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As the notions of protean career and job crafting share a common emphasis on self-management, proactivity and customization, this study aimed to examine if the associations between protean career, subjective and objective career success were mediated by job crafting, assessed via its three main dimensions (i.e. increasing structural job resources, increasing social job resources and increasing challenging job demands).

The authors sampled 594 Italian employees using a time-lagged research design: protean career was assessed at T1 and job crafting and career success at T2. Responses were analyzed through structural equation modeling.

This study’s results showed that increasing structural job resources mediated the association of protean career with subjective career success, while increasing challenging job demands mediated its association with objective career success.

In contrast to previous studies, in this contribution, the mediating role of job crafting is disentangled by taking into account its three respective dimensions. Additionally, the authors included both forms of career success as outcomes of protean career. Implications for future research and practical recommendations are presented and discussed.

The protean and boundaryless career concepts have dominated recent career research. Demographic groups are posited to differ on these “new career orientations,” with implications for career development and social equity. The purpose of this paper is to test these hypotheses by systematically reviewing research on demographic differences in new career orientations.

This paper meta-analyzes demographic differences in protean, boundaryless, and proactive career orientations using data from 29,605 individuals (74 samples).

Demographic differences in new career orientations are generally negligible to small, with organizational mobility preferences showing the largest differences across demographic characteristics. Age showed curvilinear relations with new career orientations. National economic development moderated new career orientation-educational level relations.

Results support the construct validity of “proactive career orientation” as a unifying construct encompassing protean and psychological mobility boundaryless orientations (cf. Wiernik and Kostal, 2017). Future research should continue to explore career development in diverse economic/cultural contexts.

Small demographic differences suggest that potential benefits of new career orientations are not limited to members of particular groups. Age and education relations were large enough to indicate that large population segments may benefit from additional interventions to support career mobility and development.

This paper uses meta-analytic techniques to investigate demographic differences in career orientations with larger samples than possible in a single primary study. The meta-analytic design permitted investigation of a variety of methodological and cultural/economic moderators not previously considered in career orientation research.

This study aims at analyzing the impact of perceptions of the fourth industrial revolution (crisis and opportunity) in the relationship between workers’ career attitudes and future learning intentions.

This study analyzed the multiple mediating effect of the perception of the fourth industrial revolution in the relationship between career attitudes and future learning intention using data of 305 Korean workers. As career attitude variables, boundaryless and protean career orientation variables were used, and perception of the fourth industrial revolution was analyzed (opportunity and crisis perception).

Both workers’ boundaryless career orientation and protean career orientation influenced future learning intention through the perception of opportunity for the fourth industrial revolution. This result suggested that flexible career attitudes positively recognized the changes of the fourth industrial revolution and had an effect on promoting attitude toward future learning.

The study confirmed that workers’ flexible career attitudes could promote perception of opportunity rather than crisis in changing situation and strengthen their intention to prepare for the future by mediating this perception. These results suggest that lifelong learning and competency development can be reinforced by facilitating perception of an opportunities for external change for individual career development.

Insights for personal career development were provided by analyzing the relationship between flexible career attitudes, which are increasing in importance in the modern society, and perceptions of changes in external environment.

This paper aims to understand women's careers better in order to help organizations make changes to increase female retention. Two specific questions are addressed: Are women adopting a protean career orientation by becoming career self‐agents?; and Are women's career decisions guided by the kaleidoscope values of challenge, balance, and authenticity? Results are used to discuss changes that organizations can make to better attract and retain female talent.

Open‐ended semi‐structured interviews were conducted by telephone with 25 women graduates of a top ranked international business school located in the USA who had voluntarily left the workforce at some time in their career and had since returned to work.

Results show that 17 of the women interviewed followed a protean career orientation when they returned to the workforce, finding part‐time or reduced‐hours positions or completely changing careers. Of the women, five returned to work following a traditional career orientation and three chose to return to a job rather than reinitiating their careers. The vast majority of the women who adopted a protean career were driven to do so in order to satisfy their need for balance in their lives. Overall, eight of the women expressed a need for authenticity in their careers and only two mentioned a desire for challenge. Many of them felt they had already satisfied their need for challenge earlier in their career, as the KCM suggests.

