Journal of Vocational Behavior 81 (2012) 289297

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Journal of Vocational Behavior

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jvb

Psychological mobility and career success in the New career climate

Marijke Verbruggen
Research Centre for Organization Studies, Faculty of Business and Economics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
We examined the influence of two types of psychological mobility, i.e. boundaryless mindset and organizational mobility preference, on career success. We hypothesized that this relationship would be partially mediated by physical mobility. In addition, we expected the direction of the influence to depend on the type of psychological mobility. We tested our hypotheses using data of 357 business alumni. Results showed that a boundaryless mindset related positively to wage and promotions, while organizational mobility preference led to less promotions, lower job satisfaction and lower career satisfaction. The relationship between boundaryless mindset and career success was partially mediated by functional mobility whereas organizational mobility preference impacted career success via organizational mobility. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed. 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 14 October 2011 Available online 6 November 2011 Keywords: New careers Boundaryless careers Career mobility Psychological mobility Objective career success Subjective career success

The careers literature of the past few decades emphasizes the changing nature of careers. Traditionally, most careers unfolded within one or two organizations and progressed along a pre-defined, upward career path (Eby, Butts, & Lockwood, 2003; Savickas, 2000). During the last few decades, however, lifetime employment within the same organization came under pressure (Eby et al., 2003; Savickas, 2000). Changing employers and professions is no longer considered a rarity (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996). Among the numerous new career constructs that try to grasp this new and changing reality, the boundaryless career (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996) is by far the most influential. A boundaryless career refers to a career that transcends boundaries. Although research on the boundaryless career has focused mainly on careers that cross organizational boundaries (Sullivan & Baruch, 2009), the original conceptualization of Arthur and Rousseau (1996) was more general, including mobility across all different kinds of boundaries, including occupational, cultural and geographical ones, and encompassing both physical and psychological boundary crossing. Although the boundaryless career construct has been very successful in informing theory and research (Briscoe, Hall, & DeMuth, 2006), it increasingly receives critique (Sullivan & Baruch, 2009; e.g. Pringle & Mallon, 2003; Rodrigues & Guest, 2010). One of the recurring concerns relates to the normativity sometimes attached to the construct (Arnold & Cohen, 2008; Gunz, Evans, & Jalland, 2000). In particular, boundaryless career researchers sometimes seem to prescribe the boundaryless career as the best way for people to be successful in their careers today, ignoring potential downsides of this type of career. In building up arguments against this positive view, critics mainly point to the possible downsides of physical mobility. It may create uncertainty, can be highly stressful and is often involuntary (Pringle & Mallon, 2003; Rodrigues & Guest, 2010). So far, psychological mobility, i.e. people's attitudes toward crossing boundaries (Sullivan & Arthur, 2006), has been largely preserved from criticism. However, psychological mobility may also come with a cost for individuals. For instance, people who see their career as unbounded to their present organization might be less inclined to invest in their relationships at work or in their internal career development, two factors that have been shown to negatively impact people's career outcomes (De Vos, Dewettinck, & Buyens, 2009; Orpen, 1994). In addition, because people's attitudes toward mobility (psychological mobility) may impact their actual mobility

Corresponding author at: Research Centre for Organization Studies, Faculty of Business and Economics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Naamsestraat 69, 3000 Leuven, Belgium. Fax: + 32 16 32 67 32. E-mail address: Marijke.Verbruggen@econ.kuleuven.be. 0001-8791/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2011.10.010

