The Relationships Between Employability,Emotional Exhaustion,and Turnover Intention

Abstract

In the boundaryless career era, employability is valued by both employees and employers. In this study, we investigated the effects of employability on employees’ strain and turnover intention in the Chinese setting, focusing on the moderating role of perceived career opportunity (PCO). We collected two-wave data from a sample of 214 employees over a three-month period. The results showed that employability was negatively related to emotional exhaustion and nonsignificantly related to turnover intention after controlling for baseline levels. Further, we found that PCO moderated the relationships between employability, emotional exhaustion, and turnover intention. Specifically, the negative relationship between employability and emotional exhaustion was strong (weak) when PCO within the organization was high (low). Employability was negatively related to turnover intention only when PCO was high. Our study highlights that PCO should be given more attention in the employability research.

Keywords

employability perceived career opportunity emotional exhaustion turnover intention

In the new career or boundaryless career era, with the rapidly changing, insecure work environment, employability has received much attention, both in research and in practice. As N. De Cuyper and De Witte (2011) noted, individuals work to control their careers, pursuing growth, and development to enhance or maximize their employability while also expecting their employers’ to support their efforts. Employers, in turn, face serious challenges in retaining these valued employees. Employability is an individual’s likelihood of getting and retaining a job (Berntson & Marklund, 2007; Fugate, Kinicki, & Ashforth, 2004; Rothwell & Arnold, 2007). High employability can protect individuals from stressful work environments, but it can also lead them to search for more attractive jobs outside their organizations in response to their competitive advantages in the labor market. The return of organizational investments for these employees is at risk, which might increase rather than decrease turnover. Until now, the results from theoretical bases and empirical evidence have not been consistent, showing positive, negative, and no relationships between employability and turnover (see the review by N. De Cuyper, Mauno, Kinnunen, & Mäkikangas, 2011). Obviously, the inconsistent relationship between employability and turnover intention requires clarification. One meaningful way to do this is to investigate critical moderating variables that might explain this complex relationship. We expect individuals’ perceived career opportunity (PCO) within their organizations to act as an important moderator. Employees with high employability are more likely to pursue career development, and thus career opportunities would be a significant factor influencing individuals’ career behavior and decisions in today’s employment situation (e.g., Kraimer, Seibert, Wayne, & Liden, 2011; Q. X. Weng & Hu, 2009; Q. X. Weng & McElroy, 2012). In this study, we use emotional exhaustion, a common indicator of well-being in the workplace (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001), as an outcome because personal well-being has been a recent topic in career research linked to sustainable personal development (Walsh, 2008).

Unfortunately, nearly all of the employability studies have been conducted within developed Western countries, so very little is known about whether their findings are applicable to the developing Chinese society (Wang & Lowe, 2011). We believe that China offers an ideal setting in which to study employability. The economic transaction from a planned to a market-oriented economy put an end to the “iron rice-bowl” lifetime employment era (Price & Fang, 2002). Individuals must take more responsibility for their careers and their employability than before. Meanwhile, to survive and maintain competitiveness, Chinese organizations need highly employable employees and thus must implement the necessary human resource strategies to obtain and retain them.

This study contributes to the literature in the following ways. First, it incorporates PCO, an important contextual variable, into employability research. We examine the interaction effect of employability and PCO on employees’ emotional exhaustion and turnover intention. The findings could help clear up the mixed results regarding the employability–turnover intention relationship, which would also enrich the employability literature by providing evidence from the Chinese society. Second, we use two-wave longitudinal data sets and examine incremental variance in predicting outcomes by controlling for initial outcome levels to provide strong evidence for our research model. Third, our findings have practical implications for employers to retain highly employable employees and reduce their emotional exhaustion in the era of boundaryless career.

