Career resilience is critical to the world's aging workforce, aiding older workers in adapting to the ever-evolving nature of work. While ageist stereotypes often depict older workers as less resilient when faced with workplace changes, existing research studies offer conflicting evidence on whether older age hinders or improves career resilience. In response to this conflicting evidence, the present study employs multi-level data from 6772 employees in 28 countries to examine the age-career resilience relationships and underlying mechanisms, hence advancing our understanding of career resilience across the life course. By integrating macro-contextual factors such as the unemployment rate and the culture of education with individual-level mechanisms such as positive career meaning and career optimism, we provide a comprehensive model explaining how career resilience varies across age groups. Grounded in life course theory, our findings resolve prior inconsistencies in resilience research, contribute to bridging the micro-macro gap in HRM literature, and challenge existing age-based stereotypes.

This study draws on the conservation of resources theory to investigate the relationship between burnout (disengagement and emotional exhaustion) and subjective career success (SCS) through career insecurity over time. It also aims to shed light on the role of the occupational future time perspective (i.e., remaining opportunities and remaining time) as a personal resource that may moderate the direct and indirect relationship between burnout and SCS through career insecurity. A total of 362 full-time working individuals participated in the survey, which was administered at two time points, 9 months apart. The results from the cross-lagged analysis suggested a bidirectional relationship between disengagement and SCS; however, emotional exhaustion did not predict SCS across time. Career insecurity mediated the cross-lagged relationship between burnout and SCS. Finally, the findings showed that the negative cross-lagged relationship between disengagement and SCS was moderated by remaining opportunities, such that the relationship was stronger for individuals low on remaining opportunities. The negative cross-lagged relationship between emotional exhaustion and SCS was moderated by remaining time, such that the relationship was stronger for individuals low on the remaining time. Implications for practice and future research directions are discussed.

We draw on the conservation of resources theory to examine how upward and horizontal career transitions contribute to both objective and subjective career success among a longitudinal sample, covering the first 10 to 15 years of their career. Further, we adopt socioemotional-selective theory to investigate how upward and horizontal career transitions contribute differ-ently to career success from a lifespan perspective. Latent growth curve analysis revealed that increases in upward and horizontal career transitions over time were positively related to in-creases in objective career success and positively related to subjective career success. As expected, the positive effect of horizontal transitions on objective career success was stronger for younger individuals. Contrary to our expectations, upward transitions had a stronger effect on the objective career success of older individuals. We found no age effects on subjective career success. This study helps to further our understanding of how different types of career movements contribute to career success, and the types of transitions that are important for individuals of different ages.

Traditionally, career success has been viewed objectively, with a focus on promotions and salary level. However, the changing nature of work has increased the importance of subjective aspects of career success, such as growth and development. This chapter provides an example of a Norwegian organization that implemented a career management intervention intended to facilitate employees subjective career success and promote internal mobility within the organization. The intervention involved creating more career tracks based on functional roles and making these tracks more visible for employees. The main goal of the intervention was to demonstrate to employees that they did not have to move vertically to obtain success, they could also build their career by moving horizontally.

For this study, we adopted a psychological contract-based perspective to investigate whether the fulfillment of perceived developmental promises made to employees is positively related to their willingness to accept internal job-related changes when needed by the organization, a construct we refer to as the willingness to be internally employable. We also examined the role played by line managers in facilitating employees' willingness to be internally employable by fulfilling perceived developmental promises. We tested our conceptual model with data collected from ninety-eight recently hired employees in a Norwegian organization under an initiative emphasizing employee development. We found that developmental promise fulfillment is more important for employees' willingness to be internally employable in this context than any perceived provision of developmental inducements in isolation. Further, we found that employee perceptions of the developmental support provided by their line manager related positively to their willingness to be internally employable by way of developmental promise fulfillment; however, this was not the case with perceived developmental inducements. Our findings support the importance of developmental promise fulfillment in fostering employee willingness to be internally employable and the critical role played by line managers in fulfilling developmental promises that employees believe have been made by their organization.

This article examines the relationship between the deterioration of working conditions concomitant with macroeconomic turbulence and employees’ citizenship, i.e. discretionary effort, towards the organisation. In particular, this study focuses on teams and how to redress the employee backlash against the increasing adversity experienced. Having collected data from 151 employees in 23 Cypriot small and medium enterprise teams during a macroeconomic crisis, the findings demonstrate that adverse working conditions relate negatively to discretionary effort only for those teams with low and moderate levels of information sharing. The study highlights the vital role of team information sharing in dampening the negative workplace repercussions of a deeply recessional economy.

