Career and Work Identity: A Study with Information Technology Workers

Abstract

The impact of changes in the world of work on the identity constitution and careers of workers is not uniform, despite its scope and intensity, as evidenced by recent studies on the subject. Thus, the objective was to specifically understand the process of construction of work identities of workers in the information technology (IT) area, as they are associated with new career models. This is a multiple case study, carried out through interviews with eight IT workers, with the information submitted to narrative analysis. The results showed that the narrative identity form and the career possibility discourse stand out in the participants' reports, and, in some cases, their narratives are anchored in discourses associated with employability, mobility, precariousness of work and uncertainty in relation to the future. It is concluded, therefore, that the work identity of those investigated is formed by aspects of organizational, professional and vocational identity, the latter being the most salient, which seems to indicate a trend of career processes in the context of contemporary work.