Predicting career stability and mobility: embeddedness and boundarylessness

This study tested occupational embeddedness and boundaryless career attitudes as a complementary explanation for career stability and mobility, in occupations previously known for lifetime employment. Current and former Australian teachers and police officers (n = 315) completed an online survey about their careers. Consistent with the hypothesis, logistic regression analyses confirmed that embeddedness-related variables such as financial responsibility and age predicted having made an active decision to stay in the chosen occupation, and boundaryless career attitudes predicted having left that occupation to change careers. Contrary to the hypothesis, years in the career predicted a history of mobility and years of career-specific education did not add predictive utility to the model. Overall, the findings partially supported the complementary explanation for career stability and mobility. By including current and former occupational members, and identifying predictors of career behavior, this study contributed to deeper understanding of the changing nature of previously lifelong careers.