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The influence of conditional effects on the

relationship between career adaptability and

job satisfaction

Name:

Erik-Jan Veerman

UvA ID:

11419105

Supervisor:

Sofija Pajic

Date:

22 June 2018

Master Business Administration

Leadership and Management Track

University of Amsterdam

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Statement of Originality

This document is written by Erik-Jan Veerman, who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document are original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

Acknowledgements

At the end of my journal at the University of Amsterdam, I would like to thank a few people who helped me realizing my thesis during the last couple of months. First, I would like to thank my supervisor Sofija, for all her guidance and support throughout the entire writing process. Especially, your lessons about statistics and our (group) discussions have taken my thesis to the next level. Thank you for everything and I wish you all the best at the University.

Furthermore, I would like to thank Jessy, Karin and Evita for the group discussions we had together and the moral support. I have enjoyed our work as a team and the stress we shared. Good luck building on your career, and do not forget to take enough time to enjoy!

I would also like to thank my girlfriend, family and friends for their encouragement in the last couple of months. Finally, I thank all the respondents who took the time to fill in our survey. Without them I could not finish my thesis.

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Table of contents

Introduction ... 1

Theoretical background ... 7

Job satisfaction ... 7

Career adaptability and job satisfaction ... 9

The role of perceived employability ... 12

The role of organizational size ... 15

Methods ... 18 Participants ... 18 Procedure ... 19 Measures ... 20 Control variables ... 21 Results ... 23 Analytical strategy ... 23 Descriptive statistics ... 24 Hypotheses testing ... 26 Discussion ... 30

Limitations and future research ... 34

Conclusion ... 37

References ... 38

Appendix ... 46

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Abstract

This study focuses on providing a more elaborative explanation of the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. It examines what the conditions are when this relationship will be present or not, and whether it will be positive or negative. Perceived employability and organizational size were taken as conditional effects based on the

propositions of the career construction theory. The conceptual model was tested using cross-sectional data collected from 402 employees. The results showed a positive significant relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction, confirming previous studies. It demonstrates that employees who report higher levels of career adaptability are more satisfied with their job. However, the conditional effects could not explain more about this

relationship. Both perceived employability and organizational size did not have an influence. These findings give a conclusive clarification about the relationship between career

adaptability and job satisfaction, suggesting the usefulness of career adaptability resources in remaining satisfied with one’s job. However, future research should look at other conditions that could explain more about this relationship.

Key words: Job satisfaction; Career adaptability; Perceived employability; Organizational size

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Introduction

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life” – Confucius “Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work” – Aristotle

Philosophers told us about the importance of job satisfaction thousands of years ago. Both Confucius and Aristotle encouraged people to enjoy their jobs, which would be profitable for themselves and their organizations. Therefore, job satisfaction has been an important theme in the research field and comes with a variety of different impacts. From the individual

perspective, job satisfaction has demonstrated positive relationships with important outcomes, such as health and well-being (Faragher, Cass & Cooper, 2005), life satisfaction (Judge & Watanabe, 1993), turnover intent (Weiss & Merlo, 2015), motivation (Landy, 1978), and engagement (Harter, Schmidt & Hayes, 2002). Furthermore, it is a part of the employees’ sustainable employability (Van der Klink et al., 2011). This means that employees will have continuous access to opportunities and conditions to perform in current and future jobs throughout their working lives, while remaining healthy and happy (Van der Klink et al., 2011). Like Confucius said, if employees are satisfied (happy) with their jobs it does not feel like work and they can perform better. This relationship between job satisfaction and

performance is supported by the meta-analysis of Judge, Bono, Thoresen and Patton (2001), and is even described as the “Holy Grail” of industrial psychologists (Landy, 1989). Besides individual-level effects, job satisfaction can create organizational benefits as well. For example, employees’ job satisfaction helps strengthen an organization through a lower turnover rate, higher productivity and better performance (Lee et al., 2016).

On the other hand, job satisfaction is also a complex subject, which can be influenced through many different factors. Among them is the constant changing labour market, driven by technology, globalisation, new business models and demographic changes (Labour market change, 2018). However, today’s employees seem to be still satisfied with their jobs.

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According to a study of ADP in 2016, 76 percent of the Dutch employees are happy with their current work – being the most satisfied employees in Europe (Pieters, 2017). In that same year, the Society for Human Resource Management found out that job satisfaction in the United States has increased to 88 percent (Lee et al., 2016). But how are these numbers possible if jobs are disappearing and changing faster than ever before (Mahdawi, 2017)? Possible reasons can be the rise of salaries of employees, a better work-life balance or organization’s financial stability (Morgan, 2014).

However, another reason could be that employees are adapting themselves to the changing labour market. Previously, sustainable competitive advantage was determined by being the best at particular things, which could not be copied by competitors (Reeves & Deimler, 2011). Today, in an era of risk and instability, sustainable competitive advantage is determined by being the best in learning how to do new things (= adaptability). This counts for both organizations, as for employees. Therefore, employees have to change their focus to adaptation and flexibility. The “individual's resources for coping with current and anticipated tasks, transitions and traumas in their occupational roles that, to some degree large or small, alter their social integration”, are called career adaptability (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012, p. 622). Career adaptability is part of Savickas’ career construction theory (2005), which states that human development is formed through the choices and adaptations that individuals take. The theory describes that employees’ career adaptability resources are strategies that they can use to adapt their behavior for managing one’s career (Savickas, 2005). It helps them to solve unfamiliar, complex, and ill-defined problems presented by developmental vocational tasks, occupational transactions, and work traumas (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012). Savickas and Porfeli (2012) state that adaptability resources, which they call adapt-abilities, are competencies and knowledge accumulated over time, and gained through work, educational, and training

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experiences. Therefore, career adaptability could be a valuable resource for employees who are striving to be satisfied with their jobs, regardless the constantly changing conditions.

The relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction is also supported by the literature. For example, Fiori, Bollmann and Rossier (2015) provided evidence that career adaptability resources help employees to adapt to the work-environment by influencing their affective responses. Furthermore, Zacher and Griffin (2015) found support for the

relationship, when examining this among older workers. However, a meta-analysis about career adaptability by Rudolph, Lavigne and Zacher (2017), found only a weak relationship with job satisfaction. As possible explanation they mention an assumption of Bussing et al. (1999), who assumed that job satisfaction might be less important for employees with a higher career adaptability, because they are more confident that they can easily change jobs. Hence, because of the inconclusive relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction, more research is needed.