Employability, Emotional Exhaustion, and Turnover Intention

Although scholars have taken different perspectives on and measures of employability (e.g., Vanhercke, De Cuyper, Peeters, & De Witte, 2014), there is a growing consensus that employability refers to “the individual’s perception of his or her possibilities to achieve a new job” (Berntson & Marklund, 2007, p. 281). Employability reflects an individual’s ability to obtain a desired job (e.g., Berntson & Marklund, 2007; N. De Cuyper, Van der Heijden, & De Witte, 2011; Fugate et al., 2004; Rothwell & Arnold, 2007). Employees with high employability have knowledge, skills, and experience that are transferable across different jobs or organizations and thus are highly competent within the labor market (N. De Cuyper, Raeder, Van der Heijden, & Wittekind, 2012; Rothwell & Arnold, 2007). Hence, employability is considered as a key personal resource in Hobfoll’s (2001) conservation of resources (COR) theory, particularly given the insecurity of contemporary working life (N. De Cuyper, Mäkikangas, Kinnunen, Mauno, & Witte, 2012; N. De Cuyper, Raeder, et al., 2012). Personal resources are positive self-evaluations that refer to individuals’ sense of their ability to successfully control and influence their environment (Hobfoll, 2001). Thus, individuals with more resources are more equipped to deal with stressful events and changes than those with fewer resources, which can lead to lower levels of strains (see the overview by Hobfoll, 2011). The extant cross-sectional (e.g., N. D. De Cuyper, Bernhard-Oettel, Berntson, Witte, & Alarco, 2008; Kinnunen, Mäkikangas, Mauno, Siponen, & Nätti, 2011) and longitudinal studies (e.g., Berntson & Marklund, 2007; N. De Cuyper, Makikangas, et al., 2012; N. De Cuyper, Raeder, et al., 2012; Kirves, Kinnunen, De Cuyper, & Mäkikangas, 2014) have consistently demonstrated the negative relationship between employability and psychological strains or symptoms, burnout, or emotional exhaustion. The empirical evidence from Chinese studies has also supported that employees with more personal resources (i.e., self-efficacy, mastery) experience less strains (e.g., Lu, Siu, Chen, & Wang, 2011; Siu, Lu, & Spector, 2007). Emotional exhaustion refers to the feeling of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one’s work, manifested by both physical fatigue and psychological strain (Maslach et al., 2001). As the core dimension of job burnout, emotional exhaustion has been given more attention (Maslach et al., 2001). Thus, in the context of the current investigation, we expect employability at Time 1 (T1) to explain the incremental variance in emotional exhaustion at Time 2 (T2), after controlling for initial level of emotional exhaustion T1.
Hypothesis 1: Employability T1 is negatively related to emotional exhaustion T2 after controlling for emotional exhaustion T1.

Career motivation theory (London, 1983; London & Mone, 2006) emphasizes that individuals’ career decisions and behavior are mainly influenced by their career motivations, which are associated with individual characteristics such as perceived internal control or the belief in influencing an individual’s career outcomes. Individuals with high perceived internal control are more likely to try to control their career behavior and decisions than are those with low perceived internal control. High employability enhances an individual’s level of control over his or her career and makes him or her believe that there are more opportunities in the labor market (Fugate et al., 2004; Rothwell & Arnold, 2007). Individuals with high employability might be more likely to leave their current organization or engage in a more aggressive job search if they have better opportunities for career development outside their current organizations (Fugate et al., 2004). Employability could facilitate turnover or mobility because employable employees have more job alternatives in the labor market (Trevor, 2001). External job mobility has been found to lead to more career success in the boundaryless career context (e.g., De Vos, De Hauw, & Van der Heijden, 2011; Lam, Ng, & Feldman, 2012). However, compared with less employable individuals, those who are more employable might be more prone to remain in their current organizations because they believe doing so will help them accomplish their career goals (De Vos et al., 2011). This could essentially make employees embedded inside their organizations. Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, and Erez (2001) suggested that if individuals are highly embedded, they might not consider leaving, which implies that employability does not necessarily increase, and may even decrease, turnover intentions. To date, the empirical evidence regarding the relationship between employability and turnover intention or turnover has also been inconsistent. For example, although N. De Cuyper, Van der Heijden, et al. (2011) found a positive relationship between employability and turnover intention, they also found a significantly negative relationship in another sample with diverse employment contracts (N. De Cuyper, Notelaers, & De Witte, 2009). Berntson, Näswall, and Sverke (2010) found no relationship between employability and turnover intention, which was supported by N. De Cuyper, Mauno, et al.’s recent study (2011). These inconsistent findings suggest the presence of certain moderators, which require more research to explain the complex relationship between employability and turnover intention (see our arguments below). Considering these findings, there is no strong reason to assume that there is a relationship between employability and turnover intention. We propose that employability T1 might not relate to turnover intention T1, after controlling for turnover intention T1.
Hypothesis 2: Employability T1 is not related to turnover intention T2 after controlling for turnover intention T1.

