At the crossroads of agency and communion: Defining the shared career

This article extends the predominant depiction of careers as individual undertakings and advances insights on collective careers. It defines the shared career as the co-evolving sequence of work collaboration and jointly pursued career opportunities by two or more career actors. It proposes that this new career construct mixes agency and communion. Furthermore, it conceptualizes a life cycle model of shared careers, using supporting illustrations. Finally, it articulates how focusing on shared careers could open up avenues for the advancement of research on boundaryless careers.