Psychological mobility and career success in the ‘New’ career climate

Marijke Verbruggen⁎Research Centre for Organization Studies, Faculty of Business and Economics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:Received 14 October 2011Available online 6 November 2011

We examined the influence of two types of psychological mobility, i.e. boundaryless mindset andorganizational mobility preference, on career success. We hypothesized that this relationshipwould be partially mediated by physical mobility. In addition, we expected the direction of theinfluence to depend on the type of psychological mobility. We tested our hypotheses using dataof 357 business alumni. Results showed that a boundaryless mindset related positively to wageand promotions, while organizational mobility preference led to less promotions, lower job satis-faction and lower career satisfaction. The relationship between boundaryless mindset and careersuccesswas partiallymediated by functionalmobilitywhereas organizationalmobility preferenceimpacted career success via organizational mobility. Implications and limitations of the study arediscussed.

© 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords:New careersBoundaryless careersCareer mobilityPsychological mobilityObjective career successSubjective career success

The careers literature of the past few decades emphasizes the changing nature of careers. Traditionally, most careers unfoldedwithin one or two organizations and progressed along a pre-defined, upward career path (Eby, Butts, & Lockwood, 2003; Savickas,2000). During the last few decades, however, lifetime employment within the same organization came under pressure (Eby et al.,2003; Savickas, 2000). Changing employers and professions is no longer considered a rarity (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996). Amongthe numerous new career constructs that try to grasp this new and changing reality, the boundaryless career (Arthur &Rousseau, 1996) is by far the most influential. A boundaryless career refers to a career that transcends boundaries. Although re-search on the boundaryless career has focused mainly on careers that cross organizational boundaries (Sullivan & Baruch, 2009),the original conceptualization of Arthur and Rousseau (1996) was more general, including mobility across all different kinds ofboundaries, including occupational, cultural and geographical ones, and encompassing both physical and psychological boundarycrossing.

Although the boundaryless career construct has been very successful in informing theory and research (Briscoe, Hall, &DeMuth, 2006), it increasingly receives critique (Sullivan & Baruch, 2009; e.g. Pringle & Mallon, 2003; Rodrigues & Guest,2010). One of the recurring concerns relates to the normativity sometimes attached to the construct (Arnold & Cohen, 2008;Gunz, Evans, & Jalland, 2000). In particular, boundaryless career researchers sometimes seem to prescribe the boundaryless careeras the best way for people to be successful in their careers today, ignoring potential downsides of this type of career. In buildingup arguments against this positive view, critics mainly point to the possible downsides of physical mobility. It may create uncer-tainty, can be highly stressful and is often involuntary (Pringle & Mallon, 2003; Rodrigues & Guest, 2010). So far, psychologicalmobility, i.e. people's attitudes toward crossing boundaries (Sullivan & Arthur, 2006), has been largely preserved from criticism.However, psychological mobility may also come with a cost for individuals. For instance, people who see their career as unbound-ed to their present organization might be less inclined to invest in their relationships at work or in their internal career develop-ment, two factors that have been shown to negatively impact people's career outcomes (De Vos, Dewettinck, & Buyens, 2009;Orpen, 1994). In addition, because people's attitudes toward mobility (‘psychological mobility’) may impact their actual mobility

Journal of Vocational Behavior 81 (2012) 289–297

⁎ Corresponding author at: Research Centre for Organization Studies, Faculty of Business and Economics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Naamsestraat 69,3000 Leuven, Belgium. Fax: +32 16 32 67 32.

E-mail address: Marijke.Verbruggen@econ.kuleuven.be.

0001-8791/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2011.10.010

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behavior (‘physical mobility’) (Lazarova & Taylor, 2009), psychological mobility may indirectly induce the downsides that maycome along with some types of physical mobility.

In this study, we explored the possibly negative influence of psychological mobility on career success and examined whetherthis relationship is partially mediated by physical mobility. Career success, i.e. the accomplishment of desirable work-related out-comes over time (Arthur, Khapova, & Wilderom, 2005), has consistently been shown to contribute to people's well-being andorganizational career success (Pachulicz, Schmitt, & Kuljanin, 2008) and is accordingly among the most important outcome vari-ables in career research. A negative influence on career success would therefore imply an important downside of psychologicalmobility.

