Organizational mobility preferences and organizational career environments: A person-organization fit perspective

Research examining workers' contemporary career (CC) attitudes indicates that they are broadly associated with desirable outcomes. The one exception is organizational mobility preferences (OMP), which generally produce mixed findings. Scholars suggest this may be due to a lack of alignment with the individual's context, but little is known about how contextual factors, such as the career environment provided by organizations, influence outcomes of OMP or why. Therefore, in this study we draw on theories of person-organization fit to explore how organizational career environments (OCEs) influence outcomes of OMP during recruitment. We propose that organizations can signal whether they provide more traditional or contemporary career paths through recruitment advertisements. We then hypothesize that job seekers with stronger OMP will perceive greater fit (i.e., similarity and complementary fit) and organizational attractiveness when presented with more contemporary OCE recruitment advertisements, as opposed to more traditional OCE recruitment advertisements. Across two studies, we find support for our hypotheses as well as provide insight into how complementary fit is playing an increasingly influential role for workers in a more mobile labor market. Our findings contribute to careers and person-organization fit literatures and provide practical recommendations for attracting mobile talent. •Outcomes associated with organizational mobility preference (OMP) are influenced by an organization's career environment.•Organizations can vary in signaling a stronger traditional or stronger contemporary organizational career environment (OCE).•Traditional OCEs elicit weaker fit perceptions from workers with high OMP.•Contemporary OCEs elicit strong fit perceptions from workers with high and low OMP.•Complementary fit facilitates the conditional indirect effect of OMP and OCE on organizational attractiveness.