Based on the inconclusive relationship between career adaptability and job

satisfaction, it is arguable that the relationship is not the same for everyone. Therefore, other factors need to be taken into consideration in order to explain whether this relationship will be present or not, and whether it will be positive or negative. This is in line with the career construction theory (Savickas, 1997; Brown & Associates, 2002; Savickas, 2005), which states that people can differ in vocational characteristics (e.g. personality traits), and that the individual’s career pattern, and with that one’s job satisfaction, is determined through the transaction between personal characteristics and external opportunities.

For example, Zacher and Griffin (2015), and Fiori, Bollmann and Rossier (2015) found that individual characteristics could moderate or mediate the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. However, it is assumable that other (vocational) characteristics might have an influence as well. Building upon this indication, the focus of this

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study is that the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction might differ for employees who are confident (= personality trait) that they can easily change jobs. The individual’s perception of available employment opportunities is referred to as perceived employability (Berntson & Marklund, 2007). It might be that employees who are convinced that there are enough employment opportunities, are less prone to invest in their career adaptability resources to remain satisfied with their current job. On the other hand, when employees are not confident that they have these opportunities, it is assumable that they will use their career adaptability resources for job-related activities in order to stay satisfied with their current job. Therefore, it is expected that the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction will be weaker when employees have a higher perceived employability.

Besides individual characteristics, the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction can also differ depending on external opportunities, in this case measured through organizational characteristics. In this study, the focus is on investigating whether the size of an organization might moderate the relationship between career adaptability and job

satisfaction. The organizational size might have a positive influence on this relationship, because larger organizations face more often internal and external environmental changes (Haveman, 1993). Therefore, employees need to be more adaptable in order to keep positive outlook on their work. Hence, larger organizations might trigger the employee’s career adaptability resources to maintain fitted with their job and organization. However, the organizational size could also have a negative influence on the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. For example, smaller organizations are more flexible and can easier adapt to changes (Damanpour, 1992; Damanpour, 1996). Therefore, more changes can be faced and as a result, career adaptability resources might be triggered. Furthermore, adaptation to changes can be harder for larger organizations, which are more complex and bureaucratic (Sironopolis, 1994; Camisón-Zornoza et al., 2004; Lee & Xia, 2006; Real,

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Roldán & Leal, 2014). Hence, this study aims to illuminate how the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction changes across smaller and larger organizations.

In summary, this research makes several theoretical contributions and managerial implications. First, the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction will be examined to clarify the inconclusive discoveries in previous literature. Second, this study will demonstrate if conditional effects can explain more about this relationship. On one hand, we will explain if employees with a higher perceived employability are less affected by a high job satisfaction, because they are convinced they can get easily find another job. On the other hand, we will clarify if the relationship can be different for organizations of different sizes. By examining if vocational characteristics and external opportunities influence the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction, scholars might understand more about when this relationship will be present or not, and whether it will be positive or negative.

Furthermore, the managerial implications can help employers maintaining the job satisfaction of their employees, in order to create organizational benefits (e.g. performance). Besides, it can help employees managing their career while remaining satisfied, which has several individual-level benefits (e.g. health and well-being).

The conceptual model in Figure 1 gives the relations between the different variables. Through examining this model, there will be found an answer on the following research question:

How do perceived employability and organizational size moderate the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction?

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Theoretical background

For the scope of this study, the theory and previous research about job satisfaction, career adaptability, perceived employability, and organizational size will be analysed. The paper examines if the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction will be moderated by these individual and organizational characteristics.

Job satisfaction

From the early 1930s, the concept of job satisfaction has been examined for decades by many researchers. Researchers in the beginning, studied a wide variety of aspects of work

experience, which is later narrowed to evaluative judgements about one’s job (Weiss & Merlo, 2015). In 1976, Locke had one of the first accepted and influential definitions of job satisfaction, “a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience” (p. 1300). In other words, Locke explained job satisfaction as an affective reaction to one’s job. However, Organ and Near (1985) found out that the concept had, besides the affective dimension, also a cognitive dimension. This resulted in an enhanced definition of job satisfaction by Brief and Weiss (2002), “job satisfaction is a work-related attitude that combines affective and cognitive evaluations of one’s job experience”.

Previous research has been provided evidence on the importance of job satisfaction from the perspectives of both individuals and organizations. From the individual perspective, job satisfaction has demonstrated relationships with important outcomes, such as health and well-being (Faragher, Cass & Cooper, 2005), life satisfaction (Judge & Watanabe, 1993), turnover intent (Weiss & Merlo, 2015), motivation (Landy, 1978), and engagement (Harter, Schmidt & Hayes, 2002). Importantly, Faragher, Cass and Cooper (2005) conducted a meta-analysis of 485 studies, which examined the relationship between job satisfaction and health. They identified multiple highly significant correlations, especially for different aspects of

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mental health, like burnout, self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. Their research provided evidence that job satisfaction has a strong positive relationship with health, and that dissatisfaction can have dangerous consequences for an employee’s health and well-being (Faragher, Cass & Cooper, 2005).

Besides individual-level effects, job satisfaction can create organizational benefits as well. First, job satisfaction has a positive relationship with job performance, which is

supported by the meta-analysis of Judge, Bono, Thoresen and Patton (2001). Second, researchers found a relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intentions and, although to a bit lesser extent, actual turnover (Tett & Meyer, 1993; Cotton & Tuttle, 1986; Fried et al., 2008; Griffeth, Hom & Gaertner, 2000; Hom et al., 1992; Podsakoff et al., 2009). Specifically, researchers found out that turnover intentions will be lower when the employee’s job satisfaction increases. Also, similar to this relationship was a weaker relation between job satisfaction and absence duration, and absence frequency (Weiss & Merlo, 2015). Employees, who were more satisfied with their work, were absent less often and for shorter periods of time.

Despite all the benefits of job satisfaction, the concept is complex and influenceable through different factors. Especially in today’s dynamic economy and labour market, where employees have to deal with regular changes and alterations, job satisfaction might be

complicated to achieve or maintain. This can be because changing the current situation creates uncertainty among employees, which is negatively related to job satisfaction (Nelson, Cooper & Jackson, 1995; Rafferty & Griffin, 2006). In order for employees to deal with changes and uncertainty, adaptability and flexibility can be important competences to develop and manage one’s career (Savickas et al., 2009) while remaining satisfied (Cullen et al., 2014). Therefore, career adaptability can be a useful resource.

