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Journal Article•DOI•

Competency development and career success: The mediating role of employability

Ans De Vos1, Sara De Hauw1, Beatrice van der Heijden2•
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven1, Radboud University Nijmegen2
01 Oct 2011-Journal of Vocational Behavior (Academic Press)-Vol. 79, Iss: 2, pp 438-447
TL;DR: In this article, a survey was conducted among a sample of 561 employees of a large financial services organization and the results support the idea that employee participation in competency development initiatives as well as perceived support for competence development is positively associated with workers' perceptions of employability.
About: This article is published in Journal of Vocational Behavior.The article was published on 2011-10-01 and is currently open access. It has received 399 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Career development & Career management.

Summary (4 min read)

Jump to: [Introduction] – [THE MEDIATING ROLE OF EMPLOYABILITY] – [Employability] – [Competency Development and Employability] – [Relationship between Competency Development, Employability, and Career Success] – [Sample and Procedure] – [Measures] – [Analytical Strategy] – [Assessment of the Structural Model] – [DISCUSSION] – [Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research] – [Implications] – [Fit Statistics of Tested Structural Models] and [Newly Developed Scales for Assessing Competency Development]

Introduction

  • The present study aims to unravel the relationship between competency development, employability and career success.
  • To do so, the authors tested a model wherein associations between employee participation in competency development initiatives, perceived support for competency development, self-perceived employability, and two indicators of subjective career success (i.e. career satisfaction and perceived marketability) have been specified.
  • The results support the idea that employee participation in competency development initiatives as well as perceived support for competency development is positively associated with workers’ perceptions of employability.
  • Moreover, self-perceived employability appeared to be positively related with career satisfaction and perceived marketability.
  • The implications of their findings for understanding the process through which individuals and organizations can affect subjective career success are discussed.

THE MEDIATING ROLE OF EMPLOYABILITY

  • The current economic environment, characterized by ever-increasing market pressures, leaner organizations and rapid changes has forced working organizations to become more flexible in order to remain competitive (Lazarova & Taylor, 2009), and this has implications for individuals’ present-day career development.
  • In addition, little research investigated the combined effects of organizational and individual initiatives in the light of employability enhancement (De Vos, Dewettinck & Buyens, 2009b).
  • The authors address career success from the perspective of competency development and employability.
  • Up to now, to the best of their knowledge, no studies have been published addressing these issues.
  • From an employee’s point of view, a better understanding of the critical role of participation in competency development initiatives may positively stimulate actual efforts in this regard, herewith supporting life-long career development.

Employability

  • Following Van der Heijde and Van der Heijden (2006), employability is defined as the continuous fulfilling, acquiring or creating of work through the optimal use of competences.
  • These competences refer to an individual’s knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to adequately perform various tasks and carry responsibilities within a job, and to their adaptability to changes in the internal and external labor market (De Cuyper et al., 2008; Fugate et al., 2004; Van Dam, 2004; Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006).
  • The organizational perspective refers to HR practices aimed at optimizing the deployment of staff in order to increase the organization’s flexibility and competitive advantage (Nauta et al., 2009).
  • The individual perspective focuses on individual dispositions and behaviors (Forrier & Sels, 2003; Fugate & Kinicki, 2008; Fugate et al., 2004).

Competency Development and Employability

  • Employability depends on continuous learning, being adaptable to new job demands or shifts in expertise, and the ability to acquire skills through lateral rather than upward career moves in varied organizational contexts (Scholarios et al., 2008).
  • Building on this finding, the authors expect that perceived support for competency development will enhance workers’ self-perceived employability as well.
  • Marketability is conceptually distinct from employability in that the latter comprises the employee’s competencies (in terms of knowledge, skills, and abilities), i.e. their potential to fulfill, acquire or create new work, if necessary, while marketability refers to a positive career outcome of this potential, i.e. the perceptions regarding one’s added value at the (internal or external) labor market.
  • To date, empirical research examining this relationship is scarce.
  • Self-perceived employability will be positively associated with career satisfaction, also known as Hypothesis 2a.

