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In recent years, there has been a growing trend of individuals willingly opting for employment positions that do not fully use their education, skills and abilities, a phenomenon known as voluntary overqualification. This study aims to investigate the factors that influence and the formation mechanism of this emerging phenomenon. Drawing upon social cognition theory, this study explores the relationship between work values and voluntary overqualification while also examining the mediating role of the future work self and the moderating role of perceived marketability.

This study used a longitudinal approach, collecting data through questionnaires administered at multiple time points. The sample consisted of 607 employees from various departments of five Chinese companies. Regression analysis using the PROCESS macro in SPSS was used to test the research hypotheses.

The results indicate a positive relationship between employees’ work values and voluntary overqualification. Furthermore, this relationship is mediated by the future work self. Additionally, perceived marketability plays a moderating intermediary role in the whole model.

This study contributes to the overqualification literature by introducing a novel type of overqualification and unveiling the mechanism by which work values influence voluntary overqualification. The findings provide insights for understanding and managing employees who are voluntarily overqualified.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated model on perceived employability in university students, based on personal and contextual factors.

The authors use structural equation modelling to estimate a model that includes a set of variables, previously validated at exploratory and confirmatory levels, in order to measure personal and contextual factors involved in perceived employability. The sample comprises 816 university students selected by a stratified procedure.

The model explains how perceived employability in university students is built up. It identifies the involved factors and their level of influence and provides statistically valid and reliable measures for these factors.

This study develops an integrated model which explains more than previous ones to know perceived employability of university students by combining personal and contextual factors. A limitation of the study lies in the use of a cross-sectional design, and the specificities of the cultural context as well as consideration of the labour market situation. Generalizing the results to other cultural contexts requires caution.

The model explains perceived employability in university students and provides validated scales at confirmatory level that can be used for futures studies in sociology, behavioural psychology, human resources management or education. The model and scales also serve as tools for evaluation that can be used by those responsible for such personal or contextual factors.

The development of an integrated model that explains perceived employability to a much higher degree than previous models.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relation of subordinate proactive personality with subjective evaluations of career success by direct supervisors, as well as conceptualize the quality of leader-member exchange (LMX) as a mediator and power distance orientation as a moderator for understanding this relation.

Data were collected using a two-wave survey research design. Participants were drawn from 360 supervisor-subordinate dyads from mainland China. Hierarchical regression analyses, Edwards and Lambert’s (2007) moderated path analysis approach, and Preacher et al.’s (2010) Monte Carlo simulation procedure were used to test the hypothesized relationships.

LMX mediated the positive relationship between proactive personality and career success. Both the relationship between LMX and career success and the indirect relationship between proactive personality and career success were stronger when power distance orientation was lower.

This study contributes to the authors’ understanding of how and when proactive personality facilitates employee career success in the era of the boundaryless career. However, all data were collected within a single organization, which limits the observed variability and decreases external validity.

Training employees to facilitate initiative in the workplace may build and maintain better and stronger relationships with their supervisors. To enhance person-organization fit, organizations should recruit and hire employees with lower levels of power distance orientation.

This study provides solid evidence that the extent to which LMX mediates the relationship between proactive personality and career success depends on power distance orientation. It represents a promising new direction for the proactive personality and career success literatures.

A boundaryless career perspective suggests that career competencies are essential for employees who wish to advance their careers in high uncertainty. This study aims to propose an integrated conceptual model for career competencies to provide insights for employees and organizations by identifying what and how one can prepare and provide support for career development in an uncertain and complex work environment.

The integrated literature reviewed was adapted to provide a conceptual model for career competencies. All 77 studies were reviewed, guided by the intelligent career theory (ICT) and social cognitive career theory (SCCT).

The mechanisms of career competency development were examined through the interrelationship between three types of knowing; knowing-why, knowing-whom and knowing-how. Career competencies can be considered a developmental process, therefore, they could develop through various interventions and accumulate over time. Especially the results indicate that learning is an essential component of career competencies, as it increases self-efficacy and promotes a desire to achieve positive career outcomes.

This study provided a conceptual model, explored the mechanisms of career competency development and considered how career competencies influence career outcomes. Furthermore, it identified the context of the construct of career competencies by integrating the SCCT and ICT. Finally, it showed the inadequacy of existing research on negative factors of career competency outcomes and recommended further research to broaden the general context of career competency studies.

This paper investigates whether career capital (CC) development abroad, expatriate type, career type and career stage affect expatriates' career success in terms of perceived marketability and the number of promotions.

The study presents findings from a 2020 follow-up study among 327 expatriates, including assigned expatriates (AEs) (n = 117) and self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) (n = 220), who worked abroad in 2015 and 2016. Among that group, 186 had continued their international career, while 141 had repatriated. Structural equation modeling with robust maximum likelihood estimation was used to test this study's hypotheses. MPlus 8.6 software supported the analysis.

The study outlines that CC developed abroad positively impacts perceived marketability and the number of promotions. Second, repatriates reported a greater degree of perceived marketability than those continuing an international career. Career type did not predict the number of promotions. The expatriate type did not influence any of the career success measures. Finally, expatriates in their late-career stage did not achieve a similar level of career success as those in other career stages.

All the expatriates were university-educated Finnish engineers and business professionals, and the career benefits of expatriation could differ for different sample groups. The study calls for more context-sensitive global careers research. The findings have positive implications for self-guided career actors considering working abroad. Organizations could focus more of their global talent attraction, management and career efforts on SIEs.

