Toward a Unifying, Employability-Centric Understanding of Career Sustainability: A Social Cognitive View

Career sustainability has become a popular topic of inquiry in the career, educational, organizational, and management literatures. Interest in the topic has been heightened by a confluence of economic, social, political, and technological developments that are affecting many workers and challenging traditional notions of what constitutes a viable career or work path. Career sustainability has been defined and measured in a variety of ways, yielding an active but fragmented research literature. It has been difficult, for example, to reach consensus on whether sustainability refers primarily to employability (obtaining, maintaining, and/or regaining employment) or whether it implies attainment of higher-level outcomes indicative of flourishing. It is possible to conceptualize both employability and flourishing as parts of a larger system of influences, resting on an economic base, that enables or deters career development. Yet employability would appear to represent the more fundamental challenge for many workers. Extending the social cognitive career framework, I focus on the resources and behaviors that may foster (a) employability, (b) preparedness for work instability and transitions, and (c) coping with periods of unemployment. A selective review of findings is presented, along with conceptual models intended to stimulate practice-relevant inquiry.