Understanding the role of career self-management behaviours in predicting career satisfaction and employee commitment:An empirical study of commercial banks in Sri Lanka

Richart Wickramaratne

In a difficult and unstable employment climate, employees must be proactive in the management of their careers. This research fills a gap in the existing literature by evaluating the role of individual career self-management behaviours in predicting career satisfaction and commitment of employees. Understanding the impact of career development opportunities and career oriented support provided by the employer on the individual’s career self-management behaviours and subsequent satisfaction and commitment is important to both the organisation and the individual when organisations can no longer guarantee life-time employment. Data were collected, via an online survey, from 224 middle managers of commercial banks in Sri Lanka, and evaluated using Structural Equation Modeling. This is the first study of its kind to explore the impact of career development opportunities and perceived career oriented support on commitment and subjective career satisfaction made via individual career self-management behaviours. The findings, which have important implications for policy makers, indicate that the organisation’s concern for employee career needs, independently affect the employees’ ability to manage their own careers such as their externally oriented mobility behaviour. The mobility behaviour as an individual career self-management behaviour, serves as a mediating factor which affect the employees’ attachment (affective commitment), whereas the networking behaviour enhances career satisfaction by aligning career progress with individual goals, values, and preferences. When the organisation provides fewer opportunities for advancement and demonstrates little concern about individual career needs, employees are likely to be less attached to the organisation, and are more likely to seek opportunities outside the organisation. This research makes a unique contribution to the literature by establishing an empirical link between the employee-perceived organisational career oriented support and employees’ external mobility oriented career self-management behaviour as a mediating factor in the employees’ subsequent affective commitment to the organisation. This mediating role of externally oriented mobility behaviour provides support for the Integrative Model of Proactive Behaviour that the contextual factors, such as organisational support for career development, enhance employee proactive behaviour like employees’ career self-management behaviours and in turn this proactive behaviour leads to employee outcomes.

Understanding the role of career self-management behaviours in predicting career satisfaction and employee commitment:An empirical study of commercial banks in Sri Lanka

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