The Next Generation of Workers - Agency in Shaping Their Own Career Futures -

Future generations of employees are increasingly required to be proactive agents of their own career development, at increasingly early stages of their career life-spans. Thereby, necessitating a better understanding of which individual characteristics predict future employee’s proactive steps to shape their own career trajectories, prior to transitioning in to the domain of an organization’s Human Resource Management (HRM) function. Thus, the current study hypothesized that an Internal Locus of Control, mediated by a salient Future Work Self, will instigate Proactive Career Behaviors (N=238). Taken together the results suggest that an individual’s need to take personal control of their life in general terms, coupled with a clear representation of themselves in the future world of work, act together as motivational resources, which drive individuals to take proactive ownership of their own future career trajectories.