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JournalofOccupational and Organizational Psychology (2009), 82. 233-251 2009 The BritishPsychological Society

233

TheBritishPsychologicalSociety

www.bpsjournals.co.uk

t ihe factoirs that piroinnioteoneimtatDOinisTheDompactof

ecTployabDoty ctuiltyiires caireeir satosfactoomio amidl irole

Auk je N auta'* , Annelies van Vianen^ Beatrice vanderHe i jden^Karen van Dam * and Marja W illemsen^'UniversityofAmsterdam and RandstadHRSolutions, Am sterdam ,The Netherlands

^UniversityofAmsterdam, Am sterdam,TheNe therlands^Maastricht Schoolof Management, Open UniversityofThe Netherlands,andUniversityofTwente,TheNe therlands

^Tilburg U niversity, Tilbu rg,TheN etherlands^TNO Qual i tyofLife Work and Employment, Hoofddorp,TheNetherlands

This study among 702 Dutch employees workingin thehealth care and welfare sectorexamined individual and organizational facto rs th at are related to wo rk e r s 'employabil i ty orientation andturn ove r in tent ion. Additionally, pushandpull motiveswere examinedof employees whoaimed to leave their job. Results indicated thatastrong employability culture adds extra variance over and above individual factors suchas career satisfactionandrole breadth self-efficacy in theex planationof employabil i tyorientation , turnover intention, and push m otivesofemployeeswhoaimtoleave theirjob.Tha t is, employabil i ty culture ispositively relatedtoem ployabi li ty or ientation ,butnegatively relatedtoturnover intention andtopush motivesofthose w ho aimtoleave.Pull motivesofemployeeswhowan tto leaveareexplainedby individual factors only,suchas career dissatisfaction and role breadth self-efficacy,but not bye mployabil i tyculture. These findings suggest that organizations that need to adapt to changingenvironments should implem ent a strong employabil i ty cu lture, because suchacul turestimulates employabil i ty orientations among their employees while simultaneouslydecreasing turnover intentions.

Employability is a critical requirement both for organizations that need to competein a changing environment and for individuals who aim for career success

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34 Aukje Nautaetal(Fgate, Kinicki, Ashforth, 2004; Van der Heijde Van der Heijden, 206).Employability refers to the 'continuous fulfilling, acquiring, or creating of work throughthe optimal use of one's competences' (Van der Heijde Vander Heijden, 2006,p.453).Highly employable workers enable organizations to meet fluctuating demands for newproducts and services. Changes in organizational structure, technology, and jobassignments require workers to adopt new roles, modify jexisting work behaviour^ andacquire new skills (Chan, 2000; Pulakos, Arad, Donovan, Plamon'don, 2000).Employees' openness to develop themselves and to adapt to changing workrequirements has been referred to as emp loyability orientation which has beenshown to be an important precursor of actual employability (Van Dam,2003,2004).Organizations may try to stimulate their workers' employability orientation bycreating a culture that supports individual development (Schneider, Brief Guzzo,1996). For example, KPN, a large Dutch telecom company tried to increase theemployability orientation of their personnel by implementing an 'employabilitywebsite' through which their employees could spend a special budget on training andeducation, career guidance, and mobility workshops.Bydping so, they hoped that theiremployees would be more prepared for change, because this company is constantlychanging and simultaneously needs to downsize and keep their valuable employeescom mitted to the organization (Nauta, 2007; SjoUema, 2007). jResearch has show n that employees react m ore positiyely to organizational changeswhen they perceive the culture to be development oriented (Tierney, 19S>9;Van Dam,Oreg, Schyns, 2008). However, organizations face a dilemma between stimulatingworkers' employability orientation on the one hand,andjretaining their ehiployees onthe other hand (Legge, 1995). EmployabUity oriented workers niay easily identifyand anticipate career opportunities, inside and outside the organization '(McQuaidLindsay, 2005). Stimulating employability orientation may thus result in increasedturnover, thereby threatening the firm's flexibility and continuity. Efforts to preventturnover through attractive human resources practices may at the| sam time loweremployees' employability orientation (Ng, Butts, Vandenberg, Dejoy, Wilson, 2006;Sturges, Conway, Guest, Liefooghe, 2005; Van Dam, 2005). ' |

