiences of injustice and of being controlled, and 5) uncertainty incurrent/forthcoming role. In all categories the social representation of career as a game of exchange is evident. The study identified four different support strategies in the answers given: 1) a strengthening strategy; 2) an enduring strategy; 3) a compensating strategy, and 4) a balancing strategy. These strategies relate to four different orientations: 1) individual-oriented, 2) market-oriented, 3) organizational-oriented, and 4) mutual-oriented. Moreover, four work-life contextually related representations were identified as underlying the answers given: 1) career recognition as a cost issue, career-navigating as 2) a risky (power)game, as 3) understanding the rules of the game, and 4) as personal marketing and/or strategic communication. Based upon the results, a bridging guidance approach is suggested that manages to address a perspective of exchange and through increased awareness manages to build bridges between different knowledge bases about career to support learning in career navigation.

Various issues surrounding career are part of people's everyday lives, so people have a kind of common sense knowledge of career. Although the meaning of ‘career’ is often taken for granted, mixed messages and the lack of a conceptual definition blur our understanding of career, especially in times of societal and contextual change. Social representation theory (SRT) responds well to the theoretical and methodological needs of this study, which explores social representations of career among a group of people in a context of changing working life conditions. Free association was the method used for collecting the empirical data for this study. The content of social representations is inductively and thematically explored to then disclose within which scientifically shaped thoughts on career the empirical findings are reflected and seems to be anchored, and how these representations relate to thoughts currently dominating on the structural level in today’s changing society. The exploration resulted in two stable and two more dynamic social representations concerning career: career as individual project and self-realization; career as social/hierarchical climbing; career as a game of exchange; and career as an uncertain outcome. The respondents’ common sense knowledge of career appears to be reflected and anchored in past working life conditions and in scientific perspectives that no longer correspond to those now dominating at the structural level. This indicates a discrepancy between that which is socially represented among people and that which is communicated within the new conditions of working life.

This thesis explores the meaning of career as a phenomenon and its implication for career guidance. In 1996, career as a phenomenon was more or less considered to be an obsolete or even extinct phenomenon. Since then, career guidance has received increased attention along with the increased interest in lifelong learning strategies. This thesis is motivated by the paradoxical message of career as an extinct yet living phenomenon. Career is outlined as a bridging issue that involves several contexts and is characterized by a number of dominating discourses in tension with one another. Two educational fields linked by career are of particular interest: the field of education and training in working life and the educational field of career guidance counselling. This thesis explores the meaning of career among a triad of various interested parties in this time of transition in the world of working life, and it explores the sense in which such understanding(s) of career influence policies and practices of career guidance. The thesis is based upon four separate studies. The first study explores, in order to disclose underlying views on career, how the language of European policy documents on career guidance characterize career and career development. Qualitative content analysis is used as the basic method to approach the subject in the texts, with an inductive development of categories. The analysis then conducts a sender-oriented interpretation, based upon a textual model for analyzing documents. The results revealed that underlying perspective on career in the documents derive from economic perspective, learning perspective and political science perspective, and communicate career as subordinated to market forces. The second study pays attention to the receiving side of the ideational message, disclosed in the first study. The second study extends the analysis of the first study with an exploration of ethical declaration documents for the profession. The exploration focuses on significant key principles, the profession's role and mission, and significant changes between the initial and the revised ethical declaration. Similarities and differences were compared, combined with the first study’s results as an interpretive frame for analyzing what consequences and significance the core meaning of career at structural level will have for career guidance practice. The results revealed an implicit shift of emphasis in the career guidance mission, which creates uncertainty regarding on behalf of whom the guidance counsellor is working. The third study explores common-sense knowledge of career, among a group of people influenced by changing conditions in working life. This study explores what social representations people have about career. The study also explores how people's anchored thoughts reflect scientifically shaped thoughts, and how they relate to thoughts currently dominating on structural level. Results disclose how the group explored has stable social representations of career that are anchored in the past, in previous working life conditions, and that contrasts with perspectives dominating in the structural context. The group also has dynamic representations, which provide space for negotiation of the meaning of career. The fourth study explores guidance counsellors' social representations of their mission and of careertherein. Results generated four social representations expressed in argumentative pairs of opposites. The first pair is concerned with their professional mission and reveal their professional identity. The second is concerned with career. Their view on their mission and their professional identity is in sharp contrast with how they experience others' interpretation of their mission, as being a matching practice on behalf of the business sector. Guidance counsellors reject the general view of career among others' and they regard career in the context of guidance as something other than the common view. At the same time guidance counsellors reveal difficulties in really clarifying the meaning they ascribe to career. The empirical findings of each of the four studies are finally interpreted as a whole in the final section of this thesis. With support from social representations theory, the empirical findings illuminate the sources as bearers of social representations of career, which both meet and clash.

