Marketability, Psychological Contract, and Work Orientations Among Professionals and non Professionals in Korea

Building upon the research of psychological contract and marketability in the boundaryless career, this study examines how psychological contract and perceived marketability affect work orientations (i.e., commitment and intent to turnover) differentially among professionals and non professionals in Korea. In this paper, perceived marketability is defined as the degree to which employees believe they have labor market leverage in terms of human capital values for either the current employer or others in the external market (Eby, Butts, & Lockwood, 2003). From this definition, we predict that professionals have more resilience than non professionals in terms of marketability and changes in perceived marketability affect professionals’ intent to turnover more significantly than non professionals’. In turn, conceptualizing psychological contract as employees’ beliefs about what they and their employers are entitled to receive and obligated to give in exchange of each other’s contribution (Levinson, Price, Munden, Mandl, & Solley, 1962), we predict that perceptions of psychological contract breach decrease organizational commitment more substantially among professionals than non professionals. The rationale is that professionals have higher expectations on the fulfillment and obligation of psychological contract than non professionals. The hypotheses were tested with a sample of 62 professionals and 471 non professionals in Korea. The results provided support for the hypotheses. The findings and their implications were discussed in more detail.