The systems approach to career

Abstract

Although systems theory has considerable potential to give new understanding of career, it has been given little attention. Its underpinning assumptions about how to interpret the world differ from our everyday linear, cause-and-effect approaches, and so we need to use systems thinking. Rather than taking career to be a system, the concept of system is used as a tool to examine career. This systems model gives views of individual and environmental factors and their dynamic interplay in career which are not open to other theories. I shall show how such a model would contribute to theory, research, and practice.