Voluntary Midlife Career Change: Integrating the Transtheoretical Model and the Life‐Span, Life‐Space Approach

Abstract

Frequent career change is the predicted experience of workers in the global economy. Self‐initiating career changers are a substantial subset of the total population of career changers. There is currently a dearth of theory and research to help career counselors conceptualize the career change process for the application of appropriate interventions. The authors present an integration of a well‐researched behavior change theory, the transtheoretical model of change, with Super's (1990) life‐span, life‐space approach. The corresponding stages of the 2 models are discussed along with theoretically appropriate interventions. The integrated model provides the basis for future research on the change process for voluntary midlife career changers.