Antecedents and outcomes of Hungarian nurses’ career adaptability

• Date: 05 November 2018
• Published date: 05 November 2018
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-10-2018-0334
• Pages: 1096-1114
• Author: Sofija Pajic,Ádám Keszler,Gábor Kismihók,Stefan T. Mol,Deanne N. Den Hartog
• Subject Matter: Economics,Labour economics

Antecedents and outcomes

of Hungarian nurses’

career adaptability

Sofija Pajic

Amsterdam Business School, University of Amsterdam,

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Ádám Keszler

British Telecom Regional Operations Centre, Debrecen, Hungary

Gábor Kismihók

Leibniz Information Center for Science and Technology, Hannover, Germany, and

Stefan T. Mol and Deanne N. Den Hartog

Amsterdam Business School, University of Amsterdam,

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract

Purpose –With the ageingglobal population the demand for nursingjobs and the requirements for complex

care provisionare increasing. In consequence,nursing professionalsneed to be ready to adapt, obtain variety of

skills andengage in career self-management.The purpose of this paper is toinvestigate individual, micro-level,

resources and behaviors that can facilitate matching processes between nursingprofessionals and their jobs.

Design/methodology/approach –A survey-based study was conducted among 314 part-time and full-time

nursing professionals in Hungary.

Findings –Consistent with the career construction theory, this study offers evidence on career adaptability

as a self-regulatory resource that might stimulate nurses’adaptation outcomes. Specifically, it demonstrates

positive relationships between adaptive readiness (proactive personality and conscientiousness), career

adaptability, adapting behaviors (career planning and proactive skill development) and adaptation outcomes

(employability and in-role performance).

Research limitations/implications –The cross-sectional d esign limits causal inf erence. Relatively

small sample of full-tim e professionals for wh om supervisory-rat ings were obtained yiel ds the need of

further replication.

Practical implications –Stimulating development of nurses’career adaptability, career planning, and

proactive skill development can contribute to sustainable career management. It can facilitate the alignment

of nurses to performance requirements of their current jobs, preventing individual person-job mismatch.

Originality/value –Zooming into the context of nursing professionals in Hungary, the study elucidates the

understudied link between adaptivity and adapting responses and answers the call for more research that

employs other-ratings of adaptation outcomes. It demonstrates the value of career adaptability resources for

nurses’employability and in-role performance.

Keywords Job performance, Employability, Nurses, Career adaptability

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

Contemporary changes such as a globalization, fluctuating economic situations and

technological advances have all impacted the labor market in recent decades. In the

European Union, the percentage of temporary contracts has increased substantially with

International Journal of Manpower

Vol. 39 No. 8, 2018

pp. 1096-1114

© Emerald PublishingLimited

0143-7720

DOI 10.1108/IJM-10-2018-0334

Received 15 October 2018

Accepted 15 October 2018

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-7720.htm

The authors would like to thank to Gergely Wischy and Adrienn Ujváriné Siket for their kind

contribution to translation and the organization of the data collection. The authors would also like to

thank Scott Harrison for his comments on the earlier version of the manuscript. This work

was supported by the European Commission through the Marie-Curie ITN EDUWORKS (Grant

No. PITN-GA-2013-608311).

1096

IJM

39,8

more than 30 percent of workers aged between 15 and 29 years currently employed on a

temporary contract (Eurostat, 2015). For individual workers, this means that the notion

of a linear, stable and predictable career can no longer be taken for granted. While

developing a career within a single organization used to be the norm, this has now shifted

toward employees holding different functions at multiple organizations (Fugate et al., 2004).

Also, whereas performing duties within one’s job description and complying with

organizational norms might in the past have been sufficient for being evaluated as a high

performing employee, in today’s work environment, it is likely not enough.

Frequently subjected to reforms, the healthcare sector is no exception to such labor

market dynamics. Cross-border mobility of nurses, driven by individuals’search for better

employment opportunities and work conditions, is more and more frequent (e.g. Betlehem

et al., 2017; Zander et al., 2013; Heinen et al., 2013). Also, with an ageing global population,

the demand for healthcare professionals, and particularly nurses, is increasingly high.

Growing numbers of elderly people with multiple chronic conditions, create a demand for

the provision of complex medical care and the use of innovative care delivery methods.

Thus, the content of nursing jobs is also changing. Consequently, nurses need to be

responsive to change and ready to obtain a variety of skills or to adopt new ways of working

(Wismar et al., 2011).

The current study focuses on nurses in Hungary. The Hungarian nursing context is

generally comparable to other European states, but it also has some peculiarities. With

286 nurses per 100,000 inhabitants, Hungary, like many countries in the European

Union, is facing the common challenge of a shortage of qualified nurses. Despite an

overall increase of nursing graduates from 2009 onwards, due to migration of well-trained

nurses to Western-European countries (Ujvarine et al., 2011), in Hungary not enough

young nurses remain to replace those who leave or retire. In other words, to obtain

employment and sustain their employability, Hungarian nurses have to be adaptable and

engage in self-management.

To explain how people adapt to challenges and changes within career domain, career

construction theory (CCT, Savickas, 2013) posits the career construction model of

adaptation (CCMA) (Savickas, 2013; Savickas and Porfeli, 2012). This model suggests that

relatively stable personality traits reflecting the willingness to adapt (i.e. adaptive readiness)

affect individual resources for coping with occupational tasks and transitions (i.e. career

adapt-ability resources). This in turn positively affects behaviors and beliefs used to address

changing conditions (i.e. adaptive responses) and triggers positive outcomes indicated by

success, satisfaction, and development (i.e. adaptation outcomes). CCMA (Savickas, 2013)

highlights career adaptability as a key self-regulatory competency needed to handle change

and novelty in occupational roles, tasks, and demands. Adaptable workers take

responsibility for developing their careers and believe in their ability to succeed in

solving career-related problems (Rudolph et al., 2016).

Positive relationships between career adaptability and a range of outcomes within the

career and job domains have been established, such as promotability (Chan et al., 2016),

career satisfaction (e.g. McKenna et al., 2016) and work engagement (Rossier et al., 2012).

By enacting specific adapting behaviors, such as career exploration (Li et al., 2015), career

planning (Hirschi et al., 2015) or proactive skill development (Taber and Blankemeyer, 2015),

workers with higher levels of career adaptability tend to reach positive career outcomes and

person-environment fit. Therefore, in the current study, we propose that career adaptability

might also form a valuable resource for nurses, whose high performance and sustainable

employment are crucial to delivering high quality patient care.

Although career adaptability is not a novel concept, relatively recently researchers

have converged around one parsimonious operationalization: the career adaptability scale

(CAAS) (Savickas and Porfeli, 2012). Over the past four years the CAAS has been

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