Why Career Advice Doesn't Travel
Career theory built for one culture, tested against two.
Most career-development advice assumes you can choose your own path, change employers freely, and pick your own direction. That's not how career progression works everywhere — this tests where those assumptions break.
A defensible answer — grounded in two real cases, not just an opinion.
Career theories built on Western, individual-choice assumptions don't hold up in family-business or more collective cultures, where career paths are often set by obligation rather than personal choice.
Three established career-development theories, tested against two real, very different career stories — one from a family business in late-20th-century India, one a modern, multi-employer career.
The one framework that actually held up across both — Career Ecosystem Theory — worked precisely because it accounts for family and cultural context, instead of assuming there's one "right" way a career should look.
Test each theory against both real stories in turn, and be specific about exactly where each one's assumptions stopped applying.
Not applicable to this project.
A clear account of where three well-known career theories genuinely fall short.
"Testing a theory against a case you actually know well, rather than accepting its own framing, is usually the fastest way to find what it was quietly assuming all along."
Read the complete report submitted for this project, including the research, analysis, strategy, and final recommendations.