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Abstract

Organizational socialization of the new generation of employees has become a hot topic affecting the sustainable development of organizations. From the perspective of a proactive motivation model, the mechanism of career aspirations on new generation employees’ proactive socialization behaviors was explored. Three hundred three responses were gathered from an online survey. The results show that career aspirations were positively associated with proactive socialization behavior. Sense of hope played a mediating role in the relationship between career aspirations and proactive socialization behavior. Perceived organizational support moderated the relationship between career aspirations and a sense of hope. As employees’ perception of organizational support increases, the positive effect of career aspirations on a sense of hope is weakened. Our findings help to understand why new generation employees exhibit proactive socialization behavior and provide management insights for organizations to motivate new generation employees to take proactive socialization behaviors.

Plain language summary

Effects of career aspirations of new generation employees on proactive socialization behavior

The mechanism linking employees’ career aspirations and their proactive socialization behavior remains unclear. Drawing on the proactive motivation model, our study aimed to explore the mediating mechanism and boundary conditions of the career aspirations of Chinese new generation employees influencing proactive socialization behavior. The results revealed that a sense of hope played a mediating role in this relationship, and its mediating effect was moderated by employee’s perceived organizational support. Our findings help to understand why new generation employees exhibit proactive socialization behavior and provide management insights for organizations to motivate new generation employees to take proactive socialization behaviors.

Keywords

new generation employees career aspirations sense of hope perceived organizational support proactive socialization behavior

Introduction

In recent years, the majority of the Chinese workforce belongs to the “new generation” of workers, who were born after 1980 (i.e., post-80s and post-90s; Brown & Kai, 2017). They enter the workforce after completing secondary education or directly into the labor market (Zhu et al., 2014). With the continued influx of Generation Y employees, there has been a paradigm shift in the workforce demographics (Lancaster & Stillman, 2010; Naim & Lenka, 2018). Having lived through the emergence of the Internet, economic liberalization, the spread of social media, growing environmental awareness, and the rise of terrorism, a new generation of workers is growing up in a multicultural and technology-rich environment (Naim & Lenka, 2018). Today, the workplace is increasingly characterized by the uncertainty and variability of task goals (Parker & Bindl, 2016). To reduce uncertainty and understand their environment, new generation employees may take the initiative to engage in proactive socialization behaviors, such as seeking information about organizational policies and building relationships with existing employees (Wanberg & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2000). Therefore, new generation employees always actively try to integrate into organizational groups.

Career Aspirations and Career Development

As an activity related to gaining membership in the group (Parker et al., 2010), proactive socialization behavior is often associated with positive outcomes for employees or organizations, such as organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and job performance (Frese & Fay, 2001; Wang & Kim, 2012). Additionally, proactive socialization behavior also promotes the social integration of new generation employees, which not only reduces the training investment of the organization, but also expands their social capital network, and promotes social adaptation and career development (Fang et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2014). Therefore, it is important to study how to encourage the proactive socialization behavior of new generation employees (Sulaiman et al., 2018).

Predictors of Proactive Behaviors in the Organizational Socialization

Frese and Fay (2001) proposed that individual initiatives are influenced by environmental support, knowledge, skills, abilities, personality, and orientations. On that basis, Parker et al. (2006) added proactive cognitive-motivational states and the non-proactive motivational state as mediating variables. They suggested that individuals engage in proactive work behavior because they believe it is important to fulfill their responsibilities, goals, or aspirations. Later, Parker et al. (2010) regarded the initiative as a goal-driven process and further affirmed the critical role of motivation and goals in promoting proactive behavior. In general, as an activity related to gaining membership in the group (Parker et al., 2010), proactive socialization behavior is often associated with positive outcomes for employees or organizations, such as organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and job performance (Frese & Fay, 2001; Wang & Kim, 2012). Additionally, proactive socialization behavior also promotes the social integration of new generation employees, which not only reduces the training investment of the organization, but also expands their social capital network, and promotes social adaptation and career development (Fang et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2014). However, the potential mechanism of proactive socialization behavior has received less attention in previous research (Parker et al., 2010). Previous research on proactive socialization behaviors was mostly concentrated in western culture.