The Moderating Role of PCO

As a critical personal resource in the workplace, employability could promote an individual’s control of his or her career. Thus, highly employable employees tend to pursue more opportunities to attain their career goals (London, 1983). In this study, we focus on PCO rather than organizational-level human resource management policies and practices, as perceptions of the latter have consistently had more influence over employees’ attitudes and behavior than the actual policies themselves (e.g., Kraimer et al., 2011). PCO has been defined as “employees’ perceptions of the degree to which work assignments and job opportunities that match their career interests and goals are available within their current organization” (Kraimer et al., 2011, p. 488). Employees with high PCO believe that their tasks and career opportunities are consistent with their own career goals and interests.

PCO is similar to the four-dimensional concept of career growth developed by Weng and colleagues (2009, 2010), which affected individuals’ career beliefs and behavior. In this study, we consider career opportunities/growth as individuals’ general perceptions of the extent to which job opportunities with their current organizations match their career goals and interests. It has been proven to be an important contextual variable that influences individuals’ career behavior in the boundaryless career era (e.g., Kraimer et al., 2011; Maurer & Chapman, 2013). Further, individuals’ career goals may or may not relate to promotion or upward mobility. Given their diversified personal career goals and interests, individuals in the same organization may have largely differentiated perceptions of the career opportunities offered by the organization to them (Kraimer et al., 2011).

The principle of COR theory suggests that individuals are motivated to protect against resource losses and to gain resources for personal growth and development (Hobfoll, 1989). In line with COR theory, the career opportunities provided by employers are conceived as a critical job resource gain for employees in the boundaryless career era (e.g., Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; Ng & Feldman, 2014). Employees with more personal and job resources can deal with work difficulties better and achieve their career goals more successfully than those with fewer resources (Hobfoll, 2001). This should lead them to experience lower levels of emotional strain. As Demerouti and Bakker (2011) suggested, individuals with more personal and job resources experience less exhaustion or more vigor, even when dealing with high job demands. We therefore hypothesize that PCO’s positive effect will be salient for employees with more personal resources (i.e., high employability).
Hypothesis 3: PCO T1 moderates the negative relationship between employability T1 and emotional exhaustion T2 after controlling for emotional exhaustion T1, such that the negative relationship is stronger (weaker) for employees with high (low) PCO.

Career motivation theory proposes that an individual’s career decisions and behavior are saliently motivated by his or her desire to achieve personal career goals (London, 1983; London & Mone, 2006). PCO indicates that the current jobs or positions within the organizations could match employees’ own career interests and goals (Kraimer et al., 2011), which would be treated as contextual or situational characteristics of career motivation (London, 1983). As mentioned, PCO is similar to the concept of career growth or career growth opportunities. The studies conducted by Weng and colleagues (2009, 2010, 2012) and Wang, Weng, McElroy, Ashkanasy, and Lievens (2014) consistently supported that career growth provided by organizations was negatively associated with employees’ turnover intentions in the Chinese setting. Similarly, Bedeian, Kemery, and Pizzolatto (1991) found that career growth opportunities were negatively related to both turnover intention and turnover.

One of the core tenets of the career motivation model is that individuals’ “career decisions and behavior will be more effective (e.g., have more positive outcomes for the individual and the organization) the greater the congruence between the individual and the situational characteristics” (London, 1983, p. 627). As we mentioned earlier, employability is an important individual characteristic, while PCO is a main situational characteristic. Because highly employable employees greatly value career development, the career opportunities provided by their organizations should fit their career goals, thus creating congruence or fit between person and situation. It is reasonable to assume that the better the fit, the higher the likelihood that an employee will stay with the organization. In addition, perceived fit is one of the critical aspects of job embeddedness that has been proven to be a key predictor of turnover intention or turnover (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, & Erez, 2001). We thus expect highly employable employees to have more positive attitudes toward and attachments to their organizations (i.e., low turnover intention) when perceiving the career opportunities offered. In contrast, when fewer career opportunities are perceived, we expect employability to have a neutral or positive influence on employees’ turnover intention because the sacrifice of leaving their organization is less significant (Mitchell et al., 2001). In their recent study, Kraimer, Seibert, Wayne, and Liden (2011) found that PCO moderated the organizational support for the development–turnover relationship, such that the relationship was negative when PCO was high but positive when PCO was low. Organizational support for development was one important antecedent of employees’ employability enhancement (e.g., De Vos et al., 2011; Wittekind, Raeder, & Grote, 2010). The above-mentioned arguments and empirical evidence lead to the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 4: PCO T1 moderates the relationship between employability T1 and turnover intention T2 after controlling for turnover intention T1, such that the negative relationship is stronger (weaker) for employees with high (low) PCO.

