The influence of leadership on employees' employability: a bibliometric analysis, systematic literature review, and research agenda

Introduction

Policymakers, researchers, and practitioners have recently begun treating employability-an individual's ability to possess and continuously adjust and acquire up-to-date competencies, flexibility, adaptability, and openness to change-as crucial to enabling employees to respond to ubiquitous and rapid changes in organizations (e.g., changing tasks and work-related processes). Research into ways to enhance employability, particularly through supervisor leadership, which, for example, facilitates training and competence development, has thus grown in popularity. A review on leadership as an antecedent of employability is both evident and timely. This review thus addresses the question of whether a supervisor's leadership influences employees' employability, and in which contexts and through which mechanisms it does so.

Methods

As preliminary study we conducted a bibliometric analysis (which corroborated employability's recent rise in popularity) and as main study we conducted a systematic literature review. For this, the authors independently searched for articles, which met the inclusion criteria and subsequently were included for full text analysis. The authors also independently used the forward and backward snowballing technique for identifying additional articles which met the inclusion criteria and subsequently were included for full text analysis. The procedure resulted in 17 articles in total.

Results

Most of the articles identified positive relationships among several conceptualizations of supervisor leadership and employee employability, such as transformational leadership and leader-member exchange, and to a lesser extent, servant leadership and perceived supervisor support. This review suggests that such relationships occur across different work contexts, such as educational, SMEs, healthcare, and several other industries, and these contexts also vary geographically.

Discussion

The relationships among supervisor leadership and employee employability are largely explained using a social exchange perspective, which means that the positive influence of leadership on employability is itself influenced by a two-way social exchange relationship between supervisor and employees. The quality of the dyadic relationship between leader and followers thus determines the extent to which leaders offer valuable resources such as training and feedback, which subsequently enhances employees' employability. This review demonstrates that investing in supervisors' leadership is a valuable HRM strategy that fosters employability, and it identifies practical implications that inform policy and practice and sets an agenda for future employability research.

Career Impact of High-Performance Work System: A Kaleidoscope Perspective

High-performance work system (HPWS) is considered a solid predictor of individual outcomes, but there is less evidence about the impact HPWS on subjective career success (SCS). The current study examines the direct impact of HPWS on SCS through the lens of the Kaleidoscope Career Model. In addition, employability orientation is expected to mediate the relationship while employees' HPWS attribution is hypothesized to moderate the HPWS-SCS linkage. A quantitative research design with two-wave survey collected data from 365 employees working in 27 firms in Vietnam. Partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is used to test the hypotheses. Results indicate that HPWS is significantly associated with SCS through the achievements of career parameters. In addition, employability orientation mediates the above relationship while HPWS external attribution moderates the relationship between HPWS and SCS. This research suggests that HPWS may influence employees' outcomes beyond the current employment, such as career success. HPWS fosters employability orientation which may encourage the employees to seek career advancements outside the current employer. Therefore, HPWS-implementing organizations should provide career opportunities to the employees. In addition, attention should be paid to employees' evaluative reports of HPWS implementation.

How employees leverage psychological capital and perform, even in the presence of rude co-workers: an empirical study from Pakistan

Purpose

This study aims to unpack the link between co-worker incivility and job performance, by detailing a mediating role of psychological detachment and a moderating role of psychological capital.

Design/methodology/approach

The research hypotheses are tested with three-wave, time-lagged data collected from Pakistani-based employees and their supervisors.

Findings

An important reason that disrespectful co-worker treatment curtails job performance, with respect to both in-role and extra-role work efforts, is that employees detach from their work environment. This mediating role of psychological detachment is less salient to the extent that employees possess high levels of psychological capital.

Practical implications

For organizations, this study pinpoints a key mechanism, a propensity to distance oneself from work, by which convictions that co-workers do not show respect direct employees away from productive work activities. This study also shows how this mechanism can be subdued by ensuring that employees exhibit energy-enhancing personal resources.

Originality/value

This study expands extant research on the dark side of interpersonal co-worker relationships by revealing pertinent factors that explain why and when co-worker incivility can escalate into diminished performance-enhancing activities.

