The Antecedent Role of Proactive Personality in Career Self-Management

Abstract

The Antecedent Role of Proactive Personality in Career Self-Management Lulu Yu (bio), Weiqiao Fan (bio), Zhiwei Wang (bio), Xiaofang Wang (bio), and Chuan Yu (bio) After the implementation of the Chinese Higher Education Enrollment Policy in 1999, the Ministry of Chinese Education (2017) reported that the number of undergraduates had increased dramatically, up to nearly 8 million in 2018. Meanwhile, because of global competition, technological advances, and job insecurity, personal career development for these students has become more and more sophisticated and even beyond their understanding (Inkson, 2004). This may result in a series of adaptation problems for undergraduates in their career development, such as low awareness of the need to seek professional and career information and lack of career goals. Wang (2018) reported that only 49% of 2017 undergraduates were hired into jobs that matched their majors, only 67% were satisfied with their jobs, and around 33% left their positions within 6 months. A survey in 2010 showed that only 58% of employers were satisfied with the overall performance of those employees who had graduated from universities within the preceding 5 years (Department of Employment Promotion, 2011). Accordingly, it is of great importance to increase the level of career self-management among Chinese undergraduates so that they can improve their career development and adaptation. According to the career self-management model (Lent & Brown, 2013), two factors should be important predictors of undergraduates' career goals: personality traits and social cognitive variables. Personality traits are the relatively stable tendencies that coordinate behavioral performance and regulate emotions; these traits influence undergraduates' career exploration. Social cognitive variables include such attributes as sense of self-efficacy, outcome expectation, and career goal. Self-efficacy refers to the belief about one's own ability to manage and address specific tasks and unusual challenges, which is relevant in the process of career exploration and decision making. Outcome expectation involves the anticipated consequences of performing those behaviors that are seen as leading to a specific result. Career goal refers to an individual's career exploratory plans and intentions to perform a particular behavior in their career development. The career selfmanagement model has been empirically supported in the literature. For example, Lent et al. (2016) reported that the personality trait of conscientiousness has direct effects on career self-efficacy and goals and indirect effects on career outcome expectations. Proactive personality, a type of personality disposed toward proactive behavior, is regarded as having a relatively stable tendency to affect individuals' activities (Bateman & Crant, 1993). It is empirically supported to predict work performance, innovative behaviors, and job satisfaction (Zhang & Yang, 2017). A sample of international students showed that their proactive behaviors, particularly [End Page 351] information-seeking behaviors, were positively linked to their communication satisfaction with instructors and to their school-life satisfaction (Cho & Lee, 2016). The results from a sample of 180 full-time employees and their supervisors over 2 years indicated that proactive personality was related to career initiative, which in turn had a positive relationship to career progression (salary growth and the number of promotions during the previous 2 years) and career satisfaction (Seibert et al., 2001). Some researchers have reported that those people with higher levels of proactive disposition are more conscientious (Major et al., 2006) and that proactive personality is related to career self-efficacy in career exploration (Qu et al., 2015; Shang & Gan, 2009). In other words, undergraduates who have a stronger sense of responsibility might willingly develop much more selfefficacy or outcome expectations, which in turn may lead to more specific goals in their career development. Few studies have been designed to examine the association among personality variables (e.g., proactive disposition) and career goal intentions, particularly in Chinese undergraduates. Our aim for this study was to verify the antecedent role of proactive personality in terms of the career self-management model among a sample of Chinese undergraduate students. We hypothesized that proactive personality would have effects on career goal via career self-efficacy and outcome expectation. This may provide not only some new evidence for the relationship between personality traits and career goal intentions, but also a new perspective for helping undergraduates develop their career interests and plans and carry out career...