This study adds in several ways to the existing literature. First, by examining the influence of psychological mobility on careersuccess, we answer to the call for more integration between career success research and research on the boundaryless career(Arthur et al., 2005). Second, while most studies on the boundaryless career operationalize the construct rather narrowly by fo-cusing on its physical aspects (Sullivan & Baruch, 2009), we include both psychological and physical facets, in that way providinga richer view on the boundaryless career. Third, by examining psychological mobility in relation to physical mobility, this study'sfindings could help to evaluate the ‘common practice’ of using physical mobility as a proxy for the boundaryless career (Briscoe etal., 2006). Combining physical and psychological mobility may also offer an answer to the question why some people can or willnot make transitions (Ng & Feldman, 2010). And finally, by testing our hypotheses with a sample of young business alumni.Young, highly educated individuals are generally believed to benefit most from having a boundaryless career (Pringle &Mallon, 2003). In addition, their career transitions have been shown to be mainly voluntary (Drewes, 1993; EuropeanCommission, 2005). If we find a negative influence of psychological mobility on career success with this population, it will bean even stronger indication for a downside to psychological mobility.

1. Background

1.1. Psychological mobility

Whereas physical mobility concerns the observable act of crossing boundaries, psychological mobility refers to people's atti-tudes toward this act (Lazarova & Taylor, 2009). Just as there are different types of physical mobility depending on the type ofboundary that is crossed, there are variations of psychological mobility depending on the kind of transition the attitude relatesto (Forret, Sullivan, & Mainiero, 2010; Lazarova & Taylor, 2009). Logically, people may feel differently about changing organiza-tions than they do about, for instance, changing functional domain or becoming unemployed.

Empirical research on the boundaryless career has largely ignored psychological mobility (Lazarova & Taylor, 2009; Sullivan &Baruch, 2009). This is partly due to the fact that psychological mobility is a hard construct to grasp (Rodrigues & Guest, 2010).Psychological mobility has for instance been defined as a person's preference to cross boundaries (Lazarova & Taylor, 2009;Marler, Barringer, & Milkovich, 2003), as the perceived capability to move (Arthur et al., 2005; Sullivan & Arthur, 2006) and asthe way people interpret a specific career move (Forret et al., 2010). In addition, until recently, there were no psychometricinstruments to measure the construct (Rodrigues & Guest, 2010; Sullivan & Baruch, 2009). Therefore, Briscoe et al. (2006)developed and validated two scales measuring specific types of psychological mobility, i.e. boundaryless mindset and organiza-tional mobility preference. Boundaryless mindset refers to people's preference toward initiating and pursuing work-related rela-tionships across departmental and organizational boundaries. A person with this attitude is enthusiastic about creating andsustaining active relationships beyond departments and organizations. Organizational mobility preference refers to a person'sinclination toward physically crossing organizational boundaries. Someone high on this attitude prefers a career played out acrossseveral employers (Briscoe et al., 2006). These two types of psychological mobility thus concern people's preference to crossspecific career boundaries.

This study focused on boundaryless mindset and organizational mobility preference. These two types of psychologicalmobility have been clearly defined, which helped to build clear hypotheses and to interpret the results. In addition, this focusallowed us to use existing and validated instruments (Briscoe et al., 2006), which will add to the validity and the replicabilityof our analyses.

1.2. Career success

Career success can be defined as accomplishment of desirable work-related outcomes over time (Arthur et al., 2005). Careerscholars agree that career success has both an objective and a subjective side (Judge, Cable, Boudreau, & Bretz, 1995; Seibert,Kraimer, & Liden, 2001). Objective career success refers to those facets of career success that are tangible and can be observedby others. Examples of objective career success facets are wage, number of promotions and functional level (Dries, Pepermans,Hofmans, & Rypens, 2009). Subjective career success refers to individuals' own perceptions of their career. It is generally opera-tionalized by job and/or career satisfaction (Heslin, 2005). For a long time, career success researchers focused almost exclusivelyon objective career success (Arthur et al., 2005; Heslin, 2005). However, with careers becoming increasingly boundaryless, objec-tive career success becomes harder to obtain and therefore, people may increasingly evaluate their career based on subjectivelychosen standards (Dries, Pepermans, & Carlier, 2008). As a result, the interest in subjective career success has risen significantly inthe past few decades (Heslin, 2005).

