Ans De Vos, Anneleen Forrier, Beatrice Van der Heijden and Nele De Cuyper
In the current war for talent employers are concerned about the idea that the best employees are more likely to leave the organization for another employer (i.e. the management…
Abstract
Purpose
In the current war for talent employers are concerned about the idea that the best employees are more likely to leave the organization for another employer (i.e. the management paradox). This study tests this management paradox. The purpose of this paper is to advance our understandings of how employees’ occupational expertise is associated with job search intensity, through its assumed relationships with perceived internal and external employability in the internal and the external labor market. The authors thereby tested the research model across three different age groups (young, middle-aged, and senior employees).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a survey among 2,137 professional workers and applied multi-group structural equation modeling.
Findings
Perceived internal employability negatively mediated the relationship between occupational expertise and job search intensity, whilst there was a positive mediational effect of perceived external employability. Age had a moderating effect on the association between perceived internal employability and job search intensity.
Research limitations/implications
The findings contribute to the scholarly literature on the management paradox, and the empirical work on employability and age.
Practical implications
Organizations can recoup their investments in expert workers’ employability and enhance their retention by providing opportunities for internal career development.
Originality/value
This study is original by including both internal and external employability. By doing so, the authors thereby shedding new light on how occupational expertise might explain job search and how this relationship differs depending on employee age, thereby using a large sample of respondents.
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Jos Akkermans, William E. Donald, Denise Jackson and Anneleen Forrier
This article presents the case for creating stronger connections between research on graduate and worker employability. We offer a narrative review of commonalities and…
Abstract
Purpose and approach
This article presents the case for creating stronger connections between research on graduate and worker employability. We offer a narrative review of commonalities and differences between these research streams and offer thoughts and suggestions for further integration and mutual learning.
Findings
We outline some of the main theories and concepts in the graduate and worker employability domains. Furthermore, we analyze how these show considerable overlap, though they have barely connected with each other yet. We also formulate an agenda for future research that would spur stronger connections between the fields. Finally, we turn to our fellow authors, reviewers, and editors to encourage a more open approach to each other's work that would enable more cross-fertilization of knowledge.
Implications
We hope our narrative review, critical analysis and future research suggestions will lead to more collaborations and mutual learning among employability researchers in the educational, career and psychology areas.
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Ilke Grosemans, Anneleen Forrier and Nele De Cuyper
The purpose of this paper is to examine career engagement and perceived employability during the school-to-work transition. We studied within-person changes in career engagement…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine career engagement and perceived employability during the school-to-work transition. We studied within-person changes in career engagement and perceived employability in the transition from higher education to the labor market. We investigated their dynamic reciprocal relationship to unravel whether career engagement or perceived employability is the leading indicator in the relationship in view of providing adequate support for students during the school-to-work transition.
Design/methodology/approach
We conducted latent change score (LCS) analyses on a three-wave sample of 701 graduates in Flanders (Belgium). We collected data in July (right before graduation), November and May. LCS is a novel method allowing to simultaneously test change and reciprocal relationships.
Findings
Our findings demonstrated how both career engagement and perceived employability changed (within-person) non-linearly during the school-to-work transition. As for their relationship, we found that perceived employability is the driving force in the relationship. Perceived employability fueled subsequent positive changes in career engagement, whereas career engagement did not lead to subsequent changes in perceived employability.
Originality/value
Our study connects the career development and the graduate employability literature, and examines the school-to-work transition from preparation for the labor market to ten months after graduation. We also make an important methodological contribution, demonstrating the added value of LCS for studying employability in higher education. Our findings provide insights in how higher education institutions may support students in the school-to-work transition.
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Kristien Philippaers, Nele De Cuyper and Anneleen Forrier
The purpose of this paper is to advance two seemingly conflicting paths from perceived employability to employee performance. Both paths start from the idea that feeling…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to advance two seemingly conflicting paths from perceived employability to employee performance. Both paths start from the idea that feeling employable makes employees more independent from their employer. Framed positively, independence implies the perception of being in control, and perceived control may promote employee performance. Framed negatively, independence implies reduced attachment to the organization, while such ties drive employee performance. Innovative features in this study are threefold. First, the authors introduce perceived justice as a moderator. Second, the authors distinguish between perceived quantitative and qualitative employability: this relates to seeing “other” vs “better” job opportunities. Third, the authors include a range of performance indicators: task performance, organizational citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data were collected within one Belgian public-sector organization (n=1,500 employees) and analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Findings
Perceived control mediated the relationship between perceived employability and employee performance, yet only upon high perceived justice. Affective organizational commitment mediated the relationship between perceived employability and employee performance, regardless of perceived justice. Those relationships were positive for quantitative perceived employability and negative for qualitative perceived employability.
Originality/value
Perceived employability relates positively to employee performance, especially upon high perceived justice. Yet this relationship is bounded to which job alternatives are perceived, just “other” or instead “better.”
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Dorien Vanhercke, Kaisa Kirves, Nele De Cuyper, Marijke Verbruggen, Anneleen Forrier and Hans De Witte
The purpose of this paper is to test the gain and loss cycle ideas from the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory with regard to perceived employability and psychological…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to test the gain and loss cycle ideas from the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory with regard to perceived employability and psychological functioning among employed workers and unemployed job seekers, respectively.
Design/methodology/approach
More specifically, the authors argue that perceived employability may trigger a gain cycle toward well-being among employed workers (H1), while ill-being may trigger a loss cycle toward reduced (perceived) employability among unemployed job seekers (H2). The authors test these ideas with cross-lagged analysis.