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Career adaptability and job satisfaction

In 1997, Savickas (1997, 2005) introduced the career construction theory for understanding vocational paths and behaviors. This theory states that human development is formed through the choices and adaptations that individuals take (Savickas, 2005). One of the main

components is career adaptability, which is defined as the “individual's resources for coping with current and anticipated tasks, transitions and traumas in their occupational roles that, to some degree large or small, alter their social integration” (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012, p.622). These resources are strategies that employees can use in order for managing one’s career. It helps them with realizing career goals, while keeping their identity and work environment connected (Hirschi, Herrmann & Keller, 2015). Career adaptability explains how employees can construct their career based on four global dimensions, called adapt-abilities, i.e.: concern, control, curiosity and confidence (Maggiori et al., 2013). Concern is about the awareness and planning of the vocational future. Control reflects an employee’s control and responsibility of one’s decisions and actions in constructing their career. Curiosity drives employees to explore one’s environment and possibilities. Finally, confidence is the belief of facing and solving career barriers (Maggiori et al., 2013). These adapt-abilities are competencies and knowledge obtained over time, and gained through work, educational, and training experiences (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012).

The career construction theory (Savickas, 1997; Savickas 2005) posits the relationship between self-regulatory resources (career adaptability) and employee adaptation, which in this study is measured through job satisfaction. In other words, career adaptability could be a useful resource to help employees with developing and managing one’s career (Savickas et al., 2009) while remaining satisfied with their job (Cullen et al., 2014). The reason might be that adaptable employees feel more in control over their uncertainty and have the confidence that they can face and solve barriers. A similar reason could be that these employees have a

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more positive attitude and mind, which may lead to a higher job satisfaction (Fiori, Bollmann & Rossier, 2015). In the last four years, empirical research on career adaptability has

increased rapidly as a result of agreement on a way of examining career adaptability, using the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012). Some of this research focused on the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction (Fiori, Bollmann & Rossier, 2015; Zacher & Griffin, 2015; Koen, Klehe & Van Vianen, 2012). These studies investigated different mechanisms and conditions that might explain how, and under which circumstances this relationship occurs.

Fiori, Bollmann and Rossier (2015) examined the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction, focusing on the affective mechanism behind this relationship: presence of positive and lack of negative job-related affect. They provided evidence that employees were more satisfied with their job if they were in the possession of a higher career adaptability (Fiori, Bollmann & Rossier, 2015). However, the study

demonstrated that only decreased negative affect acts as a mediator of this relationship. In other words, employees with a higher career adaptability are more satisfied, because of the reduction of negative feelings. They explained in their study that the weaker effect of positive affect might be more difficult to observe over time, because the impact of positive events in people’s life is weaker in contrast to negative events (Fiori, Bollmann & Rossier, 2015).

Furthermore, Zacher and Griffin (2015) provided evidence for the positive relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction, when examining this relationship among older workers. They found that the relationship is stronger for employees who had more working years left till their retirement (Zacher & Griffin, 2015). In line with Carstensen, Isaacowitz and Charles (1999), these findings support the assumption that career adaptability represents a useful resource for those employees, who are more concerned with their

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Moreover, Koen, Klehe and Van Vianen (2012) held a longitudinal field quasi-experiment among graduates to examine if training in career adaptability resources could increase the subsequent employment quality, including job satisfaction. In this way, the experiment tested the statement of Savickas et al. (2009) about the usefulness of career adaptability for managing one’s career. Koen, Klehe and Van Vianen (2012) compared the development of the four dimensions (concern, control, curiosity and confidence) of career adaptability between two groups – the training and a control group – over three points in time. The results demonstrated that the training group had an increase in concern, control and curiosity, where the control group did not have an increase or even a decrease in the same dimensions. In addition, the training group reported a higher employment quality than the control group (Koen, Klehe & Van Vianen, 2012). Hence, the study showed that career

adaptability plays an important role in finding qualitatively good jobs. Therefore, Koen, Klehe and Van Vianen (2012) provided evidence for the positive relationship between career

adaptability and job satisfaction.

However, despite the interesting evidence on the positive relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction, a recent meta-analysis by Rudolph, Lavigne and Zacher (2017) summarized all existing findings and found only a weak relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. Especially, compared to satisfaction in other domains, like career and life satisfaction, the meta-analytic correlation between career adaptability and job satisfaction was lower (Rudolph, Lavigne & Zacher, 2017). As argued by the authors, a reason could be that highly adaptable employees can be dissatisfied as well. Employees high on career adaptability might be more confident that they can easily change jobs internal and/or external and, therefore, job satisfaction might not be that important for them (Bussing et al., 1999). They will just adapt themselves to the required situation.

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Hence, based on the fact that the aforementioned evidence is not entirely conclusive in terms of expected strength in the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction, and that the meta-analysis of Rudolph, Lavigne and Zacher (2017) only included three

primary studies about this relationship, more studies are needed. However, the career construction theory and evidence from primary studies consider in favour of a positive relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction compared to a weaker relationship. Therefore, hypothesis 1 will be the following:

Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction.

The role of perceived employability

Based on the meta-analytic results of Rudolph, Lavigne and Zacher (2017), it is arguable that the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction is not always straightforward and positive. Therefore, other factors need to be taken into consideration in order to examine the relationship more conclusively. This is in line with the career construction theory

(Savickas, 1997; Brown & Associates, 2002; Savickas, 2005), which states that people can differ in vocational characteristics (e.g. personality traits) and that the individual’s career pattern, and with that one’s job satisfaction, is determined through the transaction between personal characteristics and external opportunities. Hence, individual and external

characteristics could help explain how adaptable employees can remain satisfied with their jobs and what the conditions are when the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction will be present or not, and whether it will be positive or negative.