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behavior (physical mobility) (Lazarova & Taylor, 2009), psychological mobility may indirectly induce the downsides that may come along with some types of physical mobility. In this study, we explored the possibly negative influence of psychological mobility on career success and examined whether this relationship is partially mediated by physical mobility. Career success, i.e. the accomplishment of desirable work-related outcomes over time (Arthur, Khapova, & Wilderom, 2005), has consistently been shown to contribute to people's well-being and organizational career success (Pachulicz, Schmitt, & Kuljanin, 2008) and is accordingly among the most important outcome variables in career research. A negative influence on career success would therefore imply an important downside of psychological mobility. This study adds in several ways to the existing literature. First, by examining the influence of psychological mobility on career success, we answer to the call for more integration between career success research and research on the boundaryless career (Arthur et al., 2005). Second, while most studies on the boundaryless career operationalize the construct rather narrowly by focusing on its physical aspects (Sullivan & Baruch, 2009), we include both psychological and physical facets, in that way providing a richer view on the boundaryless career. Third, by examining psychological mobility in relation to physical mobility, this study's findings could help to evaluate the common practice of using physical mobility as a proxy for the boundaryless career (Briscoe et al., 2006). Combining physical and psychological mobility may also offer an answer to the question why some people can or will not make transitions (Ng & Feldman, 2010). And finally, by testing our hypotheses with a sample of young business alumni. Young, highly educated individuals are generally believed to benefit most from having a boundaryless career (Pringle & Mallon, 2003). In addition, their career transitions have been shown to be mainly voluntary (Drewes, 1993; European Commission, 2005). If we find a negative influence of psychological mobility on career success with this population, it will be an even stronger indication for a downside to psychological mobility. 1. Background 1.1. Psychological mobility Whereas physical mobility concerns the observable act of crossing boundaries, psychological mobility refers to people's attitudes toward this act (Lazarova & Taylor, 2009). Just as there are different types of physical mobility depending on the type of boundary that is crossed, there are variations of psychological mobility depending on the kind of transition the attitude relates to (Forret, Sullivan, & Mainiero, 2010; Lazarova & Taylor, 2009). Logically, people may feel differently about changing organizations than they do about, for instance, changing functional domain or becoming unemployed. Empirical research on the boundaryless career has largely ignored psychological mobility (Lazarova & Taylor, 2009; Sullivan & Baruch, 2009). This is partly due to the fact that psychological mobility is a hard construct to grasp (Rodrigues & Guest, 2010). Psychological mobility has for instance been defined as a person's preference to cross boundaries (Lazarova & Taylor, 2009; Marler, Barringer, & Milkovich, 2003), as the perceived capability to move (Arthur et al., 2005; Sullivan & Arthur, 2006) and as the way people interpret a specific career move (Forret et al., 2010). In addition, until recently, there were no psychometric instruments to measure the construct (Rodrigues & Guest, 2010; Sullivan & Baruch, 2009). Therefore, Briscoe et al. (2006) developed and validated two scales measuring specific types of psychological mobility, i.e. boundaryless mindset and organizational mobility preference. Boundaryless mindset refers to people's preference toward initiating and pursuing work-related relationships across departmental and organizational boundaries. A person with this attitude is enthusiastic about creating and sustaining active relationships beyond departments and organizations. Organizational mobility preference refers to a person's inclination toward physically crossing organizational boundaries. Someone high on this attitude prefers a career played out across several employers (Briscoe et al., 2006). These two types of psychological mobility thus concern people's preference to cross specific career boundaries. This study focused on boundaryless mindset and organizational mobility preference. These two types of psychological mobility have been clearly defined, which helped to build clear hypotheses and to interpret the results. In addition, this focus allowed us to use existing and validated instruments (Briscoe et al., 2006), which will add to the validity and the replicability of our analyses. 1.2. Career success Career success can be defined as accomplishment of desirable work-related outcomes over time (Arthur et al., 2005). Career scholars agree that career success has both an objective and a subjective side (Judge, Cable, Boudreau, & Bretz, 1995; Seibert, Kraimer, & Liden, 2001). Objective career success refers to those facets of career success that are tangible and can be observed by others. Examples of objective career success facets are wage, number of promotions and functional level (Dries, Pepermans, Hofmans, & Rypens, 2009). Subjective career success refers to individuals' own perceptions of their career. It is generally operationalized by job and/or career satisfaction (Heslin, 2005). For a long time, career success researchers focused almost exclusively on objective career success (Arthur et al., 2005; Heslin, 2005). However, with careers becoming increasingly boundaryless, objective career success becomes harder to obtain and therefore, people may increasingly evaluate their career based on subjectively chosen standards (Dries, Pepermans, & Carlier, 2008). As a result, the interest in subjective career success has risen significantly in the past few decades (Heslin, 2005).