Findings
Results confirm the hypotheses: perceived employability at Time 1 positively affects well-being at Time 2 among employed workers and ill-being at Time 1 negatively impacts perceived employability at Time 2 among unemployed job seekers.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should study the gain and loss cycles with more than two waves of data as this allows for a more adequate test of these ideas.
Practical implications
As for practitioners, the results suggest that investing in the worker’s perceived employability by offering training, career counseling, and networking opportunities, pays off as it promotes the employee’s psychological functioning. With regard to unemployed job seekers the authors advise investing in psychological counseling: the unemployed job seeker will be more able to invest in a job search, and hence perceive employability if helped in coping with job loss.
Originality/value
This study offers a new perspective on the relationship between perceived employability and psychological functioning by involving the principles of COR theory, in particular the gain and loss cycles.
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Nicky Dries, Anneleen Forrier, Ans De Vos and Roland Pepermans
The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between self-perceived employability resources and perceived psychological contract (PC) obligations. To examine the extent…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between self-perceived employability resources and perceived psychological contract (PC) obligations. To examine the extent to which organizational ratings of potential, through their “signaling” function, might serve as a buffer between employability and PC perceptions that are undesirable from an employer's point of view.
Design/methodology/approach
Both self-report data (i.e. self-perceived employability resources and perceived PC obligations) and data reported by the HR departments of the participating organizations (i.e. organizational ratings of potential) were collected in a case-control design (n=103).
Findings
Self-perceived employability resources are not related to lower intentions to stay with one's current employer. High-potential employees did not perceive themselves as particularly obliged to reciprocate their organizations’ additional investments in them by expressing longer term loyalty, or a higher performance level.
Practical implications
Organizations should not be hesitant to assist their employees in enhancing their employability resources. In addition, they should engage in deliberate PC building with their high-potential employees so as to align their perceived PC obligations with the organizational agenda.
Originality/value
The relationship between self-perceived employability resources and perceived PC obligations has been underexamined; hardly any PC research has taken organizational variables into account; hardly any research exists on the psychological implications of being identified as a high potential; and the study draws both on self-report data and data reported by the HR departments of the participating organizations.
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Dave Stynen, Anneleen Forrier and Luc Sels
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of motivation to work in explaining workers’ pay flexibility – as measured by their reservation wage ratio – across the lifespan…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of motivation to work in explaining workers’ pay flexibility – as measured by their reservation wage ratio – across the lifespan. This is important since pay inflexibility may undermine mature age workers’ retention at the workforce.
Design/methodology/approach
Relying on self-determination theory the paper broadens the role of “motivation to work” from the overall work valence an individual attaches to work to the underlying work values (i.e. the perceived value of work for its intrinsic vs extrinsic outcomes) and work motives (i.e. the underlying autonomous vs controlled reasons regulating one's work participation). The authors conducted hierarchical linear regression analyses on a sample of 1,577 Belgian workers to explore how individuals’ work values and work motives, in addition to work valence, shape workers’ reservation wage ratios across the lifespan.
Findings
Results indicate that work valence and holding relative intrinsic work values and relative autonomous work motives are associated with lower reservation wage ratios. Finally, age moderates all three relationships. Whereas the negative impact of work valence and relative autonomous work motives is stronger at older age, the negative impact of relative intrinsic work values is stronger at younger age.
Research limitations/implications
Motivational predictors are differently related to reservation wage ratios across the lifespan.
Practical implications
By fostering overall work valence and autonomous work motivation practitioners can exert influence on mature age workers’ pay flexibility.
Originality/value
This study extends prior research on pay flexibility by focussing on the content of motivation to work (i.e. work values, work motives) and its role across the lifespan.
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Tom Vander Steene, Luc Sels, Geert Van Hootegem, Hans De Witte and Anneleen Forrier
In this paper we evaluate the impact of the institutional context on the politics of flexibility. We examine whether differences in institutional embedding lead to differences in…
Abstract
In this paper we evaluate the impact of the institutional context on the politics of flexibility. We examine whether differences in institutional embedding lead to differences in the way in which companies seek to achieve flexibility. Belgium and The Netherlands were selected for comparison on the reasons for their different flexibility mix. The conclusions are based on both a macro‐economic analysis of national statistics and a micro‐economic analysis of organisations in both countries. The main conclusion is that the institutional frameworks of Belgium and The Netherlands have been built up along different lines. Dutch legislation encourages contractual flexibility. The Belgian institutional context focuses more on temporal flexibility. A competition for the greatest flexibility has little point given these observations. It is not a question of more or less, but of different flexibility. A wider significance of the comparison is that it clearly demonstrates that evaluations fail if the different components of the institutional framework and flexibility are not studied in their close mutual interrelationship.
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Addresses the question of whether a high turnover of staff is accompanied by lower investment in company‐training. By means of a written questionnaire, data were collected from…
Abstract
Addresses the question of whether a high turnover of staff is accompanied by lower investment in company‐training. By means of a written questionnaire, data were collected from 223 companies in four different sectors: the food sector, the wholesale trade, the printing industry and the software sector. Besides the turnover of staff, introduces the degree of contractual flexibility and the existence of an internal labour market as explanatory variables in the discussion. In contradiction to most labour economic thinking on training, finds a positive relationship between fluctuations in the number of employees and the investment in training. The findings indicate that company training is particularly concentrated on inflow and replacement problems. Therefore, concludes that financial support measures of governments might benefit more the recruitment policy of companies instead of the high ideal of “lifelong learning”.