Journal of Counseling Psychology © 2013 American Psychological Association

2013, Vol. 60. No. 4, 557-568 0022-0167/13/$ 12.00 DOI: IO.lO37/aOO33446

Social Cognitive Model of Career Self-Management: Toward a Unifying

View of Adaptive Career Behavior Across the Life Span

Robert W, Lent Steven D. Brown

University of Maryland Loyola University Chicago

Social cognitive career theory (SCCT) currently consists of 4 overlapping, segmental models aimed at
understanding educational and occupational interest development, choice-making, performance and
persistence, and satisfaction/well-being. To this point, the theory has emphasized content aspects of
career behavior, for instance, prediction of the types of activities, school subjects, or career fields that
form the basis for people's educational/vocational interests and choice paths. However, SCCT may also
lend itself to study of many process aspects of career behavior, including such issues as how people
manage normative tasks and cope with the myriad challenges involved in career preparation, entry,
adjustment, and change, regardless of the specific educational and occupational fields they inhabit. Such
a process focus can augment and considerably expand the range of the dependent variables for which
SCCT was initially designed. Building on SCCT's existing models, we present a social cognitive model
of career self-management and offer examples of the adaptive, process behaviors to which it can be
applied (e.g., career decision making/exploration, job searching, career advancement, negotiation of work
transitions and multiple roles).

Keywords: social cognitive career theory, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, goals, adaptive behavior

