"The main objective of this research1 was to study boundaries to the 'boundaryless career' in a novel context. Our empirical study focused on career paths leading top managers to enter emergent firms. We collected data on professional histories of a sample of top managers who operated in firms listed at the 'Nuovo Mercato' (New Market), the Italian equivalent of the NASDAQ. We demonstrate the existence of two major kinds of boundaries: competence-based (in the form of industry boundaries) and relation-based (in the form of professional network boundaries). A second objective of our research was to identify dominant individual career logics and to connect different career logics to the boundaryless career concept. Our data reveal the dominance of the evolutionary career logic.This research project was directed by Anna Grandori and financed by Egon Zehnder International. It was conducted at the Research Centre on Business Organization of Bocconi University. An earlier version of the paper was presented at Egos, Lyon, France, in July 2001. Other publications based on the same project are Grandori (2001) and Grandori et al. (2002). Silvia Bagdadli and Luca Solari are main authors of this article. In particular, Silvia Bagdadli wrote the first three sections and Luca Solari wrote the next three. The conclusions are a joint effort by the two authors. We thank the editors of this special issue and the two anonymous reviewers for their precious comments on this article, as well as Anna Grandori for suggestions on the paper."

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