the boundaryless career: a competency-based perspective

JOURNAL OF OR<'IANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, VOL. 15.307-324 (1994)

The boundaryless career: a competency= based perspective

ROBERT J. DEFILLIPPI AND MICHAEL B. ARTHUR Scliool [?f Munugetncwt. SuJUlk UniwrsityS 8 Aslihurron Pluce. Boston. MA 02/08. C S. A.

-pry This paper proposes a competency-based view of careers, derived from competency- based models of employcr firms. The implications for boundaryless careers are cxplored by reference to changing organizational. occupational and industry community contexts. All of these contexts are seen as likely to promote boundaryless career behaviors. Future research possibilities for each of three career competencies, and for interdependence among the competencies. are briefly examined.

Introduction

Various observers have noted how careers are increasingly characterized by inter-lirm mobility (Pfeffer and Baron, 1988; Kanter. 19X9a,b). U.S. workers typically experience I0 employers over their adult lives (Topel and Ward. 1992). Japanese male workers - despite their country's reputation for lifetime employment - typically experience six employers (Cheng, 1991 1. Yet recent reviews of career research report a preponderance of studies focused on single organizational settings (Feldman, 1989a; Ornstein and Isabella, 1993). Even when an occupational career perspective has been employed, for example on general managers (McCall. Lombard0 and Morrison, 1988) or scientists and engineers (Raelin, 1991), studies have been premiscd on careers unfolding in a single organizational setting.

Part of the explanation for the continued preponderance of intra-organizational studies may lie in the relative speed with which the fixed lattices of job positions and stable career paths have been eliminated (Dalton, 1989). However, the elimination of intra-organizational career paths may not imply an absence of job opportunities for affected workers. Instead. career paths may involve sequences of job opportunities that go beyond the boundaries of single employment settings. Such career paths are defined here as boundaryless careers'.

Traditional ideas on employment emphasize stability. hierarchy, and clearly defined job positions for career progression. However, these ideas respond to a model of organization that has come under increasing scrutiny (e.g. Williamson, 1991 ). Alternative ideas emphasize continuous adaptation of the organization - - and so of careers - to a rapidly changingenvironment

We are indebted to Suzyn Ornstein, Denise Rousseau. and three anonymous reviewers of the Juurnid q/ 0rguni:itfiwiuI &huvior for helpful comments on earlier drafts ofthis paper. ' An employment setting, as viewed in this paper. is any setting with independent authority to engage in employment contracts. This can either mean an independent firm or a business unit o f a larger firm where employment responsibility is decentralized. The latter meaning can be linked to General Electric head Jack Welch's vision of the 'boundaryless organization'. that is of multiple high-autonomy employment settings (Hirschhorn and Gilmore. 1992). Moves both within and beyond these settings would represent houndaryless career behavior.

CCC 0894-3796/94/040307- I7 0 1994 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

308 R. J. DEFILLIPPI AND M. B. ARTHUR

(Miles and Snow, 1986; Nohria and Eccles, 1992). One such set of ideas focuses on the cultivation of firm-specific, rather than generic, competencies. This competency-based view of the firm emphasizes how collective employee competencies link to a firm’s past and present activities, and in turn extend to future strategic possibilities (e.g. Grant, 1991; Nelson and Winter, 1982; Prahalad and Hamel, 1990; Winter, 1986; Hall, 1992).

An emerging theme behind the competency-based view of the firm is a retreat from old ideas about vertical coordination. That is, instead of relying on centralized or corporate decision- making, lirms or business units are seen to benefit from relatively uninhibited interaction with partners. suppliers and customers. This alternative, horizontal model of coordination is seen as better accommodating each firm’s unique and shifting interests (Quinn, 1992). However, current writings in career and human resource management - including those in ‘strategic human resource management’ (e.g. Schuler, 1992) - persist in emphasizing a vertically-coordi- nated approach. In this paper we challenge the apparent inconsistency between the firm-centered and person-centered levels of analysis. We do so by arguing that competency accumulation at the level of the person is better served by boundaryless career principles. In turn, we argue that competency accumulation through boundaryless careers can make a critical contribution to the unfolding competencies of firms and their host industries. New kinds of research will be needed if this contribution is to be better understood.

This paper is organized as follows. First, we derive a view of career competencies inspired by the competency-based view of the firm. Next, we explore organizational, occupational, and industry community contexts to suggest how career competencies unfold, and with what boundaryless career implications. We subsequently examine future research opportunities for each of the thi ee career competencies identified, as well as for interdependence among the competencies.

Career competencies

Our thinking on career competencies draws from the recent stream of work about firm competencies, and their strategic and competitive implications. This work cites overlapping arenas of competency broadly related to a firm’s culture, know-how, and networks (Hall, 1992). Each arena of firm competency suggests a matching arena of career competency which we introduce below as know-why, know-how and know-whom competencies, respectively.

Know- why competencies, like Derr’s (1986) career success maps, answer the question ‘Why?’ as it relates to career motivation, personal meaning and identification. Accordingly, people’s beliefs, Lalues and identities are the target for the persistent, frequently tacit, messages to employecs that stem from a firm’s culture (Barney, 1986; Fiol, 1991). Know-why competencies are implicated, for example, in popular claims that Japanese - but not U.S. - corporate cultures generally reinforce a link between corporate membership and personal identity.

