Investigating career stories, using narrative analysis

Using Narrative research methods in social sciences, has been grown significantly in recent years, so that this growth called narrative turn.In manamagement and organizational researches, career studies has recently approached toward narrative analysis and methods. This reseach, firstly pays attention to theoretical and philosophical foundations of narrative analysis and methods in social sciences, and then, tries to investigate career stories, and meaning of the, using appropriate narrative research method and approach. Structural and thematic analysis of informant's career stories show that four distnict career story genres can be distinguished and recognized: rise, ups and downs, indifference and fall. Moreover interpersonal relationships, control, coping readiness, job position and psycho-pathology are the most frequent themes in informant's career stories. Research findings show that narrative method and analysis, both structural and thematic, can contribute to understand deeply the meaning people attach to their careers, and paves the way for change or improve it.