290 M. Verbruggen / Journal of Vocational Behavior 81 (2012) 289–297

2. Hypothesized model

This study examined the impact of boundaryless mindset and organizational mobility preference on both objective and sub-jective career success. We expected that the direction of the impact will depend on the type of psychological mobility and that therelationships will be partially mediated by physical mobility (see Fig. 1). In what follows, we develop hypotheses for each of thebuilding blocks in our model.

2.1. Influence of psychological mobility on career success through physical mobility

2.1.1. Relationship between psychological and physical mobilityIn linewith theoreticalmodels and empirical research on attitudes and behavior (Ajzen, 1985; Bagozzi, 1992), we expect that peo-

ple's attitudes toward mobility are related with their actual mobility behaviors. Thus, people high on psychological mobility will alsoexperience more actual, physical mobility (Lazarova & Taylor, 2009). Because it has been shown that the link between attitudes andbehaviors is stronger when a specific attitude is linked to a corresponding specific behavior (Jaccard, King, & Pomazal, 1974; Normanet al., 2010), we expect that different types of psychological mobility relate to different types of physical mobility (Lazarova & Taylor,2009). In particular, we expect that boundarylessmindset is related to functionalmobility, and organizationalmobility preferencewillbe associated with organizational mobility. The latter is rather straightforward as both the attitude and the behavior relate to inter-organizational mobility. As concerns boundaryless mindset, we expect a relationship with mobility across functional domains or de-partments (i.e. ‘functionalmobility’). By physically changing departments, people get the opportunity tomeet newpeople and initiatenew relationships across these departments, the core characteristics of a boundaryless career mindset (Briscoe et al., 2006).

Hypothesis 1. Boundaryless mindset relates positively to number of functional changes.

Hypothesis 2. Organizational mobility preference relates positively to number of organizational changes.

2.1.2. Relationship between physical mobility and career successFor functional mobility, we expect a positive relationship with both objective and subjective career success. By changing

departments, people may build experience in a variety of domains and work roles (Campion, Cheraskin, & Stevens, 1994). Thistype of work experience may make themmore likely to be promoted. Indeed, organizations often favor ‘generalists’ rather than spe-cialists for higher-level, managerial jobs (London, 1985). Some organizations even deliberately use functional mobility as a way todevelop potentialmanagers (Baruch, 2004; Dries & Pepermans, 2008; Saari, Johnson,McLaughlin, & Simmerle, 1988). In addition, be-cause functional mobility contributes to people's skill development and feeling of competence (Campion et al., 1994) and becausebeing able to learn (Park, 2010) and feeling competent (Deci & Ryan, 2000) are important motivators at work, functional mobilitycould improve people's job and career satisfaction. For these reasons and in line with earlier studies (Campion et al., 1994; Longhi& Brynin, 2010), we expect a positive effect of functional mobility on both objective and subjective career success.

Hypothesis 3. Functional mobility relates positively to objective career success.

Hypothesis 4. Functional mobility relates positively to subjective career success.

In line with several studies on the outcomes of the number of organizational changes (Fuller, 2008; Lyness & Thompson, 2000;Munasinghe & Sigman, 2004; Valcourt & Tolbert, 2003), we expect a negative relationship between organizational mobility andobjective career success. High rates of organizational mobility may send a negative signal to employers (i.e. it could be interpretedas a lack organizational loyalty or as a lack of competences; Messmer, 1998), which is likely to decrease earnings and promotionopportunities. We also expect that organizational mobility is negatively related to subjective career success. Research has shown

subjectivecaree success

-

Boundaryless mindset

Function almobility

Organizational mobility

Objective and

Org. mobility preference

+

+

-

+

+

Fig. 1. Hypothesized model.

