1. Introduction
In the VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) era, there are many opportunities for individual career development but also more challenges and pressures. Understanding careers is important to individuals, organizations, and society [1]. How to achieve career success has become a heated topic, attracting scholarly attention. With the dynamic organizational environment and the development of boundaryless careers, individuals are more concerned with subjective feelings at work and career management, and assess career success according to their personal criteria, needs, values, career stages and aspirations [2]. Traditional career success indicators to measure objective career success, such as salary and promotion, have become less reflective of employee career satisfaction. More attention has been shifted to subjective career success, which refers to individuals’ perception and experience of achieving personally meaningful career outcomes [3,4]. Spurk et al. (2019) demonstrated that subjective career success not only negatively predicted withdrawal outcomes (e.g., turnover intentions and actual retirement) but also positively affect career attitude outcomes and well-being [5]. Subjective career success, in this regard, has a significant role both for the individual and the organization. Thus, career construction theory, which characterizes adaptation outcomes as resulting from adaptive readiness, adaptability resources and adapting responses [6], provides us with important insights to understand how to achieve career success more effectively.
The existing literature has examined the predictors of individuals’ subjective career success [7,8,9]. However, with careers becoming less predictable in the current dynamic and flexible work environment, employees are more responsible for their career development [10]. Studies on how contemporary career orientation affects subjective career success seem to be more necessary [11,12]. Proactive career orientation, reflecting a general focus on personally driven, goal-directed work behavior and including self-directed, value-driven and psychological mobility constructs as components [13], is the driver of the way individuals enact and evaluate careers in contemporary organizations [14]. Yet, studies on the effects of proactive career orientation on subjective career success are scarce. Studies exploring proactive career orientations and how they contribute to enhanced career outcomes are needed [15]. To that end, consistent with career construction theory [6], we conceptualize proactive career orientation as an adaptive readiness and aim to investigate the potential positive effect of proactive career orientation on subjective career success.
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Career construction theory explains the dynamic process wherein individuals build their career development through a series of meaningful vocational behaviors and work experiences [6]. Considered as a self-regulating psychosocial ability, career adaptability is a core element of this process, helping individuals develop adaptive strategies and behaviors to achieve adaptive goals for better career development outcomes [16]. Proactive career orientations that focus on self-directed, value-driven, and psychological mobility in a protean and boundaryless career attitude, have been shown to significantly predict career adaptability [17,18]. Furthermore, career adaptability helps employees to successfully manage their career development and adjustment, thereby enhancing subjective career success [8]. We, therefore, argue that career adaptability may mediate the relationship between proactive career orientation and subjective career success.
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The career construction theory states that individual career development is influenced by the interaction of individuals and situations [6], providing insight into the potential boundary conditions in the above mechanism. Currently, there are fewer studies exploring situational factors in the career construction process, while it is very critical [19]. Mentoring, as an important workplace factor, is a set of role activities, including coaching, role modeling and social support that mentors provide to proteges [20,21], which contributes to the mentee’s career adaptability and subjective career success [22]. For example, empirical studies find that mentoring can facilitate a mentee’s personal learning, skill development and career adaptability [23]. Similarly, a meta-analysis of mentoring demonstrates that mentoring helps mentees access to career success, especially subjective career success, by providing them with vocational support, psychosocial support, and role modeling support [24]. Hence, we expect mentoring to function as a potential moderator of the relationships between proactive career orientation, career adaptability and subjective career success.
Building on career construction theory [6], we thus propose a moderated mediation model, which jointly examines career adaptability as the mediating mechanism, and mentoring as the moderator of the relationships between proactive career orientation, career adaptability and subjective career success (see Figure 1). This study contributes to the existing literature in the following four aspects. First, we contribute to the literature on subjective career success by showing that proactive career orientation positively predicts subjective career success. Our research answers calls for efforts to promote practitioners’ subjective career success [5]. Second, our work contributes to extending the application of career construction theory. We conceptualize proactive career orientation as an adaptive readiness and career adaptability as an adaptability resource, indicating how proactive career orientation via career adaptability improves subjective career. Third, this study clarifies mentoring as a boundary condition to enhance the relationship between proactive career orientation and career adaptability, as well as the relationship between career adaptability and subjective career success, answering the call of Hirschi and Koen (2021) to unpack the role of context in the influence process of contemporary career orientation on career self-management [25]. Finally, we built a career success path for practitioners available within educational institutions or companies, which may benefit both employers and employees [26].
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