Mentoring and Career Success: An Examination of Management Aspirations and Lengthy Career Interruptions

Mentoring is a valuable resource that enhances outcomes like career success. Applying conservation of resources theory, we examine the interaction effects of workers’ management aspirations and lengthy career interruption(s) on the mentoring-career success relationship. Utilizing 259 older professional workers, we test these relationships with both cross-sectional and time-separated data. Although the pattern of results was similar when comparing the cross-sectional data to the time-separated data, we found that relationships were stronger within the cross-sectional data, resulting in the support of two additional hypotheses. With the time-separated data, we found evidence of a three-way interaction. Specifically, mentoring is more valuable for the perceived career success of workers with higher management aspirations who had not experienced a lengthy career interruption than it is for workers with higher management aspirations who had experienced a lengthy career interruption or for workers with lower management aspirations regardless of whether they had experienced a career interruption.

Pandemic crisis and employee skills: how emotion regulation and improvisation limit the damaging effects of perceived pandemic threats on job performance

This study details the possible escalation of employees' perceptions of pandemic threats into diminished job performance, while considering a mediating role of their sense of job insecurity and a moderating role of their emotion regulation and improvisation skills. Results based on multisource, three-wave data show that employees' perceived pandemic threats compromise their work-related performance, because they believe that their job is at risk. This mediating role of perceived job insecurity is mitigated by employees' greater ability to control their emotions and come up with novel ideas on the spot. This study accordingly pinpoints employees' conviction that they may not be able to keep their jobs as a crucial mechanism by which the hardships of a global pandemic generate negative performance consequences, as well as how organizations can contain this risk by helping employees hone their pertinent personal skills.

Physical activity always benefits employees, right? Examining the role of physical activity type, grit, stress, and career satisfaction

This study tests whether employee participation in different types of physical activity benefits employees' training stress and career satisfaction perceptions differently and if grit, as a psychological resource, mediates this relationship. In two samples, we assess whether (1) regular physical activity; or (2) exercise to reach a competitive goal have similar associations with employee outcomes. In study 1, we find no relationship between employee engagement in regular physical activity and the outcomes. Moreover, grit's consistency of effort mediates the physical activity – training stress relationship, exacerbating employees' training stress. In study 2, employee exercise reduces career satisfaction and increases training stress. Importantly, grit's perseverance dimension increases their career satisfaction, and the consistency of interest dimension lessens training stress. Thus, we find evidence that employee participation in different types of physical activity leads to divergent outcomes, and that grit as a mediator only benefits employees exercising for a competitive goal.

Reflecting on an Academic Career: Associations Between Past Mentoring Investments and Career Benefits

Receiving mentoring is positive associated with lasting career benefits for academic protégés; however, less is known about the connection to long-term career gains for mentors. In this study national sample of retired academics were surveyed to examine the associations between past mentoring behaviors and current evaluations of their careers. Participants (N=277) were on average 73.6 (SD=6.2) years old with 34.9 (SD=8.0) years of occupational tenure and 7.7 (SD=5.8) years post-retirement. Structural equation modeling results demonstrated that having more protégés (β=.19, p=.024) and engaging in more mentoring behaviors (β=.18, p=.027) were associated with objective career achievements. However, mentoring behaviors, and not the number of protégés, were linked to subjective career achievements (β=.33, p<.001). Interestingly, previous mentoring experiences were not related to career satisfaction. While prior research demonstrates that mentors experience short-term benefits from mentoring, the present study's findings suggest that mentors may also experience long-term objective and subjective career benefits.

The impact of proactive personality and clinical learning environment on nursing college students' perceived employability

OBJECTIVES

To examine the relationships between proactive personality, clinical learning environment, career adaptability and self-perceived employability in nursing college students based on the career construction model.

DESIGN

The study employed a cross-sectional research design.

PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS

A purposive and convenience sampling of 405 final year nursing college students were invited to finish online survey. Structural equation modeling has been utilized to perform the measurement and structural model assessment and bootstrapping approach is employed to perform the mediation test.

RESULTS

Students' proactive personality was positively related to their career adaptability (Beta=0.45, p < 0.001), and self-perceived employability (Beta=0.26, p < 0.001), clinical learning environment was positively related to career adaptability (Beta=0.14, p < 0.1) and self-perceived employability (Beta=0.43, p < 0.001), career adaptability was positively related to self-perceived employability (Beta=0.33, p < 0.001). Moreover, career adaptability significantly mediated the relationship between proactive personality and perceived employability, but it failed to mediate the relationship between clinical learning environment and perceived employability.

CONCLUSIONS

For nursing college students, both clinical learning environment and proactive personality had a positive impact on their self-perceived employability, and career adaptability also mediated the relationship between proactive personality and perceived employability. Appropriate interventions may be implemented to enhance nursing college students' perceived employability.

