The Mixed Role of Career Adaptability in Turnover Intention: A Multi-Path Moderated Mediation Model

Abstract

Extant empirical research tends to focus on the negative effect of career adaptability on turnover intention, which is often explained by career construction and social exchange theories. This study aims to enrich and challenge existing understanding of this important relationship based on job embeddedness and boundaryless careers perspectives. A multi-path mediation model (career satisfaction, affective commitment, job embeddedness, internal employability and external employability as mediators) integrating the above perspectives was tested using a sample of 202 Chinese employees in a three-wave survey study. The results show that when these mediators are put together, affective commitment serves as a significant mediator for the negative indirect effect from career adaptability to turnover intention, yielding support for the social exchange perspective. Importantly, this study reveals a novel positive indirect effect from career adaptability to turnover intention through the mediation of external employability, which is more salient when employees perceive more external opportunities. In addition, the mediation role of job embeddedness is only significant when employees perceive few external opportunities. These findings reveal a more comprehensive and dynamic view for the mixed role of career adaptability in employee turnover intention, which carries important implications for career adaptability and career mobility research.