Relationship between Competency Development, Employability, and Career Success

  • In the present study, the authors hypothesize that self-perceived employability will mediate the relationship between competency development and career success.
  • The model the authors have developed to this point describes the impact of competency development on career success as being fully mediated by employability.
  • Earlier studies in the domain of career management and training and development suggest the possibility of direct associations with career success.
  • Self-perceived employability mediates the relationship between employee participation in competency development and perceived marketability, also known as Hypothesis 3b.
  • Self-perceived employability mediates the relationship between perceived support for competency development and career satisfaction, also known as Hypothesis 4a.

Sample and Procedure

  • A survey was conducted in a large financial institution located in Belgium, which employed about 16,000 white-collar workers at the time of their study.
  • To this end, the company implemented competency development over ten years ago, and, in the meantime, has made large investments in developing a series of training practices (e.g., e-learning sessions), on-the-job learning practices (e.g., coaching and mentoring programs), and career management practices (e.g., career counseling).
  • After receiving formal approval from the financial institution, three departments were selected to participate in the study, i.e. the headquarters, ICT department, and branch offices.
  • The majority of the respondents held a bachelor degree (58.8%).

Measures

  • The basis for this scale was an earlier qualitative case study on competency development conducted by the authors in 22 Belgian organizations, including the organization studied in the current research1.
  • As it was their objective to address the impact of participation in the bundle of competency development initiatives, and because there were high inter-correlations between the sub scales, the items were collapsed into one global scale.
  • Twelve items were selected thatassess the extent to which respondents experience support for competency development from the organization (e.g., “I receive feedback that is useful for the development of my career when I need it”).
  • Respondents had to indicate on a five-point Likert scale to what extent they were satisfied with their career successes, career progress, income, and development progress (e.g., “I am satisfied with the success I have achieved in my career”).
  • As shown by previous studies, subjective career success varied based on employees’ age (e.g. Ng et al., 2005) and organizational tenure (e.g. Eby et al., 2003).

Analytical Strategy

  • The authors tested the hypothesized model and included paths via structural equation modeling.
  • For constructs with a higher-order factor structure (employee participation in competency development initiatives, perceived support for competency development, self-perceived employability, and perceived marketability), the authors reduced the number of parameters to be estimated following the partial aggregation method (Bagozzi & Edwards, 1998; Little, Cunningham & Shahar, 2002).
  • This procedure involves averaging the responses of sub sets of items measuring a construct.
  • Because career satisfaction was a unidimensional construct, the authors followed the procedure recommended by Little et al. (2002) to create two parcels of randomly selected items to serve as indicators for these variables.
  • Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics, scale reliabilities and inter-correlations between all variables included in the study.

Assessment of the Structural Model

  • To test their conceptual model, the authors followed the procedure described by Bagozzi and Edwards (1998).
  • Table 2 reports the results from these analyses.
  • Based on these analyses, and comparisons of model fit, alternative Model 2 was retained as the final model.
  • The absence of significant direct associations between participation in competency development initiatives on the one hand, and career satisfaction and perceived marketability on the other hand, suggests a full mediation effect of self-perceived employability in case employee participation in competency development initiatives is the predictor variable (Hypothesis 3a and 3b).

DISCUSSION

  • The present study aimed to contribute to the career literature by unraveling the relationship between competency development, self-perceived employability, and career success.
  • In addition, their findings suggest a dual effect of competency development in organizations.
  • Second, empirical evidence is provided for a positive relationship between self- perceived employability on the one hand, and career satisfaction and perceived marketability on the other hand, providing empirical support for the theoretical claim that employability is a predictor of career success (Forrier & Sels, 2003; Hall, 2002; Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006).
  • To date, no research has tapped into finding empirical proof for this association.
  • The full mediation effect of self-perceived employability in the relationship between employee participation in competency development initiatives and career success indicates that developing expertise and flexibility (being the two indicators of employability as conceptualized in this study) by actively engaging in competency development is an important mechanism through which individuals can attain career success.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

  • This means that the authors cannot unequivocally determine the direction of relationships found.
  • The Belgian career environment is characterized by low mobility rates, with a high percentage of employees having traditional career patterns, working in regular employment and reporting only limited levels of career self-management (De Vos, De Clippeleer & Dewilde, 2009a; Forrier et al., 2009).
  • Given the relationship between objective and subjective career success found in many studies, it would further add to their insight into the role of competency development and employability of individuals across time and across organizations.
  • Moreover, including objective measures would overcome the limitations inherent in studies using only self-perception data.
  • The correlation between two of their scales, selfperceived employability and perceived marketability, was quite high (.55), which might indeed suggest common-method bias.