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2. Hypothesized model This study examined the impact of boundaryless mindset and organizational mobility preference on both objective and subjective career success. We expected that the direction of the impact will depend on the type of psychological mobility and that the relationships will be partially mediated by physical mobility (see Fig. 1). In what follows, we develop hypotheses for each of the building blocks in our model. 2.1. Inuence of psychological mobility on career success through physical mobility 2.1.1. Relationship between psychological and physical mobility In line with theoretical models and empirical research on attitudes and behavior (Ajzen, 1985; Bagozzi, 1992), we expect that people's attitudes toward mobility are related with their actual mobility behaviors. Thus, people high on psychological mobility will also experience more actual, physical mobility (Lazarova & Taylor, 2009). Because it has been shown that the link between attitudes and behaviors is stronger when a specific attitude is linked to a corresponding specific behavior (Jaccard, King, & Pomazal, 1974; Norman et al., 2010), we expect that different types of psychological mobility relate to different types of physical mobility (Lazarova & Taylor, 2009). In particular, we expect that boundaryless mindset is related to functional mobility, and organizational mobility preference will be associated with organizational mobility. The latter is rather straightforward as both the attitude and the behavior relate to interorganizational mobility. As concerns boundaryless mindset, we expect a relationship with mobility across functional domains or departments (i.e. functional mobility). By physically changing departments, people get the opportunity to meet new people and initiate new relationships across these departments, the core characteristics of a boundaryless career mindset (Briscoe et al., 2006). Hypothesis 1. Boundaryless mindset relates positively to number of functional changes. Hypothesis 2. Organizational mobility preference relates positively to number of organizational changes. 2.1.2. Relationship between physical mobility and career success For functional mobility, we expect a positive relationship with both objective and subjective career success. By changing departments, people may build experience in a variety of domains and work roles (Campion, Cheraskin, & Stevens, 1994). This type of work experience may make them more likely to be promoted. Indeed, organizations often favor generalists rather than specialists for higher-level, managerial jobs (London, 1985). Some organizations even deliberately use functional mobility as a way to develop potential managers (Baruch, 2004; Dries & Pepermans, 2008; Saari, Johnson, McLaughlin, & Simmerle, 1988). In addition, because functional mobility contributes to people's skill development and feeling of competence (Campion et al., 1994) and because being able to learn (Park, 2010) and feeling competent (Deci & Ryan, 2000) are important motivators at work, functional mobility could improve people's job and career satisfaction. For these reasons and in line with earlier studies (Campion et al., 1994; Longhi & Brynin, 2010), we expect a positive effect of functional mobility on both objective and subjective career success. Hypothesis 3. Functional mobility relates positively to objective career success. Hypothesis 4. Functional mobility relates positively to subjective career success. In line with several studies on the outcomes of the number of organizational changes (Fuller, 2008; Lyness & Thompson, 2000; Munasinghe & Sigman, 2004; Valcourt & Tolbert, 2003), we expect a negative relationship between organizational mobility and objective career success. High rates of organizational mobility may send a negative signal to employers (i.e. it could be interpreted as a lack organizational loyalty or as a lack of competences; Messmer, 1998), which is likely to decrease earnings and promotion opportunities. We also expect that organizational mobility is negatively related to subjective career success. Research has shown

Function almobility + + Boundaryless mindset -

Objective and subjective caree success

Org. mobility preference

+ Organizational mobility
Fig. 1. Hypothesized model.