Given thisdilemma, an important questionis towhat ex tent em ployees' employabilityorientation can be advanced in a way that is beneficial for both individuals andorganizations. Although the dilemma betweenflexibilityiand turnover prevention hasreceived some attention in the 1990s (see Legge, 1995), the simiiltaneiaus effect ofemployability culture on em ployability orientation and turnover intentions has no t'beeninvestigated before. Moreover, most previous studies have used an individual differenceframework when addressing employability and employability orientation (Bezuijen,2005;Fgateet al. 2004; McArdle,W aters,Briscoe, Hall,'2007;VanDam,2004;VanderVelde Vanden Berg, 2003). Less attention has been paid to situational determinants ofemployability and employability orientation, such as employability culture. ,The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationshijjs oforganizations' employability culture with workers' employability orientatiori andturnover intention, in addition to relationships with individual characteristics (i.e.career satisfaction and role breadth self-efficacy).Byincorporating eniployability cultureinto the research model, this study extends previous research that examined individualantecedents of employability orien tation (e.g. Cordery, Sevastos, Mueller, F|arker,

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mployab ility culture 35The study was conducted within the Dutch health care and welfare sector. In thissector, large personnel shortages are expected in the near future. Van Essen,Paardekooper, Talma, and Van der Windt (2006) write that there were21job vacanciesper 1,000 jobs in 2006, compared with 11 vacancies per 1,000 jobs in 2005, and thenumber of job vacancies is still increasing. The workforce in this sector is ageing rapidly,

not only because the Dutch labour force asawhole is ageing, but also because the sectorhas recently welcomed many women returning to work, after taking care of theirchildren. These women often work part-time, which may decrease their employability(72 of all employees in health and care work part-time, vs. 37 in the totalDutch working population). Both employees and employers indicate lacks of careerdevelopm ent opportunities in the sector. Because of the increasing personnel shortages,the ageing and mainly part-time working w orkforce, and the lack of career developmen tpractices, it is of utmost importance to enhance employability and prevent turnoverin this sector.

Three perspectives on employabilityEmployability has been in the spotlight since the 1990s (Forrier Sels, 2003), but thehistorical antecedents of the current debate can be traced back almost a century(see Gazier, 1998; McQuaid & Lindsay, 2005). Employability has been conceptualizedfrom three different perspectives, the economic-social, the individual, and theorganizational (Van Dam, Van der Heijden, & Schyns, 2006).Within the economic-social perspective, employability refers to the ability ofdifferent categories of the labour force to gain and maintain employm ent (Finn, 2000).This perspective distinguishes between the employable and the unemployable(McQuaid & Lindsay, 2005), a distinction that is closely related to governmentalinterventions aimed at encouraging unemployed people to enter the labour market(Forrier & Sels, 2003). Over time, these interventions have been targeted at differentgroups, ranging from the physically and mentally disadvantaged people in the 1960s,women in the 1970s, to young drop-outs and minorities in the current age.

Since the 1990s, an individual perspective on employability has emerged, shiningattention from the underprivileged unemployed to the entire population. Careers haveincreasingly become boundaryless. To date, more boundaries (e.g. occupational,departmental, and organizational) are crossed in comparison with earlier and morepredictab le hierarchical careers (DeFillippi & Arthur, 1996; Gunz, Evans, & Jalland,2000). Employees need to be focused on the ir adaptability for attaining a job within oroutside their organization. As such, employability has been considered an alternative tojob security (Forrier & Sels, 2003). Definitions of employability within the individualperspective are abundant (see Forrier Sels,2003; McArdleetal. 2007; McQuaid &Lindsay, 2005; Rothwell & Arnold, 2007), emphasizing career aspects such asadaptability (Fgateet al., 2004), mobility (Van Dam, 2005), career development (Sterns Dorsett, 1994), occupa tional expe rtise (Van der Heijde Vander Heijden, 2006), andpersonal development and lifelong learning (Bezuijen, 2005; Hillage & Pollard, 1998;Rothwell Arnold, 2007).

In addition to the economic-social and individual perspectives, employability hasbeen addressed from an organizational perspective, where employability has been

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236 Aukje Nautaetal.become more adaptive was to increase the workers' employability through' thepossession of broader skills, together w ith a willingness to change freely betw een tasks(Guest, 1987). From an organizational perspective, employability thus| represents an HRpractice to optimize the deployment ofstaff |The present study addresses employability from aii organizational perspective.We focus on how organizations can increase their workers' employbilityi orientation,that is, their openness to adapt to changing work requirements through develcjpingflexible and broader skills and a readiness to change tasks and jobs (Van Dam, 2004).Employability-oriented workers are likely to have or develop up-to-date knowledge andskills. This is especially relevant in the bealth and care| sector, with itsj continuoustechnological, medical, and market developments. However, employability-orientedworkers might focus m ore on their career than on the organization (Fgate-ei a/., 2004;McArdle e tal. 2007). As a consequence, intentions to leave the current employer andcontinue one's career in another work setting might develop accordingly. Van pam(2005) indeed found a positive relationship between eniployees' openriess towardsdifferent job changes and their turnover intention . , IEmployability from an organizational perspective means focusing on HR practicesthat may help organizations to manage the dilemma between havingflexibleand broadlyemployable workers on the one hand and turnover prevention onthe'other hand. Moreinsight into this dilemma will be gained by simultaneously examining the iridividual andorganizational antecedents of employability orientation and turnover intentions.

