Over the last few years, I have worked to develop individuals' analytical and reflexive abilities regarding modes for regulating firms undergoing processes of transformation. I have done this through groups organized to analyze practices as well as through individual and group interviews. My thesis centers around the notion that today, in the current world, individuals experience a sort of vertigo or disorientation which sends them out on a perpetual search for points of reference, resources and networks. What is disturbing in this specific case is that the trajectories of firms and individuals can unfold in a parallel manner, that is, move in the same direction for a period of time and then suddenly become antagonistic. . Thus, professional trajectories are no longer as upwardly spiraling and foreseeable as they once were. Each person must therefore engage in reflexive efforts and analyze the contexts in which he or she evolves in the building of his/her professional trajectory, with heavy consequences at stake. To be an actor in one´s own trajectory is imperative both in firms and in society today and can not be understood in any isolated manner. Rather, it is a process that involves numerous questions and requires specific conditions if it is to evolve. After examining some introductory issues linked to this theme, I present the types of individual professional trajectories that I have observed in these times of crises, carrying out a final reflection on the challenges that this theoretical and practical work present to Sociology.
social regulation of firms; lost sense of orientation; professional trajectories; social and individual crisis