In recent years, career guidance has been recognized as an important part in implementing lifelong learning strategies, as a means to achieve economic and political goals in European countries. Career guidance in turn, is not an unambiguous concept, with clear job titles, but rather perceived differently by different actors and countries and also changing over time. At the same time, the key-object of practice, i.e. individuals’ various career development issues, seems to be under tremendous changing processes, because of influences from structural changes within organisation systems and changes in working life, as consequences of globalisation. New employment principles have been communicated, which most certainly influence career possibilities for adults. Lifelong employments and stable conditions have been replaced by lifelong learning and unstable conditions, which influence the predictability of future career paths for individuals. Career guidance practice needs to embrace broader career related issues, than the former dominating issues of educational and vocational choice, as “a once in life-time choice”. Nowadays, adults need to readjust their career paths continuously, which in turn, create new challenges and also affect the career guidance practice itself. Career guidance practice can be regarded as a bridging practice between individual and society, with a certain role and mission. Recent studies indicate a discrepancy between what is communicated on a structural level concerning individuals’ careers, and individuals’ expectations on career development issues. This put focus on the role and mission of the guidance practitioner, who have to deal with such discrepancies. The way career guidance practitioners understand their role and mission, most certainly influence their way of supporting individuals. With social representation theory as both theoretical and methodological approach, this study explores what kind of thoughts and ideas, what social and professional representations adult career guidance practitioners have about their role and mission. These representations are assumed to be socially shaped into common-sense knowledge in everyday practice within professional contexts. Because of social changes influencing both the object for and the career guidance practice, tensions might arise causing re-negotiations of professionalization among career guidance practitioners.

This study explores language regarding career and career development in European policy documents on career guidance in order to disclose underlying view(s) of these phenomena conveyed in the texts. Qualitative content analysis was used to approach the subject in the texts, followed by a sender-oriented interpretation. Sources for interpretation include several sociological and pedagogical approaches based upon social constructionism. These provide a framework for understanding how different views of career phenomena arise. The characterization of career phenomena in the documents falls into four categories: contextual change, environment-person correspondence, competence mobility, and empowerment. An economic perspective on career dominates, followed by learning and political science perspectives. Policy formulations convey contradictory messages and a form of career 'contract' that appears to subordinate individuals' careers to global capitalism, while attributing sole responsibility for career to individuals.

This exploration of guidance counsellors’ social representations of their mission and of career generates two pairs of opposing social representations. The first pair—impartial educational support on behalf of the individual and a practice of matching on behalf of the business sector—concerns their mission. Constitutive elements of these refer to their professional identity and, in contrast, to surrounding actors’ misinterpretation of their mission. The second pair—the common view of career as something bad and career in the context of guidance as something other the common view—concerns career. Guidance counsellors express an uneasy relationship to career and implicitly view it as internal personal growth.

Recent theoretical contributions at Veilederforum indicate a need to explore and add new theoretical perspectives to career guidance. Ingela Bergmo Prvulovic presents a framework for understanding these needs by addressing conflicting perspectives on career, why these increasingly collide and why learning is increasingly on the agenda. 

This paper explored social representations of leadership and leadership development shaping an organizations leadership development system (LDS). This study is based on the initial phase of a 4-year collaborative research project on LDSs, adopting an interactive research approach to co-produce knowledge through joint meetings and learning workshops (Ellström et al., 2020). The research project involves researchers from different disciplines, and five organizations operating in different business domains. The participating organizations vary in terms of size, strategies, markets, processes, products, and ways of organizing, but they all share a common interest in how to develop sustainable approaches to leadership development. An LDS encompasses all the metho ds and practices in an organization that contribute to developing and producing effective leaders (McCauley et al 2010). The importance of understanding the characteristics of the context the LDS is embedded in has been highlighted in a previous study (Avby et al., 2022), and serve as a point-of-reference in this study. However, less is known of what underlying assumptions an LDS is based upon. This study paid attention to the underlying values, ideas, and perspectives on leadership and leadership development that shape an organizations’ ways of thinking, communicating, and acting in the LDS. We suggest that the potential to develop a more deliberate practice of leadership development was enhanced by exploring and articulating the tacit knowledge and assumpt ions that an LDS rests upon.

