Relationship Between Goal Orientations And Career Adaptability In New Employees:The Mechanism Of Informal Field-based Learning

In the post-pandemic era,the employment environment is becoming more complex and uncertain.The career development of employees not only depends on the enterprises,but also needs their own active construction.Career adaptability（CA）,as the core competence of career construction,has gradually become the focus of researchers.Prior researches have shown that individual factors such as proactive personality,self-esteem,and emotional intelligence can effectively predict career adaptability.As the trait-like disposition,goal orientations also have important research value.Some studies have found a positive relationship between learning goal orientation（LGO）and college students’career adaptability,but the impact of performance goal orientation（PGO）on career adaptability and the mechanism have not received more attention from researchers.Therefore,based on career construction theory（CCT）and goal orientation theory（GOT）,this research explored the relationship between different goal orientations and new employees’career adaptability through cross-sectional and longitudinal design.In addition,we also try to explore the mediating effect of informal field-based learning（IFBL）between goal orientations and career adaptability.This study comprises the following two sub-designs.In Study 1,we collected cross-sectional data among 375 new employees.The results of structural equation model showed that there is a positive correlation between LGO and new employees’CA,while PGO is not related to new employees’CA.Besides,both LGO and performance-approach goal orientation（PA_pGO）are positively related to IFBL,which in turn strengthens new employees’CA;performance-avoidance goal orientation（PA_vGO）is negatively related to IFBL,which in turn weakens new employees’CA.In study 2,based on the same sample,a 6-month longitudinal survey was conducted on the new employees who volunteered to participate（3 months each time）,and 302complete data were collected.The results of the latent growth models and structural equation model showed that LGO and PA_pGO can positively predict the new employees’CA through IFBL,and the effect of PA_vGO is not significant.To sum up,this study found that both LGO and PA_pGO can help new employees to show more IFBL,thereby promoting their early CA;while the negative effect of PA_vGO is not stable,and more studies need to be done in the future.These findings enriched the related results of the relationship between GO and CA,provided empirical support for the exploration of the mechanism of adaptive readiness to adaptability resources,and also responded to the call of previous researchers to further explore the career construction model of adaptation.In practice,these findings could provide directional references for practitioners engaged in career consulting to improve career adaptability.