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that people with longer organizational tenure and thus, less organizational mobility tend to be more satisfied with their career (Igbaria & Guimaraes, 1993). In addition, research has suggested that people with poorer performance (Bishop, 1990; Munasinghe & Sigman, 2004), lower wages (Kim, 1999; Munasinghe & Sigman, 2004) and lower levels of job satisfaction (Cornelissen, 2009; Gesthuizen, 2009) have a higher likelihood of changing organizations. It seems likely that people who have a history of less rewarding and less satisfying jobs will evaluate their overall career experiences less positively and thus report lower scores with respect to career satisfaction. Hypothesis 5. Organizational mobility relates negatively to objective career success. Hypothesis 6. Organizational mobility relates negatively to subjective career success. 2.1.3. Other inuences of psychological mobility on career success For boundaryless mindset, we expect an additional positive impact on both objective and subjective career success. Because people with a boundaryless mindset like to build relationships across departments and organizations, they may have more access to practical and emotional career support (Seibert et al., 2001; Wolff & Moser, 2009), two benefits which have been shown to contribute to both objective and subjective career success (Forret & Dougherty, 2004; Orpen, 1996; Wolff & Moser, 2009). In addition, as people with a boundaryless mindset like to build relationships across departments and organizations, it is more likely that they will build relationships that bridge two not-yet-linked networks. This type of relationships has been shown to be particularly beneficial for people's career success (Shipilov, Labianca, Kalnysh, & Kalnysh, 2007, e.g. Brass, 1984; Burt, 1992). Hypothesis 7. Boundaryless mindset relates positively to objective career success. Hypothesis 8. Boundaryless mindset relates positively to subjective career success. As for organizational mobility preference, we expect an additional negative relationship with objective and subjective career success. Since people with a high mobility preference prefer their time with their current employer to be limited, they may be less inclined to invest in their internal career development. Research has indeed shown that people who are less likely to stay with their employer, invest less in their internal employability (De Feyter, Smulders, & Vroome, 2001). In addition, to the extent that employees with a high mobility preference are open about or signal their mobility preference, their employer may also be less likely to give them career support. Indeed, organizations generally give less career support to individuals who are likely to leave the organization in a foreseeable time span (De Feyter et al., 2001; Forrier, 2003). Both fewer self-initiated career investments and less organizational career support have been shown to negatively impact people's objective and subjective career success (De Vos et al., 2009; Orpen, 1994). Hypothesis 9. Organizational mobility preference relates negatively to objective career success. Hypothesis 10. Organizational mobility preference relates negatively to subjective career success. 3. Method 3.1. Procedure and sample We collected data from business graduates of the largest university in Belgium. We contacted all business graduates who had graduated between 1 and 10 years ago and of whom we had the e-mail address (N = 3054, which corresponds to 79% of all alumni graduated in this period). Respondents were contacted by e-mail to participate in our internet survey. Two hundred ninety three e-mails (9.60%) were returned because of invalid e-mail addresses. The total response rate was 30.32%, with 837 alumni completing the questionnaire. Because the focus of this study was on (voluntary) career mobility, we needed a sample in which we were able to observe this type of mobility. Firstly, we restricted our sample to respondents who had at least five years of work experience. In that way, the respondents had sufficient time in the workforce to have the opportunity to change jobs. This cut-off of 5 years is based on the EU Labor Force Survey which shows that in Belgium, 50% of all school leavers change jobs within the first 5 years after graduation (Gangle, 2002). Secondly, we excluded individuals who had been unemployed after their first job (n = 45) because the job changes of these individuals are less likely to be voluntary (Alon & Tienda, 2005). Also our choice for young, highly educated workers adds to the likelihood of the job changes being voluntary (Drewes, 1993; European Commission, 2005). Our final sample consisted of 357 individuals, 38% female and 62% male. Forty four percent had graduated with distinction and 12% with great distinction. On average, the respondents were 32.06 years old (sd = 2.01) and had 8.14 years of working experience (sd = 1.75), of which 5.06 years with their current employer (sd = 3.15). 3.2. Measures 3.2.1. Psychological mobility We measured boundaryless mindset and organizational mobility preference using the scales of Briscoe et al. (2006). The boundaryless mindset scale consisted of eight items, including: I like tasks at work that require me to work beyond my own