Implications

  • Their study has some important implications for practitioners who are interested in finding ways to stimulate workers’ employability, and who want to capitalize on the benefits of employability for both the organization and the individual employee.
  • First, their findings underscore the importance for organizations to actively invest in the development of competencies of their employees.
  • The benefit for the organization of doing this is clear: their findings suggest that it relates to enhanced expertise and flexibility, i.e., competencies that are, generally, considered as critical for sustained competitive advantage (Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden, 2006).
  • Moreover, the direct relationship between organizational support for development and career success outcomes included in their study implies that by actively working on the sustainable development of their employees, organizations not only serve themselves but also express a form of caring for their employees’ careers.
  • From a societal perspective, this means that, especially in times when it has become painfully clear that organizational success and employment security should never be taken for granted, both organizations and individuals should be actively encouraged to take up their responsibility for their employability as a leverage for sustainable employment.

Fit Statistics of Tested Structural Models

  • GFI = Goodness of Fit Index; CFI = comparative fit index; RMSEA = rootmean-square error of approximation.
  • Dashes represent data that were not applicable.

Newly Developed Scales for Assessing Competency Development

  • Training organized to enhance your technical competencies.
  • Working groups in which employees from different departments work together on the same topic.
  • Workshops/training sessions that help you plan your career.
  • All information about career opportunities in the organization is readily available.
  • I have been given a personal development plan to better understand my possibilities within the organization and the competencies I need to fully exploit them.

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Figures (3)
Citations
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Journal Article•DOI•
An exploratory study of factors affecting undergraduate employability

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David J. Finch1, Leah K. Hamilton1, Riley Baldwin1, Mark Zehner1•
Mount Royal University1
10 Nov 2013-Journal of Education and Training
TL;DR: In this article, the relative importance of 17 factors that influence new graduate employability was explored through the use of both qualitative and quantitative approaches, and a two-phase, mixed-methods study was conducted to examine: Phase One, whether these 17 factors could be combined into five categories; and Phase Two, the importance that employers placed on these factors.
Abstract: Purpose – The current study was conducted to increase our understanding of factors that influence the employability of university graduates. Through the use of both qualitative and quantitative approaches, the paper explores the relative importance of 17 factors that influence new graduate employability.Design/methodology/approach – An extensive review of the existing literature was used to identify 17 factors that affect new graduate employability. A two‐phase, mixed‐methods study was conducted to examine: Phase One, whether these 17 factors could be combined into five categories; and Phase Two, the relative importance that employers place on these factors. Phase One involved interviewing 30 employers, and Phase Two consisted of an empirical examination with an additional 115 employers.Findings – Results from both the qualitative and quantitative phases of the current study demonstrated that 17 employability factors can be clustered into five higher‐order composite categories. In addition, findings illus...

321 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
The Contemporary Career: A Work–Home Perspective

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Jeffrey H. Greenhaus1, Ellen Ernst Kossek2•
Drexel University1, Purdue University2
21 Mar 2014-Social Science Research Network
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the meaning of a work-home perspective and elaborate on the economic, organizational, and workforce changes that have affected contemporary careers and illustrate the implications of adopting a WH perspective for four streams of scholarship relevant to contemporary careers (career self-management, career success, global careers, and sustainable careers).
Abstract: This article proposes a perspective on careers that recognizes the interdependencies between work and home over the life course and is particularly suitable to contemporary careers. We first discuss the meaning of a work–home (WH) perspective and elaborate on the economic, organizational, and workforce changes that have affected contemporary careers. We then illustrate the implications of adopting a WH perspective for four streams of scholarship relevant to contemporary careers (career self-management, career success, global careers, and sustainable careers), suggest directions for future research in each area, and discuss the practical implications of adopting a WH perspective. We conclude that contemporary careers can be better understood by considering how employees’ home lives influence and are influenced by career processes and that the adoption of a WH perspective requires understanding the role of gender norms in prescribing and sanctioning women’s and men’s participation in the work and home domai...