The only evidence regarding the influence of individual characteristics on the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction, originates from studies by

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Zacher and Griffin (2015), and Fiori, Bollmann and Rossier (2015). They demonstrated that this relationship would be stronger for younger employees (Zacher & Griffin, 2015), and that affective states could have a mediator effect on this relationship (Fiori, Bollmann and Rossier, 2015). However, it is assumable that other characteristics might have an influence as well. As different studies found a relation between job satisfaction and individual characteristics, like preference for career and skill variety (Jansen et al., 1996), receiving support (Jansen et al., 1996), health (Faragher, Cass & Cooper, 2005), and personality differences (Seo, Ko & Price, 2004; Zacher & Griffin, 2015), it is arguable that these characteristics could also influence the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. In the current study, the focus is on whether this relationship might differ for employees who are confident that they can easily change jobs. This is called perceived employability, which Berntson and Marklund (2007) describe as the individual’s perception of available employment opportunities. This definition has two important factors, which will be explained first, before the possible moderator effect will be discussed.

Firstly, individual’s perception of finding new jobs depend on both personal and contextual characteristics (Berntson & Marklund, 2007). Personal characteristics are an individual’s unique set of skills, attitudes and competences (Rothwell & Arnold, 2007). It is the responsibility of the employee to invest in its human capital and to become suitable for new employment opportunities (Berntson, Sverke & Marklund, 2006). On the other hand, contextual characteristics, such as the level of the job, the organization and, the economy and society, influence employment opportunities as well (Vanhercke et al., 2014). For example, organizations offering human and/or career development support can help employees

expanding knowledge, skills, and competences for organizational purposes. However, this can also have negative consequences for organizations. When an employee’s human capital increases, so will the amount of external employment opportunities. Therefore, the

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opportunities organizations provide to their employees can have both a positive and negative impact. Another example of the influence of contextual characteristics, is that the chance of finding new employment will increase or decrease based on the amount of available jobs in the entire labour market (Vanhercke et al., 2014). Hence, the opportunity of employment could depend on multiple factors.

Secondly, perceived employability refers to employment opportunities in both the internal and the external market (Vanhercke et al., 2014). In other words, employees can seek for new employment in their current organization (in a different department or business unit) or in another organization. This could be an important distinction for organizations.

Employers, who can offer employees new opportunities, might retain valuable knowledge and skills for the organization. If employees do not have these chances in their own organization, they will look for it elsewhere in today’s competitive market (Samuel & Chipunza, 2009).

It is assumable that perceived employability moderates the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. Employees who feel more confident that they can easily change jobs, will look at job satisfaction in a different way than employees who do not have these possibilities. This differentiation is also stated by Bussing et al. (1999). They argued that perceived employability would weaken the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. They assumed that employees who were more confident, did not desire a high job satisfaction because they are convinced that there are enough employment opportunities in both the internal and external market. Job satisfaction is not that important for them. Following that line of argumentation, it is expectable that if employees would be both confident about their chances of finding different or better jobs than their current one, and adaptable, they might be even less prone to invest their career adaptability resources in remaining satisfied within the current job. Besides, it is assumable that these employees are

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continuously searching for more attractive employment opportunities (De Cuyper, Notelaers & De Witte, 2009).

On the other hand, when employees are not convinced that they have other employment opportunities, they will stay at their current job (Griffeth, Hom & Gaertner, 2000). It is expectable that these employees will use their career adaptability resources for their current job-related activities. In addition, it is reasonable to assume that these employees are also still satisfied with their present employment, because otherwise, they would probably still search for another job. This is in line with work of Tett and Meyer (1993), who found that job satisfaction increases turnover intent, and by the meta-analysis of Griffeth, Hom and Gaertner (2000), which concluded that a decision to leave an organization starts with job dissatisfaction.

Hence, this study will clarify if perceived employability moderates the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. It is expected that an employees’ perceived employability will negatively influence the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. Therefore, hypothesis 2 will be the following:

Hypothesis 2: The relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction will be weaker when employees have a higher perceived employability.

The role of organizational size

Besides the influence of individual characteristics, the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction could also differ depending on external opportunities, according to the career construction theory (Savickas, 1997; Savickas, 2002). In this study, external opportunities will be measured through an organizational characteristic,

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might moderate the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. Both smaller and larger organizations have to deal with unfamiliar, complex and ill-defined problems in their market, which challenge the adaptation resources of the organization and its employees. In order to adapt themselves to the new situation and to keep managing their career,

employees have to use, according to the career construction theory, their career adaptability resources (Savickas, 2005). However, it is assumable that this can change for organizations of different sizes because they face different kind of problems. Therefore, it is unclear which effect, positive or negative, the organizational size has on the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction.

It might be that an increase in the organizational size has a positive influence, since these kinds of organizations face more often internal and external environmental changes (Haveman, 1993). Therefore, employees need to be more adaptable in order to keep positive outlook on their work. Furthermore, larger organizations are in the possession of more

resources and a more decentralized managerial decision-making authority (Lee & Xia, 2006), which might encourage employees in their adaptation. Hence, larger organizations might trigger the employee’s career adaptability resources to maintain fitted with their job and organization.

However, it could also be that an increase in the organizational size has a negative effect on the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. According to Damanpour (1992, 1996), smaller-sized organizations are more flexible, which allow them to adapt easier to environmental changes. Therefore, more changes can be faced, and career adaptability resources might be triggered to a greater extent. Furthermore, adaptation to environmental changes could be harder for larger organizations, because of more complex communication forms (Lee & Xia, 2006), a more bureaucratic environment, and a more formalized standard, which enables them to take an innovative approach (Sironopolis, 1994;

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Camisón-Zornoza et al., 2004; Real, Roldán & Leal, 2014). The higher bureaucratic environment might also reduce the flexibility of larger organizations in dealing with

employees’ needs as Dekker and Barling (1995) argue. As a consequence, employees might feel undervalued (Dekker & Barling, 1995) and career adaptability resources might not even be triggered anymore. This could have a negative effect on the job satisfaction of employees, or even cause a higher absence rate among larger organizations. Relatedly, an older study of Miner (1977) provided evidence that larger organizations had higher absence rates than smaller ones, which might be due to lower job satisfaction rates among employees in larger organizations.

Hence, this study will clarify if the organizational size moderates the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. Organizations of all sizes face unfamiliar and complex problems, which tests the adaptability resources of employees. However, it is

unknown if there are differences in challenging these problems between organizations of different sizes. Therefore, hypothesis 3 will focus on clarifying the moderating effect of the organizational size on the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction:

Hypothesis 3: The relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction will be different for small and large organizations.

