Career Development and Knowledge Appropriation: A Genealogical Critique

Abstract

In the fast-changing and globally competitive business environment, organizations’ efforts to appropriate knowledge from their workers will be increasingly resisted by those employees forced into more fragmented and uncertain careers. We interpret this contested scenario in terms of the apparently diametrically opposed ways in which knowledge is conceptualized. The organization sees knowledge as an asset which it seeks to appropriate through mechanisms designed to achieve employment flexibility. However, this process is not unidirectional, as we posit that the individual conceives of their knowledge as ‘career capital’ and, in building it up as a response to the uncertainties of reconstituted careers, pursues a strategy of employability. With reference to Foucault’s genealogical approach, we argue that the above contest not only reflects the shifting employment relationship and economic turbulence, but is in fact a social phenomenon rooted in the knowledge−power dialectic and one which sheds light on individuals’ efforts to free themselves from the effects of normalization, thus challenging organizational efforts to appropriate the knowledge inherent in careers.