Method

Participants and Procedure

The participants in this study were employees from a multinational information technology (IT) corporation in China. A longitudinal research design was used to collect two-wave data over a three-month period. A self-administered questionnaire survey method was used. With the help of human resource (HR) managers, our research assistants distributed the questionnaires to the targeted respondents. The respondents were informed the goals of our research and were promised confidentiality of their responses. In the first survey wave (T1), a total of 360 questionnaires were distributed, and 295 valid questionnaires were received (for a response rate of 81.95%). Three months later (T2), the follow-up questionnaire was sent to the employees who responded at T1. Of these, 218 returned the questionnaire, indicating a response rate of 73.9%. Excluding the uncompleted and nonmatching questionnaires, there were 214 questionnaire pairs, resulting in a matching rate of 72.54%. For research purposes, we excluded the employees with less than 1-year organizational tenure because they would have a hard time perceiving career growth opportunities within the organization.¹ The final sample comprised 196 employees, 83 men and 113 women, of whom about 70.9% were married. Most of our sample was in charge of purchasing and customer service, with an average age of 33.47 (SD = 6.25) and an average tenure of 65.11 months (SD = 55.02). The survey instruments were in Chinese. Translation and back-translation procedures were performed on measures without existing Chinese versions. Employability and PCO were measured at T1 and emotional exhaustion and turnover intention were measured at both T1 and T2.

Measures

Employability

Employability was measured with 7-item external employability scale developed by Rothwell and Arnold (2007). Example items are “With my work qualifications I can find new work relatively quickly” and “I could easily get a similar job to mine in almost any organization.” Similar measures have been used successfully in other studies (e.g., Berntson & Marklund, 2007; N. De Cuyper, Mauno, et al., 2011). Responses could range from 1 (totally disagree) to 6 (totally agree), and higher score indicated higher employability. The Cronbach’s α was .86.

PCO

PCO was measured with 3-item scale developed by Kraimer et al. (2011). Example items are “This company offers many job opportunities that match my career goals” and “There are job opportunities available within this company that are of interest to me.” Each item was rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree), with higher score indicating more PCO. The Cronbach’s α was .87.

Emotional exhaustion

Emotional exhaustion was measured with 5-item subscale of the Chinese version (Zhong, You, Gan, Zhang, Lu, & Wang, 2009) of Maslach Burnout Inventory (Schaufeli & Leiter, 1996). Example items are “I feel emotionally drained from my work” and “I feel burned out from my work.” Each item was rated on a 6-point scale ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 6 (totally agree), with higher score indicating higher emotional exhaustion. The Cronbach’s αs for T1 and T2 were both .91.

Turnover intention

The Chinese version of 3-item scale from Hui, Wong, and Tjosvold’s (2007) study was used to measure turnover intention. Example items are “I often think of leaving the organization” and “It is very possible that I will look for a new job next year.” Responses could range from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree), and higher score means higher willingness to leave. The Cronbach’s αs were .81 and .80 for T1 and T2, respectively.

Results

Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and correlations among the main variables. Before testing our hypothesized relationships, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the validity of our measurement model. We specified six latent variables (employability, PCO at T1, emotional exhaustion, and turnover intention at T1 and T2, respectively) in a single CFA. As suggested in previous studies (e.g., Brown, 2006), the measurement model allowed for the error variances of the identical indicators used across time points to be correlated with account for their nonindependence. The CFA results showed that the fit of the hypothesized six-factor model was accepted (χ²/df = 694.11/297 = 2.33, comparative fit index = .94, nonnormed fit index = .93, root mean square error of approximation = .08, standardized root mean square residual = .08), and that all items have factor loading greater than .50 on their own factor, indicating our valid measures.