ntecedents ofemploy bilityorient tion ndturnover intentionsWhat determines whether individuals are oriented towards employability and whetherthey intend to leave their job or even the organization? And if they want to leave, whatdetermines their motives for leaving? Van Vianen, Feij, Krausz, and Taris (2004)distinguished between two motives for turnover; pushi and pull. Pushmotives arerelated to dissatisfaction with one's current work situation, whereas pull niotives referto available opportunities to improve one's career oppo rtunities on the external labourmarket. i 'There is extensive evidence that job dissatisfaction causes intended and actual jobchanges (Griffeth, Hom, Gaertner, 2000; Maertz Campion, 1998), jwhereas jobsatisfaction causes employees to be less oriented towards employability and mobility(Lee, Carswell, Allen, 2000; Van Dam, 2005). Given the relevance of developm entfor workers' careers, an even stronger predictor of employability orientation andturnover intentions, compared withjobsatisfaction,maybe peoples'c reersatisfaction.Career satisfaction refers to individuals' perceptions' of their lup-toj-date careeraccom plishments and prospec ts for future advancem ent (Gattiker LaiVood, 1986;Judge, Cable, Boudreau, Bretz, 1995). In case of career dissatisfaction, employeesmay be strongly inclined to search for possible career improvements.) iThere may also be positive factors that initiate people s' job ch|ange orientations.People select those actions or activities that they feel they are capable of (e.g. Bandura,1986; Deci Ryan, 2000). People may feel self-confident regarding specificj taskdomains, which is the typical task-related conceptualizaticjn of self-efcacy jCe.g. WoodBandura, 1989). Yet, within the con text of work ers' flexibility , Parker (1998; Parker,

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mployabi l i ty cul ture 3 7(Parker, 1998,p.835).Employees who have a high role breadth self-efficacy are likely tobe oriented towards role or job changes. Research has shown that employees with ahigh role breadth self-efficacy are more open to organizational changes (Van Dam, Oreg, Schyns, 2008), rep ort more learning and innovative behaviours (Van Dam Seijts,2007), and engage in more development activities (Bezuijen, 2005) compared withemployees with a low role bread th self-efficacy. Moreover, a high role breadth self-efficacy may decrease employees' interest in their current job, because they feel over-qualified and therefore start thinking about leaving their job.

In the present study, we examined the role of career satisfaction and role breadthself-efficacy for individuals' employability orientation and turnover intention.Furtherm ore, we investigated to what extent these individual antecedents w ere relatedto individuals' push motives (i.e. dissatisfaction with the current job) and pull motives(i.e.improving one's career opportunities) among those who aimed to leave their job.We hypothesized the following:Hypotiesis I: Ca reer satisfaction is negatively related to employability orie nta tion la ) andturn ove r intention b), as well as to push c),and pull motives d) of those w ho aim to leave.ypoth sis : Role breadth self-efficacy is positively related to emp loyability orie nta tion 2a)and turn ove r inten tion 2b), as we ll as to push 2c). and pull motives 2d) of those who aim t oleave.

Whether people are employabUity-oriented and/or intend to leave does not onlydepend on individual factors, but on situational factors as well. For example, Brown,Hesketh, and Williams (2003) argue that whether one intends to leave will also dependon the state of the external labour market, such as the demand for one's occupationand skills and the number of job openings. However, organizations cannot control theexternal labour market. Still, it is important for organizations to infiuence theemployability orientations and turnover intentions of their employees. Manyorganizations, especially larger ones, foster HR practices that focus on the internalmobility of their personnel, such as training and education, regular career interviewswith supervisors or HR advisors, and having a career centre for supporting employeeswho want to or have to change jobs (e.g. Heemskerk, Van der Wlk, Nauta, 2007).In this study, we focus on situational factors that can be controlled by organizations.Additionally, we will control for the infiuence of the state of the external labour market(Browne?a/., 2003).

