Abstract
The notion of kaleidoscope careers emerged as response to the fact that people have become increasingly in charge of their own careers and that people’s priorities in their work lives change as a function of their career and life stages, but also of external. To describe this mechanism the metaphor of kaleidoscope was utilized, career orientations shift in order to fit into different aspects and priorities into individual’s lives. The Kaleidoscope careers model identifies three career orientations: authenticity, balance and challenge. These three orientations are always present, but their relative importance changes over time. The study had two aims: first, to investigate the proximal and distal career-related outcomes of the three kaleidoscope career orientations; and second, to investigate the extent to which a major event, the Covid-19 epidemic, was associated with changes in the ways authenticity, balance and challenge relate to outcomes. Though the theory behind the model clearly implies that the model must be useful to explain career outcomes, such as career success, relevant research is extremely limited. The study utilized longitudinal design, with data collected at three points in time: 2016 (Time 1), early 2019 (Time 2) and 2021 (Time 3). Time 3 fell at the peak of the Covid-19 epidemic. Data from 228 business school alumni who provided valid responses to questionnaires at all three time points were utilized. Preliminary findings provided general support to the hypotheses that were derived according to the Kaleidoscope career model. What was also remarkable was the ability of the three career orientations, Authenticity, Balance and Challenge to predict career-related outcomes three and five years later. The full results along with their implications for theory and practice will be ready to present at the BAM Conference.