Employee career adaptability after an extreme event in a mining company

Abstract Purpose: To understand how job changes resulting from an extreme event in a mining company led employees to deconstruct and reconstruct organizational practices through career adaptability. Originality/value: In extreme events, the career adaptability of professionals goes beyond the dimensions proposed by the literature (concern, control, curiosity, and confidence), emerging a category not contemplated in the traditional Adaptability Scale: Cooperation. In addition, the unexpected nature of the event means that there are aspects of deconstruction and reconstruction of organizational practices among the individuals themselves. Theoretically, the research seeks to fill a gap related to the return of the cooperation dimension to understanding career adaptability in extreme events. Design/methodology/approach: Using qualitative research, fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted using a script based on the Career Adaptability Scale, which consists of four dimensions (Concern, Control, Curiosity, and Confidence). After transcription, the professionals’ narratives were analyzed using Content Analysis. Findings: The results showed that a dimension not included in the Career Adaptability Scale emerged in extreme events: cooperation. In addition, aspects related to fear were identified in the statements of most respondents, and this could be considered the “trigger” present in the five dimensions, but with distinct characteristics in each. Finally, it was identified that, in extreme events, aspects of deconstruction and reconstruction of organizational practices manifested themselves in some dimensions of career adaptability, especially cooperation.