The recognition that corporate cultures influence know-why competencies has led to renewed interest in culture change (Kilmann, Saxton and Sherpa, 1985; Schein, 1992). A common proposal is to elicit greater employee identification with the firm as a collective, as in Senge’s (1990) argument to recruit employee ‘personal visions’ into a ‘shared vision’ of the firm as a whole. Overlapping ideas about how to engage know-why competencies on behalf of the firm appear in discussions of employee socialization (Feldman, 1989b), team-building (Blake et al., 1987) and organizational career development (Hall and associates, 1986).

Howel er, the conception of boundaryless careers invites different possibilities. Weick and Berlingei ( 1989) encourage employees of modern-day adaptive firms to decouple their identities

A COMPETENCY-BASED PERSPECTIVE 309

from the jobs and work settings they experience. Mirvis and Hall (1994) equate ‘psychological success’ with people’s abilities ‘to make sense of their constantly changing work agenda and to integrate their work experiences into a coherent self-picture’. This sense-making - shaped by know-why career competencies - may involve occupational or non-work identification or achievement. Or it may involve personal interests such as balancing work and family demands, or getting free from hierarchical authority over the nature and content (or hours) of one’s work (Bailyn, 1993).

Know-how competencies reflect career relevant skills and job-related knowledge, and underlie how people contribute to a firm’s repertoire of overall capabilities (Nelson and Winter, 1982). Most obviously, know-how competencies are reflected in individual job descriptions, and their development encouraged through individually-centered performance appraisal and training and development activities. In these activities, the know-how competency of the firm is viewed largely as an aggregate of the separate know-how competencies members possess.

A further insight from the firm-based competency literature deals with how individual know- how is embedded in and reinforced by organizational ‘routines’ (Nelson and Winter, 1982; Grant, 1991). These established ways of converting collective know-how into product or service outputs have a two-way effect for the individual employee. Individual know-how that does not get reinforced will fade in organizational memory, and so lose value for both the firm and the employee. Conversely, the learning of new know-how competencies will be influenced by the collective leaning efforts of the firm (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990).

Our conception of individual know-how relates closely to established ideas on individual knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA) (Schneider and Konz, 1989). However, the KSA approach is concerned only with the job performance requirements of the firm, rather than broader know- how competencies the employee may possess. The KSA approach maintains a similar limitation about new employee learning, namely that it be managed ‘in relation to explicit corporate and business strategies’ (Hall, 1984, quoted in Schneider and Konz, 1989). In contrast, our conception of individual know-how accommodates an idiosyncratic component (Miner, 1990), whereby people search for and promote job redesign to accommodate their distinctive talents and future potential.

Knowwhom competencies reflect career relevant networks, and refer to how people contribute to inter-firm communication (Nohria, 1992). The competency-based view of the firm highlights three major benefits of network activity. The first is the network as a resource, to draw on the separate expertise of other firms (Reed and DeFillippi, 1990). The second is the network as a repository for attained reputation, and through it the flow of new business (Lado, Boyd and Wright, 1992). The third is the network as a source of new learning, and thereby improved competitive advantage (Powell, 1990). For each and all of these benefits, the firm is dependent on the networking efforts of its members.

However, firm-centered views largely overlook the distinct benefits of network activities to the individual career. A person may capitalize on the reputation of the firm to gain access to new contacts, or pursue new job opportunities (Rousseau and Wade-Benzoni, 1993). A person may strengthen his or her own position in a current or rival firm through unique relationships forged with key customers or suppliers (Von Hippel, 1988). A person may use network access to gather career-relevant rather then employer-relevant information. In these instances, a firm’s network serves as a distinct resource to the employee’s career, rather than to the firm itself (Pfeffer, 1989).

In addition, know-whom competencies at the level of the person incorporate links that go unrecognized in network-based views of the firm. Such ‘social capital’ (Burt, 1992) includes contacts drawn from personal experiences with family, friends, colleagues, fellow alumni, and

310 R . 1. DEFILLIPPI AND M. B. ARTHUR

outside teachers and mentors. Relatively casual contacts, or ‘weak ties’, have been instrumental in facilitating job search and occupational attainment (Granovetter, 1973; Lin and Dumin, 1986). Multiple self-help books on career management urge that people cultivate and maximize their advantage from these personal networks. The underlying message is less to serve the present employer, than to protect against dependency upon it (Hirsch, 1987; Bolles, 1993).

We emphasize that the above descriptions of career know-why, know-how, and know-whom are derived from a branch of strategic inquiry concerned with the competency-based view of the firm, rather than from existing career or human resource management literatures. We also note thai previous attempts in those literatures to address career competencies have stayed largely distinct from one another. Specifically, previous work on values and their reflection in interest profiles (e.g. Holland, 1985), as well as work on employee socialization and team- building, relates principally to know-why. Previous work on job analysis, job design, performance appraisal and related employee knowledge, skills and training relates principally to know- how. Previous work on cultivating personal networks relates principally to know-whom. Thus, the competency-based view of the firm invites not only a distinctive, but also an integrative, response to underlying career competencies. Table 1 summarizes our discussion so far.