Table 1.
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations.

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

1 Age 33.47 6.25 1

2 Gender 0.59 0.51 –.10 1

3 Marriage 0.32 0.55 –.31 .05 1

4 Education 0.61 0.48 .23 .05 –.06 1

5 Tenure (month) 65.11 55.02 .34 –.01 –.13 .36 1

6 Position 0.61 0.88 .42 –.09 –.07 –.03 .31 1

7 Weekly work hours 43.86 6.37 –.06 .04 .06 .01 .02 .08 1

8 Employability T1 4.17 0.68 .10 –.09 –.03 –.01 –.02 .11 .06 1

9 Perceived Career Opportunity T1 3.42 0.92 .08 –.08 .08 .19** –.14* –.01 .01 .45** 1

10 Emotional Exhaustion T1 2.84 1.02 –.09 .16* .06 .10 –.06 –.18** .12 –.12 –.12 1

11 Emotional Exhaustion T2 2.89 0.99 –.17* .13 .12 .05 –.12 –.18* .29 –.22 –.13 .63 1

12 Turnover Intention T1 2.69 1.01 –.10 .21 –.03 .09 .05 –.17* .02 –.27 –.42 .45 .28 1

13 Turnover Intention T2 2.81 1.02 –.17* .04 .02 .03 .01 –.16* .12 –.29 –.34 .25 .43 .61** 1

Note. Gender: 0 = male, 1 = female. Marital status: 0 = married, 1 = single. Education: 0 = college degree or below, 1 = university degree or above. Position: 0 = nonmanger, 1 = manager. N = 196.

*p < .05. **p < .01.

A series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to test our hypotheses. Any variable used as a component of an interaction term was centered to avoid multicollinearity (Aiken & West, 1991). The demographic characteristics and the outcome variable at T1 (emotional exhaustion and turnover intention, respectively) were controlled in the first step. Employability T1 and PCO T1 were entered in the second step. The interaction terms of employability T1 and PCO T2 were then entered in the third step (see Tables 2 and 3).

Table 2.
Regression Results Predicting Emotional Exhaustion T2.

Predictor variable Emotional Exhaustion T2

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

Age –.04 –.02 –.03

Gender .01 .01 .01

Marriage .04 .04 .04

Education .01 .01 .03

Tenure –.03 –.06 –.05

Position .11* .16* .15*

Weekly work hours .21 .21 .22

Emotional exhaustion T1 .60 .58 .58

Employability T1 –.11* –.11*

Perceived career opportunity T1 –.08 –.09

Employability T1 × PCO T2 –.11*

Adjusted R ² .457 .474 .483

ΔR ² .486** .022* .011*

F 16.47 3.77 4.05

Note. PCO = perceived career opportunity.

*p < .05. **p < .01.

Table 3.
Regression Results Predicting Turnover Intention (T2).

Turnover Intention (T2)

Predictor variable Step 1 Step 2 Step 3

Age −.10 −.08 −.09

Gender −.10 −.10 −.10

Marriage .01 .02 .03

Education −.01 .01 .02

Tenure .01 −.01 .01

Position −.03 −.05 −.04

Weekly work hours .11* .12* .12*

Turnover intention T1 .61 .56 .58**

Employability T1 −.07 −.08

Perceived career opportunity T1 −.09 −.09

Employability T1 × PCO T1 −.11*

Adjusted R ² .391 .399 .408

ΔR ² .409** .014 .012*

F 21.83 2.35 3.91

Note. PCO = perceived career opportunity.

*p < .05. **p < .01.

Table 2 shows that employability T1 was negatively related to emotional exhaustion T2 (β = −.11, p < .05) when controlling for emotional exhaustion T1. Hypothesis 1, therefore, was supported. Table 3 also shows that the relationship between employability T1 and turnover intention T2 was nonsignificant (β = −.07, p > .05) when controlling for turnover intention T1. In other words, there was no significant relationship between employability and employees’ turnover intention. Thus, Hypothesis 2 was also supported.

