Organizational Support, Individual Attributes, and the Practice of Career Self-Management Behavior

This article reports the findings of a study, conducted in a UK new media company, that investigated direct and interactive relationships between perceived organizational support (POS), leader—member exchange (LMX), gender, locus of control, and practice of career self-management behaviors. The results show that it is the interactive relationships that have stronger links with internally focused career self-management behavior, whereas the direct associations, with the exception of LMX, are more closely related to externally oriented career self-management activities. POS moderates the relationship between both gender and locus of control and internally focused career self-management behavior, suggesting that it may send out a signal to certain employees about how supportive the organizational environment is of career self-management. Men and women are shown to act in different ways, depending on the level of POS that they receive, whereas POS encourages individuals with an internal locus of control to engage in internal career self-management behavior, in line with trait activation theory. LMX operates more directly, suggesting that it is a source of practical help with career self-management aimed at furthering the career within the organization; interaction results show that, when LMX is absent, men and those with an internal locus of control engage in internal networking behavior, presumably to find other sources of such help.