Table 1. The relationships among firm competencies, career competencies, and common approaches in career and human resource management Firm- based competency Career competency derivative resource management approaches

Related career and human

Culture Know-why Identity Values Interests

Know-ho\v Know-how Knowledge Skills Abilities

Networks Know-whom

Relations Intra-firm Inter-firm Professional Social

Socialization Team-building Organizational career development

Job analysis Job design Performance appraisal Training and development

Interpersonal relations Customer relations Mentoring programs

The firm-based competencies perspective acknowledges that individual competencies lie behind the competencies of the firm. It also acknowledges that firms can add new competencies through recruitment (Simon, 199 1) or lose competencies through unwanted resignations (Hall, 1992). However, we emphasize here a broader dependence of firm competencies on individual career behavior. Know-why, know-how and know-whom are forms of knowledge assets (Winter, 1986) that share a common characteristic: their value is not intrinsic but is dependent on their being employed in settings that recognize their potential contribution and provide corresponding opportunities. From a career standpoint, the interest of the person is in finding such employment settings, whether within or beyond one’s present firm. The possibilities for doing so, as we

A COMPETENCY-BASED PERSPECTIVE 31 I

will discuss below, extend across organizational, occupational and industry community contexts in which boundaryless careers unfold.

Organizational contexts for boundaryless careers Multiple changes in organizational career contexts reflect a new era of inter-firm competition in both national and global markets. The changes reflect not only corporate restructuring and downsizing, but also a range of new organizing principles developed in response to the new era. These principles imply distinct changes in the kinds of career competencies to be encouraged.

Lay-offs from corporate downsizing and restructuring directly challenge the career competencies of affected workers. These workers are explicitly told their investments in knowledge and skills (know-how) and in intra-firm relationships (know-whom) are no longer valued. The common struggle to reverse identification (know-why) with the old employer also translates into a distrust of prospective new employers. Moreover, this loss of identification often applies to people whose jobs have been spared, but who relate to the plight of former colleagues. These people also frequently perceive lowered future job security for themselves (Hirsch, 1987).

However, Quinn (1992) asserts that the primary task of modern service and technology firms is to optimally cultivate and leverage the firm’s knowledge-based core competencies, which largely reside in the intelligence (know-how), motivation (know-why) and information networks (know-whom) of the firm’s workers. Such knowledge-based firms are evolving new organizational forms to attract, keep and leverage key people as knowledge resources.

The starburst form of organization results from a company constantly splitting off units that represent newly created competencies (Quinn, 1992). New enterprises may be partly owned by the parent, but they are free to grow on their own and to seek outside funding. Innovative companies such as Cypress Semiconductor and Thermo Electron are skilled in continual starburst activity. Within such starburst firms, workers with valued know-how are encouraged to seek career opportunities in ‘split-off or ‘sell-off units that can better utilize and reward their specialized skills than the parent firm. Affected workers are also encouraged to identify (know-why) with the higher level of risk-taking that starburst firm employment implies.

A pattern in emerging new industries - an example is optical electronics - is for firms to form that require the integration or ‘fusion’ of formerly separate technologies and competencies (Kodama, 1992). The process of technology fusion is premised upon firms’ demanding their workforce at all levels (from senior manager to front-line workers) to be actively involved in searching for new technological knowledge both inside and outside the host industry. This practice of ‘distributed boundary spanning’, discernable in multiple Japanese technology-based firms, is argued as essential if firms wish to become ‘intelligent’ enough quickly enough to compete in fast-developing markets. Those workers who can integrate their know-how with others and develop know-whom networks spanning both organizational and technological boundaries are most likely to reap career recognition and rewards in fusion-oriented employment contexts.

Another trend behind the emergence of boundaryless careers involves the increased outsourcing or spinoff of activities previously completed in-house. In pure form, workers are asked to start new firms and seek new clients to subsidize the former employer’s costs, and the former employer becomes one of several external customers (Eckerson, 1990). In more disguised form, employees are simply asked to seek external clients in order to reduce corporate overhead (Leinfuss, 1991). In either case, outsourcing is compelling workers in outsourced activities to

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be more cntrepreneurial and market oriented in their definition of their work roles and career opportunities. Such a re-orientation implies a shift toward more entrepreneurial, externalized work identities, skills and networks.

Handy (1990) sees outsourcing as part of a broader trend whereby previously large firms are shifting towards having a core group of permanent employees. Activities outside the firm’s ‘core competence’ will be contracted to outside specialists, temporary employees or contingent workers. This suggests that there will be more opportunities for people to develop entrepreneurial competencies formerly prohibited within more vertically integrated settings. Conversely, people’s reduced (or perceptions of reduced) employment security may invoke severe discontinuity in their know-why career competencies.