Tables 2 and 3 show the moderating effects of PCO T1 on relationships between employability T1 and emotional exhaustion T2 and turnover intention T2. Specifically, Tables 2 and 3 (see Step 3) show that the interactive items were significant for emotional exhaustion T2 (β = −.11, p < .05) and for turnover intention T2 (β = −.11, p < .05), respectively. To further clarify the moderating effects of PCO, separate plots were drawn for individuals whose scores on the moderator (PCO) were 1 SD below and above the mean (Aiken & West, 1991). Furthermore, the significant interactive item means that the two simple slopes were significantly different from each other. For employees’ emotional exhaustion T2, the simple slope was greater for the high PCO group (b = −.21, p < .01) than for the low PCO group (b = −.01, p > .05). Figure 1 shows that PCO strengthened the negative relationship between employability T1 and employees’ emotional exhaustion T2. This confirms that the reducing effect of employability on emotional exhaustion is stronger for employees with high PCO than those with low PCO. For the high PCO group, the simple slope of turnover intention at T2 was significantly negative (b = −.18, p < .05), whereas for the low PCO group, the simple slope was nonsignificant (b = .02, p > .05). Employees with more PCO and high employability had less turnover intention, otherwise, employability was not related to turnover intention, albeit nonsignificantly and positively (see Figure 2). Taken together, Hypotheses 3 and 4 were both supported.

Figure 1.
Interactive effect of employability Time 1 (T1) and perceived career opportunity (PCO) T1 on emotional exhaustion Time 2 (T2) while controlling for emotional exhaustion T1.

Figure 2.
Interactive effect of employability Time 1 (T1) and perceived career opportunity (PCO) T1 on turnover intention Time 2 (T2) while controlling turnover intention T1.

Discussion

This study examined employability and its effect on employees’ emotional exhaustion and turnover intention in Chinese society, with the focus on the moderation of PCO. We found that employability was negatively related to employees’ emotional exhaustion, which is consistent with the findings of previous studies (e.g., N. De Cuyper, Makikangas, et al., 2012; N. De Cuyper, Raeder, et al., 2012; N. De Cuyper, Raeder, et al., 2012; Kirves et al., 2014). Our results are similar to those of Berntson and Marklund’s one-year longitudinal study (2007), which confirmed that employability could lead to low levels of psychological strain and physical complaints, even after controlling baseline levels. Employability proved to be an important personal resource in the current insecure employment environment, in that it can improve individuals’ ability to cope with job or career changes (N. De Cuyper, Mäkikangas, et al., 2012; N. De Cuyper, Raeder, et al., 2012; Kirves et al., 2014). This finding supports the assumption of COR theory (Hobfoll, 2001) that resources can protect employees from threats and their associated physiological and psychological costs. Turnover intention’s relationship with employability was nonsignificant, albeit negatively, which is in accordance with the findings of Berntson et al. (2010) and N. De Cuyper, Mauno, et al. (2011).

Consistent with our predictions, we found that PCO indeed moderated the relationships between employability, employees’ emotional exhaustion, and turnover intention. PCO refers to the career development opportunities offered by organizations, which can help employees realize their career development goals (Kraimer et al., 2011). Career opportunities are a significant factor in today’s employment situation. Whether organizations provide career opportunities significantly influences an individual’s career behavior and decisions (e.g., Bedeian, Kemery, & Pizzolatto, 1991; Kraimer et al., 2011; Q. X. Weng & McElroy, 2012; Q. Weng, McElroy, Morrow, & Liu, 2010). Career development opportunities provided by organizations are a highly valued job resource, especially for the highly employable employees. COR theory posits that plentiful personal and job resources protect individuals from stressful events and enhance personal well-being (Hobfoll, 2001). Thus, under the context of higher PCO, employees with high employability experience less emotional exhaustion than those with low employability. Plentiful resources, including the career opportunities made available by organizations, can be used to reflect high levels of commitment (Hobfoll, 2011). In line with job embeddedness theory, career opportunities can embed individuals within the organizations (Lee, Burch, & Mitchell, 2014; Mitchell et al., 2001). Highly employable employees can have less intention to leave their organizations because they believe that the career opportunities offered fit or match their career plans and goals, and leaving the organizations implies the sacrifice or resource loss. Thus, PCO is the critical component of career motivation (London, 1983; London & Mone, 2006) and significantly influences an individual’s career behavior and personal well-being. If the organization does not provide the expected career opportunities, employees are less motivated to stay. In our study, for employees with higher employability, the association between employability and turnover tended to be positive, albeit nonsignificantly, under the context of lower PCO. In other words, highly employable employees are not willing to leave, even when there are not plenty of career opportunities within the organization. Our findings support the recent work of N. De Cuyper, Mauno, et al. (2011) that job resources attenuated the negative relationship between employability and turnover intention. Our findings are slightly different from those of Kraimer et al. (2011), which supported the result that more career opportunities significantly decreased employees’ turnover intention or turnover. They found that lack of career opportunities within the organizations increased turnover intention and turnover for the employees getting more development support from their organizations. Organizational support for development was proven to promote employability (De Vos et al., 2011; Wittekind et al., 2010). One possible reason is that employees have tended to stay with their organizations in today’s uncertain job market, especially those employees in the establishment career stages (mean age of our sample, 33.47 years). Another possible reason is that our sample is from a multinational IT corporation with a good reputation in China. Working in the company could help employees “earn face” (i.e., respect from others), which is very important to Chinese people when making career choices (Turban, Lau, Ngo, Chow, & Si, 2001). Thus, more studies are needed to explore the complex employability–turnover intention relationship.

