ABSTRACT
Individual career outcomes cannot be understood without understanding the related constructs of career norms, career drivers, career scripts, and higher-order career outcomes. Career drivers originate from within an individual and stimulate action. The metaphor of the “anchor” refers to the fact that, although the career-related self-concept is formed over time and therefore susceptible to change in early career stage individuals, once it is more established it will serve as a stabilizing force in both career decision-making and career outcome evaluation. Higher-order outcomes of career, then, are defined as accumulated outcomes over time of an individual’s objective career achievements and subjective career experiences – regardless of their relative volatility or stability – that are not themselves indicators of career success. Confounding refers to instances where the independent, dependent, moderating, and mediating variables of a theory are not fully independent but rather share conceptual and empirical overlap.