Consistent with the above trends, Kanter (1989a) predicts a demise in pure-type bureaucratic, or organizationally-bounded, careers and a growth in professional and entrepreneurial careers. The demise of bureaucratic careers implies the demise of a career identity and work values (know-why competencies) that are anchored in a particular employment context. The growth of professional careers provides an alternative occupationally-based source of career identity and work values (know-why) and fosters the accumulation of occupational skills (know-how) and mentoring relations (know-whom). Similarly, entrepreneurial careers provide further sources of career identity, skills and career-relevant social networks. Kanter (1989b) also acknowledges, as previous discussion would predict, that careers may embody sequential or concurrent combinations 01‘ bureaucratic, professional and entrepreneurial competencies in response to organizational circumstances.

Common to the above trends is a distinct view of entrepreneurship, which looks beyond the founders or leaders of employing firms. This view sees entrepreneurship as a process involving multiple organizational actors whose competencies contribute to the collective entrepreneurial success of’ the firm (Best, 1990). These entrepreneurial competencies include know-why (identification with the entrepreneurial mission), know-how (skills of opportunity identification and exploitation), and know-whom (entrepreneurially-relevant contacts and interaction) compo- nents. In sum, the organizing principles of modern-day firms are encouraging more broad-based entrepreneurial competencies in response.

Criticisms of the personal costs of health and welfare liabilities experienced by boundaryless career participants and their families are widely acknowledged (e.g. Reich, 1991). A high level of stress, caused by the loss of valued colleagues and acute uncertainty about the future, can also affect those whose jobs are spared (Bennett, 1990). However, the portability of skills and experience inherent in the boundaryless career may be better facilitated when accumulated health and pension benefits are also portable. Such portability may be achieved by national mandate, or by industry cooperation that provides umbrella benefits to all industry participants. As more workers act out boundaryless careers, emergent (know-why) beliefs in favor of portable health and pension benefits can be expected to build.

These changes in organizational contexts all encourage the emergence of new career competencies. From a know-why standpoint, organizational contexts are disconfirming traditional beliefs about the stability of jobs and employment. They are also inviting people to identify with new arrangements such as joint ventures or spinoff activities, and to adopt a more entrepreneurial approach in their work behavior. Regarding know-how, emerging organizational contexts are demanding continuous change in people’s skills and knowledge, including the pursuit of new knowledge through supplier, customer or other inter-firm arrangements. Regarding knowohom, revised expectations about information gathering and exchange relationships are exposing people to new career possibilities, regarding both their overall competency accumulation and their choice of employment setting.


Occupational contexts for boundar yless careers The study of ‘occupational careers’ (Slocum, 1966) foundered in the 1970s and 1980s, as most attention became re-focused onto employing organizations. However, as we have already noted, occupational or professional career investments can provide an attractive alternative to organizational dependency. Also, there is growing evidence that occupations serve as platforms for new learning, and in turn for continuing boundaryless career activities.

Occupation has served as a traditional basis for the attainment of credentials, and of subsequent career mobility. The pattern is highly visible in the construction industry, where a wide range of blue-collar and white-collar workers earn qualifications through combined formal and on-the-job learning obligations. Craftspeople with certified skills are likely to enjoy greater inter-firm career opportunities than uncertified semi-skilled or unskilled blue collar workers (Thomas, 1989). Kanter (1989a) has recently observed a broad trend of occupational skill stan- dardization and know-how credentialing facilitating boundaryless careers for a variety of non- elite occupations. For example, nursing assistants must now earn certification, but once they do they are readily employable by a variety of health care providers.

Flynn (1988) has described a technology-linked process of skill development where new occupational skills originate in firm-specific settings. Subsequent skill growth and maturity phases, aided by the emergence of formal training programs, promote broader recognition of the new (know-how) skills and thus the emergence of new occupations. An example stems from a study of U.K. travel and convention bureaux, established to attract tourism and convention revenue to sponsoring cities. Successful early bureaux became models for other cities to imitate, and in the process their personnel experienced new career opportunities through the expanded market for their acquired know-how (Hendry, Arthur and Jones, in press).

More broadly, the demise of organizational job security, the pace of technological change and the career actor’s interest in employability converge to promote the continuous pursuit of new occupational know-how. Such ‘extended occupational learning’ (Hendry ef al., in press) lies beyond the pursuit of formal credentials, and can be encouraged in at least three ways. One way is through occupational associations, like those of health professionals, who insist on continuing education for their members. Another way is through employers, such as skilled engineering firms, who compete through continued investment in the skills of their workforce. A third way is through individual initiative, driven by a desire for greater learning or achievement. Whatever the source of encouragement, the effect is to extend occupational career opportunities through post-qualification know-how accumulation.

An important component of post-qualification learning involves skills that used to be viewed exclusively as managerial or supervisory know-how. Accordingly, multiple views on employee empowerment and total quality management (e.g. Deming, 1986), urge that workers develop self-management and decision-making competencies formerly reserved for their bosses. Related interpretations suggest these competencies develop at a final stage of occupational skill accumulation. For example, Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1984) label as occupational ‘experts’ those who rely on intuitive grasp rather than formal rules, use analytic approaches to address novel situations, and maintain a vision of what is possible from their work performance.

