Protean career orientation and job search: investigating the mediating role of career optimism in mentoring relationships
Abstract
Purpose
Protean career orientation is a key element that helps explain why workers plan and manage their careers. In the field of nursing, a protean career orientation assists nurses in job search, career mobility and adapting to changing demands. Few studies have explored how nurses’ protean career orientation will lead to job search and how to make better use of the protean career orientation. This study aims to explore how a protean career orientation influences job search via career optimism and the moderating role of mentoring relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
This study conducted a cross-sectional survey of 309 frontline nurses from China. The questionnaire was distributed to nurses through the snowball sampling method. Jamovi 1.2.2 was used for descriptive analysis and Pearson’s correlation analysis. The relationships between the variables and their significance were tested using Process Macro 3.3.
Findings
Results show that protean career orientation was significantly related to career optimism and positively related to job search. Career optimism was significantly related to job search. The indirect effect of protean career orientation on job search through career optimism was significant. The interaction between protean career orientation and mentoring relationships was also significantly related to career optimism.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to demonstrate how nurses’ flexible career orientation significantly impacted job search through nurses’ career optimism. If nurses work in supportive mentoring relationships, the positive effect of the nurse’s protean career orientation on the job search is decreased.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank participating hospitals and nurse participants. They would like to express their gratitude towards those nurses for their assistance.
Funding: This research was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71801120), Shandong Provincial Youth Innovation Science and Technology Support Program (2021RW031).
Citation
Gong, Z., Gilal, F.G., Gilal, R.G. and Jahanzeb, A. (2023), "Protean career orientation and job search: investigating the mediating role of career optimism in mentoring relationships", Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/GKMC-11-2022-0267
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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