Although career transitions occur several times during people’s life course, a significant turning point may be the school-to-work transition (STWT) of young adults migrating from structured academic ...environments to chaotic organizational setups. In the field of newcomer socialization, successful STWTs, particularly in the post-employment phase, have been widely researched, although the studies have been dominated by an “organization-driven” perspective on what motivates young newcomers to adjust themselves to organizational career norms. By examining “individual-driven” career adjustment pathways that focus on the self-enhancement effect involved in organizational support, this research addresses the challenge of how young newcomers with self-directed career orientations experience STWT success without compromising their career-growth concerns. Drawing on theories of self-enhancement and self-verification, we investigated a model wherein (1) a perceived match of individual and organizational career plans mediates the relationship between newcomers’ perceived organizational support (POS) and their STWT success, and (2) protean career orientations moderate the anticipated positive relationship between POS and perceived career match, thus conditioning the mediation. Results from four-wave time-lagged data supported the predicted effects, even after controlling for organization-driven adjustment factors. The findings contribute to the ongoing debate on “individualization” and the “Protean Paradox” in career management literature.
•Young newcomers’ career match mediated perceived organizational support (POS) and school-to-work-transition (STWT) success.•This career-match-as-mediation model was salient even after controlling for organization-driven adjustment factors.•Self-directed protean career orientation (PCO) was a significant first-stage moderator.•The positive link between POS and career match was strengthened (weakened) for newcomers high (low) in self-directed PCO.•The career-match-as-a-mediator model for STWT success was ineffective for those in the bottom 25–28% of self-directed PCO.
Purpose
Although social exchange theory has long been used to explain employees’ positive work attitudes in response to perceived investment in employee development (PIED), few studies have examined ...this theoretical mechanism by introducing a direct measure of social exchange between employees and their personified organization. Furthermore, most studies have focused solely on one type of exchange (i.e. social exchange) and have ignored another type of exchange characterized as economic exchange. The purpose of this paper is therefore to uncover the process by which PIED affects employees’ attitudes, including affective organizational commitment and job satisfaction, by examining the mediating roles of both social and economic exchanges.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the hypothesized mediating model, this study conducted a three-phase, time-lagged questionnaire survey and collected data from 545 full-time employees. The model was tested based on structural equation modeling with a bootstrap test of indirect effects.
Findings
In line with social exchange theory, the findings showed that social exchange perceptions positively mediated the relationships between PIED and affective commitment/job satisfaction, whereas economic exchange perceptions negatively mediated them. Additionally, social and economic exchange perceptions were found to partially mediate the relationship between PIED and affective commitment but fully mediate the relationship between PIED and job satisfaction.
Practical implications
These results suggest that employers would benefit from investing in employee development, provided workers see the training investment as the employer’s side of social exchange, which in turn leads to increased affective commitment and job satisfaction. When employers do not achieve the expected returns from the training investment, they should check not only hard data (e.g. training attendance rate, hours of training, etc.) but also soft data (e.g. employees’ perceptions of training investment, social exchange, etc.) by conducting employee surveys and communicating with line managers.
Originality/value
The main contribution of this study is that it provides important empirical support for social exchange theory in the context of organizational training investment and employees’ attitudinal outcomes, by directly testing the positive mediating role of social exchange and the negative role of economic exchange.
This study documents the influence of both pre‐ and post‐entry factors on newcomer socialization. Using time‐lagged survey data from 137 new employees from private sector organizations in Japan, our ...empirical analyses showed that newcomers' pre‐entry career maturity was significantly related to their post‐entry adjustment outcomes through person‐organization (P‐O) fit perceptions at entry. Career maturity was also significantly and positively related to pre‐entry job search effort, as well as to P‐O fit at entry. Furthermore, the results indicated that the effectiveness of supervisor and coworker support for enhancing newcomer adjustment varied depending on the level of P‐O fit perception at entry. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, and directions for future research are suggested.
This study examines a possible national culture difference in the moderating effect of leader-member exchange (LMX) on the relationship between person-organization (P-O) fit and work attitudes, ...including job satisfaction and organizational commitment, in Japan and Korea. Specifically, we use trait activation theory as a lens to explain the complementarities between P-O fit and LMX that may exert an influence on employees' work attitudes. We hypothesize that from the cross-cultural management perspective, such complementary effects would work in Japan where organizations encourage more decentralization and empowerment than those in Korea, which may enable supervisors in Japanese organizations to provide unambiguous reward expectancies for their immediate subordinates. Using samples of 138 Japanese and 144 Korean employees working for privately owned firms in Japan and Korea, we demonstrate that a significant three-way interaction of employees' P-O fit, LMX and a national culture difference (i.e. nationality) influences their work attitudes. Specifically, LMX moderated the positive relationships between P-O fit and both job satisfaction and organizational commitment for Japanese employees, tending to weaken them. For Korean employees, however, no such interactions were observed. The findings are used to discuss the applicability and generalizability of trait activation theory in East Asian cultures. In addition, suggestions are made regarding the discussion of HRM practices from a cross-vergence perspective. Limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it attempts to examine how employees’ career planning (CP) interacts with the quality of leader-member exchange (LMX) to explain subjective ...career success. Second, the authors investigate how the pattern of such interactions differs between male and female employees.
Design/methodology/approach
– To increase the generalizability, the study tested hypotheses in two studies whose data were collected in different national settings. Study 1 was designed to analyze 144 Korean employees and Study 2 investigated 140 Japanese employees. Both groups of employees worked for privately owned firms.
