Understanding Careers: The Metaphors of Working Lives

"Kerr Inkson has made a really valuable contribution. A powerful illustration of how metaphor influences thinking about careers. The book shows how metaphor helps us to understand our own thought-patterns and predispositions and is very effective in integrating the different branches of career studies Very clear, and well argued. Right on the mark!"

--Gareth Morgan, Author, Images of Organization, Distinguished Research Professor, York University, Toronto

Understanding Careers: The Metaphors of Working Lives uses a unique framework of nine archetypal metaphors to encapsulate the field of career studies. Using an easy-to-read style, author Kerr Inkson examines key concepts, illustrating them with over 50 authentic career cases, to build an excellent bridge between theory and "real life."

Key Features: 

• Provides comprehensive coverage of contemporary theory and research: Offering a wider perspective on the subject than any other book currently on the market, Understanding Careers includes material from various viewpoints relevant to career studies, including sociology, life-span psychology, differential psychology, social psychology, education, career development, counseling, organizational behavior, and human resource management. In addition, the book covers the key theories and researchers who have shaped the study and practice of careers.
• Uses metaphor for imaginative coverage: By successively considering the career successively as an inheritance, a cycle, an action, a journey, a role, a relationship, a resource, and a story, the authors view careers through different lenses, with each adding to the richness of the concept.
• Presents illustrative case studies: With over 50 provocative case studies, including some of well-known personalities, theory is illustrated through real-life examples.
• Offers an ongoing student case-study project: A sequenced career case-study write-up, with exercises related to each chapter, allows students to apply book concepts to ongoing cases of their own.
• Includes an Instructor′s Manual on CD: providing PowerPoint slides, class exercises, and worked-through case studies. (Available by request to SAGE customer service.)

Intended Audience: This is an ideal text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in Career Development, Personal & Career Development, and Career Management in the fields of psychology, education, and business.

Kerr Inkson (PhD University of Otago, New Zealand) is an Emeritus Professor in the University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand. His 55-year academic career included 32 years as full Professor, at five New Zealand universities. He has expertise in management, organizational behavior and career development, and his careers research includes work on new forms of career, the use of metaphor in career theory and practice, and international careers. He was first author of a paper “Expatriate assignment versus overseas experience: contrasting models of human resource development” which was awarded Best International Paper by the Academy of Management in 1997. He is a former Chair of the Careers Division, Academy of Management.

Kerr has been the author or co-author of 18 books, over 50 book chapters and 75 refereed journal articles. His journal credits include Administrative Science Quarterly, British Journal of Management, Human Relations, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Journal of World Business, Organizational Dynamics, and Organization Studies. His latest books are Understanding Careers, 2^nd edition, co-authored with Nicky Dries and John Arnold, SAGE, 2015; Cultural Intelligence, 3^rd edition, co-authored with David C Thomas, Berrett-Koehler, 2017; and Laugh out Loud: A Users’ Guide to Workplace Humor, co-authored with Barbara Plester, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Recently retired, he lives in Auckland with his wife Nan, plays some golf, and writes, directs and acts in plays on the local amateur drama scene.