This thesis is an exploratory study of the effects of two job training programs for the poor in Portland, Oregon. It seeks to illustrate that training programs are designed around certain theoretical conceptions or models of poverty and that these theoretical conceptions ultimately have a strong effect on the enrollees in programs designed on the given theoretical model. Two general theoretical models have been extracted from the literature. The first is the "Culture of Poverty" model and the second may be called the "Closed Opportunity Structure" model. The culture of poverty model posits that the poor are unable to escape poverty because of certain cultural aspects of their conditions which inhibit them from taking advantage of increased opportunities when they are offered them. Some of the major aspects of the culture of poverty are: (1) The poor do not share the values of the dominant culture, e.g., that hard work brings rewards, and deferring immediate gratification also produces future rewards; (2) The poor do not participate fully in the major institutions of the society; (3) The inability to take advantage of increased opportunities is learned through the parents; and (4) This inability tends to perpetuate the culture of poverty. The closed opportunity model, on the other hand, posits that the poor do indeed share the values of the dominant culture but that they have been denied the opportunity to realize these values, i.e., the poor do not defer gratification because even if they did so their chances of receiving a future reward are low. The closed opportunity structure model sees the problems of the poor as being grounded in the larger society as opposed to being inherent deficiencies of the poor themselves. I have selected two programs for this study on the basis of their subscription to one or the other theoretical models discussed above. Portland Residential Manpower Center (PRMC), an urban Job Corps camp, was chosen because its program design conforms to the culture of poverty model in that it attempts to resocialize the trainee so that he may better fit into the society; conversely, the Portland New Careers Project was chosen because it subscribed to the closed opportunity model in that it does not see these socialization attempts as necessary, but rather, it places its trainees in social service positions with various governmental agencies and provides them with education which, hopefully, will enable the trainee to move into a more professional position at the agency. The study then attempts to describe the effects of each of these programs on its enrollees. The method of direct observation was chosen for several reasons: (1) The exploratory nature of the study; (2) The absence of a clear cut hypothesis to test; (3) inadequate statistical data available which would give me answers to the kinds of questions I had asked. The findings indicated that the two programs had very different effects on the enrollees. PRMC, because of its highly structured character and complete program of socialization, produced a high degree of distrust of the program on the part of the trainees. PRMC's socialization attempts were seen as largely unnecessary by the trainees and they felt that these attempts interfered with the primary task of skill training. New Careers, on the other hand, lacks a highly structured program. Aside from being expected to put in time at the placement agency and to attend his classes, the trainee is left largely on his own. This almost complete lack of structure has made it exceedingly difficult for many of the trainees to progress in the program because they have few guidelines for their training. The New Careerist learns what is expected of him through trial and error. The findings of this study suggest that social scientists should be aware of the consequences of their theoretical models on the people these models attempt to deal with. Both programs studies exhibited deficiencies which, in varying degrees, are the result of the theoretical models upon which the program is based.

[pt] Muitas pessoas têm buscado na internet uma forma de ganhar dinheiro. Dentre aqueles que tentam, há quem consiga ganhar a vida comercializando serviços e produtos digitais e construindo carreiras dedicadas a tal iniciativa: são os chamados empreendedores digitais. As trajetórias profissionais desses empreendedores ainda são pouco compreendidas, o que motivou a realização da presente dissertação que buscou entender a construção da carreira de empreendedor digital. Para tanto, a teoria do Life Design foi utilizada como principal lente conceitual para desvelar essas carreiras. Para alcançar o objetivo proposto foram entrevistados 13 empreendedores digitais. Os resultados obtidos indicam que aqueles que se autodenominam empreendedores digitais dedicam-se, sobretudo, ao marketing digital e constroem suas carreiras ratificando a retórica de que o empreendedorismo digital é um caminho viável para o enriquecimento, para conquistar flexibilidade de tempo, espaço e área de atuação, desde que se trabalhe com consistência, aprendendo constantemente e fazendo networking. Dentre as principais motivações para empreender online estão: insatisfação com trabalhos anteriores; ambição de ganhar mais dinheiro; desejo de empreender com baixos investimento e risco