At present, new generation employees are the main force in the workplace. Their distinctive characteristics are that they attach importance to career and work/life quality, and desire for career growth opportunities (Kong, 2013; Kong et al., 2019). As an intrinsic motivation, career aspirations may influence the proactive socialization behavior of new generation employees (Warner & Zhu, 2018). The current study aims to examine the proactive socialization behavior of new generation employees from the perspective of career aspiration, which provides new insights for understanding the mechanism of how career aspirations affect proactive socialization behavior.

Based on the proactive motivation model (Parker et al., 2010), this study explored the internal mechanism and boundary conditions of how career aspirations affect the proactive socialization behavior of new generation employees. Three research questions were proposed: (1) Can career aspirations influence the proactive socialization behavior of new generation employees? (2) What is the internal mechanism through which career aspirations influence proactive socialization behavior? (3) Is there a boundary condition for the relationship between career aspirations and proactive socialization?

Theoretical and Practical Significance of Research

This paper has some theoretical and practical contributions. Theoretically, this paper enriches the literature on career aspirations and proactive socialization behavior. First, the potential mechanism of proactive socialization behavior has received less attention in previous research (Parker et al., 2010). Our study is the first to examine the proactive socialization behavior of new generation employees from the perspective of career aspiration, which provided new insights for understanding the mechanism of how career aspirations affect proactive socialization behavior. Second, previous research on proactive socialization behaviors was mostly concentrated in Western culture (Nie et al., 2022). The findings of this study help to understand the proactive socialization behaviors of new generation employees in organizations under the background of collectivism. Third, this study provides more evidence for the applicability of the proactive motivation model in a group of new generation employees. In terms of practical implication, in the context of COVID-19, new generation employees pay more attention to their mental health. Based on our findings, organizations can improve employees’ sense of hope for the organization through corresponding activities, thus promoting their proactive socialization behavior. Second, this research helps employers understand how to help new generation employees in transition to achieve the match between their career planning and organizational blueprint, thus promoting the career development of new generation employees and improving their work-related attitudes.

Literature Review and Hypotheses Development

Proactive Motivation Model

According to the proactive motivation model (Parker et al., 2010), environmental support (e.g., job stressors), knowledge, skills and abilities (e.g., qualifications), the individual difference (e.g., conscientiousness), and orientation (e.g., self-efficacy) affect individual proactivity. Individual differences and environmental variables, as distal factors, influence proactive behavior through more proximal factors, namely motivation and goal processes. This process is moderated by the work environment (e.g., procedural justice) and goal processes (e.g., emotional regulation; Parker et al., 2010). Motivation and goal processes are divided into three categories: proactive motivational states, proactive goal generation, and proactive goal striving. Proactive motivational states, namely “can do” (expectation), “reason to” (valence), and “energized to” (affect) impact proactive goal generation (e.g., imagine the future) and proactive goal striving (e.g., persist in overcoming obstacles; Y. Hong et al., 2016; Parker et al., 2010). To date, this model has been validated by many empirical studies.

As an intrinsic motivation for individuals to achieve success in the career field (Booth, 2005; Rayner & Papakonstantinou, 2020), career aspirations can enhance an individual’s perceived hope of achieving a goal (Dudovitz et al., 2017). It is hope in work that leads to positive work outcomes such as organizational citizenship behavior and emotional engagement (Reichard et al., 2013). Additionally, extrinsic motivation, such as perceived organizational support (POS), can also improve employees’ proactive behavior (Caesens et al., 2016). Employees take the initiative in an organization-supported environment not to pursue personal aspirations, but to give back to the organization (Kurtessis et al., 2015). Under the framework of the proactive motivation model, career aspirations can be viewed as a kind of proactive motivational state, and POS can be regarded as an environmental variable. Based on the proactive motivation model, this study aims to explore the effect of career aspirations on the proactive socialization behavior of new generation employees, and examines the mediating role of a sense of hope and the moderating role of POS.