Aim

The aim of this study was to explore how socially and contextually shaped assumptions on leadership and leadership development can be visualized and practically applied to develop the leadership in the organization. The question addressed was how the awareness of underlying assumptions can support the methods and practices applied, and in what way the disclosing of underlying ideas, values and practices may foster work -integrated learning?

Design and methods

From a social representation theory approach (Moscovici, 2001, Jovchelovitch, 2007, Markova, 2003, BergmoPrvulovic, 2015), underlying assumptions of leadership and leadership development were explored. In the collaborative project an initial mapping of the participating organizations’ LDSs has been co nducted, based on different sources of data. The results of this mapping have been presented through a metaphorical analysis (Avby et al., 2022), in which the participating organizations are described with certain metaphors of their LDS. This study paid specific attention to the organization entitled The Self-Managing Team, and added to the initial stage of mapping LDSs by exploring the underlying assumptions that underpins the expressions and formulations on leadership and leadership development found in the organization’s documents, websites, formulations in meetings and strategies. The exploration of social representations of LDSs was based upon the free association method (Abric, 1995), further developed, and used in studies exploring social representations of similar abstract and complex phenomena, such as career (Bergmo-Prvulovic, 2013: 2015). The method consists of questions, words and series of words given to the respondents who spontaneously write down their immediate associations towards a specific concept and complex phenomenon with a gradual deepening of questions related to specific words, series of words. In this study, a digital enquiry was created in Esmaker. The enquiry was designed to ask for respondents spontaneous, immediate thoughts on words, and series of words related to leadership and leadership development. The gradually deepening of questions, were designed by paying attention to the five dimensions of representations suggested by Jovchelovitch (2007), by exploring who are concerned, why and for what leadership is needed, what is the content 84 of leadership, when it works and doesn’t work, when and how it occurs as well who is responsible, whose engagement and what conditions are needed. This study was based on 19 respondents’ answers a ll member in the Self-Managing Team. They were selected by the organization, as identified having important roles and functions in the company’s LDS. A facilitator in the organization introduced an online enquiry with 12 questions, given one by one to the respondents, providing 1-2 minutes for each. The respondents wrote down their associations to each question, some background data, and questions about leadership identity. The analytical procedure was made according to qualitative content analysis method as the basic procedure of qualitatively exploring social representations (Bergmo-Prvulovic, 2013; 2015). Expressions were numbered with a certain code for each respondent related to each answered question, thereafter each textual units were condensed, meaning units were coded and grouped into constitutive elements that builds up preliminary and primary themes generating a web of social representations of LDS for the group of respondents.

Preliminary results

The results disclosed a web of underlying social representations shaping the LDS in The Self-Managing Team. The social representations shape a basic, contextually characterized system of values, ideas, and practices, on which the company at present form their LDS. Given the collaborative design of the project, the results were fed back to the organization to validate the analytical procedure, as well as to support the designing for work -integrated learning and further knowledge use in the organization. The results revealed the respondents’ assumptions on leadership, leadership development, and self-leadership. These assumptions are clearly anchored in the organization’s aim to build in self-management, as a collective way of working with leadership. However, the existing knowledge base encloses both commonalities and contradictions that needs to be further highlighted to create a sustainable LDS. Results showed both stable representations, that occur repeatedly throughout the material, and dynamic social rep resentations, that express a negotiating character between different views, or as being antinomies of thoughts. By identifying and raising awareness of ambiguities deriving from the results, a base of designing for reflective work-integrated learning was provided. A joint learning process to discuss how the results could be utilized as a tool for work-integrated learning was initiated. Some challenges were recognized, and the organization especially addressed the need to work with a second step of workplace reflection. A first learning cycle was initiated to be continuously developed by involving the employees in the process. In all, the contribution of the study explains the basis of leadership development practice, which unnoticed might create ambiguity in service delivery. The mapping of social representations of an LDS can be utilized as a tool for a more deliberate leadership development practice and highlight possibilities and challenges that need to be addressed for integrating methods and practices in everyday work.

