5

Career Construction

A Developmental Theory

of Vocational Behavior

Mark L. Savickas

Vocational behavior encompasses a large domain of inquiry—too
large to comprehend all at once, too vast a sphere of thought and
action for one theory to conceive fully. Accordingly, vocational
theorists and researchers usually identify a specific range of voca-
tional behaviors that they wish to study. The question, Which units
of vocational thought and action shall we study? is answered inher-
ently by the theories explicated in this book. Each theory concen-
trates on a particular problem and proposes a different unit of study.
So the first thing to know about any theory is what problems it
addresses. This defines the scope and usefulness of the theory. The
present chapter describes career construction theory by explaining
what problems it addresses and which clients it can help. The chap-
ter begins by describing the theory’s place in the structure of voca-
tional psychology and its function as a developmental perspective
in that disciplinary discourse.

A Developmental Perspective on Vocational Behavior

The “individual differences” view of occupations and the “individ-
ual development” view of careers are the two grand perspectives in
vocational psychology, one focusing on vocational behavior and
the other on its development. Within each perspective are different

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