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Researchers have found that enhanced self-determination can contribute to integrated employment and social inclusion outcomes for adults with disabilities. This chapter will provide an overview of the Self-determined Career Design Model (SDCDM) and research on its implementation. The SDCDM is an evidence-based career design model implemented by a facilitator (e.g. school professional, community service provider, or any supporter) to enable young people with disabilities to design their career trajectory. The SDCDM has the three phases: (1) set a goal, (2) take action and (3) adjust goal or plan. The SDCDM promotes social inclusion by enabling young people with developmental disabilities to leverage their strengths, interests and resources available to reach self-selected career-related goals. The chapter will specifically consider factors (e.g. culture, family background) that influence the development and expression of self-determination and goal-directed behaviour across the lifespan. A case study of the implementation of the SDCDM with two young women with developmental disabilities who participated in a larger study examining the impact of the SDCDM on employment outcomes will be used to demonstrate the use and impact of the model.

Individuals with disabilities and vulnerabilities often experience a series of interventions that are of little benefit in terms of career development, resulting in uncertainty, career barriers, disinvestment in the future and school, a lack of knowledge regarding current reality, and a tendency to delay important life decisions, which can limit their ability to imagine and plan for the future. Based on the most recent and accredited approaches in the field of career guidance, this chapter explores a number of innovative programs and interventions designed to support children, adolescents, and adults with and without disabilities in planning their educational and professional futures in an inclusive perspective. Emphasis is given to actions and interventions to enable individuals with and without disabilities to develop critical consciousness, awareness, and reflection regarding the contextual variables and conditions that may represent career barriers to their future, to support them in aspiring to an inclusive and sustainable future, and to help them to acquire the strategies and skills needed to pursue what is close to their heart.

Turnover intention is one's behavioural intention to quit. The purpose of this study is to compare the relative influences of organizational socialization and career aspirations on turnover intentions of design engineers and to address the design of more effective development programmes and the reduction of dysfunctional turnover.

A study of 442 engineers staffed within “design and development” units is presented, and a research model is tested using structural equation modelling techniques.

The analysis indicates that design engineers report lower levels of turnover intention when organizational socialization is prominent and an adequate range of opportunities that satisfy career aspirations exist within the organization.

The cause‐effect relationships among constructs that are empirically derived from the analysis should be further supported by a longitudinal study. Future research should be aimed at exploring the different patterns of turnover intentions of engineers with different career orientations and in organizations with or without rigid formalized career advancement system.

Managers of technical staff are advised to put an effort to develop and encourage lateral career moves of research and development staff members, particularly for newcomers, by offering a variety of experiences, that is likely to speed up their prompt creation of a better defined self‐concept.

The originality of the research lies in that it addresses an explanation of engineers’ turnover based on a theoretical framework that jointly combines internal career anchors as well as external career opportunities and socialization, thus striving to fill a gap in existing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of protean and boundaryless career attitudes in early career employees during a time of economic recession in Ireland, specifically regarding their relationship to work characteristics, job satisfaction and career satisfaction.

Using a quantitative design, data were obtained from a variety of Irish organizations. Employees in the trial career stage (aged between 18 and 29) responded to questions pertaining to their career attitudes, perceived work context and satisfaction.

Skill variety was related to higher job satisfaction for those with a strong organizational mobility preference, and skill specialization was related to lower job satisfaction for those with a weak organizational mobility preference. Autonomy and skill specialization were positively related to career satisfaction for those who held a strong self-directed career attitude.

For researchers, this study contributes to our understanding of the boundary conditions of the work design-satisfaction relationship, and provides further insights into how these findings extend to career satisfaction.

For managers, they demonstrate the importance of considering career attitudes when considering the relationship between job design and satisfaction during recessionary times.

The research extends past findings on careers attitudes during times of recession, and provides insights into psychological and contextual variables that contribute to satisfaction during such economic periods.

The paper aims to explore “Portfolio work”, an emerging form of flexible self‐employment, which has been identified as significant but under‐researched. This paper also seeks to explore the challenges and benefits of portfolio work from the perspective of individuals' experiences.

The argument draws from a qualitative study involving 31 individuals practising portfolio work in two different occupational groups: nurses and adult educators. Participants were interviewed in semi‐structured in‐depth conversational interviews to explore their everyday experience and work history in portfolio work.

Two dimensions of portfolio work, work design and client‐relations, are found to generate experiences of both deep satisfaction and deep anxiety and stress. The paper argues that portfolio careers simultaneously embed both liberating and exploitative at dimensions for workers, which are at least partly related to their own conflicting desires for both contingency and stability. Further, portfolio work embeds labour that often remains unrecognized, even by the self‐employed individuals assuming responsibility for it.

Portfolio workers need to recognise and document their unpaid but necessary labour in work design and client relations that sustains their careers; portfolio workers may need to educate clients about the nature of portfolio work; and employers who contract to portfolio workers must take more responsibility for negotiating fair contracts that are sensitive to overwork and unfair time pressures, and that anticipate and compensate contractors.

These findings challenge existing conceptions of portfolio work as either exploitative or liberating, and expose contradictions embedded in both the conditions of the work and individuals' expectations and attitudes towards it.