291M. Verbruggen / Journal of Vocational Behavior 81 (2012) 289–297

that people with longer organizational tenure – and thus, less organizational mobility – tend to be more satisfied with theircareer (Igbaria & Guimaraes, 1993). In addition, research has suggested that people with poorer performance (Bishop, 1990;Munasinghe & Sigman, 2004), lower wages (Kim, 1999; Munasinghe & Sigman, 2004) and lower levels of job satisfaction(Cornelissen, 2009; Gesthuizen, 2009) have a higher likelihood of changing organizations. It seems likely that people who havea history of less rewarding and less satisfying jobs will evaluate their overall career experiences less positively and thus reportlower scores with respect to career satisfaction.

Hypothesis 5. Organizational mobility relates negatively to objective career success.

Hypothesis 6. Organizational mobility relates negatively to subjective career success.

2.1.3. Other influences of psychological mobility on career successFor boundaryless mindset, we expect an additional positive impact on both objective and subjective career success. Because

people with a boundaryless mindset like to build relationships across departments and organizations, they may have more accessto practical and emotional career support (Seibert et al., 2001;Wolff & Moser, 2009), two benefits which have been shown to con-tribute to both objective and subjective career success (Forret & Dougherty, 2004; Orpen, 1996;Wolff & Moser, 2009). In addition,as people with a boundaryless mindset like to build relationships across departments and organizations, it is more likely that theywill build relationships that bridge two not-yet-linked networks. This type of relationships has been shown to be particularlybeneficial for people's career success (Shipilov, Labianca, Kalnysh, & Kalnysh, 2007, e.g. Brass, 1984; Burt, 1992).

Hypothesis 7. Boundaryless mindset relates positively to objective career success.

Hypothesis 8. Boundaryless mindset relates positively to subjective career success.

As for organizational mobility preference, we expect an additional negative relationship with objective and subjective career suc-cess. Since peoplewith a highmobility preference prefer their timewith their current employer to be limited, theymay be less inclinedto invest in their internal career development. Research has indeed shown that people who are less likely to stay with their employer,invest less in their internal employability (De Feyter, Smulders, & Vroome, 2001). In addition, to the extent that employees with a highmobility preference are open about or signal their mobility preference, their employer may also be less likely to give them career sup-port. Indeed, organizations generally give less career support to individuals who are likely to leave the organization in a foreseeabletime span (De Feyter et al., 2001; Forrier, 2003). Both fewer self-initiated career investments and less organizational career supporthave been shown to negatively impact people's objective and subjective career success (De Vos et al., 2009; Orpen, 1994).

Hypothesis 9. Organizational mobility preference relates negatively to objective career success.

Hypothesis 10. Organizational mobility preference relates negatively to subjective career success.

3. Method

3.1. Procedure and sample

We collected data from business graduates of the largest university in Belgium. We contacted all business graduates who hadgraduated between 1 and 10 years ago and of whomwe had the e-mail address (N=3054, which corresponds to 79% of all alum-ni graduated in this period). Respondents were contacted by e-mail to participate in our internet survey. Two hundred ninetythree e-mails (9.60%) were returned because of invalid e-mail addresses. The total response rate was 30.32%, with 837 alumnicompleting the questionnaire.

Because the focus of this study was on (voluntary) career mobility, we needed a sample in which we were able to observe thistype of mobility. Firstly, we restricted our sample to respondents who had at least five years of work experience. In that way, therespondents had sufficient time in the workforce to have the opportunity to change jobs. This cut-off of 5 years is based on the EULabor Force Survey which shows that in Belgium, 50% of all school leavers change jobs within the first 5 years after graduation(Gangle, 2002). Secondly, we excluded individuals who had been unemployed after their first job (n=45) because the jobchanges of these individuals are less likely to be voluntary (Alon & Tienda, 2005). Also our choice for young, highly educatedworkers adds to the likelihood of the job changes being voluntary (Drewes, 1993; European Commission, 2005).

Our final sample consisted of 357 individuals, 38% female and 62% male. Forty four percent had graduated with distinction and12% with great distinction. On average, the respondents were 32.06 years old (sd=2.01) and had 8.14 years of working experi-ence (sd=1.75), of which 5.06 years with their current employer (sd=3.15).