As with protean careers, protean organizations adapt to evolving circumstances. Companies that recognize and respond to the need to reshape how work gets done and how careers are built will achieve a competitive advantage by attracting and retaining valuable female talent. Organizations should shift their focus from an emphasis on face time to an emphasis on results, giving employees more control over how, when, and where they work. They also need to move away from the traditional career model that emphasizes full‐time, continuous employment and instead embrace arc‐of‐the‐career flexibility that allows women to adopt a protean orientation, managing their own careers in order to align them with their personal values.

The paper helps to explain the motives behind professional women' career moves and makes suggestions on how organizations can better attract and retain female talent.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the protean career and other variables, including organizational learning climate, individual calling work orientation, and demographic variables.

The research data were obtained from a sample consisting of 292 employees of two South Korean manufacturing companies in the private sector. To collect the research data, this study employed the web survey method.

The study results showed that two organizational learning climates – embedded system and system connection – and calling orientation had significant positive relationship with the protean career. Demographic variables did not relate significantly to the protean career.

This paper provides an empirical approach to related environmental and psychological variables influencing the protean career based on the literature review.

The results have implications for both researchers and practitioners in that the study examines the protean career as it relates to the organizational learning climate and provides suggestions for establishing strategies that foster employees' self‐directed career management attitudes.

This paper offers new and useful insight into the predictors of self‐directed career management by exploring variables related to the protean career.

This study investigates the relationship between “new career” profiles (Briscoe and Hall, 2006) and two sets of career factors: agency (i.e. career commitment, self-efficacy, and work locus of control), and career attitudes (i.e. salience and satisfaction). Thus, the purpose of this paper is to understand whether career profiles are a valuable way to understand careers in the modern career era, and if so, which profiles exist, and what differences exist across the profiles.

The participants in this study were 1,987 managers and professionals, recruited from a large database of potential respondents. Cluster analysis determined which profiles were apparent among the participants through a two-step clustering procedure using the Bayesian information criterion algorithm. The authors then compared the clusters using analysis of variance (ANOVA) with cluster membership as the independent variable and the career agency and attitude variables and age as the dependent variables.

Cluster analysis of the protean and boundaryless career attitudes of 1,987 respondents identified three career profiles: Trapped/Lost, Protean Career Architects, and Solid Citizens. ANOVA confirmed that people indicative of the three profiles differed significantly on all study variables. The findings suggest that the three different career profiles predict important differences in career variables and outcomes that are relevant to individual progression and growth needs and may be a valuable way to study contemporary careers. In particular, the person-centred approach acknowledges that the protean and boundaryless career concepts are related though distinct concepts that can be combined to show that individuals vary in the degree to which their career orientations are consistent with contemporary career constructs.

The authors have demonstrated that career profiles are a meaningful way to categorize career actors on the basis of their career orientation, as well as their scores on a host of important career variables. Although the study benefits from a large sample and a valid measure of career profiles, it does have some limitations. First, the authors relied on self-reported data gathered on a single survey questionnaire. Furthermore, because the study is cross-sectional, the authors cannot examine the long-term impact of career profile on outcomes such as career satisfaction or if career profiles are enduring or malleable over time.

From a practical perspective, it may be incumbent on organizations, career counsellors and individuals to develop an awareness to which career profile individuals belong (DeFillippi and Arthur, 1996). Doing so may offer insight into the likely challenges that career actors will face as their career unfolds, and ideally help individuals develop career management strategies to create career growth, rather than a more passive and reactive approach. A number of implications for each of the three career profiles are offered within the paper.

Utilizing a two-step clustering procedure, the authors provide empirical evidence of three of the 16 career profiles proposed by Briscoe and Hall (2006): Trapped/Lost, Protean Career Architects and Solid Citizens. Next, the authors explored the utility of the profiles for career development and demonstrated significant differences in career-related psychological factor and attitudes across profiles. Finally, the authors take a person-centric approach to career orientation, allowing for individual differences in career enactment. Overall, the results of this study show that career profiles are a highly useful composite that reflect important patterns relative to new career variables.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between protean career attitude and perceived internal and external employability, along with the mediating effect of learning-goal orientation.