Findings
– The authors found a three-way interaction effect between gender, CP, and LMX quality in predicting subjective career success. As hypothesized, the positive relationship between quality of LMX and subjective career success was stronger for males with high CP, whereas for females such a stronger relationship was found for women with low CP.
Research limitations/implications
– This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, it extends career research by considering the interactive effects of individual and interpersonal factors on employees’ subjective career success. Second, it combines the research streams of social exchange theory (LMX), career theory (the boundaryless career), and gender theory (agentic and communal personality traits). This suggests that the ideas of the three theories could serve together as a useful framework for explaining gender differences in subjective career success through setting career goals and building relationships with supervisors.
Practical implications
– The findings have important practical implications for managers and leaders, who generally seek to motivate their employees toward career achievement.
Originality/value
– This study is one of the first to provide a new perspective for understanding the process by which men and women perceive their subjective career success differently with regard to social exchange relations with their supervisors and CP.
The contemporary career literature or ‘new career’ theory emphasizes the importance of individual agentic career management processes in which individuals manage their careers to achieve career ...satisfaction by flexibly adjusting to the dynamic environment. There is limited research, however, on how individuals strategize their careers as they age, by utilizing or balancing organizational career management factors, including developmental human resource (HR) practices and organizational support. This study, therefore, documents how age, career self-management and organizational career management factors interactively influence career satisfaction, integrating conservation of resources (COR) and socioemotional selectivity (SES) theories. Using time-lagged data collected from 364 Japanese employees, the results supported the predicted three-way interaction effects. For young employees, the positive relationship between career self-management and satisfaction was stronger when developmental HR practices and organizational support were high, and thus a synergistic effect was salient. For middle-aged employees, the positive relationship was stronger when these factors were low, and thus a compensatory effect was manifested. Interestingly, middle-aged employees who perceived a lack of developmental practices or support showed marked improvements in career satisfaction by engaging in career self-management behaviors. We discuss the changing nature of career management strategies across an individual’s lifespan from both vocational and managerial viewpoints.
The purpose of this study was to examine the interrelationships among top management leadership, organizational culture and human resource (HR) practices, and their associative effects on ...organizational performance. Based on the theory of organizational learning, we developed and tested two different causal models: (1) a feed-forward learning flow model in which supportive leadership by top management would create a community culture and HR practices within organizations; and (2) a feedback learning flow model in which a community culture would support the practice of supportive leadership by top management and HR practices within a firm. Our structural equation modelling (SEM) results for a sample of 225 Japanese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Japan supported the second model, in which the dominance of a community culture within the firm is an antecedent of top management's supportive leadership, which in turn necessitates a performance-based appraisal practice and eventually leads to better organizational performance in terms of objective indicators of turnover and absenteeism rates and workforce productivity. The findings are used to discuss the role of top management leadership in a particular organizational culture from the organizational learning perspective. Limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it empirically examines two theory-based models of applicants’ job search developed from planned happenstance theory (PHT) and theory of planned ...behavior (TPB). Second, it tests the cross-cultural compatibility of these models in Japan and Korea.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors tested two theory-based job search models, PHT model and TPB model based on samples of college students from Japan (n=175) and Korea (n=172).
Findings
The results indicated that the TPB model was a significantly better fitting to the data than the PHT model. Moreover, a multi-group test of the TPB model demonstrated that the TPB model was invariant between the Japanese and the Korean samples.
Originality/value
Although there had been an important question among job search literatures regarding how important the planned behavior in the job search processes would be, the study gave an empirical support to the TPB job search model in contrast to the PHT model. Another contribution is that the study tested the Western-driven theories using Asian samples from Japan and Korea, constituting an important benchmark for further studies that attempt to test the generalizability of the TPB model, particularly in countries/areas that employ different employment systems.
Using the longitudinal survey data of newcomers working for Japanese firms, this study demonstrates that the socialization tactics used by Japanese firms were positively related to the degree of ...socialization of newcomers, which eventually correlated positively with the time-series differences in organizational commitment and achievement motivation from the first year (T1) to the second year (T2) of their organizational entry, and negatively with the longitudinal change in turnover intention from T1 to T2. In addition, the results show that the newcomers' attitudes toward their pre-entry job search efforts, as with their entry (T1), had a negative influence on the change in value commitment from T1 to T2, indicating that those who rated their past job search activities as successful tended, as of their entry into the organization, to diminish their level of acceptance of their organization's values over a year. Findings are used to discuss how firms can effectively manage their entry-level employees to facilitate their adjustment and retention.
This paper attempts to document how employees' perceptions of organizations' human resource management (HRM) practices influence their work behavior and outcomes, including the level of turnover ...intentions and job quality improvement, in a Japanese organizational and management context. In particular, an examination was made to clarify the mediating role of person-environment (P-E) fit and multiple aspects of work commitment to reach possible explanations of the relationships between perceived HRM practices and employees' behavioral outcomes, following recent work that studied the above linkages. The results of structural equation modeling using a sample of 1052 healthcare service employees in Japan provided basic support for the idea that the effects of HRM practices and employees' behavioral outcomes are neither direct nor unconditional. Moreover, employees' evaluations of their fit and commitment to their organizations were found to be the important mediators of the relationships between perceived HRM practices, while their evaluations of their fit to and involvement in their jobs were not. The findings are used to discuss why the specific forms of P-E fit and work commitment appear salient in Japanese organizations. The generalizability of the findings and the limitations of the study are discussed.
PDF