Career Aspirations and Proactive Socialization Behavior

Career aspirations are an individual inner desire to pursue further development in the workplace, which is specifically expressed as an individual desire for career promotion, career achievement, and continuing education (Gray & O’Brien, 2007). Baroudi et al. (2018) believed that career aspirations trigger behaviors that are beneficial to the organization. Employees with high levels of career aspirations show proactive participation in skill development and social behavior, and actively seek career counseling, which better help them shape their careers (Strauss et al., 2012). Gray and O’Brien (2007) found that individuals who aspire to advance in their careers tend to pursue advancement in occupations, which often require employees to obtain additional training or education to prepare for increased job responsibilities. The pursuit of career aspirations has become an important intergenerational feature of this group (Ertas, 2015; Wey Smola & Sutton, 2002).

Proactive socialization behavior is a manifestation of shaping individual career development (M. Wang et al., 2014). Specifically, it is a work behavior in which employees spontaneously adapt to the organizational environment (Ashford & Black, 1996), define job responsibilities, and construct job roles. In terms of career aspirations, employees seek feedback from their colleagues or supervisors to obtain information about their work abilities, which helps them obtain greater career achievements (Anseel et al., 2015). In the process of feedback communication, the information continuously obtained by new generation employees will help them take on more important work responsibilities in the future (Creed et al., 2015; Stewart et al., 2016). By establishing a benign relationship between subordinates and leaders, employees can get better promotion evaluations and more career development opportunities (Yang & Lau, 2015). Therefore, new generation employees with high-level career aspirations may actively complete socialization through various ways, thereby laying a career foundation for the realization of aspirations. Accordingly, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H1: Career aspirations are positively associated with the proactive socialization behavior of new generation employees.

The Mediating Role of a Sense of Hope

A sense of hope refers to conceiving a meaningful goal and believing that if specific actions are taken, it is possible to produce positive outcomes (Niles, 2011). It is a kind of psychological perception, including two dimensions of agency (goal-directed determination) and pathways (planning of ways to meet goals; Snyder et al., 1991). Agency is the perception of the possibility of achieving the goal, while pathways are the perception of finding the appropriate means to achieve the goal (Snyder, 2002). People with a high-level sense of hope believe that they are usually able to achieve their goals (Niles, 2011). The importance and effect of hope on academic success and employment suggest that hope plays a vital role in successful career development and future aspirations among youth (P. Y. P. Hong et al., 2020). Therefore, the sense of hope is closely related to the goal realization process, and it may have important significance in explaining the relationship between career aspirations and proactive socialization behavior. Dudovitz et al. (2017) pointed out that career aspirations might reflect youth’s sense of identity, hope for the future, and self-efficacy, and stated that career aspirations were negatively associated with hopelessness. Thus, career aspirations and a sense of hope might be positively correlated. As an intrinsic motivation, career aspirations can affect an individual motivational state in pursuing goals (Strauss et al., 2012). Employees who actively pursue their career aspirations have more confidence in achieving their career goals, resulting in higher levels of agency thinking (Hirschi, 2013; Snyder, 2002). They will prepare a wide range of alternative strategies to deal with difficulties in achieving goals and have a stronger perception of pathways thinking (Reichard et al., 2013). Therefore, the higher the level of career aspirations of employees, the higher their sense of hope will be.

The increase in the sense of hope may affect individual proactive behavior. Snyder (2002) pointed out that the sense of hope motivates individuals to persist in pursuing goals and facing failure, which is the proximal motivation factor affecting proactive behavior (Parker et al., 2010). Employees with high levels of sense of hope are more likely to take proactive actions that help them quickly integrate into their current organization, such as exploring the work environment and constructing social networks (Hirschi, 2013; Hirschi et al., 2015). Therefore, employees with a high level of hope may show more proactive socialization behaviors. Accordingly, the following hypothesis was proposed:

H2: A sense of hope plays a mediating role in the relationship between career aspirations and proactive socialization behavior.

