Career development through the Capability Approach: insights for Social Marketing

Despite its critical importance for designing effective interventions and establishing disciplinary legitimacy, the theoretical foundations of social marketing (SM) remain contested (Andreasen, 2002 ; Manikam & Russell-Bennett, 2016 ; Rundle-Thiele et al., 2019). The field faces a persistent theoretical deficit, characterized by limited theoretical rigor (Truong, 2014) and a tendency toward individual-focused, downstream interventions that struggle to address complex social issues requiring systemic, multi-level transformation (Domegan et al., 2016). Scholars therefore call for emancipatory approaches that promote equitable social transformation and social justice (Gordon et al., 2022). Amartya Sen's Capability Approach (CA) offers a particularly robust normative framework to advance this agenda (Sen, 1995). Centred on "real freedom", the CA shifts evaluation from resources to the substantive capabilities that enable individuals to lead lives they have "reason to value" (Sen, 1995). Applied to social marketing, this perspective invites a shift from viewing SM as a "change agent" focused on targeted behaviours to conceiving it as a "social enabler" concerned with expanding opportunities and real freedom at scale (Saunders et al., 2015). To illustrate this perspective, the study focuses on career development, a relatively underexplored domain in SM. Career development is examined through the CA lens as a process of expanding young people's substantive freedom and agency, rather than prescribing predetermined educational outcomes (Picard et al., 2015 ; Robertson, 2015 ; Robertson & ; Egdell, 2018). The central research question is: How can the Capability Approach, applied to career development, offer insights for Social Marketing? The research adopts a qualitative design. Empirical work was conducted within a French university diploma program, "Passeport pour Réussir et s'Orienter" (DU PaRéO), targeting recent high school graduates engaged in reflexive work on their educational choices (Borst & Petipré, 2023). Data were collected using two complementary methods: semi-structured interviews with 20 students and 26 hours of non-participant observation of workshops. Findings reveal, first, the prevalence of "non-chosen orientation", marked by default or constrained choices that narrow individuals' space of possibilities. This pattern is underpinned by negative conversion factors that impede capabilities. Second, the DU PaRéO functions as a positive conversion factor, aiming to neutralise these constraints while deliberately fostering key capabilities. Thus, the Capability Approach proves particularly pertinent for analysing career development. The CA offers several key contributions to SM. It offers a theoretical rigor by providing a normative foundation and a social justice framework. It provides a rigorous normative foundation grounded in social justice, sheds light on multi-level interventions targeting conversion factors, in line with systems thinking (Domegan et al., 2016), and supports emancipatory approaches beyond behavioural paradigms (Gordon et al., 2022). As Saunders (2015) states, the CA repositions the fundamental questions of SM: beyond what people do, it focuses on what they are truly capable of doing and being. However, the CA lacks an explicit temporal dimension which is essential for capturing dynamic processes such as social change (David & Rundle-Thiele, 2019). Future longitudinal studies are necessary to capture transformation dynamics, demonstrating how social marketing interventions concretely expand substantive freedoms and promote equitable social transformation.