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The under-representation of women working in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) careers is a persistent problem worldwide. This dilemma is exacerbated by the fact that an insufficient number of women enroll in STEM studies, and a significant proportion of those who do join then opt out of their STEM careers at different points in their lives. The protean attitude emphasizes agentic individual control over one’s career, and thus offers women substantial potential for developing and enhancing career outcomes. Therefore, this study aims to investigate coping self-efficacy as an antecedent and career identity as a consequent of a protean attitude for women working in STEM.

Using a questionnaire survey, data were collected from 482 women working in STEM in the Middle East region. Multiple regression and bootstrapping methods were used in the analysis of the data.

The findings indicate that coping self-efficacy positively affects both protean attitude and career identity. The results also show that a protean attitude mediates the relationship between coping self-efficacy and career identity.

This research presents organizational management and government policy recommendations aimed at increasing the recruitment and retention of women in STEM careers.

The study addresses some of the main challenges related to identifying antecedents and outcomes of protean attitude.

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 authors sought to explain why and how protean career attitude might influence self‐initiated expatriates' (SIEs) experiences positively. A mediation model of cultural adjustment was proposed and empirically evaluated.

Data from 132 SIEs in Germany containing measures of protean career attitude, cultural adjustment, career satisfaction, life satisfaction, and intention to stay in the host country were analysed using path analysis with a bootstrap method.

Empirical results provide support for the authors' proposed model: the positive relations between protean career attitude and the three expatriation outcomes (career satisfaction, life satisfaction and intention to stay in the host country) were mediated by positive cross‐cultural adjustment of SIEs.

All data were cross‐sectional from a single source. The sample size was small and included a large portion of Chinese participants. The study should be replicated with samples in other destination countries, and longitudinal research is suggested.

By fostering both a protean career attitude in skilled SIE employees and their cultural adjustment, corporations and receiving countries could be able to retain this international workforce better in times of talent shortage.

This study contributes to the scarce research on the conceptual relatedness of protean career attitude and SIEs, as well as to acknowledging the cultural diversity of the SIE population.

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 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 study aims to explore the role of mentoring and the moderating effects of gender on protean and boundaryless career orientations in the African albeit Nigerian cultural context.

Data were collected from 250 Nigerian nurses through a questionnaire.

Mentoring support predicted protean career dimensions but was non-significant for boundaryless career dimensions. Gender directly accounted for a significant percentage of the variance in physical mobility in favor of women but did not predict self-directed, value-driven and psychological mobility career attitudes. Gender significantly moderated the relationship between mentoring and new career dimensions except physical mobility.

The male sample was limited and data from a single professional group/organization in Nigeria may not typify organizations in general. This calls for caution in generalizing findings.

Proactive career management and value-driven attitudes can be fostered by ensuring quality mentor support. The peculiar direct and moderating effects of gender on protean and boundaryless careers deserve particular attention.

The absence of African perspectives on new career directions in most reference journals limits the global scope of comparative studies. The present study provides information on the under-researched role of mentoring and gender in modern career models from Africa, and makes useful theoretical contributions to new career perspectives, especially in the context of how relationships among study variables may differ across national cultural contexts.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between proactive personality (PP), goal orientation (GO), meta-skills and the underlying dimensions of protean (self-directed and value-driven) and boundaryless (boundaryless mobility and mobility preference) career attitudes among Indian IT professionals.

Data were collected from 600 IT professionals working in six IT companies in the Delhi-NCR (National Capital Region) in India. Structural equation modeling was used to validate the measures of the selected constructs and for testing the hypothesis.

The results of the study revealed that PP significantly affects individuals’ protean and boundaryless career attitudes. Moreover, GO significantly affects protean career attitudes, and meta-skill significantly affects boundaryless mobility, respectively.

The study serves as a guide for the HR managers to devise the company’s strategies keeping in mind the employees’ requirements in parallel with the policies for IT industries in India.

The study enriches the protean and boundaryless career literature by identifying and empirically establishing the relationship between various personality traits and career patterns opted in the context of the Indian IT industry.