The Moderating Role of Perceived Organizational Support

POS is the employee’s perception of how the organization treats their contributions and cares about their interests (Eisenberger et al., 1986, 2001). POS is associated with positive employee outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction and positive emotions) and organizational outcomes (e.g., emotional commitment, performance, and reduced turnover; Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). In the practice of organizational management, high-level POS is usually regarded as an environmental factor that can effectively promote employee engagement, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction (Ahmed & Nawaz, 2015). Therefore, it is of great significance to study the role of POS in employees’ pursuit of career aspirations.

POS, as an extrinsic motivational factor, affects employees’ sense of hope (Roemer & Harris, 2018), thereby motivating employees to make more proactive behaviors at work. This is because employees are willing to return the care and help of the organization and make spontaneous contributions to the development of the organization (Gavino et al., 2012). If new employees do not perceive the organization’s support for their work, they will lack the desire to take the initiative to seek feedback (Nifadkar et al., 2012; Zhang et al., 2014). However, individuals with high levels of career aspirations take proactive actions to create their career future (Strauss et al., 2012). According to the motivational fit perspective (Chen & Kanfer, 2006), when intrinsic and extrinsic factors affect the states of motivation together, it is necessary to consider whether the two are compatible (Y. Cai et al., 2021; Deci et al., 2001). If the purpose of motivational factors to inspire proactive behavior is inconsistent, then a certain positive motivational factor may undermine the positive effect of other motivational factors, resulting in counterproductive outcomes.

In summary, in an environment with low-level POS, new generation employees may believe that there is a lack of growth opportunities in the organization. However, in an environment with high-level POS, the organization attaches importance to the work of employees, thus making them full of hope for their career prospects. Career aspirations, as a motivational factor for self-interest, have weakened the effect of a sense of hope, leading employees to be more inclined to integrate into the current organization to return support. Therefore, employees with low-level POS might pay more attention to career aspirations and pursue the realization of their wishes. This will affect their sense of hope and stimulate their proactive socialization behavior. Employees with high levels of POS might experience a high level of hope in the organization, and the role of career aspirations would be weakened. Accordingly, the following hypothesis was proposed:

H3: POS plays a moderating role in the relationship between career aspirations and a sense of hope. The positive relationship between career aspirations and a sense of hope becomes weak when POS is high.

The research model is shown in Figure 1:

Figure 1.

Conceptual framework.

Method

Sample and Data Collection Procedure

Participants were recruited through a professional online questionnaire distribution platform Wenjuanxing. A total of 397 in-service employees volunteered to participate in the survey. To ensure privacy and security, the private information of participants was kept confidential. Ninety-four subjects who did not meet the definition of new generation employees (i.e., the post-80s or post-90s) were therefore excluded. Finally, 303 valid responses were collected. In terms of gender, there are slightly more males (174, 57.43%) than females (129, 42.57%). The age of the subjects was concentrated in 26 to 30 years old (145, 47.85%) and 18 to 25 years old (133, 43.89%), and their education level was comprised college or below (91, 30.03%), bachelor (182, 60.07%), and master or above (30, 9.90%). The tenure is concentrated in 1 to 3 years (139, 45.87%), and most of their organizations are state-owned enterprises (94, 31.02%) and private enterprises (78, 25.74%). In terms of working position, most of the subjects were employees (239, 78.88%).

Measurement

Career Aspirations

Career Aspirations are measured with 8 items adapted from Gray and O’Brien (2007), including two dimensions, namely educational aspiration (e.g., “I think I would like to pursue graduate training in my occupational area of interest”) and leadership and achievement aspiration (e.g., “I hope to become a leader in my career field”). A Likert 5-point scale was used.

Sense of Hope

A sense of hope is measured with 6 items adapted from Snyder et al. (1996), including two dimensions, namely pathways (e.g., “there are lots of ways around any problem that I am facing now”) and agency (e.g., “at the present, I am energetically pursuing my goals”). A Likert 8-point scale was used.

Perceived Organizational Support

POS is measured with 6 items that were adapted from Eisenberger et al. (2001). For example, “the _____ strongly considers my goals and values.” A Likert 5-point scale was used.

Proactive Socialization Behavior

Proactive socialization behavior is measured with 20 items adapted from Wang and Kim (2012), including five dimensions: feedback seeking, information seeking, networking, general socializing, and relationship building with a supervisor. For example, “asked others about the organizational operation mode?” A Likert 7-point scale was used.

