Protean and boundaryless career attitudes and employee work outcomes: The mediating role of job crafting / Chan Wai Sei

Despite the recent popularity of the protean and boundaryless career model in the literature, little empirical work has been done to examine the employee work outcomes of these career predispositions, particularly in terms of the psychological processes that link job crafting behaviour to these outcomes. As such, this study examined the mediating role of job crafting behaviour on the relationships between protean and boundaryless career attitudes and employee work outcomes. Regulatory focus theory was used as the theoretical foundation to explain the research model of this study. All the measures were adopted from the established work of previous researchers. Cross-sectional survey data were collected using self-administered questionnaires distributed to numerous private organisations located in Klang Valley, Malaysia. Two structured questionnaires were used to gather data from employees and their immediate supervisors. A total of 406 matched employee-supervisor questionnaires were collected over a duration of eight months from October 2013 to June 2014. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique using the AMOS programme was used to validate the fit of the research model. The mediation hypotheses were analysed using the PROCESS macro for SPSS allowing the estimation of direct and indirect effects with multiple mediators. The findings confirmed that self-directed career management had indirect effects (i.e., via the mediating role of seeking resources and seeking challenges) on employee work outcomes. This study also found that job crafting behaviour was a significant predictor of several employee work outcomes. The findings showed that seeking resources of the job crafting behaviour positively influenced employability and subjective career success. Similarly, seeking challenges was found to positively influence thriving at work and employability, and negatively influence turnover intentions. These results confirmed and acknowledged that employees play a significant role in actively shaping and influencing their work environment and outcomes. The results of this study highlighted that job crafting is a way for employees to improve their work lives and to achieve personally desirable outcomes. This also implied that with room to job craft, employees could create optimal job designs by utilising a variety of resources to achieve a better and improved outcomes at work. In particular, protean self-directed individual who crafted their level of job resources and challenging job demands were experiencing higher thriving at work, more employable and satisfied, and in turn, less likely to leave the organisation. Thus, interventions or programs that encourage employee job crafting behaviour are crucial and necessary