Insight to Impact: The Effect of Protean Career Attitude on Employability Perceptions of IT Professionals

Abstract

In the contemporary career-scape, protean career attitude is considered as an innovative approach of employees to channel their aspirations independently and to explore their future career prospects on their own. The accelerating rate of change in the nature and types of work necessitates the development of a protean attitude, which in turn will have an impact on the employability perceptions of employees. This study postulates that protean career attitude positively influences internal and external dimensions of employability, and this influence is mediated by career insight, i.e., greater goal clarity and deeper understanding of one's skills and interest. The proposed hypotheses were tested among software engineers employed in the Information Technology (IT) industry and the results indicated that protean attitude predicted both internal employability and external employability, and career insight partially mediates the associations. The study further discusses the importance of employeecentric work culture to retain protean talents.

The role of perceived employability in the relationship between protean career attitude and career success

“…These authors argued that a unidimensional picture of perceived employability does not cover the full gamut of employment opportunities that the individual might consider. Indeed, the two forms of employability entail different predictors, outcomes and processes (Nimmi et al, 2020;Vargas et al, 2018). Therefore, the present study distinguished between perceived external and internal employability to test their distinct relationships with academic career success.…”

“…Indeed, studies have shed light on the importance of a protean career attitude for career development and success (Bester, 2019;Cortellazzo et al, 2020;Hall et al, 2018;Lim et al, 2021;Sultana & Malik, 2019). Protean career attitude has been found to be associated with several career outcomes, such as higher perceived employability (Nimmi et al, 2020), greater career satisfaction (Herrmann et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2015) and more career success (Hall et al, 2018;Rodrigues et al, 2019). Tee and Chan's (2016) research on Malaysian academics' career models supported the positive correlation between protean career attitude and career success in academia.…”

“…Perceived employability has been conceptualized as having two related componentsexternal and internal employability. Although the distinction between external and internal employability has been widely discussed from a theoretical standpoint (Nimmi et al, 2020;Rothwell & Arnold, 2005), few empirical studies have assessed perceived employability in terms of its two components. This is despite some researchers (Forrier et al, 2018;Nelissen et al, 2017;Vanhercke et al, 2014) stating that distinguishing external and internal labour market percepitons is an important focus in employability research.…”

“…Prior research has demonstrated that protean individuals are more open to change and are actively engaged in networking activities; therefore, they can be expected to have greater exposure to the career opportunities inside and outside of their organization (De Vos & Soens, 2008;Guilbert et al, 2018). Moreover, protean attitudes are likely to lead people to seek out and build new skills, scan employment opportunities across the industry and thrive in an unstable working environment (Hall et al, 2018;Li, 2018;Nimmi et al, 2020). This implies that protean individuals aspire to be more employable by pursuing careers both inside and outside of their organization.…”

“…Protean individuals have a preference to build networks both inside and outside of the organization, which grants them access to valuable social resources and, in turn, greater career success (Hirschi et al, 2017;Li, 2018). Also, attitudes such as flexibility, adaptability and proactiveness that are possessed by protean individuals facilitate their external and internal marketability, thereby forging better career prospects (Clarke, 2017;Nimmi et al, 2020;Tee et al, 2019). These attitudes are also evident in the academic work context.…”