221 citations

Cites background from "Competency development and career s..."

  • ...…or information seeking (Greenhaus et al. 2010, Kossek et al. 1998, Zikic&Richardson 2007), career goal setting (Greenhaus et al. 2010, Seibert et al. 2013), and career strategies to help individuals achieve their goals (De Vos et al. 2011, Greenhaus et al. 2010, King 2004, Kossek et al. 1998)....

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  • ...Subsequent research has generally confirmed the relevance of these antecedents while incorporating additional predictors beyond those examined in Ng et al.’s meta-analysis (Abele & Spurk 2009, De Vos et al. 2011, Enache et al. 2011)....

    [...]

Journal Article•DOI•
Crafting your Career: How Career Competencies Relate to Career Success via Job Crafting

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Jos Akkermans1, Maria Tims1•
VU University Amsterdam1
01 Jan 2017-Applied Psychology
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated whether career competencies could enhance an employee's subjective career success in terms of perceived employability and work-home balance via job crafting behaviors, and they found that career skills are indirectly and positively related to workhome interference through job crafting.
Abstract: This study aimed to investigate whether career competencies could enhance an employee's subjective career success in terms of perceived employability and work–home balance via job crafting behaviors. Based on Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Theory, we examined a potential motivational process in which career competencies, as a personal resource, would enhance career success through expansive job crafting. The results showed that job crafting mediated the positive relationship between career competencies and both internal and external perceived employability. In addition, job crafting mediated the positive relationship between career competencies and work–home enrichment. We expected a negative association between job crafting and work–home interference, yet our results indicated that career competencies are indirectly and positively related to work–home interference via job crafting. With our findings, we add to JD-R Theory by (1) showing that career competencies may be considered a personal resource, (2) empirically examining the role of job crafting in motivational processes, and (3) showing that enhanced subjective career success can be an outcome of motivational processes. Organisations may use these findings to implement developmental HR practices aimed at increasing career competencies and job crafting.

209 citations

Cites background from "Competency development and career s..."

  • ...Both career competencies and job crafting contribute to employee well-being and VC 2016 International Association of Applied Psychology. job performance (Akkermans et al., 2013b; Tims et al., 2015), and career success (De Vos et al., 2011; Tims et al., 2012)....

    [...]

Journal Article•DOI•
An empirical study of self-perceived employability: Improving the prospects for student employment success in an uncertain environment:

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Eivis Qenani1, Neal MacDougall1, Carol Sexton1•
California Polytechnic State University1
21 Aug 2014-Active Learning in Higher Education
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the relationship between students' expectations of finding employment upon graduation and a series of related variables and identified those factors that serve as boosters to self-perceived employability.
Abstract: Employability of graduates has taken more prominence in recent years due to the bleak economic situation, the impact of student debt, and an increasingly competitive global labor market. Given the substantial individual and public investment made in higher education, it is particularly important that graduates are employable upon graduation. The focus of this study is students’ self-awareness through a measure of their expectations of gaining employment. Through the use of regression analysis, we examine the relationship between students’ expectations of finding employment upon graduation and a series of related variables and identify those factors that serve as boosters to self-perceived employability. Findings point out to the increasingly important role university can play in developing and enhancing graduates’ employability.

177 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Keep Up the Good Work! Age-Moderated Mediation Model on Intention to Retire

