Careers in context: analysis of career trajectories of PhD holders outside of academia

Why, in increasingly fuzzy boundaries and resemblances on knowledge production between academia and other organizations, do careers outside academia after doctoral studies struggle to emerge, with some PhD students preferring to stay "sad" in short-term contracts and waiting lines to access academia? This research interviews 20 PhD holders from the University of Lyon who currently work in private companies to understand their career trajectory. The research draws from a literature in career studies that puts an emphasis on contexts in understanding career-making and changes, and Activity Theory (AT), to show how the object of doctoral research activity transforms across the career trajectory of PhD holders towards the private sector. With the help of a life interview technique and an analytical framework based on AT, I show common dimensions of the object of work across career trajectories and how young PhD holders progressively reconceptualize the object of their work in their personal travel, with a strong emotional exigency. Communities, instruments, life history and divisions of labor are both resources and sources of tensions across the trajectory. This shows an epistemic work on career that a young scientist does and which is related to their knowledge construction during the thesis, and a stabilization of objects when entering the firm. This research contributes to knowledge on career trajectories of PhD holders outside of academia and the conceptualization of context in career studies, with the help of AT, and elaborate practical implications for universities.