Data Analysis

To validate the model, a partial least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM) was employed. First, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test showed that the distributions of the Likert responses for all variables did not follow a normal distribution. Variance-based PLS-SEM has less limitation on sample distribution, thus has advantages over covariance-based structural equation model (CB-SEM; Hair et al., 2017) Second, PLS-SEM can deal with complex models with multiple latent variables. Third, PLS-SEM is particularly suitable for prediction. SmartPLS 3.3.8 (Ringle et al., 2015) was used for statistical analysis.

Common Method Bias

Since the measurement of all variables was self-reported, common method bias (CMB) was evaluated by both procedural and statistical methods. In terms of procedural methods, the following methods were used to collect data: (a) the participants filled in the survey anonymously; (b) some of the items were reverse coded. Statistically, the Harman single-factor method (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986; Podsakoff et al., 2011) was used to perform factor analysis on all items in the survey. The results revealed that the first unrotated factor explained 26.807% of the total variance, lower than the 40% threshold. Second, according to the full collinearity test proposed by Kock and Lynn (2012), the inner variance inflation factor (VIFs) of all latent variables in the model should be less than 3.3. The results showed that the VIF of all latent variables ranged from 1.001 to 1.269. Taken together, CMB should not be a serious concern in this study.

Control Variables

In this study, gender (Bolino & Turnley, 2005), age (Thomas et al., 2010), educational level (Allen, 2006), and tenure (Wang & Kim, 2012; H. Wang et al., 2018) were treated as control variables, because these variables might affect proactive socialization behavior.

Results

The results were divided into a measurement model and a structural model. The former measures the relationship between latent variables and their indicators and aims to evaluate the reliability and validity. The latter measures the relationship between latent variables and is designed to test research hypotheses.

Measurement Model

Convergent Validity

The loading of an indicator on its corresponding latent variable exceeds the 0.6 threshold. The average extraction variation (AVE) of all latent variables was greater than 0.5, indicating good convergent validity. Cronbach’s α of all latent variables was above .8, within the acceptable range. The composite reliability (CR) was above 0.9, indicating good internal consistency reliability. The detailed results are shown in Table 1.

Table 1.

Results Summary for Constructs.

		Convergent validity			Internal consistency reliability
		Loadings	Indicator reliability	AVE	CR	Cronbach’s α
Latent variable	Items	>0.7	>0.5	>0.6	>0.9	>.8
Career aspirations	CAS1	0.800	0.640	0.614	0.927	.910
	CAS2	0.837	0.701
	CAS3	0.779	0.607
	CAS4	0.773	0.598
	CAS5	0.809	0.654
	CAS6	0.732	0.536
	CAS7	0.723	0.523
	CAS8	0.810	0.656
Sense of hope	SH1	0.768	0.590	0.617	0.906	.876
	SH2	0.770	0.593
	SH3	0.821	0.674
	SH4	0.729	0.531
	SH5	0.808	0.653
	SH6	0.812	0.659
Perceived organizational support	POS1	0.835	0.697	0.688	0.930	.909
	POS2	0.854	0.729
	POS3	0.845	0.714
	POS4	0.812	0.659
	POS5	0.846	0.716
	POS6	0.780	0.608
Proactive socialization behavior	FS	0.865	0.748	0.693	0.918	.888
	GS	0.883	0.780
	IS	0.772	0.596
	NW	0.836	0.699
	RB	0.800	0.640

Discriminant Validity

Two methods were used to measure discriminant validity. First, according to Fornell and Larcker (1981), the discriminant validity between variables was tested. The results in Table 2 show that the square root of the AVE of each construct is greater than the correlation coefficient between itself and other constructs. Second, according to Henseler et al. (2015), the HTMT value between variables should be less than 0.85. The results in Table 2 show that the maximum HTMT value is 0.439 < 0.85. Taking together, discriminant validity was established.

Table 2.