Does the Employability Paradox Exist or Not? An Inverted U-Shaped Model

This paper’s purpose is to test the employability paradox by adopting a combined linear and non-linear approach based on the conservation of resource (COR) theory and the prospect theory and further to discuss it in two groups of employees with different seniority following the career timetable perspective. A total of 623 pairs of matched employee and manager surveys was collected from 27 Chinese enterprises in two waves. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The results show no paradox that perceived employability promotes both an employee’s turnover intention and performance. Specifically, perceived employability has a significant inverted U-shaped effect on turnover intention but no direct influence on job performance. Seniority is a moderator, showing the curvilinear relationship only exhibits for employees with shorter work seniority (≤3 years), and a positive linear relationship between perceived employability and job performance only exists for employees with longer seniority (>3 years). This study emphasizes the value of employability for employers and proposes who is more suitable and what timetable should be followed for employability enhancement in practice. In addition, the study provides an enlightening finding of the inverted U-shaped relationship between perceived employability and turnover intention, applies the COR theory and the prospect theory to explain the non-linear relationship, validates the effect of too much of a good thing (TMGT), and negates the paradox from the perspective of the perceived general employability and career timetable.

Can Hindrance Stressors Change the Nature of Perceived Employability? An Empirical Study in the Hotel Industry

This empirical study aims to design and test a research model that investigates the effect of job insecurity as a moderator of the relationships between perceived employability and employee well-being (work engagement). It also measures the impact of perceived employability on work engagement. Data were gathered from full-time frontline workers employed in five-star hotels in Northern Cyprus to test the study variables; the partial least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM) was applied and supported the research hypotheses. In line with the study predictions and findings from previous literature, perceived employability was found to have a significant positive impact on work engagement. The result revealed that, as a hindrance stressor, job insecurity negatively affects the relationship between perceived employability and work engagement. The findings of this study provide some insights concerning employability’s importance as well as influencing factors on employees’ job selection and their attitudes during job performance in the organizations. The knowledge gathered in this research is a source for stressing the value of employability in developing professional skills and professional involvement, as well as for reducing the perception of job insecurity, especially in the tourism industry, which has a delicate and sensitive structure. The implications of the empirical findings are discussed and future research directions are offered.

How Does Mentoring Affect Protégés' Adaptive Performance in the Workplace: Roles of Thriving at Work and Promotion Focus

The question of how to improve employees’ adaptive performance in dynamic environments has become a hot issue in organizational management. Although previous research has focused on the antecedents of adaptive performance, less attention has been paid to the impact of mentoring. Based on the conservation of resources theory and regulatory focus theory, this study examines the impact mechanism and boundary conditions of mentoring on protégés’ adaptive performance. In addition, through an empirical analysis of 269 samples, this study finds that mentoring has a significant positive impact on protégés’ adaptive performance. Thriving at work plays a full mediation role between mentoring and protégés’ adaptive performance, and protégés’ promotion focus moderates the relationship between mentoring and thriving at work such that the relationship is stronger among protégés with a higher promotion focus. Furthermore, the indirect relationship between mentoring and adaptive performance is stronger when protégés have a high level of promotion focus.

The role of felt obligation to mentor in mentor performance

Purpose

The authors introduce a new measure of felt obligation to mentor in order to explore generalized reciprocity in mentoring. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether felt obligation to mentor adds prediction to mentor job performance in combination with mentoring functions provided and mentor-assessed benefits and costs of mentoring.

Design/methodology/approach

Hypotheses were tested in a sample of firefighters in the Southwestern USA using moderated regression analysis.

Findings

Protégé reported mentoring functions provided predicted mentor performance, but neither mentoring benefits nor costs predicted mentor performance. Felt obligation to mentor interacted with mentoring functions reported such that mentor performance was highest when both mentoring functions provided and felt obligation to mentor were high.

Research limitations/implications

The results indicate that the new measure may prove to be of value for exploring generalized reciprocity in mentoring. Further, more research using mentoring benefits and costs is merited. Findings are limited by use of a new measure of felt obligation to mentor as well as the fact that the research was conducted in a setting in which employees were expected to serve as mentors.

Practical implications

Organizations may leverage felt obligation to mentor in order to support effective informal or formal mentoring relationships, whereas focusing on the benefits of mentoring may be a less valuable strategy.

Originality/value

The research offers a new measure to help to understand generalized reciprocity as a motivation to mentor as well as suggesting that more empirical attention should be given to the perceived benefits and costs of mentoring.