Whatever policies organizations have, their success will depend upon the attitudesand behavioural patterns they foster. When employability policies are part of a soundemployability culture, employees will feel stimulated to orient themselves on theiremployability. Organizational culture is often described as the shared values, beliefs,assump tions, and pa tterns of behaviour within an organization (O'Reilly Chatman,1996).Organizational culture can guide behaviour and a ttitudes w ithin the organization(Schneider et al. 1996). Those organizations that succeed in implementing anemployability culture are likely to have employees with positive attitudes towards jobchanges. An employability culture represents the cognitive facet of organizationalculture Ostroff, 1993), because this facet (as opposed to the affective and instrumentalfacets of organizational culture) is concerned with peoples' involvement in workactivities, such as their personal grow th. Research has shown relationships between the

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23 8 Aukje Nauta etalBesides affecting employability orientation, an employability culture may also affectemployees' intention to leave their job. An organization with a strongly embeddedemployability culture stimulates employees to develop themselves] and grants themautonomy to learn and do new things, inside and outside their jobs. Owing to the manyopportunities for self development within one's current organization^ and the presence

of a challenging work environment, employees w ill perceive fewer push factors and willbe less inclined to search for oth erjobs,inside or outside the organization.Wethereforeexpect employability cultu re to be negatively related with turnover intention as well aswith peoples' push motives for changing theirjob.No specific relationship is expec tedbetween employability culture and pull motives, because these moti fes are particularlydictated by peoples' upward career ambitions and relate to opportunities outside Itheircurrent job or organization (Van Vianenetal. 2004). :Hypothesis 3: Emp loyability cultu re is positively related to employab ility orie nta tion 3a),but negatively related to t urn ov er inte ntio n 3b) and, fo r those w ho aim to leave, to, pushmotives 3c). ^

Figure summarizes the relationships that will be tested be tween career satisfaction,role breadth self-efficacy, and employability culture on the one hand, and em ployabilityorientation, turnover intention, and push and pull motives for those who want to leaveon the othe r hand (for reasons of parsimony, we have omitted the demographic variablesin Figure 1). The hypotheses as depicted in Figure 1 refiect main effects of individualfactors and employability culture on peoples' employability orientations. Interactionis^tmodels in organizational literature assume that the inter ction of the person and theenvironm ent influences human behaviour (Endler & Magnusson, 19,76; Lewin, 1935).We will therefore also explore possible interaction effects of employability cultureon the one hand and career satisfaction and role breadth self-efficacy on the otherhand, upon employability orientation and (motives for) turnover intention.

etho ;Sample and procedure ;Our sample comprised 702 employees (588 women and' 114 men) working in healthcare and welfare institutions, such as nursing homes, public assistance, youth care, daycare, mental health care, hospitals, ambulance transportation, care for the mentallydisabled, and domestic social services. They were all mem bers of a so-called Interneltpanel. The Internet panel company pre-selected a total of8 229 members that jwereregistered as peop le working in the health care and welfare sector (15 of the Dutch

Organizational factors Employability culture

Individual factors Career satisfaction

Employability orientation Turnover intention Push motivesPull motives

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mploy bility ulture 39labour force works in this sector). These8 229 panel members received an e-mail inwhich they were asked to fill out a questionnaire about their work and their career. total of 1,137 (13.82 ) panel members responded; 702 of them still worked in healthcare or welfare and had not recently (i.e. during the last year) changed their job.This latter group comprised the sample in the current study, because we were interestedin explaining employability orientation of employees who have been performing theirjobs for quite some time. Respondents' mean age was 35.4 years SD=10.56), meanorganizational tenure was6 44yearsCSD=6.06), and mean hours of employment peweek were 25.31 SD= 10.68). The latter is consistent with recent research on thelabour market in the Dutch healthcare and welfare sector, which shows that 72 of theemployees in this sector work part-time (Van Essen, Paardekooper, Talma, & Van derWindt, 2006); 31.6 of the participants held a bachelor or a master's degree, while68.4 had received lowerlevelsof professional education. Participants had an executivefunction in the area of care or welfare (70 ), a managem ent position (2 ), a staffposition (12 ), or other types of jobs (16 ).

The survey contained measures for perceived employability culture of theorganization, career satisfaction, role breadth self-efficacy, employability orientation,turnover intention, push and pull motives, and demographic characteristics.Additionally, we included items on respondents' labour market perceptions becausepeople's turnover intentions may also be affected by their perceptions of the labourmarket, that is, whether they think that finding another job will be difficult. Unlessotherw ise indicated, respondents could respond on a five-p oint scale, ranging from'strongly disagree' (1) to 'strongly agree' (5).Employability culture was measured with eight items that were developed for

the purpose of the present study. Items are: 'My organization encourages people tochange their jobs on a regular basis'; 'My organization wants employees to be flexible';'My organization encourages employees to broaden their skills'; 'Experimenting issupported in this organization'; 'The many rules and regulations in this organizationprevent people from trying out new th ings' (reverse-scored); My organization givesemployees the opportun ity to perform very different activities'; 'In my organization it isperceived as normal that employees stay in the same job for years and years' (reverse-scored); and 'In my organization it is perceived as normal that employees change theirjob on a regular base'. Cronbach's a was .73.Careersatisfactionwas measured with one item: I am satisfied with my career'.