To analyze the impacts of these four antecedents on the career success of expatriates, the authors cooperated with two Finnish labor unions in 2020 to explore the careers of 327 expatriates, having surveyed the same group in 2015/2016. Such follow-up studies are not very common in expatriation research since it is difficult to keep track of expatriates who change locations and employers.

In response to the conclusions of a meta-analysis of career success studies (Ng et al., 2005), the purpose of this paper is to expand the range of variables being examined as predictors of career success by weaving the person-organization fit and external marketability perspectives into current career success frameworks.

A survey was administered in partnership with an association of human resource professionals located in Canada. The questionnaire was transmitted electronically to human resource professionals. The final sample included 546 full-time, permanent, human resource professionals from multiple organizations.

Confirmatory factor analysis supported the measurement model. In the final structural model, external marketability exerted a significant direct effect on career success. Person-organization fit was strongly associated with organizational sponsorship. Organizational sponsorship, in turn, exerted a significant effect on subjective career success.

This study contrasted and tested two theoretical perspectives on career success. The mediated indirect association between person-organization fit and career success provided support for the rationale of the sponsored mobility model of social advancement. The direct association between external marketability and career success suggests that success can be achieved even without organizational sponsorship on the basis of expressions of one’s human capital.

In response to the call for deeper investigation of abusive supervision (Martinko et al., 2013), the purpose of this paper is to examine perceived supervisor competence and perceived employee mobility (an individual’s perception of his/her ability to obtain new employment) to better understand contextual and individual factors that potentially influence the degree of harmful supervisory behaviors experienced by employees.

Responses from 749 survey participants were analyzed to determine the impact of perceived supervisor competence and perceived employee mobility on perceptions of abusive supervisory conduct. A bootstrapping-based mediation analysis (Hayes, 2012) was used to test for mediation by the variables of interest.

The authors found that perceived supervisor competence is associated with weakened perceptions of abusive supervision, and that this relationship is partially mediated by respondents’ perceived occupational mobility.

The data are cross-sectional and were collected with a self-report questionnaire and compiled utilizing student-enumerators. The sample was also regional in scope and lacked information that would indicate if respondents were also supervisors.

These results imply that perceptions of abusive supervision can be mitigated by building stronger competencies in supervisors, which translates into greater individual employee perceived mobility. Human resource (HR) professionals can implement practices to decrease the likelihood of abusive supervisory conduct by ensuring that supervisors are competent in their jobs, facilitating a coaching/mentoring process between supervisors and subordinates and establishing/maintaining an effective developmental performance feedback process for supervisors.

Since perceived supervisor competence is one element of reducing abusive conduct, while also enhancing subordinate perceived mobility, selection and training efforts should focus on hiring and preparing individuals to be effective work supervisors. Enhancing worker capabilities and marketability may result in greater perceived occupational mobility and reduced perceptions of abuse by supervisors.

These results lend support to the argument that perceptions of abusive supervision can be mitigated by building stronger competencies in supervisors, which translates into greater perceived mobility among employees. Organizations may benefit through lowered employee turnover, employees may enjoy more harmonious, supportive relationships with their supervisors and HR staff may benefit by having competent supervisors who do not generate employee complaints and intentions to quit.

Although research has uncovered important predictors of managerial career success, the causal relationships between these predictors has not been fully explored. Accordingly, we propose and test a model that establishes a link between individual differences, salient career‐related beliefs, career enhancing outcomes and managerial career success. Using path analysis, we found that education and career impatience directly affected willingness to relocate and perceived marketability, which in turn led to more promotions offered and greater exposure to powerful networks. Finally, the number of promotions offered directly affected management level, which in turn affected compensation level. With respect to gender differences, we found that beliefs regarding the efficacy of mentoring positively influenced a woman's sense of marketability, and like her male counterpart, exposure to powerful networks. However, we also found that for women managers, unlike men, such exposure did not affect the number of promotions they were offered.

The present study examined the relationships between P‐O fit, job satisfaction, perceived job mobility, and intent to turnover. It was hypothesized that job satisfaction mediated the P‐O fit‐intent to turnover relationship and that perceived job mobility moderated the job satisfaction‐intent to turnover relationship such that the combined effect of high job dissatisfaction and high perceived job mobility predicted intent to turnover.

Data were obtained utilizing a field survey from a sample of 205 full‐time employed adults working in two geographic regions in the USA. Participants completed an HTML‐based web survey that contained measures of the constructs of interest to this study.

Mediated and moderated regression analyses revealed statistical support for the hypothesized relationships, which were interpreted as evidence that P‐O misfit and job dissatisfaction do not necessarily lead to intent to turnover.

The potential for common method variability was present in the study, the impact of which could either attenuate or inflate estimated statistical relationships.

While P‐O fit researchers typically associate misfit with decreased job satisfaction and increased turnover, the present research suggests that intervening variables, such as job mobility, influence employee intentions to turnover.

The phenomenon of misfit is understudied in larger context of P‐O fit; thus this research represents one of the first studies in this area of research.

In the fall of 1996, Walstad suggested that the economics profession needed to obtain the students' perspective on the choice of major. The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence the choice of major.

To recruit majors and to address Walstad's concern, economics and non‐economics majors were surveyed to determine which factors they consider important when choosing a major and to better understand why some students never consider economics.

The results suggest that interest in the subject, expected marketability, performance in major classes, and the approachability and teaching reputation of the faculty are influential to the choice of major.

The results may help the profession address enrollment issues, including the disproportionate number of women in the major.