When it was initially presented nearly 20 years ago, social
cognitive career theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994)
consisted of three segmental, or interconnected, models aimed at
explaining interest development, choice-making, and performance
and persistence in educational and vocational contexts. Derived
largely from Bandura's (1986, 1997) general social cognitive
framework, SCCT was conceived as an effort to complement and
build linkages among existing theoretical approaches to career
development. For example, it was intended to broaden Holland's
(1997) theory by focusing on the antecedents of interests and on
noninterest predictors of vocational choice, such as self-efficacy
beliefs. Following the lead of early work on career self-efficacy
(Hackett & Betz, 1981), SCCT was also designed to help extend
the range of prior theories by explicitly considering gender, cul-
ture, and other aspects of human diversity within the context of
career development.
Since their introduction, SCCT's original models have been the
focus of numerous extensions and applications. For example,
efforts have been made to clarify the nature and functions of
contextual influences within the theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett,
2000); to extend SCCT to particular developmental challenges
(e.g.. Lent, Hackett, & Brown, 1999) and client groups, such as
This article was published Online First July 1, 2013.
Robert W. Lent, Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and
Special Education, University of Maryland; Steven D. Brown, School of
Education, Loyola University.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Robert
W. Lent, Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Edu-
cation, University of Maryland, 3214 Benjamin Building, College Park,
MD 20742. E-mail: boblent@umd.edu
557
racially diverse students (Byars-Winston, Estrada, Howard, Davis,
& Zalapa, 2010), gay and lesbian workers (Morrow, Gore, &
Campbell, 1996), and persons with disabilities (Fabian, 2000); and
to consider the theory's implications for practice (e.g.. Brown &
Lent, 1996; Lent, 2013b; Lent & Fouad, 2011). A fourth SCCT
model, aimed at satisfaction/well-being in educational and voca-
tional contexts, has also been introduced (Lent & Brown, 2006,
2008). To this point, the three original models have attracted a
good deal of research attention (see, e.g., Betz, 2008; Brown et al.,
2008; Lent, 2013b; Lent & Sheu, 2010; Sheu et al., 2010). The
newer model of well-being has also begun to stimulate inquiry,
both in the United States and abroad (e.g.. Lent, Taveira, & Lobo,
2012; Ojeda, Flores, & Navarro, 2011).
Despite this healthy level of inquiry and application, we see
several areas that are ripe for theory extension. In particular, as it
is currently constituted, SCCT is primarily designed to address a
focused but important set of content questions, such as predicting
the types of educational and vocational activity domains toward
which people will gravitate and in which they will find satisfaction
and relative success. Like most other theories of career develop-
ment, the focus has, metaphorically speaking, been more on the
destination than on the journey, that is, on where people end up,
occupationwise, rather than on how they get there or how they
manage new challenges once they arrive. One way to extend
SCCT's comprehensiveness, then, would be to add more of an
explicit focus on the myriad process aspects of career develop-
ment, addressing the dynamic ways in which people adapt to both
routine career tasks and unusual career challenges, both within and
across educational/vocational fields. This process dimension is
primarily concerned with such questions as how, under varying
environmental conditions, people make career-related decisions,
negotiate the transition from school to work, find jobs, pursue
558 LENT AND BROWN
personal goals, maintain vitality, manage multiple roles, and re-
spond to career setbacks.
It can be argued that the traditional emphasis of career theories
on the "big four" outcotnes of interests, choice, performance, and
satisfaction is as important and relevant as ever. But it can also be
argued that the vast changes occurring in the context of work (e.g.,
economic uncertainties, global competition, technological ad-
vances, decreased job security) require new models and methods
for assisting workers to manage their occupational lives (Blustein,
2006; Griffin & Hesketh, 2005; King, 2004; Lent, 2013a). Con-
sistent with the recent thrust of the literature on career adaptability
and resilience (e.g.. Creed, Fallón, & Hood, 2009; Rottinghaus,
Day, & Borgen, 2005; Savickas, 2013), our goal in this article is to
develop a model of career self-management that focuses on rela-
tively micro-level processes, in particular, how people negotiate
both normative developmental tasks (e.g., making career deci-
sions) and less predictable events and crises (e.g., job loss). Al-
though existing research often treats career adaptability as a set of
indi vidual-diffère nee attributes (e.g., Rottinghaus et al., 2005), we
offer a complementary focus on adaptive behaviors and on the
factors (both environment and person-based) that promote (or
deter) their use. This distinction reflects the "doing versus having"
sides of personality and functioning (Cantor & Sanderson, 1999).
The purpose of the present article, then, is to propose an SCCT
model aimed at the processes by which people help to direct their
own career and educational behavior in diverse contexts. It is
intended to complement, rather than replace, the four existing
SCCT models by focusing on a wider array of career adaptation
phenomena across the life span. In addition to responding to
certain contemporary challenges of career development, the self-
management model is designed to link together, within a larger
conceptual framework, several streams of research in the voca-
tional and organizational psychology literatures that, at present, are
often approached as if they are largely unique and unrelated to one
another. Such an integrative framework may lend greater coher-
ence to the existing literature and point to new directions for
research and application.
Although many studies that have examined social cognitive
aspects of career behavior are directly tied to SCCT (e.g., studies
relating self-efficacy to choice of science and engineering majors),
many others appear to represent largely distinct applications of
social cognitive theory. They may be seen as somewhat distant
cousins of SCCT because they deal with career behavior at a
global rather than domain-specific level or are directed at explain-
ing dependent variables that are not compatible with the original
focus of SCCT (cf. Lent & Brown, 2006). In other cases, they
clearly deal with important social cognitive phenomena (e.g., study
of self-efficacy relative to career decision making, job search, or
multiple role management), but their process nature makes it
difficult to integrate their findings within an overarching SCCT
framework at present. An effort to encompass such phenomena
might, then, produce a more comprehensive and useful theory and
a better integrated knowledge base.
Career Development and Agency in a Social Context
Before we proceed further, some conceptual housekeeping is in
order. First, we use the term career in a generic sense to encom-
pass work or occupational behavior, regardless of the prestige level
of a given form of work, the socioeconomic status of the worker,
or the educational level required for the work he or she performs
(Lent & Brown, 2013). We appreciate arguments that career
implies a privileged view of work behavior, yet the term is firmly
engrained in the professional discourse in vocational and organi-
zational psychology and, as a technical term, can be used to
connote one's sequence or totality of work positions. In this sense,
housepainters and physicians both have careers. But mindful of the
controversies surrounding "career," we use terms like work and
occupation as synonymous with career.
Second, the model we present is based on the assumption that
people are typically able to assert some measure of personal
control, or agency, in at least some aspects of their own career
development. We, thus, focus on specific mechanisms through
which people are partly able to direct their own career actions to
accomplish personal (and collective) ends. Bandura (2001,2006b)
has noted that agency is made possible by humans' capacities to
engage in forethought, intentional action, self-reflection, and self-
reaction. These capacities, we believe, enable people to participate
more or less actively in their own career choice and development.
They also provide a necessary foundation for the provision of
career services (e.g., career exploration and planning activities
presuppose clients' capacities for anticipating future possibilities,
reflecting on self in relation to environment, and framing, enacting,
and revising personal goals).
Yet allowing for agentic capacity in no way implies that people
fully control their career lives. As Bandura (2006b) has argued,
"People do not operate as autonomous agents. Nor is their behavior
wholly determined by situational influences. Rather, human func-
tioning is a product of a reciprocal interplay of intrapersonal,
behavioral, and environmental determinants..." (p. 165). We use
the term career self-management because the proposed model
focuses on factors that influence the individual's purposive behav-
ior—not because we assume that individuals act alone in envision-
ing or achieving their aims. To the contrary, like all modem career
theories, SCCT views people as living within a social world, with
ever-present opportunities to be influenced by, as well as to influ-
ence, others—hence, the 5 in SCCT.
Agency and Adaptive Career Behaviors
As we noted earlier, SCCT's existing models, particularly the
interest and choice models, are chiefly concerned with the content
or types of fields toward which people gravitate and the activities
they perform at school and work. The model of career self-
management presented in this article is intended to complement
this content level of analysis by focusing on the relatively perva-
sive processes and mechanisms that direct career behavior within
and across the specific fields and jobs people enter. For example,
whereas the SCCT choice model is concerned with the self, expe-
riential, and contextual factors that promote pursuit of particular
occupational paths (e.g., computer programming, home repair), the
self-management model emphasizes the factors that lead people to
enact behaviors that aid their own educational and occupational
progress (e.g., planning, information-gathering, deciding, goal-
setting, job-finding, self-asserting, preparing for change, negotiat-
ing transitions) beyond field or job selection alone.
The original content focus of SCCT has encouraged inquiry on
factors that foster or hinder people's interest and entry into certain
 CAREER SELF-MANAGEMENT
fields (e.g., science, technology, engineering, mathematics careers
and majors). However, it has offered less clear guidance for
investigators seeking to understand how people negotiate life
transitions (e.g., shift from school to work) or engage in common
career development tasks (e.g., career exploration and decision
making) across fields. The primary reason for this differential
utility is that the original SCCT models were explicitly designed to
address field or content-specific issues, with less attention given to
how they might apply to career process questions. The career
self-management model presented here is intended to address this
gap, and to complement the earlier models, principally by focusing
on the behaviors that people use to try to achieve their own career
objectives. These behaviors, which we generally refer to as adap-
tive career behaviors, are conceptually related to such constructs
as career process skills, competencies, meta-competencies, self-
regulation, coping skills, and adaptive performance (e.g., Betz &
Hackett, 1987; Griffin & Hesketh, 2005).
Adaptive career behavior is related to Savickas's (1997, 2013)
notion of career adaptability in that both concepts are concerned
with positive functioning and resilience in the context of change,
and both entail assumptions that individuals rely on self-regulatory
processes, social resources, and dispositional tendencies in adapt-
ing to change. The two approaches differ, however, in their view
of the specific variables and processes that are responsible for
self-direction. Adaptive career behaviors are also relevant to dis-
cussions of specific strategies that workers use to manage their
career behavior or cope with specific challenges (e.g., proactive,
reactive, and tolerant behavior; Griffin & Hesketh, 2005; position-
ing behavior, influence behavior, boundary management; King,
2004). In this article, we are, however, less concerned with choice
of specific strategies for directing career behavior than we are with
the antecedent cognitive, affective, behavioral, and social-
contextual processes that more generally enable (or deter) self-
direction in career pursuits.
Inquiry on Adaptive Career Behaviors
Hackett, Betz, and their colleagues performed foundational
work on adaptive career behaviors, which they referred to as
"career competencies" or "process skills." For example, Betz and
Hackett identified a number of competencies that were seen as key
to the career development of college students (Betz & Hackett,
1987) and professional women (Hackett, Betz, & Doty, 1985).
Examples of these competencies included self-assertion, general
planning, career advancement, and cognitive coping skills. Betz
and Hackett found that self-efficacy for such process skills was
moderately to strongly associated with observer-rated use of these
skills among female and male college students in the United States.
That is, students reporting higher self-efficacy demonstrated
greater behavioral competence. In a partial replication and exten-
sion of this study, Sadri (1996) found that self-efficacy was mod-
erately related to career competencies across samples of British
and U.S. college students.
There are several other good examples of social cognitive in-
quiry on process dimensions of career behavior. For instance, a
sizable body of research has examined self-efficacy in relation to
career decision-making skills. A recent meta-analysis indicated
that career decision self-efficacy is (a) inversely (and strongly)
related to career indecision, (b) positively (and moderately to
559
strongly) related to peer support and vocational outcome expecta-
tions, and (c) negatively (and weakly) related to career barriers
(Choi et al., 2012). A number of studies have also examined
self-efficacy in relation to job search capabilities. Kanfer, Wan-
berg, and Kantrowitz's (2001) meta-analysis indicated that job
search self-efficacy produced small to moderate, positive relations
with job search behavior and number of job offers received. (We
consider inquiry on career decision making and the job search
process in more depth in a later section.) Other examples of social
cognitive inquiry on process aspects of career behavior include
self-efficacy in relation to college-going intentions (Ali, Mc-
Whirter, & Chronister, 2005), organizational citizenship behavior
(Todd & Kent, 2006), work-family conflict (Cinamon, 2006), and
training motivation (Colquitt, LePine, & Noe, 2000).
We see several good reasons to try to bridge inquiry on such
topics with SCCT. In particular, it is not always clear whether
studies involving social cognitive process variables, such as career
decision self-efficacy (CDSE), actually test SCCT's hypotheses in
a formal sense. For example, Choi et al. (2012) sought to "obtain
a clearer understanding of CDSE's roles within the framework of
social cognitive career theory" (p. 443). We have generally taken
the position that studies, say, linking CDSE to career indecision
are conceptually related to SCCT but do not formally test it
because the theory was not explicitly designed either to incorpo-
rate CDSE or to predict career indecision as a general state—it is
rather designed to predict choice of domain-specific options, such
as type of academic major or occupation (cf Lent & Brown, 2006).
An effort to bridge SCCT with such process-focused inquiry may
both broaden the theory's range of applicability and clarify which
SCCT hypotheses, if any, are being tested in a given study.
Defínition and Classiñcation of Adaptive Career
Behaviors Across the Life Span
Before outlining our model of career self-management, it would
be useful to define more formally what we mean by adaptive
career behaviors. We see these as behaviors that people employ to
help direct their own career (and educational) development, both
under ordinary circumstances and when beset by stressful condi-
tions. They include behaviors that are used both proactively and
reactively (i.e., either when a given developmental task or contex-
tual challenge is anticipated or after it is encountered). Career and
educational development encompasses periods of work prepara-
tion, entry, adjustment, and change. As noted earlier, synonyms for
adaptive career behaviors include career process skills, agentic
competencies, instrumental behaviors, coping skills, and self-
regulatory behaviors. As mechanisms of agency, such behaviors
"enable people to play a part in their self-development, adaptation,
and self-renewal" (Bandura, 2001, p. 2).
Table 1 offers a selected list of adaptive career behaviors,
organized by career-life period, and life role. The developmental
framework for the table is adapted from Super's life span, life
space theory (Super, Savickas, & Super, 1996). In using Super's
framework, we selected or modified particular developmental
tasks that could be readily framed as acquirable skills. In listing
adaptive behaviors, we borrowed from Turner and Lapan's (2013)
integrative contextual model of career development, Hackett et
al.'s (1985) taxonomy of career competencies, and Lent's (2013a)
discussion of career preparedness tasks. We were also guided by
560 LE^4T AND BROWN