3.2. Measures

3.2.1. Psychological mobilityWe measured boundaryless mindset and organizational mobility preference using the scales of Briscoe et al. (2006). The

boundaryless mindset scale consisted of eight items, including: “I like tasks at work that require me to work beyond my own

292 M. Verbruggen / Journal of Vocational Behavior 81 (2012) 289–297

department” and “I enjoy working with people outside of my organization”. The mobility preference scale consisted of 5 itemsmeasuring the strength of interest in having multiple (as opposed to a single) employers. Example items include: “I like the pre-dictability that comes with working continuously for the same organization (R)” and “I prefer to stay in a company I am familiarwith rather than look for employment elsewhere (R)”. Factor analysis revealed two factors which turned out to have a good in-ternal consistency (α for boundaryless career mindset=.88; α for organizational mobility preference=.81).

3.2.2. Physical mobilityRespondents were asked how many times they had changed employer (‘organizational mobility’) and how many times they

had changed functional domain (‘functional mobility’) in their career until now. It was stressed that changes in functional domaincould occur both while staying with an organization and when changing organizations.

3.2.3. Career successIn line with earlier studies on career success (Heslin, 2005), we assessed objective career success by net monthly wage and the

number of promotions with the current employer. Because the typical high skewness of wage variables, we used a natural loga-rithmic transformation of the wage for our analyses (Seibert et al., 2001). Also in line with earlier studies (Heslin, 2005), we in-cluded two indicators of subjective career success: job satisfaction and career satisfaction. Job satisfaction was measured using theGlobal Job Satisfaction scale of Warr, Cook, andWall (1979). Respondents had to evaluate 15 job aspects (e.g. work content, fellowworkers, recognition you get for good work) on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = Very dissatisfied; 7 = Extremely satisfied). Career sat-isfaction was measured using Heslin's (2003) adaptation of the scale of Greenhaus, Parasuraman, and Wormley (1990). Partici-pants were asked to evaluate on a 7-point Likert scale how satisfied they were with 6 career outcomes (i.e. income, skilldevelopment and overall success) relative to their own career aspirations. Both measures turned out to have a good internal re-liability (α for job satisfaction=.88; α for career satisfaction=.89).

3.2.4. Control variablesWe controlled for gender (1=female, 0=male), working experience, grades as well as for extraversion (α=.84) and emo-

tional stability (α=.75). The latter traits, measured using the Big Five Bipolar Rating Scales (B5BBS-25) (Mervielde, 1992),were included because research has consistently linked them to career success (Lent & Brown, 2008).

3.3. Analyses

The model was tested using path analysis (procedure CALIS in SAS Version 8). We opted for this technique because it allowstesting multiple relationships simultaneously. The analysis showed a good fit between the hypothesized model and the observeddata. All fit-indices exceeded the recommendedminimum values (χ²=6.20 with df=6 and p-value=.40; GFI=1.00; AGFI=.94;CFI=1.00; NFI=.99; NNFI=.99). The modification indices also showed that no additional arrows should be included.

4. Results

Table 1 shows the descriptives for the key variables. First of all, the respondents expressed high psychological mobility: themeans on both psychological mobility measures are above 3.80 (on a scale from 1 to 5). The level of physical mobility, on theother hand, seems rather modest. On average, the respondents experienced one organizational and one functional change intheir career until now. Finally, the respondents seem to be quite successful in their career and this with regard to both the objec-tive and the subjective criteria. On average, they reported a net monthly wage of 2565 Euro, they have had 1.6 promotions withtheir current employer and they are quite satisfied with their job and their career (means on both job and career satisfaction arehigher than 5.40 on a scale from 1 to 7).

Table 1Descriptives of and correlations between key variables.

m sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Boundaryless mindset 3.85 0.64 –

2. Organizational mobility preference 3.80 0.73 .41⁎⁎⁎ –

3. Number of organizational changes 1.09 1.06 .01 .22⁎⁎⁎ –

4. Number of functional changes 1.08 1.34 .17⁎⁎ .07 −.02 –

5. Log monthly wage 7.85 0.30 .18⁎⁎ .07 .01 .16⁎ –

6. Number of promotions 1.62 1.39 .16⁎⁎ −.07 −.43⁎⁎⁎ .19⁎⁎ .32⁎⁎⁎ –

7. Job satisfaction 5.41 0.74 .07 −.10 .03 .05 .27⁎⁎⁎ .11* –

8. Career satisfaction 5.48 0.89 .10⁎ −.03 .04 .02 .32⁎⁎⁎ .20⁎⁎ .68⁎⁎⁎ –

Notes.⁎⁎⁎ pb .001.⁎⁎ pb .01.⁎ pb .05.