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Methods

The method section gives information about the study design and data collection. In addition, an overview of the characteristics of the respondents’ is provided.

Participants

A total amount of 632 responses were collected for this study. However, 230 of these responses consisted of cases with missing or incomplete data on most of the key study variables, and were, for that reason, removed from the dataset. After the removal of these responses, the final dataset consisted of 402 respondents.

The gender of the respondents was quite balanced, with 45.9% males and 54.1% females. The average age was 33.78 years (SD = 12.01). From all respondents, 373 lived in the Netherlands (92.8%), while the remaining 29 were spread internationally. Nevertheless, these 29 respondents are currently employed by employers with offices in the Netherlands. The spread of the respondents’ industry of employment was large, with the most common ones in the Health Sector (9.7%), Marketing, Sales and Service (7.5%), and Others (36%). However, a large number of respondents did not fill in this question (39.3%). Regarding the highest completed educational level of respondents, 8.2% had a high school degree or less, 10.7% completed a lower vocational educational training, 34.4% completed a higher

vocational educational training, 16.7% had a Bachelor’s degree, 27.9% had a Master’s degree, and 2% had a PhD. Lastly, the average years of total work experience was 13.76 (SD =

11.17), years in their current organization was 6.83 (SD = 7.52), and years in their current job position was 5.18 (SD = 6.12).

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Procedure

The research aim is of explanatory nature. In other words, the goal is to try to explain how the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction works, and to explore the

conditions when this relation will be present or not, and whether it will be positive or negative. To answer the research question, an online survey is used to gather cross-sectional data. The data was collected by four students of the Master Business Administration, who obtained responses through their personal networks. The survey was sent through the

programme Qualtrics, a research platform used by the University of Amsterdam. The survey was available in both English and Dutch. The Dutch translation of the survey measures were requested from the authors. If the translated measures were not available, the translation was done by the group of Master students themselves. In the latter case, the translations were checked by a native speaker. Disagreements and clarifications in the formulations were made on the basis of mutual agreement.

The survey started with an explanation of the purpose of the study, getting insight in the influence of a variety of factors on how people feel about their work. After that,

respondents were asked 128 questions where they had to evaluate their own competences and capabilities, and report on characteristics of their organization. Reminders were sent around three times in order to reach a higher response rate. Participation in the survey was fully anonymous. As the current study was part of a larger research project, the survey asked the name of the organization in which respondents worked. However, this information has not been used in the current study, nor has it been used in any way to compromise respondents’ anonymity. Finally, in the end of the survey participants were offered to participate in a lottery for one of the 50 euros gift vouchers.

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Measures

The survey was divided into demographic questions (e.g. age, gender and educational level, etc.), and questions about the focal variables and the relationships among, which are

hypothesized. In the latter case, existing questionnaires and validated scales were used from academic literature. An overview of all the questions can be found in the Appendix.

Job Satisfaction was measured using the three items developed by Bruck, Allen and Spector (2002). Respondents were asked if they were satisfied with their job, using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. One of the items was counter-indicative and had to be recoded (“In general, I don’t like my job”). An example of one of the indicative items was: ‘All in all I am satisfied with my job’. The scale had a Cronbach’s alpha of .788.

Career Adaptability was measured with a shorter version of the 24-item Career Adapt-Abilities Scale of Savickas and Porfeli (2012), which is the most common used. This shorter version is developed by Maggiori, Rossier and Savickas (2015) and consists of three items for each dimension, given it a total scale of twelve items. For the purpose of the study, and the prevention of a long and complex survey, the 12-item scale was used. Respondents were asked how strongly they had developed certain abilities in their career using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = not strong to 5 = strongest. An example of an item was: ‘Taking responsibility for my actions’. The scale had a Cronbach’s alpha of .817.

Perceived Employability was measured using the eight items of De Cuyper and De Witte’s (2008) scale. Despite that these eight items are divided initially in four internal and four external focused items, the separation was not used in this study. Perceived employability was measured as one scale. Respondents were asked how confident they are in finding

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from 1 = rarely to 5 = a great deal. An example of an item is: ‘I am confident that I could quickly gain another job with this employer’. The scale had a Cronbach’s alpha of .858.

Organizational Size was measured as a categorical variable. The basis of the scale was taken from the European Commission’s distinction between small (<10), SME (20-249), and large organizations (>250) (Eurostat statistics explained, 2018). However, before the survey was sent, the question was elaborated with another three categories, making it a total of six items. The reason behind this elaboration was that the original question with only three categories could be sensitive towards differences between small and large organizations. As a result of this decision, the following scale was made: (1) 1-9, (2) 10-49, (3) 50-249, (4) 250-499, (5) 500-999, and (6) 1000 or more. After the data collection and the preparation of the data in SPSS, the 6-item scale was recoded back to a 3-item scale, since some of the six groups consisted of very few organizations. Therefore, items 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6 were taken together, creating a new 3-item scale of small, medium and large organizations. The frequency distribution across these three groups were balanced best.

Control variables

The control questions were used to research for potential influences on the results and to guarantee a general reflection of the overall population. In this study, the used control variables were: age, educational level, and the years of work experience in the current position (position tenure).

First, age is included as a control variable as it can influence the hypothesized relationships in this study. Zacher and Griffin (2015) studied the moderating effect of age in the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction, discovering that this relation was stronger for employees who had more working years left till their retirement. Besides, Zacher (2014) found that some individual dimensions of career adaptability were different

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correlated with age than overall career adaptability. While most correlations were moderately to strongly correlated, concern was negatively correlated with age (Zacher, 2014). Therefore, age is included as a control variable in this study.

Second, educational level can be expected to influence the hypothesized relationships as well. For example, employees who studied for a longer time have invest more in their human capital, which is part of the personal characteristics of perceived employability

(Rothwell & Arnold, 2007). Therefore, it is likely that these employees become more suitable for new and other employment opportunities (Berntson, Sverke & Marklund, 2006) that could positively influence their sustainable employability. Moreover, Hou et al. (2012) found a difference in career adaptability scores between the educational level of students. Therefore, employees’ educational level can influence the outcomes of this study.

