Career Adaptability and Turnover Intention: A Dual-Mediation Model

Career adaptability denotes psychosocial resources that help employees self-manage career change through both adapting themselves to the environment and adapting the environment to themselves. Previous studies have probed the former strategy and proposed a negative relationship between career adaptability and turnover intention. However, the presence of the latter strategy suggests a more complex relationship than previously thought. From a person-job fit perspective, the authors used structural equation modeling to examine the mechanism underlying the relationship between career adaptability and job satisfaction (an important predictor of turnover intention) among 218 employees working in China. The results showed that career adaptability had mixed effects on job satisfaction through the mediating role of task adaptivity and perceived overqualification. Overall, these findings carry theoretical and practical implications for career adaptability research and career counseling practices related to employee development.