Early career values and individual factors of objective career success

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the early career values and individual factors of objective career success among graduates from a top-tier French business school.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a quantitative analysis of 629 graduates classified in three job markets according to income: the traditional business market, the alternative market and the high-potential business market. The graduation dates span a period of 12 years before the 2008 Recession.

Findings

The findings suggest that membership of each job market is associated with distinct early career values (when choosing/leaving the first job). Moreover, the authors confirm that the presence of a mentor, international experience, job-hopping and gender, all affect objective career success.

Practical implications

The paper discusses implications for business career development and higher business education.

Originality/value

The originality of this study lies in the identification of the individual factors of objective career success among French business graduates and the links between objective career success and early career values.

Servant leadership and perceived employability: proactive career behaviours as mediators

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of servant leadership on perceived employability and examine the mediating role of three proactive career behaviours, namely, career planning, skill development and networking behaviour in this relationship.

Design/methodology/approach

Data for this study were collected from 176 employees who were working in a large food and beverage company operating in Pakistan. Structural equation modelling and the bootstrapping procedure were used to test the research hypotheses.

Findings

Results showed that servant leadership was positively related to career planning, skill development and networking behaviour, which, in turn, were positively associated with perceived employability. Furthermore, it was found that the three proactive career behaviours fully mediated the effects of servant leadership on perceived employability.

Practical implications

The findings of this study indicate that servant leadership can play a key role in enhancing workers’ employability. Thus, it is important that organisations focus on creating conditions, which help them to develop servant leaders.

Originality/value

This is the first study, which has empirically established a link between servant leadership and perceived employability. In addition, it uncovers three distinct mechanisms in the form of career planning, networking behaviour and skill development through which servant leadership can influence workers’ employability.

Learning Climate Perceptions as a Determinant of Employability: An Empirical Study Among European ICT Professionals

This study investigated the role of age in the relationship between perceptions of learning climate and self- and supervisor-rated employability among European Information and Communication Technology (ICT) professionals. The psychological climate for learning was operationalized by three indicators, namely the perceptions that employees have of the learning value of their job, supervisor support for learning, and the organizational support for learning. As hypothesized, a Structural Equation Model demonstrated that the relationship between age and perceptions of learning climate was negative. The model also showed a strong positive relationship between learning climate and self-reported and supervisor-rated employability. Furthermore, learning climate perceptions appeared important for employability irrespective of life or career stage. An explorative bootstrapping-based test suggested that older workers with managerial responsibilities profit less from psychological learning climate for self-reported and supervisor-rated employability than older workers at non-managerial levels. These findings have important implications for human resource practices that aim to increase lifelong employability.

Transforming mentorship in STEM by training scientists to be better leaders

Effective mentoring is a key component of academic and career success that contributes to overall measures of productivity. Mentoring relationships also play an important role in mental health and in recruiting and retaining students from groups underrepresented in STEM fields. Despite these clear and measurable benefits, faculty generally do not receive mentorship training, and feedback mechanisms and assessment to improve mentoring in academia are limited. Ineffective mentoring can negatively impact students, faculty, departments, and institutions via decreased productivity, increased stress, and the loss of valuable research products and talented personnel. Thus, there are clear incentives to invest in and implement formal training to improve mentorship in STEM fields. Here, we outline the unique challenges of mentoring in academia and present results from a survey of STEM scientists that support both the need and desire for more formal mentorship training. Using survey results and the primary literature, we identify common behaviors of effective mentors and outline a set of mentorship best practices. We argue that these best practices, as well as the key qualities of flexibility, communication, and trust, are skills that can be taught to prospective and current faculty. We present a model and resources for mentorship training based on our research, which we successfully implemented at the University of Colorado, Boulder, with graduate students and postdocs. We conclude that such training is an important and cost-effective step toward improving mentorship in STEM fields.

The Effect of Mentoring on Protégés' Organizational Deviance

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of mentoring on protégés' organizational deviance. The sample comprised 202 ongoing formal mentoring dyads in the People's Republic of China (mentor samples: 61.9% male, M age = 36.8 years; protégé samples: 57.4% male, M age = 25.0 years). The regression results showed that mentoring was negatively related to protégés' organizational deviance. Moreover, job embeddedness and organizational identification mediated the association between mentoring and protégés' organizational deviance. Furthermore, the perceived developmental climate played a significant moderating role in the relationships between mentoring and job embeddedness and organizational identification such that the relationships were stronger when protégés perceived a stronger developmental climate. The theoretical and practical implications of this study were discussed.