Van Maanen and Barley (1984) describe the emergence of occupational communities, that is, people brought together through shared work experience. Such communities can serve as a powerful reference point for people’s identities (know-why) and related social interaction (know-whom), and in turn influence career behavior. Moreover, as technology advances, the number of occupations - and in particular the proportion of technical workers - is growing. The specialized nature of occupational work and its transferability across employers suggests

314 R. J . DEFILLIPPI AND M. B. ARTHUR

a new, boundaryless, dynamic in employment arrangements. These are shifting toward a more horizontal, or balkanized, rather than vertical, or bureaucratized, division of labor (Barley, 1992).

A related point concerns occupational learning. Occupations form natural ‘communities of practice’ through which shared (know-how) learning occurs, often regardless of formal organizational position. For example, Orr (1 990) observed photocopier service representatives exchanging customer experiences, and reports their shared conclusions not only about machines, but about ‘repair and maintenance of the social setting’. A broader claim is that learned informal, or ‘noncanonical’ know-how determines the success or failure of employing organizations (Brown and Duguid, 1991). Occupations provide a context for tacit know-how to emerge, and for experienced workers to mentor younger charges. Also, occupational networks and formal membership groups sustain complementary know-whom activities through which further (know-why) identification and (know-how) learning takes place.

The importance of occupation to a person’s career is consistent with our competency-based perspecti1.e on individual know-how learning. According to this perspective, individual learning is likely to be strongly influenced by a person’s prior history of skill accumulation and task relevant experience. Findings from the Current Population Survey support this, suggesting that most workers spend their careers working within a relatively narrow range of occupational settings, itnd that workers who transfer to unrelated occupations experience lowered status and earnings (Markey and Parks, 1989). Moreover, the greatest movement across occupations occurs during the earliest years of a person’s work history (Mergenhagen, 1991). This is consistent with our career competencies perspective, since younger workers will have made fewer career- specific investments that lock them into a particular occupational career path.

The accounting profession has evolved explicit inter-firm career paths for its new recruits, who frequently start in one of the ‘Big Six’ public accounting firms. Young accountants typically gain experience (know-how) while gaining exposure to a range of clients (know-whom), who are also prospective employers. These arrangements benefit all parties. Young accountants can leverage their Big Six work experience for entry into a client firm. Client firms have the opportunity to work with young accountants and gain some familiarity with them before hiring. The Big Six firm retains the goodwill of its clients and an invisible network of former employees who are sl rategically positioned within their client base (Rousseau and Wade-Benzoni, 1993).

A second combined organizational and occupational example stems from Starbuck’s ( 1992) characterization of ‘knowledge intensive’ firms. Such firms’ know-how competencies are embodied in their members’ skills, which invariably became visible to clients (know-whom) through work performance. As a result, management consulting, software writing, and law practices are among the kinds of firms vulnerable to losing competencies to customers and/or competitors. For example, Stinchcombe and Heimer (1988) have documented how successful software firms, by publicizing the talents of key experts, also expose those experts to client job opportunities. Eccles and Crane (1988) note similar job opportunities emerging for investment bankers, further aided by the client-specific expertise the bankers accumulate.

These observations illustrate the importance of occupation to our career competencies view, Regarding knowwhy competencies, people’s traditional identification with their occupation can be reinforced by shared experiences in technological change, and by participation in learning communit ies focused on distinct occupational problems. The importance of know-how competencies is reinforced by expanded credentialling activity, by evidence of high occupational cornrnit- ment, and also by evidence that occupational skills are transferable to industry competitors or former clients. Further, occupational communities foster significant know-whom competencies


that provide a reference group for shared problem-solving, and a continuing support group for people making inter-firm career moves.

Industry communities and boundaryless careers

The preceding discussion of organizational and occupational trends does not imply that boundaryless careers evolve without constraint. One of the most significant constraints is the avail- ability of alternative employment opportunities. Thus, various accounts of industry communities - defined here as geographic concentrations of interdependent firms and occupations - invite particular attention for the career possibilities they create2.

The geographic concentration of an industry provides for regional accumulation of specialized skills that may not be widely available elsewhere. Teece (1980) has argued that skill advantages accrue to large multi-product firms, because workforce competencies can be better matched to the greater variety of tasks to be performed. However, Goldstein and Gronberg (1984) claim similar advantages accrue through skill concentration for economically similar firms located within the same geographic region. A local workforce may accumulate competencies that are specialized to the industry yet generic to the needs of individual firms within the region (Piore and Sabel, 1984). A person hired with experience in one firm may be pre-socialized (know-why) and pre-trained (know-how) to perform similar tasks in another firm (Spender, 1989). Firms within the region may thus economize on the costs of retraining and share the benefits of industry experience accumulation by the regional workforce.

Porter (1990) extends this point to build an argument for new firm formation. Drawing on a comparative study of industry regions within nations, he argues that the geographic concentration of rivals stimulates the development of skilled human resources. In turn this facilitates new firm formation by providing an abundant supply of skilled and experienced labor. A geographic concentration of domestic rivals also triggers special programs in local schools, univer- sities, technical institutes, training centers, and apprenticeship schemes. These promote an educational philosophy (know-why) and infrastructure (know-whom) which further support the skill needs of the industry. Moreover, Porter (1990) argues that geographically concentrated firms are more likely to enjoy rich information flows between their workforces, translating know-whom competencies into greater diffusion of industry-specific know-how and innovation.