Data were collected by distributing paper-based questionnaires to 527 workers in private banking sectors in Taiwan. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the results of the relationships.

The results supported the idea that protean career attitude is a significant antecedent of perceived internal and external employability. Protean talents with a higher degree of protean attitude toward value-driven career orientation and self-directed career management have an external employability that is greater than their internal employability. Learning-goal orientation fully mediated the effect of protean career attitude on perceived internal employability, but only partially mediated external employability.

The findings can help human resource managers gain a better understanding of the use of an appropriate strategy to influence an employee’s perceived internal and external employability, which can increase the motivation and improve employer-employee relationships that contribute to organizational success and performance. Employees should recognize the increased importance of continuous learning with goal-setting in order to deal with changes at work.

This paper empirically establishes the association between protean career attitude and perceived internal and external employability. The protean career concept may provide organizations with a valuable perspective in the evolution of careers. Valuable and protean talents place an emphasis on individuals’ core values, and while learning goals are meant to suit employer organizations, they may also establish opportunities that could cross-organizational boundaries.

The purpose of this paper is to establish whether positive or negative relationships exist between boundaryless and protean career attitudes (respectively) and organizational commitment and whether such relationships can be moderated by development opportunities.

Surveys from 212 part‐time MBAs were analyzed using correlation, regression, or moderated multiple regression to explore relationships between boundaryless career attitudes (boundaryless mindset, organizational mobility), protean career attitudes (self‐directed career management, values‐driven career management), organizational commitment (affective, continuance and normative), and development opportunities.

Only organizational mobility preference was correlated (negatively) with each type of commitment. Boundaryless mindset was moderated in its relationship to normative commitment in that lower development opportunities resulted in lower commitment for those with higher levels of boundaryless mindset.

The study is limited due to sample nature and the lack of longitudinal design. Also, it does not provide implications for other types of commitment that may be impacted by career attitudes and development opportunities (occupational commitment, for example).

A counterintuitive finding but important implication from this research is that employers should not assume that protean and boundaryless employees (respectively) will be less committed to the organization. Another practical finding is that developmental opportunities, while important to all employees, did not generally make employees with protean and boundaryless attitudes more committed to their organization.

The paper is the first, to one's knowledge, to assess organizational commitment with specific measures of boundaryless and protean career attitudes. While the results are simple, they refute many stereotypes of the new career and, in that sense, add an important perspective to the career literature.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the structural relationships between protean career attitude, career resilience, proactive career behavior and external employability.

This study sampled 212 training apprentice employees who participated in training programs using a proportional stratified sampling in South Korea. The study tested the research model using structural equation modeling.

This study revealed that protean career attitude influenced external employability through career resilience and proactive career behavior. Career resilience fully mediated the relationship between protean career attitude and external employability and partially mediated protean career attitude and proactive career behavior. Proactive career behavior also mediated the relationship between protean career attitude and external employability.

This study has a limitation by relying on cross-sectional data. In terms of theoretical implications, this study can add new knowledge to the protean career research by demonstrating that the protean career attitude influences perceived external employability through career resilience and proactive career behavior for the sample of young training apprentice employees.

This study uncovers the dynamic processes between protean career attitude and perceived external employability. Moreover, this study’s sample is significant because training apprentice employees are mostly young in their 20s and 30s with less than three years of working experience and working in small and medium-sized enterprises in South Korea.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of individually related variables and the moderating role of career strategies on protean career among professionals in Malaysian Electrical & Electronics (E & E) industry.

Research data were gathered from a sample of 306 of professional employees in 18 E & E multinational corporations in Malaysia. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was employed to examine the influences of individually related factors and the moderating role of career strategies on protean career.

The results demonstrate that individually related variables, namely, self-efficacy, outcome expectation, goal orientation and locus of control are viewed as potential predictors of protean career. There are significant moderating effects of career strategies on the relationship between goal orientation and protean career among professional employees.

This paper provide an empirical framework to explain protean career based on the review of career-related literatures.

The findings provide implications to both individuals and human resource development (HRD) practitioners on new career trends of protean career. Practical interventions are suggested to assist individuals and organizations towards protean career development.

This paper supports individual protean career development.

This paper offers new insight into the predicting factors of protean career and its moderating role on career strategies.