Table 1
Adaptive Career Behaviors, Organized by Career-Life Period and Major Life Role

Developmental period, primary life role Partial list of adaptive behaviors

I Developing basic self-regulation (e.g., goal-setting, study, time management) skills

Growth I Developing positive work habits and attitudes
Child, student I Developing social skills
I Developing problem-solving skills
I Developing decision-making skills
I Developing subject-specific academic skills
I Developing extracurricular (RIASEC) skills
I Developing preliminary work-relevant interests and values
I Forming provisional vocational aspirations and self-concept (e.g., sense of P-E matching
possibilities), typically without a specific plan—/ could be a ... someday

I Continuation and elaboration of Growth period tasks

Exploration I Developing work readiness and employability skills
Adolescent, student I Exploring possible career paths (e.g., through reading, observing, undertaking informal or formal
self-assessments of interests, abilities, values)
I Acquiring career-relevant experiences and skills (e.g., through school, part-time work, volunteering)
I Making career-relevant decisions (e.g., regarding leisure activities, elective courses)
t Implementing decisions (e.g., applying for jobs, training, college admission)
I Managing transitions (e.g., school-to-school, school-to-work, school-to-college)
I Forming more specific vocational goals and plans—/ want to be a ... and here is how I plan to get
there . . .

I Continuation and elaboration of (and possibly recycling through) Exploration period tasks
Establishment I Searching for and obtaining employment
Worker I Becoming socialized within one's work environment
I Adjusting to work requirements
I Managing work stresses and dissatisfactions
I Managing work-family-Hfe conflicts
I Coping with negative events, such as job layoff or harassment
I Developing new interests and skills (e.g., leadership)
I Refming interpersonal, political, and networking skills
I Engaging in self-advocacy/assertion (e.g., seeking raises, promotions, new tasks and titles)
I Engaging in organizational citizenship behaviors, such as mentoring others
I Managing aspects of one's personal identity at work (e.g., identity as a sexual, racial, or religious
minority member or person with a disability)
I Preparing for career-related changes or "emergencies"
I Revising or stabilizing vocational goals and plans—/ am a ... and want to be a ... and here is
how I plan to get (or stay) there ...

I Continuation and elaboration of Exploration and Establishment period tasks

Maintenance I Recycling through Exploration and Establishment period tasks, especially if one has voluntarily or
Worker involuntarily changed job/career paths
I Building job niches (e.g., forging a leadership or specialist role)
I Developing career self-renewal plans
I Preparing for retirement, leisure, bridge employment, or an encore career
I Revising or stabilizing vocational goals and plans—/ am a ... and want to be a ... ami here is
how ¡ plan to get (or stay) there ...