293M. Verbruggen / Journal of Vocational Behavior 81 (2012) 289–297

Table 1 further reveals several significant correlations between mobility variables and career success indicators (i.e. betweenboundaryless mindset, wage, promotions and career satisfaction; and between functional mobility, wage and promotions). Alsonoteworthy is the lack of significant correlation between the number of organizational changes and the number of functionalchanges, indicating that it is equally likely that a change in functional domains occurred by staying within an organization aswhen changing organizations.

Next, we look at the results of our path analysis (see Fig. 2). We first examine the impact of psychological mobility on careersuccess through physical mobility. As hypothesized, we found that the boundaryless mindset attitude related with the number offunctional changes and that organizational mobility preference was associated to the number of organizational changes. We foundno other relationships between the psychological mobility measures and the physical mobility indicators. We can therefore con-firm hypotheses 1 and 2. We also found support for our hypotheses concerning the relationship between physical mobility andobjective career success. As expected, objective career success was affected positively by functional mobility (hypothesis 3)and negatively by organizational mobility (hypothesis 5). However, the impact of organizational mobility was only significantfor the number of promotions, not for wage. We can therefore only partially confirm hypothesis 5. Concerning the relationshipbetween physical mobility and subjective career success, our hypotheses were not supported. Contrary to our expectations, sub-jective career success was not affected by functional mobility and it was positively (and thus not negatively) influenced by orga-nizational mobility. Hence, we have to reject hypotheses 4 and 6.

We then look at the direct influence of psychological mobility on career success. In line with hypotheses 7 and 10, we found apositive relationship between the boundaryless mindset and objective career success and a negative one between organizationalmobility preference and subjective career success. We did not find support for hypotheses 8 and 9: nor the effect of the bound-aryless mindset on subjective career success, nor the impact of organizational mobility preference on objective career successwere found to be significant.

What is, then, the total impact of psychological mobility on career success? For the boundaryless mindset, the direct and theindirect effect strengthened each other, resulting in an overall positive impact of this attitude on objective career success (totaleffect on wage=+.06; total effect on promotions=+.42). Especially the influence on promotions turned out to be strong. Fororganizational mobility preference, the direct effects were more dominant than the indirect effects, resulting in an overall nega-tive effect on promotions (total effect=−.35) as well as on job (total effect=−.18) and career satisfactions (total effect=−.13).

Finally, we explore the explained variance of the career success variables. Our model tuned out to explain 22% of the variancein wage, 35% of promotions, 12% of job satisfaction and 13% of career satisfaction. These R²s are higher than those in most otherstudies examining career success with a similar sample of young highly educated individuals (Rode, Arthaud-Day, Mooney, Near,& Baldwin, 2008).

5. Discussion

In line with our hypotheses, we found that psychological mobility influenced career success, but that the direction andstrength of the relationship depended on the type of psychological mobility. Having a boundaryless mindset resulted in higherwages and more promotions, while having an organizational mobility preference led to less promotions, lower job satisfactionand lower career satisfaction.

Remarkably, neither of the psychological mobility indicators were found to positively affect subjective career success. Becausepeople with a boundaryless career do not follow the traditional intra-organizational career path, they are believed to set theirown career agenda and accordingly to attach more importance to subjective career success (Arthur et al., 2005; Heslin, 2005).The results suggest that this is not the case or that at least, they do not succeed in attaining more subjective career success. Forthe organizational mobility preference, this was in line with our expectations. For the boundaryless mindset, however, weexpected a positive influence given the networking preference of people high on this attitude. Though networking has been

Functional mobilityWage

Boundaryless mindset Promotions

Org. mobility preference Job satisfaction

Career satisfaction

Organizational mobility

+.29***

+.18**

-.14*

-.21**

+.13*

+.11(*)

+.13*

+.16**

-.40***

+.12(*)

+.14(*)

R²=5.1%

R²=10.9%

R²=21.8%

R²=34.5%

R²=11.6%

R²=13.0%

Fig. 2. Path coefficients.