Subjective career success continues to be a critical topic in careers scholarship due to ever changing organizational and societal contexts that make reliance upon external definitions of success untenable or undesirable. While various measures of subjective career success have been developed, there is no measure that is representative of multiple nations. In this study, we develop and validate a new subjective career success scale, which is unique from currently available measures in that it was developed and validated across a broad representation of national cultures. We validated the scale across four phases and several studies cumulatively involving 18,471 individual respondents from 30 countries based upon the GLOBE and Schwartz cultural clusters. This scale allows for addressing career success differences both within and across cultures. It is also easily applicable in everyday practice for companies operating in multi-country contexts. We explore theoretical and practical implications.

Basic psychological needs theory (BPNT) suggests that humans have innate, basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Humans’ need to acquire and maintain a high-rank status or power position is left unexplored in relation to BPNT. In the present research, we empirically investigated the satisfaction of two potential need candidates—the need for status and the need for power—and their discriminant and incremental validity in relation to BPNT needs. Using a preregistered two-wave study (N = 362), we examined and obtained empirical support for the discriminant and incremental predictive validity of the satisfaction of the needs for both status and power. More specifically, satisfaction of the need for status predicted outcomes such as intrinsic motivation, work engagement, and general job satisfaction over and above the satisfaction of BPNT and power needs. The satisfaction of the need for power predicted outcomes such as intrinsic motivation, work engagement, and affective commitment over and above the satisfaction of BPNT and status needs. The satisfaction of the need for neither status nor power consistently predicted turnover intentions and general life satisfaction. We discuss the theoretical implications and future directions for examining satisfaction of the need for status or of the need for power together with the satisfaction of BPNT needs when predicting work outcomes.

Purpose Intrinsic motivation is held as critical for employees' willingness to be flexible (WTBF). Yet empirical research suggests that employees who find work intrinsically satisfying could resist work changes. In this study, the authors examine if a curvilinear relationship exists between these variables. Design/methodology/approach The authors predict that the relationship between intrinsic motivation and employees' WTBF will become more positive as intrinsic motivation advances beyond moderate levels. They examine the role developmental supervisor support plays in generating the critical threshold of intrinsic motivation needed for it to be positively related with WTBF. They test their hypotheses with survey data collected in three substantially different employee samples. Findings Data support the hypothesized curvilinear relationship between intrinsic motivation and WTBF. Developmental supervisor support is found to influence employee flexibility indirectly through its linear effect on intrinsic motivation and, in turn, the quadratic effect of intrinsic motivation on WTBF. Practical implications The study provides insight into how and when intrinsic motivation increases employees' WTBF and into the degree of developmental support needed to facilitate a positive relationship between these variables. Originality/value This is the first study to the author’s knowledge that empirically examines the relationship between intrinsic motivation and employees' WTBF.

In this study, we tested hypotheses derived from social exchange theory by investigating the relationships between employees' base and variable pay and their social and economic exchange relationships with their employer. In a cross-lagged study of approximately 30 months duration including 488 respondents, the amount of accumulated base pay was positively related to a social exchange relationship, whereas the accumulated amount of variable pay was positively related to an economic exchange relationship. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and propose future research on the relationship between pay and social and economic exchange relationships.

The goal of personnel selection is to find predictors that, together, maximize the explained variance in important job outcomes such as Task Performance or Work Engagement. Common predictors include Intelligence and Big Five Personality. Using Person-Organization Fit (P-O Fit) for selection purposes has been discussed, but, beyond Intelligence and Personality, evidence of the incremental predictive validity of P-O Fit in relation to task performance and work engagement is scarce. This study examines the practical utility of indirectly measured P-O Fit as a selection tool in a military setting. Measures of objective P-O Fit were obtained from actual applicants in a military selection setting and combined with self-report measures of Work Engagement upon organizational entry, and supervisor-rated Task Performance approximately two weeks later. P-O Fit predicted both Task Performance (R2 = .041) and Work Engagement (R2 = .038). More importantly, P-O Fit yielded incremental predictive validity in relation to both outcomes, also after controlling for intelligence and personality traits. While our initial models (including age, gender, intelligence, and personality) explained 25.1% and 5.8% of the variance in work engagement and task performance, respectively, this increased to 26.3% and 6.3%, respectively, after the inclusion of P-O Fit. Implications for practical use in selection systems are discussed.