Firms participating in industry communities may also enjoy a flexibility advantage allowing for rapid expansion and contraction in skill demands by individual firms. First, it may be easier for firms in such communities to respond to fluctuating demands because of an abundant supply of needed know-how. Second, firms may more rapidly incorporate innovative practices due to the information sharing and imitation made possible by overlapping networks (know- whom) and higher worker propensity for employment mobility (know-why). Third, industry communities may enjoy greater levels of inter-firm cooperation (e.g. supplier-customer partnerships, alliances, joint ventures) due to their greater familiarity with each other’s cultures and capabilities (Lewis, 1990), which would be reflected in the overlapping know-why and know-how competencies of collaborating employees.

Peters (1992) suggests most of tomorrow’s work may be done in multi-firm project teams. Project teams are similar to communities of practice in providing a reference point for interpersonal communication (know-whom) and new learning (know-how). However, inter-firm project

‘We use the qualifier ’industry’ rather than ‘industrial’ to signal our interest in communities defined by a shared. rather than multiple. industry affiliations.


teams bring together representatives both from different specializations and from different organizations. Also, projects and the multi-firm networks that support them are impermanent. The project-based view gives rise to a vision of a ‘checkerboard career’ (Peters, 1992, p. 220), that moves freely between employers as new projects demand. This checkerboard vision of the boundaryless career (know-why) may be reinforced by thoughtful employers, preferring to ‘have energized individuals . . . for two or three exciting years . . . rather than 25 dull years’ (Peters, 1992, p. 120).

Before concluding this section, however, we should note that industry communities can differ in their career competencies. In particular, Saxenian (1989, 1990) has illustrated divergent career patterns stemming from the Cambridge, U.K., and Silicon Valley, US., high technology regions. Cambridge, fueled by traditional government contracting policies and large firm domination, has encouraged workers’ know-why identification, know-how information exchange, and know- whom interaction to be constrained inside employer firms. Silicon Valley, steeped in the high tech, high touch entrepreneurial culture of California, has evolved institutional practices (e.g. hands-on venture capitalists, networking-intensive social forums, and extensive inter-firm cooperation and spin-off formation) that attract and reward workers who accumulate industry- specific rather than employer-specific career competencies.

Best (1 990, p. 207) characterizes successful industry communities as a ‘collective entrepreneur, combining productive decentralization and social integration’. From a career competencies standpoint, Silicon Valley has promoted collective entrepreneurship through know-why competencies that value mobility of human capital and relatively open access to infirmation. In turn, productive decentralization has been nurtured through temporary combinations (e.g. strategic alliances and subcontracting) of know-how competencies that bring together participant occupations and member firms. Social relations are accumulated as industry-wide know-whom competencies further facilitate inter-firm cooperation, know-how sharing, and the identification of new career opportunities. In contrast, on all three counts, Cambridge appears to have suppressed people’s boundaryless career competency accumulation.

Not all observers are sanguine about the emergence of boundaryless career contexts within industry communities. Florida and Kenney (1990) assert that boundaryless careers may occur a t a cost in competitiveness to the host industry. Hyper-mobility among skilled personnel may undermine management’s commitment to upgrading employee skills. Rapid turnover of skilled workers may deprive the organization of firm-specific know-how that cannot be easily or quickly replaced. Excessive spin-off activity may truncate product development efforts in parent firms. Fragmented, specialized firms may lack the scale economies and workforce stability to build long-term know-how in product and process improvements. A survey of U.S. and Japanese product development claims that Japanese firms made greater investments in continuous im- provemen t in product and process innovations because their organizational teams had lower turnover dnd thus accumulated more team-based and firm-specific competencies (Arthur D. Little, 1992).

For each of the above concerns there is a counterpoint. Innovative firms may need the influx of new know-how that career mobility can provide. Innovation may also require cannibalizing past investments, reflected in established know-how, to adopt superior technologies that may become the industry’s next standard. Persistent interaction of workers with diverse skills can spur the discovery process. Criticism that boundaryless career incentives result in firms that are too numerous and too small, may be refuted by recent evidence that economic growth in both the Silicon Valley (Rappaport and Halevi, 1991) and the U.S. as a whole (Birch, Haggerty and Parsons, 1993) is attributable to small fast-growth firms. Recent evidence also points to U.S. small-firm concentrations outperforming their Japanese rivals in market growth and profit-


ability (Morris and Ferguson, 1993). We cannot resolve the debate here, but we suggest it would clearly benefit from a clearer understanding of boundaryless career phenomena.

In sum, our observations suggest that people seeking to maximize career opportunities outside their present employment setting are likely to discover a greater density of opportunities in industry communities. Moreover, because these communities tend to share industry specific values and beliefs, the corresponding know-why of industry participants will make transferability between employers less costly. A similar point applies to transferable know-how, spanning both direct job knowledge and broadly shared industry recipes (Spender, 1989). Extensive inter-firm communication and interpersonal networks, facilitated by the density of firms, nurtures know whom competencies relevant to prospective future employment settings. Also, the interconnected- ness of the social networks of the industry region increases the likelihood that indirect ties (e.g. friends of friends) will supply needed information on career opportunities. However, industry community traditions may still discourage boundaryless career behavior, and promote alternative competencies emphasizing intra-firm depth rather than inter-firm breadth of career activities.

