Exploring Career Orientations and Career Self-Management in the Context of Working From Home—A Qualitative Analysis

As part of individuals’ growing responsibility for managing their careers, they increasingly engage in career self-management to guide their careers according to their career orientations. At the same time, many individuals work from home to varying degrees. Until now, little has been known about how career orientations and career self-management are shaped by working from home. Against this background, this study aims to explore career orientations and career self-management in the context of working from home. We conducted 26 interviews with individuals who worked from home at least part of the time. Our findings demonstrate that individuals’ perceptions of working from home depend on their career orientations. Additionally, working from home comprises contextual factors that serve as either resources or demands for different career self-management behaviors. While behaviors that depend on social contextual factors, such as networking, are hindered when working from home, those related to work (e.g., productivity) and person (e.g., career planning) are facilitated. Our findings contribute conceptually to understanding the role of contextual factors in the model of career self-regulation and extend the literature on working from home by highlighting the relevance of career-related constructs.