Lastly, years of work experience in the current position (position tenure) may also influence certain outcomes of this study. For employees who are starting in a new position, the changing current situation can create uncertainty which may influence their job

satisfaction (Nelson, Cooper & Jackson, 1995; Rafferty & Griffin, 2006). Therefore, the employee’s position tenure is included as a control variable.

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Results

The results section describes the outcomes of the hypotheses testing as presented in the conceptual model. First, the analytical strategy is given, which explains which steps are taken before the dataset could be used. Furthermore, the descriptive statistics of the variables are discussed, including the means, standard deviations, correlations, and reliabilities. Lastly, the results of the different analyses are reported to examine the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction, and the conditional effects.

Analytical strategy

After the data collection was finished, the data was downloaded into the programme

Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 25.0 (SPSS). However, some steps had to be taken before the dataset could be used. First, as mentioned in the method section, the responses who consisted of missing or incomplete data on most of the key study variables, were removed. Therefore, the final dataset consisted of 402 respondents.

Second, the organizational size variable was recoded. This categorical variable had originally six items in the survey. However, after analysing the frequencies, it appeared that a 3-item scale was balanced best. Therefore, the items 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6 were taken together to create the new 3-item scale of small, medium, and large organizations.

Third, the variable job satisfaction had one counter-indicative item, “In general, I don’t like my job”. This item is recoded from JS_2 into JS_2R.

Fourth, as indicated in the section on measures, reliability analyses were done for the numerical variables, job satisfaction, career adaptability and perceived employability, in order to examine the internal consistency of the measures. All the outcomes were above .70,

meaning that the used scales were good. The Cronbach’s alphas are given in ‘Table 1: Means, Standard Deviations, Correlations, and Reliabilities’ in the Descriptive statistics.

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Fifth, the scale means were computed for all numerical variables to create new variables for testing the hypotheses. They were coded as CAMEAN for career adaptability, PEMEAN for perceived employability, and JSMEAN for job satisfaction.

Sixth, the variables were evaluated for normality, homoscedasticity, linearity, and the absence of multicollinearity. All outcomes were satisfactory, except for the normality of job satisfaction. Job satisfaction was a little skewed to the right (Statistic = -.661, Std. Error = .122), which means that respondents generally positively rated their job satisfaction.

However, the observed skewness was not substantial enough to require data transformations (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013).

Seventh, prior to running moderation analysis, all the numerical variables of this study were z-standardized to reduce problems associated with multicollinearity in moderated

regression (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013).

Lastly, an additional programme of SPSS was downloaded, called PROCESS, in order to test the hypotheses (Hayes, 2017).

Descriptive statistics

A correlation analysis was conducted to provide the first overview of the relationships. Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of the variables, the correlation coefficients, and the

reliabilities. Looking into the correlations, table 1 shows that career adaptability is positively related to job satisfaction (r = .154, p < .010). However, perceived employability has different correlations as expected. It is both positively correlated to career adaptability (r = .171, p < .010) and job satisfaction (r = .102, p < .050), instead of the expected negative correlation. Lastly, organizational size is not significant for both career adaptability and job satisfaction.

All the control variables, age, educational level, and position tenure do not have a significant relationship with both career adaptability and job satisfaction.

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Since the examined contextual variable, organizational size, is a categorical variable, a one-way ANOVA analysis is used to further explore and describe potential differences in average scores on the focal variables in the current study (career adaptability, perceived employability, and job satisfaction) across organizations of different sizes. First, it appeared that there was not a significant difference between career adaptability across organizations of different sizes. The variable means were rather equal. However, there were both mean differences across organizations of different sizes for job satisfaction (F(2.399) = 4.715, p <.01) and perceived employability (F(2.399) = 11.028, p <.001). Looking into job

satisfaction, there were significant differences between small and medium organizations (p <.05), and between medium and large organizations (p <.05). Employees who worked in medium organizations rated their job satisfaction in a more favourable way compared to those in small or large organizations. Similarly, for perceived employability, the ANOVA analysis showed significant differences between small and medium organizations (p <.001), and small and large organizations (p <.001). The highest perceived employability was rated among employees in large organizations and the lowest among those in small organizations. Whether these differences in perceptions across employees in organizations of different sizes had

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implications on the relationship between career adaptability, perceived employability and job satisfaction is examined further in the hypotheses testing.

Hypotheses testing

In order to test the direct relationship between career adaptability (independent variable) and job satisfaction (dependent variable), a hierarchical regression model was conducted. This model examined if career adaptability explains the employee’s job satisfaction, after

controlling for the control variables. Therefore, the multiple regression consists of two steps (see Table 2). Step 1 tested the relationship between age, educational level and position tenure, and job satisfaction, to control for potential effects of these demographic

characteristics on the dependent variable, while step 2 included career adaptability in order to show how much it explained of job satisfaction.

The model in step 1 was not statistically significant with F(3.392) = 1.119, p = .341. This is also confirmed with the low variance of .8%, which demonstrates that the control variables hardly explain job satisfaction. On the other hand, the model in step 2 was significant with F(4.391) = 1.482, p <.01. The total variance explained by the model was 3.5%, which means that the addition of career adaptability explained 2.7% more of job satisfaction. This amount is still low, meaning that job satisfaction will be explained mostly through other factors. Looking into career adaptability, it shows a Beta of .163 with a p <.001. This means that career adaptability is positively related with job satisfaction, and when it increases by one-point, job satisfaction will increase with .163. Therefore, hypothesis 1 is supported.

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For testing the conditional effects, perceived employability and organizational size on job satisfaction, the analyses were executed using Andrew F. Hayes’ programme PROCESS (2017). However, before the analysis was started, the categorical variable ‘organizational size’ had to be recoded into dummy variables. The first group of this variable ‘small

organizations’ was chosen to be the baseline. Furthermore, two dummy variables were coded: organizational size 1 is the difference between small and medium organizations, and

organizational size 2 is the difference between small and large organizations. Table 3 gives an overview of all the effects on job satisfaction. By adding the moderators to the model, it explained 3.5% variance more of the dependent variable compared to the previous model (F(10.385) = 2.916, p <.01).

Since there are two conditional effects, model 2 of PROCESS was used for the analysis of the interactions. This model tests both moderator variables at the same time. It tested three interactions: (1) career adaptability * perceived employability, (2) career adaptability * organizational size 1, and (3) career adaptability * organizational size 2.