I Recycling through Exploration and Establishment period tasks, especially as one plans to take on
Disengagement/Reengagement different job responsibilities or leisure, family, or volunteer roles
Retiree, leisurite I Managing transilion from work to leisure, community service, bridge employment, or an encore
career
I Coping with stresses and conflicts related to one's new role and responsibilities
I Revising vocational goals and plans—/ have been a ... and want to be a ... and here is how I
plan to get (or stay) there ...
Note. General developmental framework adapted from Super et al. (1996). Certain growth and exploration tasks (e.g., work readiness and employability
skills) were adapted from Turner and Lapan (2013). Certain establishment and maintenance tasks were adapted from Hackett, Betz, and Doty (1985) and
Lent (2013a). RIASEC = Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional; P-E = person-environment.

recent observations about the pace and nature of changes in the
workplace (e.g., Griffin & Hesketh, 2005). Behaviors needed to
cope with contextual challenges, such as job loss, are also included
within this framework because career development involves man-
aging events that are sometimes unexpected as well as tasks that
are seen as relatively normative, predictable, or developmental in
nature. In addition, we include adaptive behaviors that are of
general relevance as well as those that set^e the needs of particular
groups of workers (e.g., management of work-family roles or
sexual identity at work).
 CAREER SELF-MANAGEMENT
In keeping with developmental and constructionist (e.g.,
Savickas, 2013; Super et al., 1996) views, we assume that indi-
viduals will negotiate developmental tasks at different paces, some
will necessarily recycle to tasks associated with earlier periods,
and the tasks associated with some periods can overlap consider-
ably. Where recycling occurs, it does not necessarily signify de-
velopmental failure or floundering; it may well be mandated by
circumstances (e.g., job loss) or personal intentions (e.g., voluntary
career renewal, the desire to locate better fitting or more mean-
ingful work). Changes in the context of work have rendered many
people's careers less linear, hierarchical, stable, or organization-
centric than in times past. Thus, for example, an individual wishing
to change career paths (or forced to do so by circumstance) may
well need to move from the Maintenance period back to tasks
associated with the Establishment and even Exploration periods.
Likewise, many persons presumably in the Disengagement period
will, either by economic necessity or choice, engage in Exploration
and Establishment period tasks in order to pursue bridge employ-
ment or "encore career" options. We, therefore, refer to Disen-
gagement/Reengagement to capture the contemporary dynamic
nature of "retirement".
Performing Developmental Tasks
and Coping With Challenges
Adaptive career behaviors include a fairly heterogeneous set of
behaviors that form at least two larger conceptual clusters. The
flrst cluster involves engaging in relatively normative and proac-
tive developmental tasks that, in the Growth period, are associated
with age-related cognitive development (e.g., acquisition of self-
regulation skills) and nurtured by social leaming experiences (e.g.,
modeling, performance feedback). These skills form a scaffolding
for further career development. Included within the developmental
task cluster are career-relevant tasks that are socially prescribed for
most individuals. These include, for example. Exploration period
activities such as making career-related decisions (e.g., choosing
elective academic courses, pursuing career-relevant hobbies and
provisional employment) and Establishment period tasks, such as
seeking work entry after the completion of formal education.
The second cluster involves what may be termed coping skills
and processes. These are typically reactive behaviors that are
initiated (a) to negotiate life-role transitions (e.g., school-to-work,
work-to-parent, return to work) and (b) to adjust to challenging,
and often unforeseen, work and work-life situations, such as role
conflicts, work stress, and job loss. Whether involving the man-
agement of transitions or coping with difficult events or work
conditions, the focus is on ways in which people attempt to steer
themselves around hurdles and to achieve a reasonable level of
career adaptation. The effective use of coping skills is part of the
network of factors that foster resilience in career development and
that aid people to anticipate and try to forestall negative career
events (Lent, 2013a).
The Link Between Adaptive Behavior
and Career Outcomes
We find it helpful to conceptualize career adaptability in terms
of a collection of behaviors that can be learned, rather than only as
traits that people possess. However, as we discuss below, the
561
performance of these behaviors may be facilitated by certain traits
as well as by environmental supports (e.g., friends, bosses, family
members) and social cognitive factors (e.g., self-efficacy). We also
prefer to view adaptive career behaviors as instrumental or inter-
mediate to other, more distal outcomes, rather than as representing
ultimate outcomes in themselves. That is, they may lead to or
potentiate more ultimate outcomes, such as career decidedness or
employment status. They do not, however, guarantee favorable
career outcomes. For instance, searching actively for jobs often
leads, in tum, to interviews and employment offers (e.g., Saks,
2006), but search behaviors do not ensure a quick or successful
route to employment. Given the multiple, systemic (e.g., eco-
nomic) factors at play that exceed personal control, it should not be
surprising that adaptive behaviors often correlate only modestly
with the outcomes they are designed to effect (e.g.. Côté, Saks, &
Zikic, 2006). Still, they often represent the most viable means for
individuals to pursue their career goals. It is, therefore, valuable to
study the antecedents of adaptive behaviors, along with the con-
textual and personal factors that facilitate and impede their use.
A Model of Career Self-Management
We present the career self-management model in two parts. We
flrst focus on relatively proximal person and contextual influences
on adaptive career behaviors and the outcomes of these behaviors.
We then discuss the more distal antecedents and experiential
sources of adaptive career behaviors.
Proximal Antecedents of Adaptive
Career Behaviors
Because it represents an extension of SCCT's choice-content
model, the model of career self-management relies on many of the
same core variables, only defined and contextualized in somewhat
novel ways. In particular, as shown in Figure 1, the exercise of
adaptive career behaviors, such as engaging in career exploration
or job-finding activities, is assumed to be affected by self-efflcacy,
outcome expectations, goals, and environmental supports and bar-
riers. In keeping with the prior SCCT models, each of these
proximal antecedents of adaptive behavior is conceived in
domain-, state-, context-, and temporally specific terms. That is,
rather than constituting global adaptability traits, they are seen as
personal or environmental attributes that are relatively malleable
and responsive to particular developmental or situational chal-
lenges. However, as we note later in this section, certain traits are
also assumed to influence the exercise of adaptive career behaviors
or their outcomes.
Cognitive-person factors. Self-efficacy refers to personal be-
liefs about one's ability to perform particular behaviors or courses
of action. Self-efficacy can be assessed in several ways (see Lent
& Brown, 2006). In research on SCCT, it has been most common
to assess content- or task-specific self-efficacy (e.g., beliefs about
one's ability to complete the requirements of a particular academic
major) and/or coping efficacy (beliefs about one's ability to nego-
tiate specific obstacles). Another form of self-efficacy, particularly
relevant to the career self-management model, is process effiicacy,
which refers to perceived ability to manage specific tasks neces-
sary for career preparation, entry, adjustment, or change across
diverse occupational paths. Examples include self-efficacy at mak-
562 LENT AND BROWN

Personality & Contextual Influences

Proximal to Adaptive Behavior

Background
Contextual
Afíordances

Figure I. Model of career self-managemenl. The numbered paths are discussed in the article text below.
Adapted from "Toward a unifying social cognitive theory of career and academic interest, choice, and
performance," by R.W. Lent, S. D. Brown, & G. Hackett, 1994, Joumal of Vocational Behavioral. 45, p. 93.
Copyright 1993 by R. W. Lent, S. D. Brown, & G. Hackett. Reprinted with permission.

