Development and test of an integrative model of job search behaviour

Abstract

Research on job search and the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) has identified job search attitude, subjective norm, and job search self-efficacy as the most proximal determinants of job seekers’ search intentions and subsequently job search behaviours. However, we do not yet know how more distal individual differences (e.g., personality) and situational factors (e.g., social context) might help to predict these key TPB determinants of job search behaviour. In an integrative model of job search behaviour, we propose specific relationships between these distal variables and the TPB determinants, which in turn are expected to mediate the effects of individual differences and situational factors on job search behaviour. The hypothesized model is tested in a large representative sample of 1,177 unemployed Flemish job seekers using a two-wave design and provides a satisfactory fit to the data. Extraversion, conscientiousness, core self-evaluations, employment commitment, financial need, and social support are found to differentially relate to instrumental job search attitude, affective job search attitude, subjective norm, and job search self-efficacy. In addition, all distal variables are indirectly related to job search behaviour through their effects on the TPB variables. These results support our expanded and integrative model of job search behaviour.

Keywords:

• Job search
• Unemployment
• Job search behaviour
• Theory of planned behaviour
• Integrative model

We would like to thank Edwin A. J. Van Hooft and Jelena Zikic for their valuable comments and the Flemish Public Employment Service for their help in collecting the data.

This research was supported in part by an EQUAL grant from the European Social Fund aimed at facilitating equal access to the labour market and by a Postdoctoral Fellow grant from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) awarded to the first author.

A previous version of this paper was presented at the 70th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Montréal, Canada (2010, August).

Notes

¹ Both people who were still unemployed at Time 2 (reporting their job search behaviour in the past three months) and people who had found a job (reporting their job search behaviour until they found a job) were included in the analyses. However, when the analyses were repeated including only those who were still unemployed, largely similar results were obtained. Compared to people who had found a job, the relationships between employment commitment and instrumental job search attitude (.57, p < .01) and between job search intention and job search behaviour (.48, p < .01) were significantly stronger for people who were still unemployed, whereas the relationship between social support and instrumental job search attitude was somewhat weaker (.14, p < .05).

² Unemployment duration was not included as a control variable because 30% of the respondents did not answer this item, with comments suggesting that these were mostly recent graduates or job seekers in their first days of unemployment. However, when the analyses were repeated with unemployment duration as one of the control variables (N = 733), largely similar results were obtained. Only core self-evaluations was no longer a significant predictor of instrumental job search attitude (−.12, p > .05) and job search self-efficacy (.08, p > .05).