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department and I enjoy working with people outside of my organization. The mobility preference scale consisted of 5 items measuring the strength of interest in having multiple (as opposed to a single) employers. Example items include: I like the predictability that comes with working continuously for the same organization (R) and I prefer to stay in a company I am familiar with rather than look for employment elsewhere (R). Factor analysis revealed two factors which turned out to have a good internal consistency ( for boundaryless career mindset = .88; for organizational mobility preference = .81). 3.2.2. Physical mobility Respondents were asked how many times they had changed employer (organizational mobility) and how many times they had changed functional domain (functional mobility) in their career until now. It was stressed that changes in functional domain could occur both while staying with an organization and when changing organizations. 3.2.3. Career success In line with earlier studies on career success (Heslin, 2005), we assessed objective career success by net monthly wage and the number of promotions with the current employer. Because the typical high skewness of wage variables, we used a natural logarithmic transformation of the wage for our analyses (Seibert et al., 2001). Also in line with earlier studies (Heslin, 2005), we included two indicators of subjective career success: job satisfaction and career satisfaction. Job satisfaction was measured using the Global Job Satisfaction scale of Warr, Cook, and Wall (1979). Respondents had to evaluate 15 job aspects (e.g. work content, fellow workers, recognition you get for good work) on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = Very dissatisfied; 7 = Extremely satisfied). Career satisfaction was measured using Heslin's (2003) adaptation of the scale of Greenhaus, Parasuraman, and Wormley (1990). Participants were asked to evaluate on a 7-point Likert scale how satisfied they were with 6 career outcomes (i.e. income, skill development and overall success) relative to their own career aspirations. Both measures turned out to have a good internal reliability ( for job satisfaction = .88; for career satisfaction = .89). 3.2.4. Control variables We controlled for gender (1 = female, 0 = male), working experience, grades as well as for extraversion ( = .84) and emotional stability ( = .75). The latter traits, measured using the Big Five Bipolar Rating Scales (B5BBS-25) (Mervielde, 1992), were included because research has consistently linked them to career success (Lent & Brown, 2008). 3.3. Analyses The model was tested using path analysis (procedure CALIS in SAS Version 8). We opted for this technique because it allows testing multiple relationships simultaneously. The analysis showed a good fit between the hypothesized model and the observed data. All fit-indices exceeded the recommended minimum values ( = 6.20 with df = 6 and p-value = .40; GFI = 1.00; AGFI = .94; CFI = 1.00; NFI = .99; NNFI = .99). The modification indices also showed that no additional arrows should be included. 4. Results Table 1 shows the descriptives for the key variables. First of all, the respondents expressed high psychological mobility: the means on both psychological mobility measures are above 3.80 (on a scale from 1 to 5). The level of physical mobility, on the other hand, seems rather modest. On average, the respondents experienced one organizational and one functional change in their career until now. Finally, the respondents seem to be quite successful in their career and this with regard to both the objective and the subjective criteria. On average, they reported a net monthly wage of 2565 Euro, they have had 1.6 promotions with their current employer and they are quite satisfied with their job and their career (means on both job and career satisfaction are higher than 5.40 on a scale from 1 to 7).

Table 1 Descriptives of and correlations between key variables. m 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Boundaryless mindset Organizational mobility preference Number of organizational changes Number of functional changes Log monthly wage Number of promotions Job satisfaction Career satisfaction 3.85 3.80 1.09 1.08 7.85 1.62 5.41 5.48 sd 0.64 0.73 1.06 1.34 0.30 1.39 0.74 0.89 1 .41 .01 .17 .18 .16 .07 .10 2 .22 .07 .07 .07 .10 .03 3 4 5 6 7 8

.02 .01 .43 .03 .04

.16 .19 .05 .02

.32 .27 .32

.11* .20

.68

Notes. p b .001. p b .01. p b .05.