itig career decisions (Betz, Klein, & Taylor, 1996), using job
search strategies (Solberg et al., 1994), atid managing multiple
work/life roles or conflicts (Cinamon, 2006). Both process and
coping efficacy are the central forms of self-efficacy in our self-
management model and are also conceptually related to Bandura's
(2006a) notion of self-regulatory efficacy, referring to perceived
ability to guide and motivate oneself to perform self-enhancing
behaviors, such as studying, despite deterring conditions.
Outcome expectations are beliefs about the consequences of
performing particular behaviors or courses of action (e.g., expec-
tations that valued, neutral, or unpleasant outcomes will occur).
Bandura (1986) has highlighted three types of anticipated conse-
quences: social (e.g., benefits to one's family), material (e.g.,
financial gain), and self-evaluative (e.g., self-approval) outcomes.
The essential difference between self-efficacy and outcome expec-
tations is captured, respectively, in the questions, "Can I do it?"
and "What will happen if I try?" Social cognitive theory assumes
that people are more likely to attempt and sustain behaviors when
they believe both that they have the necessary capabilities to
perform them and that the effort will produce desired conse-
quences. Where they doubt their competencies or anticipate neutral
or negative outcomes, people may avoid or procrastinate at per-
forming particular behaviors, put less effort into them, or give up
relatively quickly when obstacles are encountered. For example, as
we elaborate later, sustained involvement in career decision-
making activities may be facilitated both by career decision-
making self-efficacy beliefs and by expectations that engaging in
such activities will result in valued outcomes.
Sclf-efficacy and outcome expectations arc seen as promoting
adaptive career behaviors both directly (Paths 1 and 2, respec-
tively) and indirectly (Paths 3 and 4, respectively), through the
mediating effects of personal goals (Path 5). Several theories
propose that actions arc partly motivated by goals, or intentions to
perform the actions (Ajzcn, 1988; Bandura, 1986). These theories
also suggest that certain types or qualities of goals are especially
facilitative of action. For example, people are more likely to
transform their goals into actions when the goals are clear, spe-
cific, stated publicly, congruent with personal values, and proximal
to actions. As shown in the right half of Figure 1, particular
adaptive behaviors are most likely to be enacted and sustained
when people possess favorable sclf-efficacy, outcome expecta-
tions, and goals in relation to these behaviors. Goal-directed ac-
tions (e.g., engaging in career exploratory or job search behaviors)
make it more likely that people will attain the outcomes they seek
(e.g., to identify satisfying career options or obtain a job) (Path 6).
Self-efficacy is also seen as having a direct link to outcomes, or
attainments (Path 7), because of its roles In helping people to
organize their actions and to persist in the face of challenges.
It should be noted that the cognitive-person variables in the
model are seen as operating in concert with environmental influ-
ences (e.g., the support of one's coworkers and supervisor; local
economic conditions) that have the capacity to enable or limit
agency and to codetermine the outcomes of adaptive behaviors.
They also operate jointly with other person inputs, such as per-
sonality factors. We turn next to the roles of these additional
factors in the model.
Contextual and personality factors. People are more likely
to set and implement goals to engage in adaptive career behaviors
when they are buoyed by environmental (e.g., social, financial)
supports and relatively free of barriers that can constrain their
exercise of agency. Theoretically, contextual supports and barriers
operate through several pathways; they may promote goals and
actions directly (Paths 8 and 9, respectively) as well as moderate
(i.e., strengthen or weaken) the relation of goals to actions (Lent et
al., 2000; Path 10). Research has suggested that supports and
barriers may also relate indirectly to goals, via their linkages to
self-efficacy (Path 11) and outcome expectations (this path is not
shown in Figure 1) (Sheu et al., 2010). That is, the presence of
supports (and the absence of barriers) may strengthen self-efficacy
and outcome expectations. Contextual influences (e.g., reactions of
important others, having access to environmental resources) can
also directly affect the outcomes that follow adaptive behaviors
(Path 12) and moderate action-outcome relations (Path 13).
Certain personality variables, in particular, conscientiousness,
one of the Big Five factors, may also facilitate the use of adaptive
behaviors that require planning and persistence (e.g., career explo-
ration, job searching). Other personality factors may be relevant to
adaptive behaviors, such as networking or interviewing, that in-
 CAREER SELE-MANAGEMENT
volve social interaction (e.g., extraversion) or coping with adverse
events (e.g., extraversion or positive affect, neuroticism or nega-
tive affect). Openness to experience may facilitate adaptive behav-
iors where the task entails imagining or entertaining various choice
or problem-solving options, (see Brown & Hirschi, 2013, for a
summary of research linking Big Five traits to career development
outcomes).
The specific personality dimension and its relevant pathways
may, thus, depend on the adaptive behavior of interest, its context,
and performance requirements. As a rule, personality factors may
influence career adaptation by facilitating (or deterring) behavioral
performance or by engaging emotional coping tendencies. For
instance, conscientiousness is characterized by a set of behavioral
tendencies (e.g., organization, goal setting, perseverance) that is
likely to promote effective performances in most contexts. Extra-
version is associated with tendencies to experience positive affect
and to engage in social interactions, both of which are advanta-
geous in advancing one's career development, especially when
faced with setbacks. However, given their global nature, traits
might ordinarily be expected to yield modest relations to domain-
or task-specific social cognitive measures and adaptability out-
comes (see, e.g.. Lent & Brown's, 2006, discussion of predictor-
criterion compatibility).
The role of interests and abilities. It should be noted that,
while educational or vocational interest (e.g., one's pattern of
activity likes and dislikes) plays a key role in SCCT's choice-
content model, helping to draw people toward particular academic
and occupational fields, it is omitted from the self-management
model because most of the adaptive behaviors we have in mind
seem more likely to be driven by developmental presses (e.g., the
need to make a career decision), personal goals (e.g., career
advancement intentions), or environmental considerations (e.g.,
coping with adverse work events) than by activity interest per se.
The choice-content and process perspectives can be seen as com-
plementary, and there may be instances in which researchers will
wish to use them in parallel fashion. For example, in applications
involving job or career change (including efforts at career rene-
wal and choice of organizational citizenship roles), the self-
management model would focus on the person and contextual
variables that enable people to engage in career change (e.g.,
beliefs about one's ability to negotiate change—a process ques-
tion), whereas the interest and choice models may be used to
predict the specific types of activities individuals will find attrac-
tive (a content question).
Abilities (e.g., cognitive and interpersonal talents) are also likely
to play important roles in the performance of adaptive career
behaviors, helping to determine how well people enact certain
behaviors and the likelihood that their efforts will be successful.
For example, some people master job interviewing skills better
than others do. Thus, quality of performance is likely to depend on
ability as well as self-efficacy (which helps people to deploy their
abilities; Bandura, 1986) and the other proximal variables in the
self-management model. Research on career self-management
could include a focus on abilities, particularly where quality of
performance is of special interest (i.e., how well people perform
particular adaptive career behaviors rather than simply which
behaviors they attempt).
563
Distal Antecedents and Experiential Sources
of Adaptive Career Behaviors
The left-hand side of Figure 1 displays the distal antecedents of
career adaptation along with the experiential sources of self-
efficacy and outcome expectations. Consistent with SCCT's gen-
eral model of choice behavior (Lent et al., 1994), the distal
variables include a variety of person inputs (e.g., gender, culture,
personality, ability, health/disability status) and contextual affor-
dances (e.g., educational quality, socioeconomic resources) that,
together, comprise the individual's initial "social address." (Distal
person and contextual variables covary in the sense that educa-
tional and career-relevant resources are often differentially con-
veyed to children and adolescents on the basis of how key social
agents respond to their gender, race/ethnicity, and other person
characteristics.) Although it represents a starting point, develop-
mentally speaking, this address provides an important social learn-
ing context for acquiring self-efficacy and outcome expectations
regarding adaptive career behaviors.
An important point to highlight is that person inputs, such as
gender, ethnicity, social class, and sexual orientation, are seen as
affecting the exercise of career agentic behaviors largely indi-
rectly, for example, via cultural socialization experiences that
convey information about self-efficacy (e.g., one's capabilities to
perform particular behaviors) and outcome expectations (e.g.,
which values are important to pursue, what can be expected if one
chooses to pursue them). More specifically, such socialization or
learning experiences convey four types of information relevant to
self-efficacy (Path 14) and outcome expectations (Path 15): per-
sonal performance accomplishments, observational learning (or
modeling), social encouragement and persuasion, and physiologi-
cal and affective states and reactions. In addition to these four
types of experience, self-efficacy is seen as affecting outcome
expectations (Path 16) because people often expect more positive
outcomes when they view themselves as capable performers. A
more thorough discussion of these sources can be found in Ban-
dura (1997) and Lent et al. (1994).
The four learning experiences largely mediate the effect of
person inputs (Path 17) and background contextual affordances
(Path 18) on the social cognitive variables that enable career
agency. However, social address variables may also influence
goal-setting and actions to the extent that they convey continuous,
proximal information about which goals are deemed socially or
culturally normative and which actions are likely to be supported
or discouraged by the environment (Path 19). Finally, the out-
comes that follow enactment of adaptive behaviors (e.g., perceived
successes or failures) form a feedback loop to learning experiences
(Path 20). That is, one's attainments or disappointments help to
stabilize or revise self-efficacy and outcome expectations because
they offer ongoing commentary about one's capabilities and the
likely outcomes of one's actions.
Two Relevant Applications: Research on Career
Exploration and Job Search Behavior
A few examples may help to clarify the proximal causal rela-
tions displayed in Figure 1.
Career exploration and planning. In the first example, the
self-management model suggests that the decision to engage in
564 LENT AND BROWN