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Paola Dordoni1, Beatrice van der Heijden2, Beatrice van der Heijden3, Beatrice van der Heijden4, Pascale Peters2, Sascha Kraus-Hoogeveen2, Sascha Kraus-Hoogeveen5, Piergiorgio Argentero1 •
University of Pavia1, Radboud University Nijmegen2, Kingston Business School3, Open University4, HAN University of Applied Sciences5
17 Oct 2017-Frontiers in Psychology
TL;DR: It is concluded that employability is an important factor in the light of older workers' intention to retire in order to motivate this category of workers to participate in employability enhancing activities and to work longer, negative age stereotypes need to be combated.
Abstract: In European nations, the aging of the workforce is a major issue which is increasingly addressed both in national and organizational policies in order to sustain older workers' employability and to encourage longer working lives. Particularly older workers' employability can be viewed an important issue as this has the potential to motivate them for their work and change their intention to retire. Based on lifespan development theories and Van der Heijden's 'employability enhancement model', this paper develops and tests an age-moderated mediation model (which refers to the processes that we want to test in this model), linking older workers' (55 years old and over) perceptions of job support for learning (job-related factor) and perceptions of negative age stereotypes on productivity (organizational factor), on the one hand, and their intention to retire, on the other hand, via their participation in employability enhancing activities, being the mediator in our model. A total of 2,082 workers aged 55 years and above were included in the analyses. Results revealed that the two proposed relationships between the predictors and intention to retire were mediated by participation in employability enhancing activities, reflecting two mechanisms through which work context affects intention to retire (namely 'a gain spiral and a loss spiral'). Multi-Group SEM analyses, distinguishing between two age groups (55-60 and 61-65 years old), revealed different paths for the two distinguished groups of older workers. Employability mediated the relationship between perceptions of job support for learning and intention to retire in both age groups, whereas it only mediated the relationship between perceptions of negative age stereotypes and intention to retire in the 55-60 group. From our empirical study, we may conclude that employability is an important factor in the light of older workers' intention to retire. In order to motivate this category of workers to participate in employability enhancing activities and to work longer, negative age stereotypes need to be combated. In addition, creating job support for learning over the lifespan is also an important HR practice to be implemented in nowadays' working life.

151 citations

Cites background from "Competency development and career s..."

  • ...…hypothesized personal factors, job-related factors and organizational factors to be important determinants of workers’ employability, which, in turn, predicts work and career-related outcomes (cf. Van der Heijden et al., 2009; De Cuyper et al., 2011; De Vos et al., 2011; De Coen et al., 2015)....

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  • ...More specifically, much in line with the plea for an integrative approach (De Vos et al., 2011), our theoretical lens will build on this model by looking into age (being an individual-based factor) (comparing employees of 55–60 vs. 61–65 years old), job support for learning (Tracey and Tews, 2005)…...

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Predictors of objective and subjective career success: a meta‐analysis

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Frequently Asked Questions (9)
Q1. What are the contributions in this paper?

The present study aims to unravel the relationship between competency development, employability and career success. 

This is something that should be addressed in future research. Third, an interesting avenue for future ( longitudinal ) research would be to include objective indicators of employability and career success as well, in order to compare the predictive validity of competency development in the light of objective outcomes and perceptual measures. Moreover, future research using a crosslevel design in which objective measures of organizational competency development are related to employability and career success could add to their understanding. Given the relationship between objective and subjective career success found in many studies, it would further add to their insight into the role of competency development and employability of individuals across time and across organizations. 

The full mediation effect of self-perceived employability in the relationship betweenemployee participation in competency development initiatives and career success indicates that developing expertise and flexibility (being the two indicators of employability as conceptualized in this study) by actively engaging in competency development is an important mechanism through which individuals can attain career success. 

Because career satisfaction was a unidimensional construct, the authors followed the procedure recommended by Little et al. (2002) to create two parcels of randomly selected items to serve as indicators for these variables. 

More specifically, a full mediation effect of self-perceived employability was found for the relationship between employee participation in competency development initiatives and career success, while a partial mediation effect was found for the relationship between perceived support for competency development and career success. 

the direct relationship between organizational support for development and career success outcomes included in their study implies that by actively working on the sustainable development of their employees, organizations not only serve themselves but also express a form of caring for their employees’ careers. 

to assess whether an even more parsimonious model would fit their dataequally well, the authors dropped the paths from the independent variables to self-perceived employability. 

In the present study, the authors hypothesize that self-perceived employability will mediate the relationship between competency development and career success. 

The finding that organizational support for competency development relates to subjective career success outcomes partly via self-perceived employability (a human capital element) supports the idea that it is important to incorporate both a contest-mobility and a sponsored-mobility approach when studying the antecedents of career success (Ng et al., 2005).