Theoretical and Practical Implications

Our study contributes to the employability literature in three ways. First, it tested PCO’s role in shaping employees’ personal strain, attitudes, and behavior toward organizations. The results supported the hypothesis that PCO is a critical boundary condition capable of advancing our understanding of the potential dilemma associated with the relationship between employability and its outcomes. Under the condition of more career opportunities within the organizations, employees with high employability benefit more, in terms of lower emotional exhaustion and turnover intention. These employees can identify opportunities for themselves within the organization and make the best of their situations by altering their attitudes and responses accordingly. These findings build on those of Weng and colleagues (2009, 2010, 2012) and Wang et al. (2014) by suggesting that career growth and opportunities have moderating effects beyond their direct effects. Weng and colleagues found that career growth significantly affected Chinese employees’ career attitudes and behavior. Our results extend their findings to find that career opportunities played a moderating effect; that is, the presence of career opportunities within the organizations lowered employees’ emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions. Moreover, our study investigates personal strain as one outcome with a longitudinal design. Second, the findings also demonstrated that the “employability paradox” (N. De Cuyper & De Witte, 2011) could be resolved, as employees’ perceptions of the organization’s investments in their career development could have a positive effect. The provision of career opportunities can be a way to retain valued employees. Our findings explain the previous inconsistent results regarding the employability–turnover intention or turnover relationship by highlighting the important role played by employees’ PCOs within their organizations. Third, our findings enrich the career research literature by providing empirical evidence of the moderation of PCO, with a focus on the interactions between personal and situational characteristics and their effects on individuals’ career behavior and decisions (London, 1983) in the current boundaryless career era. It also meets London and Noe’s (1997) call to investigate the consequences of career motivation under the context of changing employment relationships.

Regarding career management practices, our findings indicated that high employability is not necessarily related to high turnover intentions. This suggested that employers or human resource managers need to pay more attention to PCO for the purposes of retaining their talented employees and reducing their emotional exhaustion (or enhancing their well-being). It is worth noting that providing support for employability enhancement is not enough for employees. It is more important that workplace support and career opportunities match the employees’ interests and career goals. As Kraimer and colleagues (2011) suggested, raising PCO through policies such as job rotation and training may largely be a matter of letting employees learn more about the possibilities that are already available within the organization. Doing so could also embed employees within the organizations (Mitchell et al., 2001) or build mutual psychological contracts (Fontinha, Chambel, & De Cuyper, 2014; Ye, Cardon, & Rivera, 2012) or promote employees’ occupational commitment (Q. X. Weng & McElroy, 2012), especially for the highly employable employees. Consequently, these employees would not tend to leave the organizations. In short, in this boundaryless career era, employers should put more effort into creating career development opportunities within their organizations to retain their highly employable employees. As Schmidt (2011) suggested, for multinational companies such as that targeted in this study, one way to retain Chinese talent is to create development opportunities.