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Table 1 further reveals several significant correlations between mobility variables and career success indicators (i.e. between boundaryless mindset, wage, promotions and career satisfaction; and between functional mobility, wage and promotions). Also noteworthy is the lack of significant correlation between the number of organizational changes and the number of functional changes, indicating that it is equally likely that a change in functional domains occurred by staying within an organization as when changing organizations. Next, we look at the results of our path analysis (see Fig. 2). We first examine the impact of psychological mobility on career success through physical mobility. As hypothesized, we found that the boundaryless mindset attitude related with the number of functional changes and that organizational mobility preference was associated to the number of organizational changes. We found no other relationships between the psychological mobility measures and the physical mobility indicators. We can therefore confirm hypotheses 1 and 2. We also found support for our hypotheses concerning the relationship between physical mobility and objective career success. As expected, objective career success was affected positively by functional mobility (hypothesis 3) and negatively by organizational mobility (hypothesis 5). However, the impact of organizational mobility was only significant for the number of promotions, not for wage. We can therefore only partially confirm hypothesis 5. Concerning the relationship between physical mobility and subjective career success, our hypotheses were not supported. Contrary to our expectations, subjective career success was not affected by functional mobility and it was positively (and thus not negatively) influenced by organizational mobility. Hence, we have to reject hypotheses 4 and 6. We then look at the direct influence of psychological mobility on career success. In line with hypotheses 7 and 10, we found a positive relationship between the boundaryless mindset and objective career success and a negative one between organizational mobility preference and subjective career success. We did not find support for hypotheses 8 and 9: nor the effect of the boundaryless mindset on subjective career success, nor the impact of organizational mobility preference on objective career success were found to be significant. What is, then, the total impact of psychological mobility on career success? For the boundaryless mindset, the direct and the indirect effect strengthened each other, resulting in an overall positive impact of this attitude on objective career success (total effect on wage = +.06; total effect on promotions = +.42). Especially the influence on promotions turned out to be strong. For organizational mobility preference, the direct effects were more dominant than the indirect effects, resulting in an overall negative effect on promotions (total effect = .35) as well as on job (total effect = .18) and career satisfactions (total effect = .13). Finally, we explore the explained variance of the career success variables. Our model tuned out to explain 22% of the variance in wage, 35% of promotions, 12% of job satisfaction and 13% of career satisfaction. These Rs are higher than those in most other studies examining career success with a similar sample of young highly educated individuals (Rode, Arthaud-Day, Mooney, Near, & Baldwin, 2008). 5. Discussion In line with our hypotheses, we found that psychological mobility influenced career success, but that the direction and strength of the relationship depended on the type of psychological mobility. Having a boundaryless mindset resulted in higher wages and more promotions, while having an organizational mobility preference led to less promotions, lower job satisfaction and lower career satisfaction. Remarkably, neither of the psychological mobility indicators were found to positively affect subjective career success. Because people with a boundaryless career do not follow the traditional intra-organizational career path, they are believed to set their own career agenda and accordingly to attach more importance to subjective career success (Arthur et al., 2005; Heslin, 2005). The results suggest that this is not the case or that at least, they do not succeed in attaining more subjective career success. For the organizational mobility preference, this was in line with our expectations. For the boundaryless mindset, however, we expected a positive influence given the networking preference of people high on this attitude. Though networking has been
R=5.1% +.13*

Functional mobility
+.18** +.11(*) +.16**

R=21.8%

Wage
R=34.5%

Boundaryless mindset

+.13* -.40*** -.21**

Promotions
R=11.6%

Org. mobility preference

-.14* +.29*** +.12(*)

Job satisfaction
R=13.0%

Career satisfaction Organizational mobility

R=10.9%
Fig. 2. Path coefficients.