The scale anchors ranged from 'not at all' (1) to 'very much' (5).Rolebreadthself-efficacywas measured with six items derived from the role breadthself-efficacy scale (Parker, 1998). These items were presented after a general question,asking: 'How confident would you feel if you were asked to perform the following task?'An example item is: 'Making suggestions to management about ways to improve thesection's work pro ced ure s'. The response scale ranged from 'not at all confident' (1), to'very confident' (5). Cronbach's a was .85.Employability orientation was measured by means of four items dealing withrespondents' receptivity towards employability within their current organization (VanDam, 2004). An example item is: 'If the organization w ould offer me an opportun ity to

obtain new work experiences, I would take it'. Cronbach's a was .82.Turnover intention was measured with one item: How likely is it that you will

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4 ukje Nauta talPush and pull motives were measured by asking respondents iwith:a turnover

intention to indicate what motives they would have to change their job in the near,future. We derived these measures from a recent study dn job employability by Van:the

conditions.,my current,

Vianen et al (2004). Push motives were measured with four items, referring toamount of dissatisfaction with the content of the job and the workAn example item is: 'I would change my job because of dissatisfaction withjob'.Cronbach s a was .81. Pull motives were measured jsvith two items, ireferring topossible promotion and pay improvement. The two items were: I would I change my:job because it would be an opportunity to increase my pay'i and 'I would change m> job:because it would be an opportunity to improve my position'. Cronbach's a was .8|0. I

Perceived state of the labour market was measured with three items by askingrespondents to what extent they thought it would be difficult to find another job in theirprofession, their sector, and their region. The response scale ranged from 'not at all|difficult' (1), to 'very difficult' (5). Cronbach'sawas .91. j : |

Demographic characteristics Each respondent indicated his or her age (in years),tenure (in years), gender (female = 0, male = 1), job type (an executive function in;the area of care or welfare (nurse, physician), management, staff, and 'other), andeducation (lower education = 0, higher education = 1 ) . | I | |

esultsIt was first tested whether demographic characteristics were related to the dependentvariables. Gender, age, educational level, tenure, and hours of work, but nbt job type,;were significantly related to one or more of the dependent variables. Except job type;all demographic variables were included as control variables in subsequent analyses]Table 1 displays the means, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients among thevariables uhder study. ' ; j ;

Generally, the relationships among the study variables were modest;. We neverthelessexamined whether the scales that showed intercorrelations higheir than .20 weredifferent constructs. The overall fit of the measurement model to the data was performedwith AMOS-5 (Arbuckle, 2003). Furthermore, the seyen-factor niodel (includingemployability culture, career satisfaction, role breadth self-efficacy, employabilityorientation, turnover intention, push motives, and pull motives) was compared with one-factor model (including all scale items). The seven-factor model yielded a significantlybetter fit to the data (x^ = 435.02,p = .00,df =271, CFI = .91, IFI = .91, TLI = .89,RMSEA = .0546) than the one-factor solution (x^ = 1,662.05, p = .00, df = 299,CFI = .25, IFI = .26, TLI = .18, RMSEA = .1499). Thus, the data presented statisticalsupport for treating the scales as separate constructs. ;

ypoth s s t sting :The hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analyseis. We conductedfour analyses, with employability orientation, turnover intention, push motives, and pullmotives as the dependent variables, respectively. The latter two regression analysesonly concerned respondents who aimed to leave their: job (A = 204). The demo-

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mployability culture 241

3-So

C

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242 Aukje Nauta et a l.(career satisfaction X employability culture, androlebreadth self-efficacy X eniployabilityculture) were entered in the third step of the regression equation. Iri order to reducethe impact of multicollinearity, all independent variables in the equations were centred.Thereafter, the product terms were computed. ostho analyses to estimate the statisticalpower ofthe regressions showed that the statistical pow er of all equations was 1.0.

Ascan be seen in Table 2, for three out of four regression equations the firs t stepjwassignificant, indicating that some of the demographic variables were significantly relatedto employability orientation, turnover intentions, andpu imotives.

Table 2 .Regression of em ployabili ty or ienta t ion, turno ver intention , push m otivesi and pull motives o ndemographic variables, perceived state of the labour market, employability culture, career satisfaction,and role breadth self-efficacy \

Step 1Gender*^AgeEducationTenureHours workedR^changeF changeStep 2

Perceived state of the labour marketEmployability culture (EC)Career satisfaction (CS)Role breadth self-efficacy (RS)p} changeF changeStep 3