Some research implications The present paper’s conception of career competencies accruing through boundaryless career behavior suggests a wealth of new research possibilities, and raises new questions about traditional career research concerns. The competency profiles associated with boundaryless versus bounded careers (see Table 2) suggest the following research opportunities and questions for career theory, which we have organized under each of the three forms of career competencies discussed in this paper.

Table 2. Competency profiles of boundaryless versus bounded careers

Commtencv Bounded Boundarvless Career profile

Know-why Identity Employer-dependent Employer-independen t

Know-how Employment context Specialized Flexible Work tasks Specialized or flexible in both profiles

Networks Locus Structure

Intra-organizational Hierarchic Prescribed

Inter-organizational Non-hierarchic Emergent

Know-why Organizational careers research has traditionally focused upon those processes by which individual identities, values and interests are matched to the requirements of their employment settings. However, our previous discussion strongly suggests that boundaryless career identities are loosely coupled to their employment setting. This loosening of employees’ identification is associated with the emergence of organizational contexts, such as the starburst and outsource forms (Handy, 1990; Quinn, 1992), which expect significant portions of their workforce to embrace more entre-

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preneurial and/or occupational values and work identities. Is employment in emerging boundaryless organizational contexts such as starburst and outsourcing organizations associated with distinctive know-why competencies that are more anchored in entrepreneurial and occupational identities than in organizationally-anchored career identities?

Organizational hiring policies are also evolving that emphasize short-term, performance-contingent employment contracts for so-called peripheral workers (e.g. temporary, seasonal or contingent workers) and long-term employment commitments to core workers (Handy, 1990; Rousseau and Wade-Benzoni, 1993). Given these trends, what types of career identities and values are associated with core versus non-core employment relationships? Presumably, core workers would be expected to have stronger organizational commitments and evidence greater value identification with their employer’s culture than peripheral workers. However, do different types of non-core workers (e.g. part-time workers, seasonal workers, subcontracting specialists) each espouse distinctive patterns of career values and identification with their employer’s culture? Research on these questions could lead to more effective recruitment, selection and socialization processes for core and peripheral workers respectively.

With the proliferation of joint-venture and alliance partnerships between organizations, workers may experience careers in which their loyalties are divided between two or more simulta- neous employment affiliations. This situation also exists among free agent subcontractors who divide their time performing services for multiple employers. What types of conflicts of career loyalties are likely to arise under such circumstances (e.g. protecting confidential information of one eniployer from leaking to another employer)? Finally, what does current research on organizational citizenship (altruistic behavior) suggest for workers who are citizens of multiple employment settings?

A further concern for know-why research involves the interface between work and non-work identities. By what process can the psychological and emotional stress of loss of core employment be ameliorated? How, in turn, do people come to identify with the countervailing benefits of temporary employment arrangements? What contribution can outplacement programs make toward the cultivation of temporary, project-centered, rather than permanent, employer-centered, know-why competencies? To what extent do project-centered know-why competencies support the pursuit of more flexible employment situations, especially for people seeking to accommodate work and family demands (Arthur, 1992).

Know-how Our paper has suggested that boundaryless careers facilitate the accumulation of a portfolio of skills and experience that cannot be achieved by non-mobile organizational careers. Moreover, boundaryless careers are described to offer more opportunities for the utilization of accumulated competencies. However, little empirical research has compared the skill profiles and performance of mobile and non-mobile workers in identical occupations. Do boundaryless (mobile) careers facilitate a more rapid accumulation of skills than bounded careers? Are the types of skills accumulated different in their breadth (diversity) or depth (specialization)?

Our competency-based perspective outlined in Table 2 suggests that know-how competencies can be evaluated in terms of the degree to which know-how is specialized by work tasks and employment contexts. These two know-how dimensions suggest four ideal-typical know-how profiles, each having different prospects for career success in boundaryless work contexts. The task and context specialized worker (e.g. an operator of a firm-specific manufacturing process) is particularly vulnerable to the creative destruction of technological change and global competition and more likely to experience plateaued careers and loss of employment in today’s boun-


daryless employment contexts. Less vulnerable are those workers who have pursued employer- directed opportunities for cross-training and/or retraining and have thus accumulated employer- specialized but more task flexible know-how. Career research could investigate the consequences of cross-training for the accumulation of firm-specific versus context-transferable competencies. In particular, does multi-task training increase intra-firm mobility at the cost of reducing inter- firm mobility?

While the preceding two competency profiles characterize bounded careers, the next two profiles describe forms of boundaryless career. Workers who accumulate task specialized but employment context flexible know-how are exemplified by the professional or occupational specialist. Careers research could investigate whether such workers are more capable of flexibly moving between core and peripheral employment relations because their occupational career identity and skills are equally applicable to both settings.

