In essence, a work career can be conceptualized as a series of transitions from one role to another within an organizational or occupational social system (Barley, Chapter 3; Hall, 1976). The fact that work careers are comprised of sequences of roles is often obscured by alternative conceptualizations that emphasize career's more unitary connotations as a calling, vocation, or professional pursuit. Yet, if we take seriously the idea that a career consists of a sequence of roles, the question of just how the transitions between these roles are accomplished takes on an importance in its own right. Indeed, the study of the social and psychological mechanisms that enable individuals to transit across roles proves to be quite a critical area of investigation.

Hence, this chapter suggests that the role transitions encompassed by work careers, these “turning points” (Hughes, 1958:11), are central to careers and that they pose crucial problems to anyone seriously interested in understanding how careers work. An anthropological model known as rites of passage [Van Gennep, 1960, (1909)] is used to show that major transitions are managed ceremonially across three universal stages of separation, transition, and integration.