CSxECRSxECR^ changeF change

Full-model R^Full-model F

Employabilityor ientat ion^0.05

- 0 . 0 6- 0 . 0 5- 0 . 1 3 * *

0.01.04

4.86**

0.09*0.10*- 0 . 1 6 * *

0.30**.13

24.51**

0.08*0.02

.012.05

.1811.87**

1Turnoverin ten t ion '0.03

- 0 . 1 4 * *0.11**

- 0 . 1 0 *- 0 . 0 9 *

.0811.42**

0.05- 0 . 8 *- 0 . 3 2 * *- 0 . 0 1.1325.05**'- 0 . 0 3- 0 . 0 2.000.39.21I5. l |3**

Pushmotives'"0.07

- 0 . 2 9 * * i0.080.14 [0.17*

.041.39 :

1 10.02- 0.29**

- 0.29**0.09

.2011.88**

- 0 . 0 70.05

.01 .0.82:-25 :5 24 :

u l lmotivesO il9 * *-o l 4 1o o7- o o 6- o ; o 2i062 33 *

1

- o o 3-o j o i- 0 1 3 7 * *0I23**il 7969**1 1

1- 0 I 0 2oloiioo01031234I74**1

Note, weightsconc ern the equations in step 3, including all independe nt variables. Statistical po vve rofall equ ation s is 1.0. ' N = 624' ' N = I 7 8 . Women = 0, men = 1 .*Lower education = 0, higher education = I. ' ,*p < .05; **p < .01 (two-tailed).

The second step was meant to test the hypotheses and to establish w hether the studyvariables could explain additional variance in the dependent variables. Hypotheses

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Em p lo ya b i l it y cu l tu re 243pull motives. Employees who were satisfied with their career appeared to be lessoriented towards intra-organizational job changes and had a lower turnover intention.Those employees who aimed to leave their job reported stronger push and pull motivesfor an eventual job change if they were less satisfied with their career as com pared withthose who were satisfied. These results support Hypotheses la-Id.

Hypotheses 2a-2d predicted positive relationships betw een employees role breadthself-efficacy and the dim ensions of employability orientation. Role breadth self-efficacyshowed positive relationships with employability orientation and pull motives, but norelationship with turnover intention and push motives. Therefore, the results supportedHypotheses 2a and 2d, but not H ypotheses 2b and 2c.According to Hypotheses 3a-3c, employability culture would be positively relatedto employability orientation, but negatively related to turnover intention and pushmotives. In support of these hypotheses, the results showed a significant positiverelationship w ith employability orien tation, and significant negative relationships w ithturnover intention and push motives. No relationship was found with pull motives.Hypotheses 3a-3c were supported.The third step of the regression equation, including the interaction terms, could notexplain additional variance in the criterion variables. Furthermore, the beta weights ofthe full regression m odel (see Table 2) show that only one of the eight interactions wassignificant and that this effect was rather modest.Employability orientation was operationalized as individuals receptivity towardsemployability wi thin their current organization. Yet, employability orientation mayalso refiect a general positive attitude towards external mobility. As such it may be relatedto turnover intentions and push and pull motives as well. We explored this optionin additional regression analyses. Turnover intention, push motives, and pull motives,respectively, were regressed on the control variables (step 1), employability orien-tation (step 2), and perceived state of the labour market, employability culture, careersatisfaction, and role breadth self-efficacy (final step). Employability orientationwas significantly related to turnover intentions ( = 0.12, (6 l3 ) = 3.07, p

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24 4 Aukje Nauta et al

Organizational factor Empioyability culture

Individual factor Career s atisfaction

Push motives

XIndividual factor Role breadth self efficacyi

Employability orientation

ull motives

imingigure 2 Antecedents of push and pull motives of employees aiming to leave their jobl

Discuss ion Stimulating workers' employability orientation is advantageous for both organizationaland employee outcom es (Van der Heijde & Van der Heijlen, 2006). Recent research^(Van Dam, 2005) however suggests that employees w ho are satisfied with their current'career situation are less oriented towards their b roader employability and less likely tomake any career steps. Hence, organizations and their employees might run the risk of'experience concentration', a situation in wh ich it is difficult to assign other, new tasksto employees, while the circumstances necessitate this. This is a serious problem formany organizations, because rapid (technological) changes and high competjition ask forchanging competencies of firms and their employees, while at the same tirne the halflife' of these competencies is becoming shorter (Van der Heijden, 2005), Althoughsatisfaction is an important value in itself, employees' career inactivity due to theirsatisfaction can sometimes trap them, namely in situations| herechangeisneeded andemployees do not have the skills or attitudes to meet the changing demands. |An important question is therefore how organizations can stimulate their employeesto orient themselves towards their employability, even when they are currently hpp>|with their job and career. The objective of this study w asjto address this tiheoreticall)and practically relevant question, >The results indicated that, com parable to previous studies (Griffeth etal. 2000; Leeet al 2000; Maertz & Campion, 1998; Van Dam, 2005), career satisfaction wasnegatively related to employability orientation and turnover intention. Employees whowere satisfied with their career felt less urge to change their current -work situation' andperform different tasks or to move to another job within or outside their organizatiorithan employees who rep orted lower career satisfaction. Those employees who aimed toleave their job were less sensitive to push and pull motives if they w,ere satisfied withtheir career. The latter suggests that satisfied employees} experience less urgency toleave, and w ill therefore be less likely to actually make; a career step despite theirturnover intention, compared with less satisfied emplJDyees, It should be noted;