The worker whose know-how is both task and employment context flexible may be a mythic career type. Certainly, MBA programs in the past extolled the model of the ‘general manager’ whose broad know-how could be flexibly employed in a variety of employment contexts. How- ever, research by Jalland and Gum (1993) suggests that managerial career logics for mobility may vary within different industries. Future careers research could seek to identify the nature of inter-firm mobility barriers in different industries. One such barrier might be firm-specific, proprietary know-how.

Conversely, Hendry er al. (in press) suggest that organization-specific know-how may be transformed into industry know-how through diffusion processes facilitated by personnel flows between innovative and imitative employers. Careers research could therefore also investigate how worker know-how accumulation within innovative firms facilitates subsequent career mobility to imitative firms.

Kno w-whom Organizational careers research has traditionally emphasized the importance of career-supportive mentoring relations and task-supportive work relations between superordinate and subordi- nate workers within the same organization (Kram, 1985). While such intra-organizational networks may be conducive to career mobility and success within traditional, hierarchical employment contexts, our review of emerging boundaryless employment contexts suggests the increasing importance to both employers and workers of inter-organizational and non-hierarchic networks. Under-examined in current career research is the relationship between organizationally prescribed networks for task performance and worker enacted career networks. That is, can individually enacted career networks (including external mentoring relations) generate information that is both valued by one’s current employer and yet valuable to the worker’s career prospects in future employment settings?

Research on technical know-how trading between U.S. steel minimill producers suggests that individuals and their employers can mutually benefit from know-how trading and mutual problem solving between networks of technical workers in rival firms (Von Hippel, 1988). How- ever, such trading must be very sensitive to the competitive value of know-how that is traded among participants. A reputation for promiscuous know-how sharing is likely to be detrimental to career prospects both within one’s current employment setting and among other employment contexts that value discretion in communications with outsiders.

A further arena for know-whom based career-research concerns the role of career-based networks in facilitating varying degrees of career transition. Boundaryless careers may involve changes in some combination of geographic, organizational, industry and occupational contexts.

320 R . J DEFILLIPPI AND M. B. ARTHUR

Each of these boundary transitions may be facilitated by certain network relationships while weakening or severing other network relationships. Career research could investigate the potency and durability of different sources of career networks (e.g. co-workers, occupational peers in rival fim, or industry mentors) for workers undergoing different forms of boundaryless career transition

Cornpetcncy interdependence Our career competency perspective draws upon previously separate streams of career research on career-relevant values, skills and social networks. Each form of career competency contributes to the propensity of an individual to pursue a career in which a person’s subjectively defined career success is associated with intentional or voluntary changes of employment settings. Table 2 suggests two contrasting competency profiles for bounded versus boundaryless careers. The ideal-typical bounded career is characterized by an employment context-based career identity (e.g. ‘I am an IBM engineer’), the accumulation of employment-specialized know-how (e.g. how to work ‘the IBM way’), and the development of networks that are intra-organizational (e.g. the IBM family), hierarchic (e.g. the IBM chain of command) and employer-prescribed.

By contrast the ideal-typical boundaryless career is characterized by a career identity that is employer-independent (e.g. ‘I am a software engineer’), the accumulation of employment- flexible know-how (e.g. how to do work in an innovative, efficient, andlor quality-enhancing way), and the development of networks that are inter-organizational (e.g. occupational or industry-based ), non-hierarchic (e.g. communities of practice) and worker enacted.

Our perspective suggests that asymmetries in the development of boundaryless career competencies may constrain the realization of a boundaryless career. For example, deficiencies in social networks (know-whom) may preclude boundaryless career mobility by preventing people outside one’s current employment setting from recognizing or advocating the value of one’s know-how to prospective employers. Similarly, a person whose career identity (know-why) is highly bound to a current employer may underutilize his or her know-how and social networks to identify and exploit career opportunities outside the current employment context. Finally, a person whose employment skills (know-how) are too narrowly customized to the requirements of his or her current employer may find boundaryless career opportunities constrained by the firm-specific character of accumulated skills.

Future careers research will be able to elaborate on the bounded versus boundaryless career competency profiles outlined in Table 2, and generate a richer compendium of competency-based career profiles. These will extend our understanding of the interplay between boundaryless career Competencies and the changing organizational, occupational and industry community contexts in which careers are evolving.

Conclusion

This paper has argued that recent competency-based views of the firm can be usefully harnessed for the study of boundaryless careers. We have proposed that cumulative career competencies are embodied in people’s beliefs and identities (know-why), skills and knowledge (know-how) and networks of relationships and contacts (know-whom). Our explorations have covered boundaryless career implications of current organizational, occupational and industry community contexts. We have drawn on the body of this paper to suggest multiple avenues for research


on boundaryless careers. These avenues concern each of the career competencies separately, as well as interdependence among them.

In closing, we offer this career competency perspective as a basis for new dialogue and research endeavors. And in the spirit of this paper, we particularly welcome responses from readers reaching beyond their own - or their discipline’s - traditional boundaries. Answers to the questions we pose may be best achieved by collaborative, even if temporary, efforts. Such efforts would surely be consistent with the kinds of careers we seek to study.

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the boundaryless career: a competency-based perspective

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