Contradictions in Portfolio Careers: Work Design and Client Relations

Autor/in	Fenwick, Tara J.
Titel	Contradictions in Portfolio Careers: Work Design and Client Relations
Quelle	In: Career Development International, 11 (2006) 1, S.65-79 (15 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1362-0436
DOI	10.1108/13620430610642381
Schlagwörter	Qualitative Research; Careers; Career Development; Self Employment; Portfolios (Background Materials); Nurses; Adult Educators; Entrepreneurship; Work Experience; Employee Attitudes + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Qualitative Forschung; Career; Karriere; Berufsentwicklung; Self-employment; Selbstbestimmte Arbeit; Selbstständiger; Adult education teacher; Adult education; Adult training; Teacher; Teachers; Adult educator; Erwachsenenbildner; Erwachsenenbildung; Lehrer; Lehrerin; Lehrende; Unternehmungsgeist; Employment experience; Job experience; Occupational experience; Berufserfahrung; Arbeitnehmerinteresse
Abstract	Purpose: The paper aims to explore "Portfolio work", an emerging form of flexible self-employment, which has been identified as significant but under-researched. This paper also seeks to explore the challenges and benefits of portfolio work from the perspective of individuals' experiences. Design/methodology/approach: The argument draws from a qualitative study involving 31 individuals practising portfolio work in two different occupational groups: nurses and adult educators. Participants were interviewed in semi-structured in-depth conversational interviews to explore their everyday experience and work history in portfolio work. Findings: Two dimensions of portfolio work, work design and client-relations, are found to generate experiences of both deep satisfaction and deep anxiety and stress. The paper argues that portfolio careers simultaneously embed both liberating and exploitative at dimensions for workers, which are at least partly related to their own conflicting desires for both contingency and stability. Further, portfolio work embeds labour that often remains unrecognized, even by the self-employed individuals assuming responsibility for it. Practical implications: Portfolio workers need to recognise and document their unpaid but necessary labour in work design and client relations that sustains their careers; portfolio workers may need to educate clients about the nature of portfolio work; and employers who contract to portfolio workers must take more responsibility for negotiating fair contracts that are sensitive to overwork and unfair time pressures, and that anticipate and compensate contractors. Originality/value: These findings challenge existing conceptions of portfolio work as either exploitative or liberating, and expose contradictions embedded in both the conditions of the work and individuals' expectations and attitudes towards it. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	Emerald. 875 Massachusetts Avenue 7th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139. Tel: 888-622-0075; Fax: 617-354-6875; e-mail: america@emeraldinsight.com; Web site: http://www.emeraldinsight.com
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10