Careers exist in a societal context that offers both constraints and opportunities for career actors. Whereas most studies focus on proximal individual and/or organisational‐level variables, we provide insights into how career goals and behaviours are understood and embedded in the more distal societal context. More specifically, we operationalise societal context using the career‐related human potential composite and aim to understand if and why career goals and behaviours vary between countries. Drawing on a model of career structuration and using multilevel mediation modelling, we draw on a survey of 17,986 employees from 27 countries, covering nine of GLOBE's 10 cultural clusters, and national statistical data to examine the relationship between societal context (macrostructure building the career‐opportunity structure) and actors' career goals (career mesostructure) and career behaviour (actions). We show that societal context in terms of societies' career‐related human potential composite is negatively associated with the importance given to financial achievements as a specific career mesostructure in a society that is positively related to individuals' proactive career behaviour. Our career mesostructure fully mediates the relationship between societal context and individuals' proactive career behaviour. In this way, we expand career theory's scope beyond occupation‐ and organisation‐related factors.

In the present study, we investigated the stability and malleability of cadets' definitions of success (mastery and performance goal orientations) contextualized within a certain motivational climate (mastery and performance climates). Based on data from three military academies, the results revealed that cadets' goal orientations and their perceptions of the motivational climate remained relatively stable throughout the 2 years of study across three time-points. We also found that a mastery climate predicted individual mastery orientation, and that a performance climate predicted individual performance orientation. These findings contribute to achievement goal theory by clarifying the importance of considering goal orientation contextualized within a certain motivational climate over time. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

A core question in research on compensation and motivation is whether individual variable pay for performance (IVPFP) can undermine intrinsic motivation in the workplace. We investigated the mediating role of a controlling effect on the relationship between the amount of IVPFP received and intrinsic motivation. In a three-wave study of 304 employees from eight European countries, we found that a controlling effect mediated the negative association between IVPFP and intrinsic motivation. These findings support the proposition from self-determination theory that financial rewards can have a controlling effect that decreases intrinsic motivation. Theoretical and practical implications for compensation and motivation in the workplace are discussed.

Our study examines how to alleviate the potential backlash in the workplace in terms of OCB that is concomitant to economic turbulence. We draw on social exchange and hypothesize team information sharing as a resource that moderates the negative relationship between adverse working conditions and OCBO. We test our hypotheses by employing a survey research design with 151 employees from 23 small and medium-size enterprises during an acute economic crisis in Cyprus. The findings demonstrate that the negative relationship between adverse working conditions and citizenship behavior is significant for low levels of team information sharing but insignificant for high levels of team information sharing. Our study contributes to the lacuna of research pertinent to employee-centric responses to crisis management.

Emerging trends in the workforce point to the necessity of facilitating work lives that foster constructive and balanced relationships between professional and private spheres in order to retain employees. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, we propose that motivational climate influences turnover intention through the facilitation of work-home spillover. Specifically, we argue that employees working in a perceived mastery climate are less likely to consider voluntarily leaving their employer because of increased positive-and reduced negative-work-home spillover experiences. We further argue that employees working in a perceived performance climate are more likely to consider voluntarily leaving their employer because of reduced positive-and increased negative-work-home spillover experiences. In a cross-lagged survey of 1074 employees in a Norwegian financial-sector organization, we found that work-home spillover partly mediates the relationship between a perceived motivational climate and turnover intention. Specifically, mastery climates seem to facilitate positive-and reduce negative-spillover between the professional and private spheres, which in turn decreases employees' turnover intention. Contrary to our expectations, a perceived performance climate slightly increased both positive and negative work-home spillover, however increasing employees' turnover intention. We discuss implications for practice and future research.

Goal orientation, a theory that originated primarily in the educational and social psychology fields, has emerged in the past two decades as a prominent theory in organizational psychology and organizational behavior. We review the state of affairs for goal orientation research with the following roadmap. First, we discuss the historical roots of goal orientation. Next, we summarize the nomological network of goal orientation and describe the processing frameworks associated with goal orientation factors. We then discuss the crucial role of moderator variables to explain the notable variance found in goal orientation–outcome variable relationships. We next summarize the research findings on the relationship of goal orientation with the proximal mediator and distal outcome variables. We conclude the review with a miles-to-go discussion of several major issues currently faced in goal orientation research.