ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the use of theory from multiple disciplines in careers research. Objective career success is about the tangible aspects of a person’s career situation, such as salary, promotions, and high-status occupational attainment. Despite a large number of studies in the field of labor economics that focus on objective career success outcomes like wages or promotions, relatively little of the careers research has migrated into the management literature. A key departure of the psychology perspective from that of economics and sociology is that people themselves define what it means to be successful rather than having success defined by an objective standard. Job mobility has been of significant interest to scholars who take a sociological view of careers. Research on patterns in careers also draws on micro-sociological theory about social referents. The theory of planned behavior identifies the factors that lead to behavioral intentions, which are predictive of subsequent behavior.
