Proactive career support and employee thriving

The mediating role of job content plateau and the moderating role of political skill

Bibliographic Data

ID6415345
AuthorsYiqi Jiang (0009-0002-3294-0366, College of Business and Law RMIT University Melbourne Australia), Hongmin Yan (0000-0002-1238-8490, School of Business UNSW Canberra Canberra Australia), Zhongmin Wang (0009-0006-5271-2298, College of Business, Law and Governance James Cook University Townsville Australia), Zhou Jiang (0000-0002-6249-2659, Department of Business Administration RMIT University Melbourne Australia), Xiaowen Hu (0000-0003-0772-248X, Alliance Manchester Business School The University of Manchester Manchester UK), Chenhui Zhao (0000-0002-2717-0574, School of Business Administration Zhongnan University of Economics and Law Wuhan China)
Year2025
Volume74
Issue3
Publication date2025-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueApplied Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-994X • E-ISSN: 1464-0597
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/apps.70021
OpenAlexW4411385242
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited77

Despite the growing empirical research on how work contexts enable employees to thrive, the majority focuses on employee's proximal, local work units. This study explores how and when contextual factors beyond local work environments affect employee thriving. Based on the socially embedded model of thriving, we posit that proactive career support implemented by the organization, as a factor featured in larger organizational contexts, fosters thriving via reducing job content plateau. We further contend that employees' political skill strengthens this role of proactive career support. As expected, our three‐wave data demonstrates a positive indirect effect of the organization's proactive career support on thriving as mediated by job content plateau. For employees with stronger political skill, proactive career support is more likely to reduce job content plateau and, consequently, promotes employee thriving. From a practitioner perspective, these findings shed light on the importance of organizations' proactive career support in contributing to a thriving workforce, as well as when the benefits of this support can be enlarged

Political science · Politics · Thriving · Employment and Welfare Studies · Grit, Self-Efficacy, and Motivation · Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior · Psychology · Social Psychology

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