career exploratory and decision-making behaviors—which are typ-
ically seen as developmental tasks in the Exploration period—is
made more likely when people (a) possess favorable beliefs re-
garding their exploratory and dec i s ion-making skills, (b) expect
positive outcomes to result from such efforts (e.g., exploring career
options will help lead to a satisfying choice), (c) set clear, specific
goals to engage in these behaviors, (d) have adequate environ-
mental supports (e.g., parents, friends, a career education
course) and minimal barriers (e.g., critical peers), and (e) pos-
sess favorable levels of certain personality tendencies (e.g.,
high conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness; low neu-
roticism; Brown & Hirschi, 2013). Rather than operating as
separate influences, the model points to the ways in which these
factors interrelate and jointly determine the use and persistence
of adaptive exploratory and decision-making behaviors. These
pathways are shown in Figure 2.
Although a number of studies have linked CDSE to level of
career indecision (Choi et al., 2012), relatively few have examined
additional social cognitive variables that are hypothesized to op-
erate in tandem with CDSE (e.g., outcome expectations, goals,
supports) or related these variables to exploratory behavior, which
is typically assumed to promote career decidedness or reduce
indecision. In one relevant study, Betz and Voyten (1997) found
that CDSE was significantly related to career outcome expecta-
tions, but it did not explain unique variance beyond outcome
expectations in predicting college students' career exploratory
intentions (a goal variable). By contrast, Huang and Hsieh (2011)
found that CDSE and outcome expectations both yielded signifi-
cant direct paths to exploratory intentions in a sample of Taiwan-
ese college students. However, neither study included a measure of
exploratory behavior.
Including a more complete set of social cognitive variables as
well as two indicators of adaptive behavior (planning and explo-
ration), Rogers, Creed, and Glendon (2008) reported that CDSE,
goals, and two aspects of personality (conscientiousness and open-
ness) each accounted for unique variance in the prediction of
Australian high school students' career planning behavior. In ad-
dition, the presence of social support strengthened the relation
between goals and planning behavior. However, only goals and
social support were uniquely predictive of career exploration be-
havior. Rogers and Creed (2011) also examined social cognitive
and personaiity predictors of career planning and exploration in
three grades of Australian high school students. Including all
predictors in the regression analyses, CDSE and goals were each
found to explain unique variance in career planning, both cross-
sectionally and over a 6-month period. CDSE also accounted for
unique variance in exploration across grades and time periods. The
predictive utility of outcome expectations, supports, and person-
ality variables (e.g., neuroticism, extraversion) varied over grades
and time periods. Other researchers have also found CDSE
(Gushue, Clarke, Pantzer, & Scanlan, 2006) and career search
seif-efficacy (Solberg, Good, Fischer, Brown, & Nord, 1995) to be
related to students' engagement in exploratory activities.
Choi et al.'s (2012) meta-analysis indicated that CDSE yields
moderate to large bivariate correlations with certain other social
cognitive variables (outcome expectations, peer support) and with
career indecision. In one longitudinal study, however, CDSE was
not significantly associated with change in career indecision over
a 2-year period in high school students (Creed, Patton, & Prideau,
2006). It is not clear whether these nonsignificant longitudinal
findings were based on methodological (e.g., age of the partici-
pants, length of the interval between assessments, statistical
power) or theoretical considerations. Collectively, the findings we
have reviewed suggest the need for additional inquiry linking a
fuller set of social cognitive variables to career exploratory behav-
iors and decisional outcomes (e.g., indecision, anxiety).
Job search. The job search process offers another good ex-
ample of adaptive career behavior. Job search can occur in at least
two contexts. First, in the developmental context (e.g., during the
Establishment period), people typically search for initial jobs that
are, under favorable conditions, consistent with their work person-
alities (e.g., interests, abilities, values) and that may represent an
effort to implement their choice-content goals (e.g., to become an
architect or a carpenter). (Person-job fit may, however, be a less
salient consideration under less favorable conditions, e.g., where
there is need for immediate income or access to health benefits.)

