Diversification of careers of knowledge workers: A european perspective from the Works Project

The proposed paper focuses on diversification in careers and occupational trajectories of knowledge workers. In many discourses on the emerging knowledge-based economy, knowledge workers are supposed to “concentrate” a lot of changes in work and to be a paradigmatic example of new work patterns. The paper mainly relies on the empirical findings of case studies of knowledge-intensive occupations carried out in the European WORKS project (2006-2010). The first section clarifies the concepts of careers and occupational trajectories. It also addresses the theoretical debate concerning organisational versus boundaryless careers and specifies to what extent this theoretical debate concerns “knowledge workers”. The second section summarises some relevant empirical findings concerning the diversification of careers and occupational trajectories, within four occupational groups: researchers in IT, dress designers, software professionals, managers in logistics. The final and concluding section highlights the key issues of the diversification of careers and trajectories of knowledge workers, in terms of career development and labour market organisation. The presentation may be either in English or in Spanish.