Discriminant Validity.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1. Gender	NA	0.085	0.056	0.028	0.035	0.038	0.036	0.029
2. Age	−0.085	NA	0.015	0.439	0.033	0.092	0.067	0.074
3. Education	−0.056	−0.015	NA	0.021	0.082	0.126	0.167	0.189
4. Tenure	−0.028	0.439	−0.021	NA	0.067	0.083	0.042	0.046
5. CA	−0.025	0.018	−0.037	−0.038	0.784	0.309	0.140	0.435
6. SH	−0.013	0.089	−0.123	−0.072	0.281	0.785	0.329	0.299
7. POS	0.021	0.062	−0.160	−0.025	0.128	0.306	0.829	0.286
8. PSB	−0.021	−0.033	−0.180	0.004	0.401	0.269	0.262	0.832

Note. The square roots of the AVEs are shown diagonally in bold. Elements below the diagonal are construct correlations, and elements above the diagonal represent the constructs’ HTMT ratios. NA = not applicable; CA = career aspirations; SH = sense of hope; POS = perceived organizational support; PSB = proactive socialization behavior.

Structural Model

Direct Effects

The path coefficients were obtained after bootstrap (10,000 resamples). Among the four control variables, the educational level had a negative effect on proactive socialization behavior (β = −.147, p < .01). Age (β = −.085, p > .05), gender (β = −.025, p > .05), and tenure (β = .064, p > .05) had no effect on proactive socialization behavior.

Career aspirations had a significant positive effect on proactive socialization behavior (β = .357, p < .001), thus H1 is supported. Career aspirations had a significant positive effect on the sense of hope (β = .245, p < .001), and sense of hope had a significant positive effect on proactive socialization behavior (β = .163, p < .05), which laid the foundation for the mediating effect of sense of hope. POS had a significant positive effect on the sense of hope (β = .283, p < .001). The interaction term of career aspirations and POS had a significant negative effect on the sense of hope (β = −.149, p < .05).

Mediating Effect

The indirect effect of career aspirations on proactive socialization behavior was examined using bootstrap analysis with 10,000 resamples and 95% bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrap confidence intervals. The results show that a sense of hope has a significant mediating effect on the relationship between career aspirations and proactive socialization behavior (a × b = 0.040, 95% CI [0.006, 0.086]), hence, H2 is supported.

Moderation Effect

The interaction term of career aspirations and POS had a significant negative effect on the sense of hope, indicating that the moderating effect of POS holds. To analyze the conditional indirect effects, the Macro PROCESS 2.16.3 by Hayes (2013) was used. We tested a moderated mediation model (Model 7; bootstrapped resamples = 5,000).

When the level of POS is low (2.626, M−1SD), a sense of hope had a significant mediating effect between career aspirations and proactive socialization behavior (Effect = 0.067, 95% CI [0.011, 0.151]). When the level of POS was high (4.521, M+1SD), the mediating effect was not statistically significant (Effect = 0.014, 95% CI [−0.005, 0.050]).

We plotted the effect of career aspirations on a sense of hope at different levels of POS, using one standard deviation above and below the mean, respectively. As shown in Figure 2, the slope of the relationship between career aspirations and a sense of hope was not significant (β = .112, p = .242) when the POS was high, but significant (β = .527, p < .001) when the POS was low. Therefore, H3 is supported.

Figure 2.

Interaction effect of career aspirations and POS on proactive socialization behavior.

Discussion and Implications

Based on proactive motivational theory, this study found that career aspirations positively affect the proactive socialization behavior of new generation employees. This indicated that new generation employees with a strong self-awareness of pursuing career development show a series of proactive socialization behaviors to realize their career aspirations. The desire for promotion and career achievement can drive new generation employees to quickly integrate into their organization and actively adapt to the current work environment. Warner and Zhu (2018) argued that existing research has little insight into the needs and aspirations of Chinese new generation employees, and their impact on HRM policies and practices. Therefore, our findings help to deepen the understanding of the career aspirations of new generation employees and provide guidelines for managers to formulate relevant HRM policies.