Limitations and Future Directions

There are limitations to this study. First, although self-perceptions are highly important in career research, the self-reported measures for all of the study variables may raise concerns about common method bias. Our longitudinal design overcame some of the problems because the previous levels of the two outcome variables were controlled to a certain degree, and the interaction effect might be less affected by this bias (Spector, 2006). The CFA results also showed that the constructs could be empirically discriminated. We encourage further researchers to provide more valid evidence by using objective outcome measures, such as physiological criteria and actual turnover. Second, the two-way interaction effects in our study were modest (from .011 to .012). Nevertheless, they were above the .002 median effect size in published papers (Aguinis, Beaty, Boik, & Pierce, 2005), which makes them meaningful for field studies, particularly considering our controlled baseline levels. Third, the sample was IT employees from a single organization, which would limit the generalizability of our findings. Future researchers should survey more diverse samples within several organizations by measuring multidimensional career growth suggested by Weng et al. (2009, 2012) to replicate the findings.

	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13
1 Age	33.47	6.25	1
2 Gender	0.59	0.51	–.10	1
3 Marriage	0.32	0.55	–.31**	.05	1
4 Education	0.61	0.48	.23**	.05	–.06	1
5 Tenure (month)	65.11	55.02	.34**	–.01	–.13	.36**	1
6 Position	0.61	0.88	.42**	–.09	–.07	–.03	.31**	1
7 Weekly work hours	43.86	6.37	–.06	.04	.06	.01	.02	.08	1
8 Employability T1	4.17	0.68	.10	–.09	–.03	–.01	–.02	.11	.06	1
9 Perceived Career Opportunity T1	3.42	0.92	.08	–.08	.08	.19**	–.14*	–.01	.01	.45**	1
10 Emotional Exhaustion T1	2.84	1.02	–.09	.16*	.06	.10	–.06	–.18**	.12	–.12	–.12	1
11 Emotional Exhaustion T2	2.89	0.99	–.17*	.13	.12	.05	–.12	–.18*	.29**	–.22**	–.13	.63**	1
12 Turnover Intention T1	2.69	1.01	–.10	.21**	–.03	.09	.05	–.17*	.02	–.27**	–.42**	.45**	.28**	1
13 Turnover Intention T2	2.81	1.02	–.17*	.04	.02	.03	.01	–.16*	.12	–.29**	–.34**	.25**	.43**	.61**	1

Predictor variable	Emotional Exhaustion T2
Age	–.04	–.02	–.03
Gender	.01	.01	.01
Marriage	.04	.04	.04
Education	.01	.01	.03
Tenure	–.03	–.06	–.05
Position	.11*	.16*	.15*
Weekly work hours	.21**	.21**	.22**
Emotional exhaustion T1	.60**	.58**	.58**
Employability T1		–.11*	–.11*
Perceived career opportunity T1		–.08	–.09
Employability T1 × PCO T2			–.11*
Adjusted R ²	.457	.474	.483
ΔR ²	.486**	.022*	.011*
F	16.47	3.77	4.05

	Turnover Intention (T2)
Age	−.10	−.08	−.09
Gender	−.10	−.10	−.10
Marriage	.01	.02	.03
Education	−.01	.01	.02
Tenure	.01	−.01	.01
Position	−.03	−.05	−.04
Weekly work hours	.11*	.12*	.12*
Turnover intention T1	.61**	.56**	.58**
Employability T1		−.07	−.08
Perceived career opportunity T1		−.09	−.09
Employability T1 × PCO T1			−.11*
Adjusted R ²	.391	.399	.408
ΔR ²	.409**	.014	.012*
F	21.83	2.35	3.91

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was fully supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No.71271005; J1103602; 71272022), and also supported by a Hui-Chun Chin and Tsung-Dao Lee Chinese Undergraduate Research Endowment to Ms. Jing-wei Sun.

Note

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Predictor variable	Emotional Exhaustion T2
Predictor variable	Step 1	Step 2	Step 3
Age	–.04	–.02	–.03
Gender	.01	.01	.01
Marriage	.04	.04	.04
Education	.01	.01	.03
Tenure	–.03	–.06	–.05
Position	.11*	.16*	.15*
Weekly work hours	.21**	.21**	.22**
Emotional exhaustion T1	.60**	.58**	.58**
Employability T1		–.11*	–.11*
Perceived career opportunity T1		–.08	–.09
Employability T1 × PCO T2			–.11*
Adjusted R ²	.457	.474	.483
ΔR ²	.486**	.022*	.011*
F	16.47	3.77	4.05