Vertical Paths, Personal Growth and Ordinary Lives in Graduate Employment. Narratives of Career in Offshored/Outsourced Companies

• In Event: Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 29: Worker and Employer Beliefs and Justifications

Abstract

While multinationals have gradually located low-end office work in Eastern Europe, it is uncertain whether they can sustain career progression for large cohorts. Nevertheless, the promise of ‘growth’ is gaining currency. Based on more than 130 face-to-face interviews with young employees, HR staff, and managers in Romania, the article asks how the actors conceptualise such growth. It appears that despite its pervasiveness, companies and graduates alike rarely define the concept. When prompted, young people tend to display rather diffuse projections and rely on corporate tropes. HR and managers associate growth with the labour market in general, referring to ‘personal growth’ in a strategic move to avoid making promises about 'in-house' advancement. We suggest that the 'fetishisation' of personal growth in corporate narratives is at the expense of engaging with structural questions in a sector that remains unpredictable, prone to automation, and on the move.

Author

• Maria-Carmen Pantea, Universitatea 'Babes Bolyai'