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m p l o y a b i l it y c u l t u r e 45Besides the negative role of career satisfaction, a s predicted, role breadth self-efficacyhadapositiveand strong relationship with employability orientation, and with pullmotivesforthosewhoaimedtoleave their job. Employees withahigher role breadthself-efficacy were more opento job and task changes within the organizationandperceived more pull motivesfora job change, compared with employees withalower

role breadth self-efficacy. Ourfindings supportthe results from previous studies thathave shown positive relationships of role breadth self-efficacy with flexib le roleorientations (Parker, 2000), openness to organizational changes(Van Dam,Oreg,Schyns, 2008), learning and innovative behaviours (Van Dam Seijts, 2007),andengagement in development activities (Bezuijen, 2005). However, liighand low self-efficacy employees did not differ in their intention to leave their job or in theirperceptionofpush motives.Together, these outcomes indicate that organizations could focus upon enhan-cing employees' role breadth self-efficacy in order to increase their employability,and to guarantee organizational flexibility, without running the risk of losing these

employees to another company. Moreover, by investing in their role breadth self-efficacy, organizations will stimulate their employeestofocusonpositive motivesfordeveloping their employability, namely self-development. Especially in largeorganizations that have suffered from downsizing operations in their recent past,many employees areenabledto be actively involved in employability enhancementwhen organizations really investinfostering their role breadth self-efficacy,forexampleby means of learning opportunities on-the-job, and in the context of trainingand education.Finally, employability culture appeared to be associated with employabilityorientation, turnover intention,and, forthose aimingtoleave their job, push motives.The negative relationshipsof employability culture with turnover intentionandpushmotives indicate thataclimate that fosters individual developmentandemployabilitydecreases employees' intentions to leave theirj o b , ortheir negative m otives in case theyhad already decidedtoleave. This suggests that employeeswholeaveanorganizationwithastrong employability culturearelikelyto begood ambassadorsoftheir formerorganization, which mayhelpto attract new employees or customers.The findingsalso showed a positive but modest relationship between employability cultureandemployability orientation, suggesting that such a culture stimulates employees toengageintask changesanddevelopment opportunities.Our findings match with the existing literature that demonstrates how (career)satisfaction maydecrease orientations towards em ployability and mobility (Griffethetal. 2000; Leeetal 2000; Maertz Campion, 1998;VanDam, 2005), whereas rolebreadth self-efficacy actually increases such orientations (Bezuijen, 2005; Parker, 2000;VanDam,Oreg, Schyns, 2008;Van Dam Seijts, 2007). Moreover, they add tothe literature by demonstrating the positive impact of employability culture uponemployability o rientation. In previous research, employability issometimes perceived asa (necessary) human resource strategyto demonstrate that 'lifetime employment'hastobereplacedby 'lifetime employability' and a new,more balanced andunattachedpsychological contract, in order to meet continuously changing job and marketdemands (e.g. Herriot, 2 0 0 1 ; Janssens , Sels, VandenBrande,2003;Rousseau, 2004).Our findings show that organizationscanimplement suchastrategyin apositive way,namely,byrealizingan employability culture,inwhichit isperceived as normalto

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246 Aukje Nauta et alimitations and recom men dations for further research The present study has some limitations. Firstly, all data have been collected usingsurveys opening up the possibility of response set consistencies. Since all data havebeen gathered from one and the same source, a so-called 'common-method;bias' mightexist (Doty & Glick, 1998;Podsakoff MacKenzie, Lee, Podsakoff 2003). Recently