Contextual Supports and Barriers

Proximal to Exploratoiy & Decisional
Behavior

Self-efficacy for
career exploration &
decision-making

Exploratory/ Exploratory/ Outcomes (e.g., level of

decisional decisional deci dedness/i ndecisi on,
goals actions decisional anxiety)

Outcome
expectations for
C.O C, E N. E
career exploration &
decision-making
Personality: High Conscientiousness (C),
Openness (0), and Extraversion/Positive
Affect (E); Low Neuroticism/Negative Affect (N)

Figure 2. Model of career self-management as applied to career exploration and decision-making behavior.
 CAREER SELF-MANAGEMENT 565

This process may be repeated on any number of later occasions if
and when people decide voluntarily to seek other jobs or to switch
career directions. Second, in the coping context, the job search
process can be occasioned by involuntary job loss, which may
have been sudden, unexpected, and off-time developmentally (e.g.,
due to organizational merger or factory closure).
In the developmental context, the amount of time and effort that
people devote to the job search, and their degree of persistence
when faced with disappointing results, may partly depend on (a)
self-efficacy regarding their job search and self-presentation skills,
(b) outcome expectations regarding the job search process (e.g.,
low expectations of finding a desirable position because of the
current economic context), (c) goals (e.g., intentions to perform
specific search behaviors), (d) the availability of social network
supports and exposure to barriers (e.g., problems with transporta-
tion or childcare), and (e) tendencies toward conscientiousness and
extraversion/positive affect (Brown & Hirschi, 2013) (see Figure
3). These same factors may infiuence the job search process in the
context of coping with unexpected job loss—but the emotional toll
of such loss may also call upon additional coping/problem-solving
skills and environmental supports to help restore emotional well-
being (cf. Lent, 2004).
Studies of the job search process in recent years have often
included a focus on social cognitive and personality variables
(Jome & Phillips, 2013). For example, work by Saks and his
colleagues has linked job search behavior and its outcomes (e.g.,
job offers, employment status) to job search self-efficacy beliefs
(Côté et al., 2006; Saks, 2006; Saks & Ashforth, 1999; Zikic &
Saks, 2009), job search intentions and clarity (two goal variables;
Zikic & Saks, 2009), and positive affectivity and conscientious-
ness (Côté et al., 2006). Kanfer et al. (2001) offered meta-analytic
evidence of bivariate correlations between job search behavior and
a number of the variables in our career self-management model
(e.g., job search self-efficacy, goals, social support, extraversion,
conscientiousness). What the model may add to this inquiry is a
conception of how a fuller set of social cognitive variables (e.g.,
including outcome expectations and contextual barriers) function
together, rather than individually, relative to other predictors (and
outcomes) of job search behavior.
Although research on career exploration/decision making and
job search behavior provide good examples of existing inquiry
relevant to the self-management model, the same set of social
cognitive predictors may be adapted to help explain the ways in
which people navigate a variety of additional developmental tasks,
transitions, and coping challenges, both large and small (e.g.,
managing dual-career and multiple life-role conflicts, dealing with
career advancement hurdles, asking for a raise or promotion,
engaging in organizational citizenship behaviors). Specific appli-
cations would call for alterations in how the cognitive-person
variables are operationalized, what aspects of the environment are
deemed most relevant, and which specific personality variables, if
any, may help to determine use of particular adaptive behaviors.
Thus, the proposed theory is intended to offer a broad, flexible
template for the study of career adaptation.
Implications for Future Research and Practice
It is our hope that the social cognitive model of adaptive career
behavior will help to organize existing inquiry and stimulate new
research on topics that have yet to receive much sustained research
attention as well as on ones that have received a fair degree of
inquiry but with inclusion of only a limited set of social cognitive
predictors. For example, existing social cognitive research on
process aspects of career development (e.g., decision making)
often focuses on self-efficacy, while overlooking other theory-
based predictors of career behavior. Inclusion of outcome expec-
tations, goals, environmental supports and barriers, and personality
variables may clarify the processes underlying adaptive career
behavior. By focusing on process aspects of career development,
the new model may also encourage greater study of a broader
range of topics—such as multiple-role management, work transi-
tions, sexual identity management at work, and self-directed career
renewal—from a social cognitive perspective (e.g., Cinamon,
2006; Lidderdale, Croteau, Anderson, Tovar-Murray, & Davis,
2007).
We are suggesting that the self-management model may be used as
a framework for studying engagement in these and other types of
adaptive career behavior. For example, the degree to which people

Cohtextual Supports and Barriers

Proximal to Search Behavior

Self-efficacy for ~—,

job search behavior
• — . .

^ - - . ^ --^

Search Outcomes (e.g., interviews,

Search
goals job offers, employment
actions
status)

Outcome
expectations for C C. F C, E
job search behavior

Personality: H gh Conscientiousness (C),

H gh Extraversion/Positive Affect (E)

Figure 3. Model of career self-management as applied to job search behavior.

