Career adaptability, turnover and loyalty during organizational downsizing

Abstract

During organizational restructuring and downsizing, employees often worry about being redundant, actually are redundant, and/or feel unsatisfied with their jobs. Employees, in turn, often react with poor loyalty to and high voluntary exit from the organization. The current study addresses this process from a careers´ perspective, showing that career adaptability in the form of employees´ career exploration and planning can account for at least some of these relationships. Redundancy fostered employees´ career adaptive behaviors while job insecurity inhibited their career planning. Career planning, in turn, positively predicted employees´ loyalty to the organization five months later while career exploration negatively predicted employees´ loyalty, and positively predicted employees´ exit reactions in the form of turnover intentions, job-search behaviors, and actual turnover. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.