Neoliberalism and knowledge interests in boundaryless careers discourse

Juliet Roper, Shiv Ganesh and Kerr Inkson
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Juliet Roper: University of Waikato, jroper@waikato.ac.nz
Shiv Ganesh: University of Waikato, sganesh@waikato.ac.nz
Kerr Inkson: University of Waikato, kinkson@waikato.ac.nz

Work, Employment & Society, 2010, vol. 24, issue 4, 661-679

Abstract: Decades of critical research have established that economic and political ideologies permeate and shape thought, text and action, and academic knowledge production is no exception. This article examines how ideologies might permeate academic texts, by assessing the reach and influence of neoliberalism in research on boundaryless careers. Specifically, it asks: did the emergence and growth of scholarship on boundaryless careers support, challenge, or merely run parallel to the rising dominance of neoliberal ideology? It was found that a diversity of knowledge interests, including managerial, agentic, curatorial and critical interests underlie the production of research on boundaryless careers. However, all four of these knowledge interests are complicit in discursively constructing and aligning the notion of boundaryless careers with neoliberalism in two specific ways. Implications for scholarship on careers and work are discussed.

Keywords: boundaryless careers; discourse; knowledge interests; neoliberalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:24:y:2010:i:4:p:661-679

DOI: 10.1177/0950017010380630

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