566 LENT AND BROWN
engage inretirementplanning may be a function of their beliefs about
their ability to plan for and negotiate retirement adjustment (i.e.,
self-efficacy; Carter & Cook, 1995), the outcomes they see associated
with, and the goals they set for, retirement planning, their character-
istic levels of conscientiousness, and their available supports and
barriers (e.g., retirement savings, supportive family members, access
to preretirement workshops). The development of strong retirement
planning self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations are facilitated
by leaming experiences (e.g., relevant mastery experiences with
career-life planning and the availability of successful models). Such a
process perspective might complement a content focus on what spe-
cific postretirement activities people wish to pursue (e.g., caring for
grandchildren, volunteer tutoring, playing golf, seeking a bridge or
encore career). These complementary process/content views on re-
tirement adjustment would call for different methods of operadonal-
izing the social cognitive variables (e.g., self-efficacy relative to
decisional and planning behaviors vs. caring/leisure/altemative occu-
pational activities).
The ways in which the social cognitive variables are assessed in
a particular application ofthe self-management model will depend
on the phenomenon of interest. For example, in the retirement
planning context, process or self-regulatory efficacy beliefs may
be most salient. By contrast, in the context of coping with job loss,
it may be useful to study both coping and process efficacy (e.g.,
perceived capabilities to negotiate the emotional and social con-
sequences of job loss and to seek new work opportunities). In
addition to self-efficacy, the other social cognitive variables would
need to be conceptualized and measured in ways that are domain-
and task specific. This may sometimes call for multidimensional
measures of particular constructs (e.g., measures that capture mul-
tiple aspects of self-efficacy or outcome expectations).
The new model may also help to extend SCCT-based inquiry
developmentally. At present, the majority of SCCT inquiry has in-
volved career development in late adolescence and early adulthood
(Lent, 2013b). By highlighting growth and exploration period tasks
associated with childhood and early adolescence (e.g., exploring po-
tential career paths, making academic decisions, managing educa-
tional transitions) as well as establishment, maintenance, and later life
tasks (e.g., managing stresses, coping with negative events, develop-
ing new work skills) in adulthood, the model may promote study of
social cognitive processes and variables across the life span. The
model may also offer a useful platform for designing and testing
interventions aimed at particular developmental tasks or contextual
challenges. We hope that our taxonomy of developmental tasks and
coping behaviors, organized by life periods and roles, and inspired by
Super's life span, life space theory (Super et al., 1996), will prove
heuristic in such efforts.
Another direction for research could lie in efforts to compare
and, possibly, integrate different conceptions of career adaptabil-
ity. For example, Savickas (2013) has suggested that career adapt-
ability is partly fostered by global dispositional tendencies toward
career concem, control, curiosity, and confidence. The SCCT
approach likewise includes dispositional resources to help account
for the process of career adaptation, though these are largely
framed in terms of Big Five personality factors. SCCT is also
distinctive in its focus on other adaptive mechanisms, such as
self-efficacy, and in its predictions about how the various sources
of adaptive career behavior interrelate. Despite their differences,
the two models have certain potential points of convergence. For
example, career confidence may represent a trait-oriented variant
of self-efficacy, career concem and control may both reflect as-
pects of conscientiousness (a Big Five variable), and career curi-
osity may represent openness (another Big Five variable). Future
research might examine the relations among these constructs and
explore their joint and differential contribution to various behav-
iors and outcomes associated with career adaptation.
Although the new SCCT model is focused on individuals'
self-regulatory behaviors, it might be noted that it could also be
adapted to the context of collective (or ^roup-managed) career
pursuits. For example, how work groups or other collectives (e.g.,
labor unions) adapt to or seek to impact organizational change
(e.g., in terms of shaping working conditions, rewards, or work
outputs) may depend, in part, on how they appraise their joint
efficacy to deal with the change, along with their shared percep-
tions of anticipated outcomes, group goal-setting, and coordination
of goal-directed actions. This focus on the collective level of career
adaptation could build on Bandura's (1997) genera! extension of
social cognitive theory to group functioning.
Pending research tests of the career self-management model, we
think the model's main practical value may lie in informing develop-
mental and preventive interventions, such as career education in
secondary schools, and workshops and coaching in work organiza-
tions, which can help students and workers to anticipate and prepare
for predictable career developmental tasks by developing necessary
skills and corresponding self-efficacy beliefs; promoting positive out-
come expectations; setting goals; and overcoming barriers to, and
building supports for, the adaptive behaviors associated with these
tasks. The model can also be used to raise consciousness about certain
events that, although less predictable, may nevertheless have a good
chance of occurring at some point during the course of many people's
work lives (e.g., job loss, worii dissatisfaction, job plateauing, work-
family conflict; Lent, 2013a). Because many of these tasks and events
tend to be associated with particular life periods, there may be value
in addressing them in cohort-based, group psychoeducational inter-
ventions offered either live or online. The taxonomy of adaptive
behaviors in Table 1 may provide a starting point for such interven-
tions.
Although we see developmental and preventive interventions as
particularly well tied to the self-management model, we also
believe that the model has useful implications for remedial coun-
seling. For example, counselors can use the model to identify
self-management tasks (e.g., networking, self-advocacy) that cli-
ents are having particular difficulty mastering or that seem to be
limiting their career advancement. The four experiential sources of
efficacy information can be used to derive intervention elements,
and other model variables can also be highlighted as potential
intervention targets, depending on the role the counselor judges
them to be playing in the client's difficulties. For example, the
counselor may offer goal-setting or support-building interventions,
if these issues seem to be circumscribing the client's progress.
Where particular personality variables seem to be impeding career
progress, these can be approached from either behavioral or
cognitive-emotional angles. For example, the counselor might
consider what behavioral aspects of conscientiousness would be
helpful for the client to develop, or which emotional regulation
strategies (e.g., self-awareness, reframing) might be used to help
the client negotiate problems with negative affect or neuroticism.
 CAREER SELF-MANAGEMENT
Conclusions
In sum, we have described an extension of SCCT to the develop-
mental tasks and coping challenges of career self-management.
Whereas the earlier SCCT models were aimed primarily at content-
oriented issues (e.g., field choice), the self-management model fo-
cuses on processes underlying adaptive career behavior (e.g., career
exploration, job seeking, career advancement) that occtir across oc-
cupational paths. We envision the new model as a broad framework
that can be adapted to the study of a wide range of adaptive career
behaviors. For example, research on the process of career decision
making could focus on the operation of self-efficacy, outcome expec-
tations, goals, supports and barriers, and relevant traits (e.g., consci-
entiousness); on the behaviors (e.g., self and environmental explora-
tion) to which they are presumed to lead; and, possibly, on the more
ultimate decisional outcomes that result (e.g., decidedness, choice
commitment, decisional anxiety). Although designed to be consistent
with existing findings that have examined some of its elements
(especially in the domains of career decision making and the job
search process), the model's explanatory udlity—and the joint oper-
ation of its component variables—needs to be assessed in future
research.
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Received November 10, 2012
Revision received April 29, 2013
Accepted May 10,2013 •
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