Orderly and chaotic career trajectories in professional labor markets: Player status movements in the contemporary labor market in European football
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Velema, Thijs A.
Abstract
Even though an increasing number of people are employed within professional labor markets, most theories of career development provide little insight into careers in mobile and flexible professional labor markets which fall in between the highly structured internal labor markets and the project-based labor markets devoid of any structure. To study career development in professional labor markets, this dissertation revises the structural and historical model of career development within field theory to specify a cyclical process in which the career trajectory of workers is both a result of prior movements through the status structure of the market and an input for subsequent career development. In this cyclical process, workers who moved between similar status positions develop orderly career lines. These orderly careers are interpreted favorably as a coherent story about how professional workers moved through the field to cultivate their skills, and consequently drive subsequent career development to more rewarding positions in the market. The empirical chapters of this dissertation study the labor market in contemporary European professional football and show that the opportunity structure for mobility in this labor market facilitates both upwards and downwards movements across limited status distances. In this labor mobility structure, successful workers are characterized by orderly careers with movements between similar positions in the status hierarchy, while less successful professionals develop more chaotic career trajectories by moving up and down between disparate status positions. These orderly and chaotic career trajectories also influence subsequent career development. More specifically, workers on chaotic career lines are less likely to move and experience less beneficial labor mobility outcomes. However, this negative effect of chaotic careers is not uniform throughout the market, but is moderated by the status position of workers, their rank within their firm, and their career stage. This indicates that while orderly careers with coherent stories about how workers moved through the field’s social structure shape subsequent career development, what exactly counts as a coherent story is contingent on the position of professional workers within the field, their organization, and their career.
Subjects
Professional labor markets
career development
career trajectories
status
European professional football
Type
thesis
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