294 M. Verbruggen / Journal of Vocational Behavior 81 (2012) 289–297

shown to be an important competence for obtaining subjective career success (Wolff & Moser, 2009), other career competences,such as career insight (“knowing why”) and career identity (“knowing how”), may also be important (DeFillippi & Arthur, 1994).It could be that people low on boundaryless mindset compensate their (presumably) lower networking skills by better developedother career competences. Future research might look into this possibility by examining the mediating role of career competencesin the relationship between psychological mobility and career success.

The results also shed light on the influence of physical mobility on career success. For objective career success, we found, ashypothesized, a positive influence of functional mobility and a negative one of organizational mobility. For subjective career suc-cess, our findings were not in line with our expectations. First, we found no influence of functional mobility. Although functionalmobility may be satisfying because it involves skill and personal development (Park, 2010), it may also come with a learning costand with stress, which may – especially in the short term – decrease one's satisfaction. Both effects may outweigh each other.Secondly, we found a positive – thus not the expected negative – influence of organizational mobility. As we mentioned earlier,people often change employer because they are dissatisfied in their initial job (Cornelissen, 2009; Gesthuizen, 2009). Hence, bychanging employer, they may achieve an improvement in job satisfaction. Perhaps, when people evaluate their overall career,they attach more importance to this positive evolution rather than to the negative past experiences as such, resulting in a higherscore on career satisfaction.

Next, this study adds to our understanding of the relationship between psychological and physical mobility. As expected, wefound that boundaryless mindset was related with functional mobility and organizational mobility preference was associatedwith organizational mobility. Whether or not physical and organizational mobility are related seems to depend on the congruencebetween the type of boundary that the attitude and the behavior relate to. In addition, as there are many more types of physicalmobility than those measured in this study (e.g. geographical changes, changes of industry), it is probable that there are alsomany more types of psychological mobility. This calls for further conceptualization and operationalization of the concept ofpsychological mobility.

The study revealed that neither psychological, nor physical mobility and neither organizational nor functional mobility unilat-erally lead to career success. In contrast, we found that some forms of psychological and physical mobility decreased people'scareer success. This finding supports the claim made by an increasing number of scholars that boundaryless careers may havea downside (Currie, Tempest, & Starkey, 2006; Gunz et al., 2000). Interestingly, we showed that this downside does not onlyrelate to physical mobility, as is often proclaimed, but also to psychological mobility. In addition, we found this negative impactwith young, highly educated individuals, who are generally believed to benefit from having a boundaryless career.

Finally, this study showed that psychological and physical mobility have partly different effects on career success. Therefore,researchers should be cautious when using physical mobility as a proxy for psychological mobility (Briscoe et al., 2006). Eventhough the two forms of mobility are related significantly, using the former as a proxy for the latter may yield to wrongconclusions.

5.1. Limitations

This study is not without limitations. First, our findings are based on self-report data and may be subject to common methodvariance. To validate our findings, future research may include more objective measures, for instance wage and promotion datafrom the employer. We note, however, that previous research has shown that self-report measures of objective career successcorrelate highly with company records (De Vos et al., 2009; Judge et al., 1995). Secondly, because we used cross-sectional data,we need to be cautious in causal attributions. It may for instance be that career success affected people's psychological mobilityinstead of vice versa. People who are highly successful, may for instance become more self-confident and may therefore start tofeel more independent. However, we performed some additional tests of alternative models and they did not yield a better fitwith the data. Finally, it is important to mention the potential influence of our sample. We tested our model with a specific sampleof young business alumni because we expected that even for this rather privileged group, psychological mobility could entailnegative consequences. However, because we focused on this specific sample, some of our findings may not be generalizable toother samples. Future research should therefore further examine the impact of different forms of psychological and physicalmobility with other samples.

In conclusion, this study showed that psychological mobility has an impact on career success, but that this impact is not uni-laterally positive— not even within a sample of young, highly educated people. In that way, this study's findings support the claimthat the boundaryless career may have a potential downside, even for more privileged groups. In addition, this study's findingspoint to the need to further conceptualize and operationalize psychological mobility.

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