Interaction 1 was not significant, meaning that there is no evidence that perceived employability moderates the relation between career adaptability and job satisfaction. This can also be concluded from the small coefficient (.016) and t-value (.464), and the fact that

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the zero is located between the LLCI (-.050) and the ULCI (.081). Therefore, hypothesis 2 is not supported.

Moreover, interactions 2 and 3 were also not significant, meaning that the

organizational size does not moderate the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. Interaction 2 had a coefficient of -.128, and a t-value of -1.419, which are not that small. However, the zero is located between the LLCI (-.305) and ULCI (.049). Interaction 3 had both a small coefficient (-.023) and a t-value (-.249), and a zero located between the LLCI (-.200) and ULCI (.155) as well. Therefore, hypothesis 3 is not supported.

Despite the fact that the conditional effects were not significant, Table 3 shows a positive direct relationship between organizational size 1 and job satisfaction (coefficient = .208, p <.05), indicating a higher average job satisfaction among employees in medium compared to small organizations. This was an unexpected outcome of the model, since it was assumed that job satisfaction would differ for adaptable employees based on the

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organizational size (moderator effect). However, this analysis showed that the size of an organization itself can influence job satisfaction.

Lastly, also the control variables, age, education level and position tenure, were included in this model. However, only age had a small positive significant relation with job satisfaction (coefficient = .008, p <.05). The other relations between the control variables and the dependent variable were not significant.

Hence, only hypothesis 1 was supported. There is a positive relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. However, this relationship is not influenced through the perceived employability of the employee, nor through the size of the organization. Therefore, hypotheses 2 and 3 were not supported.

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Discussion

In this study, a conceptual model was formulated and tested to provide a conclusive insight regarding the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction, and to examine what the conditions are when this relationship will be present or not, and whether it will be positive or negative. Since there are only three studies which investigated this relationship (Rudolph, Lavigne & Zacher, 2017), this research extends the knowledge of the field by examining two conditions that could help explain how adaptable employees can remain satisfied with their jobs in the constant changing labour market. To determine these

conditions, we relied on the career construction theory of Savickas (1997, 2005), which states that people can differ in vocational characteristics (e.g. personality traits), and that the

individual’s career pattern, and with that one’s job satisfaction, is determined through the transaction between personal characteristics and external opportunities. As a personality trait, we focused on the perceived employability of the employees, which Berntson and Marklund (2007) describe as the individual’s perception of available employment opportunities. The external opportunity is measured through the size of an organization.

Overall, this study explored the question: How do perceived employability and

organizational size moderate the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction? The results of the relationships between job satisfaction, career adaptability, perceived

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Figure 2. Path Model

In studying the direct relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction (hypothesis 1), the results showed a significant positive correlation. It indicates that

employees who report higher levels of career adaptability, are more satisfied with one’s job (Cullen et al., 2014), and confirms the assumption that career adaptability can be a useful resource in remaining satisfied. This result supports previous studies about the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction (Fiori, Bollmann & Rossier, 2015; Zacher & Griffin, 2015; Koen, Klehe & Van Vianen, 2012), and provides a more elaborative

conclusion. However, the amount of variance career adaptability explains of job satisfaction is low, which indicates that job satisfaction is mostly explained by other conditions.

When examining the conditions when the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction would be present or not, and whether it would be positive or negative, the results did not show any significant relations. This indicates that both perceived employability (hypothesis 2) and the organizational size (hypothesis 3) do not moderate the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction.

First, the assumption of hypothesis 2, that more confident employees do not desire a high job satisfaction because they are convinced that there are enough employment

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opportunities elsewhere, is not supported by this study. The non-significant result is in line with earlier studies, which examined the relation between perceived employability and turnover intention. Despite a commonly assumed positive relationship between these two variables, research has only shown a weak correlation (Hom et al., 1992; De Cuyper, Van der Heijden & De Witte, 2011) or a non-significant one (Berntson, Näswall & Sverke, 2010; De Cuyper et al., 2010). This indicates that people do not think about quitting their job just because there are enough other employment opportunities, which can clarify the non-significant effect of perceived employability on the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction.

Second, the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction is also not moderated by the size of an organization, which was assumed by hypothesis 3 of this study. The adaptation resources employees have to use to adapt themselves to new situations, in order to keep managing their career and remaining satisfied, do not change across

organizations of different sizes. As explained by Lee and Xia (2006), both large and small organizations have their advantages and disadvantages, which can both trigger the employee to use its career adaptability resources. Therefore, it seems to be that it does not matter how large the organization is, since there is not found a significant distinction between

organizational sizes.

Despite the non-significant conditional effects on the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction, we found a direct relationship between organizational size 1 and job satisfaction. This indicates that employees seem to have a higher average job

satisfaction in medium organizations compared to small organizations. Hence, the size of an organization itself can have an influence on job satisfaction. It might be that employees feel more satisfied in medium-sized organizations, since larger organizations (medium compared to smaller) are in the possession of more resources and a more decentralized managerial

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decision-making authority (Lee & Xia, 2006), which might more influence the amount of possibilities for employees.

Hence, the study confirms the career construction theory (Savickas, 1997; Savickas 2005), which states that there is a relationship between self-regulatory resources and employee adaptation. We found that career adaptability has a positive influence on job satisfaction, given a more elaborative conclusion between the two variables. However, we could not find evidence that perceived employability and organizational size could explain when this relationship would be present or not, and whether it would be positive or negative. Therefore, this study only excluded the two conditions from explaining how adaptable employees can remain satisfied with their jobs. Future research should focus on other explanations, other conditions, that could extend the knowledge of the field of the career construction theory.

In addition to the theoretical contributions of this study, the results can also have practical implications for organizations, employers, and employees. The positive relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction can help organizations to keep their

employees satisfied. By providing training in career adaptability resources, employees could increase their job satisfaction and, according to Koen, Klehe and Van Vianen (2012), their overall employment quality. They become more suitable for and more satisfied with their job, which will have a positive effect on organizational benefits (e.g. performance). Furthermore, it can help employees with improving their own sustainable employability. By increasing their adaptability resources, employees will better adapt to changes. Therefore, it can be a useful resource for employees in managing one’s career while remaining satisfied, which has several individual-level benefits (e.g. health and well-being, motivation, etc.).

