Joint Action. The term joint action refers to the action that people
take together, and it too is made up of manifest behavior, internal
processes, and meaning. It is based on the assumption that many
actions occur between and among people; for example, couples
have conversations about career issues. Although individuals have
their own intentions, a dyad or group also develops joint goals and
joint action. One might say that these joint goals and actions are
co-constructed, although this should not be taken to mean that all
parties have an equal role in their construction.
Shotter (1993) characterizes joint action as having an inten-
tional quality that is not fully accounted for by summing up the
individual intentions of the participants. He suggests that people
engaging in action together create a new “third thing” that is nei-
ther individual action nor an external event. He also recognizes the
primacy of conversation in joint action and the creation of a “prac-
tical-moral” domain in which personal and social identity is con-
structed and influenced. Given this point of view, the relevance of
joint action in a career explanation is substantial.
Many counseling theorists and researchers take into account
what is happening between the client and counselor and have some
conceptualization for it. The working alliance (Meara & Patton,
1994) is one such conceptualization. Our approach focuses on the
action of the dyad rather than the interaction between them. We
gain particular access to the context in which counselor and client
are acting. In the joint action of counseling, as in life generally, career
identity, values, interests, and behaviors are not shaped from the out-
side “in”; rather, they are constructed, perhaps largely through lan-
guage, in conversation with others. The concept of joint action
represents a particularly notable and new way of addressing context.
Joint action in career differs from individual action in the fol-
lowing components: task and group structure, knowledge process-
ing and energizing, and execution (von Cranach, Ochsenbein, &
Valach, 1986). When a counselor and client rehearse a hypotheti-
cal employment interview, they are engaged in this as a socially
A CONTEXTUALIST EXPLANATION OF CAREER 215