In 2013, the Swedish government introduced a career reform for teachers (SFS 2013, p. 70) that established two new career-track positions, namely, lead teachers and senior subject teachers. This study analyses the process of integrating this career reform into the Swedish school system in its early stage and focuses on lead teachers’ professional development and learning when trying to interpret and translate this new career position in their daily working life. The study explored teacher´s ideas, strategies and actions to govern themselves in relation to the demands for research and proven experience within the career reform, as well as their underlying views of career. For the empirical data collection, we interviewed twelve lead teachers. The analysis of the data generated four different governmentalities that these teachers used to govern themselves when trying to handle the career reform in their practices: the school developer, the process manager, the subject specialist and the involuntary careerist. Teachers relate their rationalities to different career discourses where organizational, individual and professional discourses are prominent to various degrees. Furthermore, underlying representations of career relate to both hierarchical views, and to a perspective of exchange. In addition, two new representations of career emerged: career as a non-hierarchical or equal level position, and career as a sorting tool. The results indicate that lead teachers have found themselves caught in tensions between multifaceted meanings of career, research-based education, and personal and organizational pressures associated with the intentions of the career reform.

Three important strategic challenges face future HR work: (i) HR departments should deploy a properly informed and critical attitude towards current trends and conditions, (ii) HR departments should deploy a relational and holistic perspective with respect to the work that they perform, and (iii) HR departments should deploy a positive view of other human beings and an ethical stance towards the work that they perform. The chapter ends with a discussion of the particular competencies that HR specialists need to develop so as to successfully meet the challenges described.

Under the umbrella of lifelong learning strategies, career guidance has received increased attention as part of such strategies. In Sweden, educational and vocational guidance is regarded as an educational practice. Nevertheless, by bringing together results from two different studies, a paradox regarding learning dimensions in career counselling is disclosed. Swedish guidance counsellors neither describe themselves or their professional practice in educational or pedagogical terms. At the same time, a study of career conversations with young migrants reveal the educational function as essential and that guidance counsellors clearly are supporting learning processes. The paradox discloses that the professional language of guidance counsellors seems to be insufficient in terms of learning dimensions in career guidance practice. Developing a theoretical framework and professional language for learning dimensions in counselling processes is therefore an urgent issue. By relating the results from the above mentioned two studies to the triangular model of learning developed by Knud Illeris, this paper seeks to discuss and trace a framing on learning dimensions in career guidance.  

Ingress: Hvordan utvikler mennesker handlekraft? Og på hvilken måte kan karriereveiledning styrke veisøker i denne utviklingen? Anna Bilon-Piórko reflekterer over disse spørsmålene og oppfordrer oss til å tenke gjennom hvilken rolle karriereveiledning kan ha.

Introductory paragraph: How do people develop agency in life? And what is the role of career guidance in developing people's agency? Anna Bilon-Piórko invites to a moment of reflection on these questions and encourages us to form ideas about the role of career counselling in the processes in which individuals develop agency.

Introductory paragraph: Can the same theoretical framework for career guidance support be applied to all client groups? Should career guidance practice, for example, treat girls and women in exactly the same way as boys and men? Jenny Bimrose invites a moment of reflection on these questions. 

Ingress: Kan det samme teoretiske rammeverket for karriereveiledning benyttes på ulike grupper av veisøkere? Bør for eksempel den samme veiledningspraksisen benyttes i møte med jenter og kvinner som med gutter og menn? Jenny Bimrose inviterer oss til å reflektere over disse spørsmålene.

The increase of telework during the pandemic is predicted to impact working life, not only in terms of a larger number of employees working from home, but more importantly, it may transform the way we conceptualise work. This will in turn impact systems for and participation in lifelong learning. There is a risk for increased social inequalities, as neither telework nor lifelong learning is evenly distributed among workers. Statistics on telework in the EU show that there are differences between age groups, nations, sectors, and professions. If these trends will steer forward, there is a risk of widening gaps between countries, companies, and workers. To establish the current knowledge base, we have gathered literature reviews from several disciplines. One finding is that the previous literature on telework has not included lifelong learning in any form (formal, non-formal and informal). Based on a review of previous studies, we suggest a number of research questions for future research. This is relevant as research about telework and lifelong learning has the potential to contribute to a sustainable working life in terms of providing more flexible arrangements for employees and to support the lifelong learning that takes place in contexts such as the office, home, online meetings, and virtual reality.