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Limitations and future research

Despite the contributions of this study to the knowledge of the field of career adaptability and job satisfaction, there were several limitations during this research, which suggests

improvements for future studies. First, this study used a self-reported questionnaire. Using this as a data gathering method can create concerns about the common method variance (= biases), which might influence the relationship between the variables measured in this study (Podsakoff et al., 2003; Podsakoff, MacKenzie & Podsakoff, 2012). However, it would have been difficult to use other sources for the data collection, given that the variables used in the conceptual model can be best evaluated by the employees themselves. Still, future research could improve their data by using more objective measurements. For example, by comparing self-reported data, and observations made by leaders and peers.

Second, another limitation of using self-reported questionnaires, is the social desirable responding of people. This bias can affect the validity and results of the study (Nederhof, 1985; Fisher, 1993), since we measured sensitive subjects as job satisfaction and perceived employability. However, the social desirable responding was tried to reduce by ensuring the anonymity of the respondents and their answers (Podsakoff, MacKenzie & Podsakoff, 2012). Respondents were informed of their anonymity before starting the questionnaire. Future studies could obtain measurements from alternative resources (e.g. leaders, peer) for controlling for social desirable biases (Podsakoff et al., 2003).

Third, in order to answer the research question, we collected cross-sectional data, meaning that the surveys were filled in by a single respondent at a single point in time (Rindfleisch et al., 2008). This approach is assumed to be prone to common method biases (Jap & Anderson, 2004), as validity risks (Podsakoff, MacKenzie & Podsakoff, 2012). Future studies could improve upon this by using longitudinal studies, collecting multiple surveys at different points in time. This can help explaining the causal correlation between the variables,

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and monitors change and development in outcomes and relations (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2016; Sedgwick, 2014).

Fourth, using non-probability convenience sampling for collecting the data can contribute to a lower validity. Since the respondents were not selected randomly, this might cause some validity and representative issues (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2016), limiting the generalizability of the results (Ghauri & Grønhaug, 2005). However, all the variables had a normal distribution (only job satisfaction was a bit skewed, but still between the appropriate boundaries), which indicates that the results were representative for the population. Despite that, future studies could improve the sampling method by using a probability sampling technique for a better generalizability (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2016).

Lastly, changing the organizational size variable from a 6-item scale to a 3-item scale might have influenced the moderating effect. However, we did not used the 6-item scale, since some of the six groups consisted of very few organizations. Future studies could try to include more organizations of all the group sizes, and to test the moderating effect using the 6-item scale. In this way, the variable could be less sensitive towards differences between small and large organizations.

In addition to the improvements for future studies based on the limitations, this study’s results showed several suggestions for future research. First, we looked for conditions that could explain when the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction would be present or not, and whether it would be positive or negative. Therefore, we selected two moderators based on the career construction theory, which states that peoplecan differ in vocational characteristics (e.g. personality traits), and that the individual’s career pattern, and with that one’s job satisfaction, is determined through the transaction between personal characteristics and external opportunities (Savickas, 1997; Brown & Associates, 2002; Savickas, 2005). The results showed that the perceived employability of employees and the

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size of an organization did not influence the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. However, future research should examine if other vocational characteristics (e.g. ability, self-concepts, etc.) and external opportunities (e.g. opportunities in the society, environment, etc.) do have an effect (Brown & Associates, 2002). Since career adaptability only explained a small part of job satisfaction, there should be other conditions taken into consideration that can clarify this relationship.

Second, the results showed a direct relationship between organizational size 1 and job satisfaction, indicating that employees seem to have a higher average job satisfaction in medium organizations compared to small organizations. Therefore, assuming that the size of an organization itself can have an influence on job satisfaction. Besides, it might be worth looking if there is a non-linear relation between the organizational size and job satisfaction, and/or a non-linear moderating effect of organizational size. It might be possible that the relationship between the variables does not correspond with each other. Future research should further examine these relationships to give a better clarification about employees’ job satisfaction.

Overall, this study’s results only supported the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction. Future research should look for other vocational

characteristics and external opportunities to give a further explanation on this study, since perceived employability and organizational size did not give a clarification. Besides, future studies should take into account the given suggestions for improving research approaches, involving objective measurements, multiple sources, longitudinal study designs, and probability sampling.

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Conclusion

This study looked at the implication of career adaptability on job satisfaction, extending the knowledge of the field by examining if perceived employability and organizational size could help explain how adaptable employees can remain satisfied with their jobs in the constant changing labour market.

The results showed that career adaptability can be a useful resource for employees in remaining satisfied with their jobs, which has several individual-level effects. Besides, it can help employers creating organizational benefits, by providing training in career adaptability resources to increase the job satisfaction among employees. Nevertheless, the conditional effects were not supported by this study, indicating that future research should look for other factors that can help elaborating the relationship between career adaptability and job

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References

Berntson, E., Sverke, M., & Marklund, S. (2006). Predicting perceived employability: Human capital of labour market opportunities? Economic and Industrial Democracy, 27(2), 223-244.

Berntson, E., & Marklund, S. (2007). The relationship between perceived employability and subsequent health. Work & Stress, 21(3), 279-292.

Berntson, E., Näswall, K., & Sverke, M. (2010). The moderating role of employability in the association between job insecurity and exit, voice, loyalty and neglect. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 32, 215-230.

Brief, A.P., & Weiss, H.M. (2002). Organizational behavior: Affect in the workplace. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 279-307.

Brown, D., & Associates (2002). Career choice and development. 4th edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Bussing, A., Bissels, T., Fuchs, V., & Perrari, K. M. (1999). A dynamic model of work satisfaction: Qualitative approaches. Human Relations, 52(8), 999-1028.

Camisón-Zornoza, C., Lapiedra-Alcamí, R., Segarra-Ciprés, M., & Boronat-Navarro, M. (2004). A meta-analysis of innovation and organizational size. Organization Studies, 25(3), 331-361.

Carstensen, L.L., Isaacowitz, D.M., & Charles, S.T. (1999). Taking time seriously: A theory of socio-emotional selectivity. American Psychologist, 54, 165-181. Cotton, J.L., & Tuttle, J.M. (1986). A meta-analysis and review with implications for

research. The Academy of Management Review, 11(1), 55-70.

Cullen, K.L., Edwards, B.D., Camron, C., & Gue, K.R. (2014). Employees’ adaptability and perceptions of change-related uncertainty: Implications for perceived organizational

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