+.14(*)

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shown to be an important competence for obtaining subjective career success (Wolff & Moser, 2009), other career competences, such as career insight (knowing why) and career identity (knowing how), may also be important (DeFillippi & Arthur, 1994). It could be that people low on boundaryless mindset compensate their (presumably) lower networking skills by better developed other career competences. Future research might look into this possibility by examining the mediating role of career competences in the relationship between psychological mobility and career success. The results also shed light on the influence of physical mobility on career success. For objective career success, we found, as hypothesized, a positive influence of functional mobility and a negative one of organizational mobility. For subjective career success, our findings were not in line with our expectations. First, we found no influence of functional mobility. Although functional mobility may be satisfying because it involves skill and personal development (Park, 2010), it may also come with a learning cost and with stress, which may especially in the short term decrease one's satisfaction. Both effects may outweigh each other. Secondly, we found a positive thus not the expected negative influence of organizational mobility. As we mentioned earlier, people often change employer because they are dissatisfied in their initial job (Cornelissen, 2009; Gesthuizen, 2009). Hence, by changing employer, they may achieve an improvement in job satisfaction. Perhaps, when people evaluate their overall career, they attach more importance to this positive evolution rather than to the negative past experiences as such, resulting in a higher score on career satisfaction. Next, this study adds to our understanding of the relationship between psychological and physical mobility. As expected, we found that boundaryless mindset was related with functional mobility and organizational mobility preference was associated with organizational mobility. Whether or not physical and organizational mobility are related seems to depend on the congruence between the type of boundary that the attitude and the behavior relate to. In addition, as there are many more types of physical mobility than those measured in this study (e.g. geographical changes, changes of industry), it is probable that there are also many more types of psychological mobility. This calls for further conceptualization and operationalization of the concept of psychological mobility. The study revealed that neither psychological, nor physical mobility and neither organizational nor functional mobility unilaterally lead to career success. In contrast, we found that some forms of psychological and physical mobility decreased people's career success. This finding supports the claim made by an increasing number of scholars that boundaryless careers may have a downside (Currie, Tempest, & Starkey, 2006; Gunz et al., 2000). Interestingly, we showed that this downside does not only relate to physical mobility, as is often proclaimed, but also to psychological mobility. In addition, we found this negative impact with young, highly educated individuals, who are generally believed to benefit from having a boundaryless career. Finally, this study showed that psychological and physical mobility have partly different effects on career success. Therefore, researchers should be cautious when using physical mobility as a proxy for psychological mobility (Briscoe et al., 2006). Even though the two forms of mobility are related significantly, using the former as a proxy for the latter may yield to wrong conclusions. 5.1. Limitations This study is not without limitations. First, our findings are based on self-report data and may be subject to common method variance. To validate our findings, future research may include more objective measures, for instance wage and promotion data from the employer. We note, however, that previous research has shown that self-report measures of objective career success correlate highly with company records (De Vos et al., 2009; Judge et al., 1995). Secondly, because we used cross-sectional data, we need to be cautious in causal attributions. It may for instance be that career success affected people's psychological mobility instead of vice versa. People who are highly successful, may for instance become more self-confident and may therefore start to feel more independent. However, we performed some additional tests of alternative models and they did not yield a better fit with the data. Finally, it is important to mention the potential influence of our sample. We tested our model with a specific sample of young business alumni because we expected that even for this rather privileged group, psychological mobility could entail negative consequences. However, because we focused on this specific sample, some of our findings may not be generalizable to other samples. Future research should therefore further examine the impact of different forms of psychological and physical mobility with other samples. In conclusion, this study showed that psychological mobility has an impact on career success, but that this impact is not unilaterally positive not even within a sample of young, highly educated people. In that way, this study's findings support the claim that the boundaryless career may have a potential downside, even for more privileged groups. In addition, this study's findings point to the need to further conceptualize and operationalize psychological mobility. References
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