however, several authors have noted that this methodological problem is oftenoverstated, especially with regard to self-report survey studies (e.g. Lindell| Whitney,2001 ;Spector, 2006). In this study, only7out of 64 correlations (11%) were liigher than,or equal to the absolute value of .30 (Spector, 2006), whereas 31 correlations werelower than, or equal to the absolute value of .10, suggesting that there were far rriorecorrela tions close to zero than significant and strong. Future research using employees'self-assessments and supervisor assessments is advocated becauseisupervisors andemployees have been found to differ regarding facets of employability and developnientissues (Bezuijen,2005;Van der Heijden, 2000; Van der Heijde Vander Heijden, 20b6).Secondly, all data have been collected at one point in time, thatis,the study is cross-sectional. Our study focused on peoples' attitudes rather than actual behayiours, thusfurther research is needed to address the issues of behavioural causality. Research usingmulti-wave designs can provide more specific information about the stabilityiand changeof the variables, and about cross-lagged (i.e. over time) relationships (De Lange, 2005;:Taris & Kompier, 2003). i | 'Thirdly, our concept of employability orientation is a limited operationalizationthat touches upon the workers' employability or career potential. Future research canbenefit from more elaborate conceptualizations, not only of how employees orient'themselves towards employability, but also of the concept of employability itself(see e.g. Forrier & Sels,2003;Fgate et al.,2004; Rothwell & Arnol'd, 2007; Van derHeijde Van der Heijden, 2006). j | 'Fourthly, our measure of turnover intention was somewhat ambiguous, referring toeither an intended internal job change or an intended external job change. Futureresearch should distinguish between two or even three types of turnover intention(intention to leave one's job but not the organization, intention to leave one'sorganization but not the sector, and intention to leave the sector). This willishow moreclearly the factors that have differential impacts upon employability orientation, internalturnover intention, and external turnover intention. ' IA fifth limitation of our study is that we used a single-item rneasure of career

satisfaction. Although multi-item scales are preferred above single-item rrieasures, insome studies they are less feasible (e.g. Ferrin, Dirks, Shah, 2006). The curren t studywas developed in the first place to give many practical' answ ers as to enhancej theemployability of workers in health care or welfare. Wanous, Reichers, and Hudy (1997),in their research on job satisfaction, argued that single-item measures can be appropriatein situations where multi-item scales are less feasible. We argue that career satisfaction,like job satisfaction, is a sufficiently narrow and unambiguous concept to measure itreliably with one item only (Sackett Larson, 1990). 'Also, further approaches that include commitment are relevant to undertake.' Forexample, the w ork by Tsui, Pearce, Porter, and Tripoli (1997) indicated that employeesperform better, demonstrate more citizenship behaviour, and express higlier levels ofaffective commitment if an employer invests heavily in developmental opportunities

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mploy bility ulture 47contracts, suggesting that affective commitment and employability may be negativelyrelated. These opposing results suggest that including both commitment measures andemployability in our models and methods may increase our understanding ofemployability. By doing so, we can examine whether developmental opportunities andfacilities provided by employers may increase affective commitment, with or withoutsimultaneously increasing employability orientation and actual employability.Likewise, there may be other organizational factors than employability culture thatmay also have direct and/or moderating effects upon employability orientation andturnover intention . For example, employees intention to leave might also be influencedby the specific employment brand, which refers to the perceived desirability of theorganization as a place to work, to mention but one relevant contextual factor.Finally, our results are not directly applicable to sectors outside health care andwelfare in which th e d istribution of men, w omen, full-time, and part-time em ployees ismore equal.

ractical recommendationsIn this study, we aimed to contribute to practice by paying attention to the dilemmasthat many human resource practitioners face: how can organizations stimulate theiremployees to constantly increase their employability, when we know that (1) mostpeople only start to work on their career when they get dissatisfied with their currentposition and (2) by helping people enhance their employability, organizations mayencourage their most valuable employees to leave? This study has shown that there isno real confiict of interest underlying these dilemmas, but a paradox only. Althougheconomic writers in the field of human capital theory (e.g. Becker, 1993) proposethat organizations should not invest too much in general training and developmentbecause employees may use these investments in their human capital to get a betterjob with a higher salary elsewhere, this study shows the opposite. The findingsindicate that an employability culture is positively related with employabilityorientation and negatively related with turnover intention. Moreover, an employ-ability culture is not related with pull motives but is negatively related to pushmotives of those who aim to leave. In short, these results suggest that organizationscan retain their employees just by creating opportunities that facilitate leaving.Although such facUities may indeed encourage some employees to leave their job(as is indicated by the small but positive relationship between employabilityorientation and turnover intention), they will do so for positive reasons, and aretherefore likely to be good ambassadors of their former organization. Moreover, it maywell be the case that in a sound employability culture, people are likely to change theirjob internally instead of externally, although future research should explore thissuggestion further.To conclude, we believe that organizations will gain a lot by creating anemployability culture. For example, when (top) management successfully stimulates aconstant dialogue between employees and their direct supervisors about selfdevelopment, when they create challenging work assignments with many learningopportunities, and when both organization and employees invest time and/or moneyin training and development, it is likely that employees will be triggered to search fornew challenges not because of dissatisfaction w ith their career, but because change

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8 Aukje Nauta et alAcknowledgementsThis study was supported by a grant from the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs arid Employmentprovided to TNO. i

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Received31 May2 7; revised version received S May 2 8

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