This study found that a sense of hope plays a mediating role between career aspirations and proactive socialization behavior. This suggested that a sense of hope is the key to the effect of career aspirations on proactive socialization behavior. Previous studies mostly discussed the influence of career aspirations on behavior from the perspective of career management (e.g., Strauss et al., 2012), but seldom from the perspective of a sense of hope. As a positive motivational state, a sense of hope plays an important role in the process of proactive motivation (Hirschi et al., 2015). Therefore, from the perspective of a sense of hope, this study explores the internal mechanism of career aspirations affecting new generation employees’ proactive socialization behavior, which enriches the relevant literature on career aspirations and proactive behavior.

The mediating effect of a sense of hope was moderated by POS. With the increase of the level of POS, the positive effect of career aspirations on proactive socialization behavior through a sense of hope becomes weaker. Specifically, employees with low-level POS attached more importance to their career aspirations and were hopeful about their aspirations, thus they were more willing to take proactive socialization behaviors. On the contrary, for new generation employees with high levels of POS, the role of career aspirations on a sense of hope no longer works. This finding suggested that POS and career aspirations are not compatible (Z. Cai et al., 2019). Although both have a positive effect on proactive behavior (Strauss et al., 2012), how POS and career aspirations work is not consistent. Under the condition of a high level of POS, employees take the initiative to repay the organization’s care (Gavino et al., 2012), while the purpose of employees pursuing career aspirations is to realize their personal goals. This inconsistency may be an important reason for this finding (Lam & Mayer, 2014). Therefore, under different levels of POS, the purpose of proactive socialization of new generation employees is various. Our research enriched the boundary conditions of new generation employees’ proactive socialization literature and validated the positive effect of POS.

According to the above findings, this study provides insights into new generation employees’ management practices. First, new generation employees are the main force of the organization (Brown & Kai, 2017) and an occupational group that values career aspirations. They are inclined to take proactive socialization behaviors to realize their personal goals. Therefore, organizations must be concerned with the career aspirations of new employees and hire employees with a high level of career aspirations to reduce the organizational expenditure on mobilizing employees to actively socialize. Second, the positive role of career aspirations is based on a sense of hope. Organizations should formulate diverse career development strategies to enhance employees’ sense of hope in achieving their career aspirations. Third, the organization should consider the employees’ career aspirations and the environmental support the organization can provide. Compared with employees with high levels of career aspirations, employees with low levels of career aspirations need more care and help from the organization. Therefore, organizations should focus on motivating such employees and helping them to enhance their sense of hope, thereby encouraging them to take proactive socialization behaviors to adapt to the work environment.

Limitations of the Study

This study has several limitations. First, this study collected samples from China, and our conclusions may be limited to the cultural background. Future studies could collect samples from countries from diverse cultural settings to figure out if there are cultural differences in the conclusions of our findings. Second, due to the limitations of cross-sectional data in explaining the causality, future research could adopt a longitudinal design to provide stronger evidence for our conclusions. Third, this study found that career aspirations and POS are the critical factors that affect new generation employees’ proactive socialization behavior. However, there may be other factors that influence the motivation of new generation employees. Future research is encouraged to further explore valuable moderating variables.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,authorship,and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research,authorship,and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Guoqiang Pan

Yang Cai

Wendian Shi

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

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Effects of Career Aspirations of New Generation Employees on Proactive Socialization Behavior

Abstract

Plain language summary

Keywords

Introduction

Career Aspirations and Career Development

Predictors of Proactive Behaviors in the Organizational Socialization

Theoretical and Practical Significance of Research

Literature Review and Hypotheses Development

Proactive Motivation Model

Career Aspirations and Proactive Socialization Behavior

The Mediating Role of a Sense of Hope

The Moderating Role of Perceived Organizational Support

Method

Sample and Data Collection Procedure

Measurement

Career Aspirations

Sense of Hope

Perceived Organizational Support

Proactive Socialization Behavior

Data Analysis

Common Method Bias

Control Variables

Results

Measurement Model

Convergent Validity

Discriminant Validity

Structural Model

Direct Effects

Mediating Effect

Moderation Effect

Discussion and Implications

Limitations of the Study

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iDs

Data Availability Statement

References