e; monetização de um hobby. Já os principais desafios são: falta de apoio da família e de amigos; preocupações com a saúde mental e física; dificuldades com o uso da tecnologia; medo de acreditar em promessas vazias e preocupações com ataques de ódio. No que diz respeito aos aspectos objetivos da construção da carreira, quatro momentos apareceram como importantes: pesquisar no google maneiras de ganhar dinheiro na internet; consumir conteúdo sobre marketing digital; realizar a primeira venda online e; participar em congressos ou eventos do setor. Constatou-se que, ao superarem as dificuldades e obterem conquistas, os empreendedores digitais legitimam suas escolhas de carreira. / [en] Many people have searched the internet for a way to make money. Among those who try, there are those who manage to make a living selling digital services and products and building careers dedicated to such an initiative: they are called digital entrepreneurs. The professional trajectories of these entrepreneurs are still poorly understood, which motivated the completion of this dissertation, which sought to understand the construction of a digital entrepreneur career. Therefore, Life Design theory was used as the main conceptual lens to unveil these careers. To achieve the proposed objective, 13 digital entrepreneurs were interviewed. The results obtained indicate that those who call themselves digital entrepreneurs are dedicated, above all, to digital marketing and build their careers confirming the rhetoric that digital entrepreneurship is a viable path to enrichment, to achieve flexibility in time, space and area of performance, as long as one works consistently, constantly learning and networking. Among the main motivations to be a digital entrepreneur are dissatisfaction with previous work; ambition to earn more money; desire to undertake with low investment and risk and monetizing a hobby. The main challenges are lack of support from family and friends; mental and physical health concerns; difficulties with the use of technology; fear of believing empty promises and concerns about hate attacks on the internet. With regard to the objective aspects of career building, four moments appeared as important: searching google for ways to earn money on the internet; consume content about digital marketing; make the first online sale and participate in congresses or events in the sector. It was found that, by overcoming difficulties and achieving goals, digital entrepreneurs legitimize their career choices.

L’objectif de cette recherche est d’étudier la relation entre les nouvelles carrières et l’engagement organisationnel. La gestion des carrières et l’engagement organisationnel sont importants, à la fois, pour les individus que pour les organisations. Toutefois, les carrières ne sont plus bâties au sein d’une même organisation, elles deviennent des carrières sans frontières. Nous cherchons à comprendre et analyser la nature de l’engagement des ingénieurs consultants en SSII. Les données qualitatives ont été collectées sur le marché de l’emploi français, 47 interviews ont été mené, dans le secteur des SSII. Les résultats montrent que les ingénieurs consultants développent aussi bien un engagement envers la SSII qu’envers l’entreprise cliente. Ils développent aussi un engagement professionnel, un engagement envers l’équipe et un engagement envers le leader. Il s’agit don, d’un engagement multi-cibles. Simplement les carrières de ces ingénieurs ne sont pas nécessairement nomades. Dans ce nouveau contexte, les carrières ne sont plus bâties au sein d’une même organisation, elles deviennent des carrières sans frontières.Elles sont caractérisées par des parcours singuliers et idiosyncrasiques ; des mobilités inter organisationnelles outre celles intra organisationnelles ; une vision plus élargie de la compétence ; une promesse d’employabilité au lieu de la promesse de carrière à vie et la monté de la dimension subjective de la réussite de carrière. D’autre part, au-delà des postulats selon lesquels la question d’implication organisationnelle est devenue une aberration, une telle attitude est encore importante, elle devient même plus cruciale qu’elle l’était auparavant. Suite au désengagement des entreprises et à la responsabilisation des individus en matière de gestion de leurs carrières, la question d’implication devient plus capitale. De ce fait, l’objectif de notre recherche est d’étudier l’impact des carrières individuelles sur l’engagement organisationnel. / The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between new careers and organizational commitment. Managing careers and organizational commitment are typically important for individuals as organizations. However, careers are no longer bounded in one organization, instead, they become boundaryless. We aim to understand and analyze the nature of commitment of IT professional, in the SSIIs in France.Surveys were collected from French labor market; 47 semi-structured interviews were among French persons working for SSII.The findings reveal that SSII engineers develop commitment to the agency: SSII and to the client. They also develop professional commitment, team commitment and Leader commitment. However, their careers are not necessary boundaryless, traditional careers still exist among these professionals on IT.