How do extra-organizational events translate into career shocks? This paper focuses on an environmental event - a major earthquake followed by 18 months of aftershocks in the Canterbury region of New Zealand - and examines the lived experiences of 31 employees who left their jobs following these earthquakes. Employing a qualitative research design, we offer a more emic understanding of how individuals experience and respond to significant career shocks. Our study shows that despite experiencing the same external event participants varied significantly in how this shock led to career decision making. We demonstrate that career shocks can lead to both desired and undesired career transitions by enhancing or curtailing personal agency. One individual factor, pre-shock motivational state, together with two contextual factors, perceived shock magnitude and availability of social and cognitive resources, account for the varied patterns of career decision making we observed. This paper contributes to the emerging career shocks literature by examining the interaction between shock frequency, duration and intensity and explaining the interplay between agency and context in career decision making.

组织外活动如何转化为职业冲击？本文着重于环境事件-一场大地震，然后在新西兰的坎特伯雷地区进行了18个月的余震-并考察了31名在这些地震后辞职的员工的生活经历。采用定性研究设计，我们对个人如何体验和应对重大的职业冲击提供了更全面的了解。我们的研究表明，尽管经历了相同的外部事件，但参与者在冲击导致职业决策的方式上却存在很大差异。我们证明，职业冲击可以通过增强或减少个人代理而导致期望的和不期望的职业过渡。休克前的动机状态是一个单独的因素，另外还有两个背景因素，感知到的震惊程度以及社交和认知资源的可用性，这说明了我们观察到的职业决策的各种模式。本文通过研究冲击频率，持续时间和强度之间的相互作用，并解释了职业决策中代理与环境之间的相互作用，为新兴的职业冲击文学做出了贡献。