Insight to Impact: The Effect of Protean Career Attitude on Employability Perceptions of IT Professionals

Abstract

In the contemporary career-scape, protean career attitude is considered as an innovative approach of employees to channel their aspirations independently and to explore their future career prospects on their own. The accelerating rate of change in the nature and types of work necessitates the development of a protean attitude, which in turn will have an impact on the employability perceptions of employees. This study postulates that protean career attitude positively influences internal and external dimensions of employability, and this influence is mediated by career insight, i.e., greater goal clarity and deeper understanding of one's skills and interest. The proposed hypotheses were tested among software engineers employed in the Information Technology (IT) industry and the results indicated that protean attitude predicted both internal employability and external employability, and career insight partially mediates the associations. The study further discusses the importance of employeecentric work culture to retain protean talents