Political skills, job resources, and career adaptability of R&D personnel

ABSTRACT

R&D employees play a critical role in improving organisational creativity and innovation. However, they often face significant career risks when disruptive technological innovations emerge. Therefore, understanding the development of R&D employees’ career adaptability is an important area of research. This study proposes a research model that examines the direct effect of political skills on the career adaptability of R&D employees, with job resources functioning as a mediating variable in this relationship. By analysing two waves of survey data collected from 262 R&D employees in large firms in South Korea, the study develops a formative second-order construct of political skills and demonstrates its positive impact on the career adaptability. Furthermore, this study reveals that job resources mediate the relationship between political skills and career adaptation. This research contributes to the field of human resource management (HRM) for R&D employees and innovation studies by highlighting the socio-political foundation of innovation activities within organisations and emphasizing the importance of political skills in facilitating both career transition and the utilisation of job resources.

KEYWORDS:

• Political skills
• job resources
• career adaptability
• R&D
• HRM

Acknowledgement

We would like to express our gratitude for the research support provided by Su-Gyeong Kim. We also extend our appreciation to Prof. James Fleck for his kind considerations and to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI [grant number 18K01869].

Notes on contributors

Yang-Joong Yun

Yang-Joong Yun received the Ph.D. degree from Hitotsubashi University, Japan. He is currently a Professor with the College of Socio-Environmental Studies, Fukuoka Institute of Technology. His research interests include HRM of research and development personnel and innovation management. His works have appeared in Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, Journal of Managerial Psychology, and IEEE Access.

Kyoung-Joo Lee

Kyoung-Joo Lee is a professor at College of Social Science (Department of Tourism Management) at Gachon University, Seongnam-City, Korea. He received his PhD from the Hitotsubashi University in Japan and served as assistant professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan and KAIST (Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). His works have appeared in Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, Science and Public Policy, R&D Management, The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Asian Journal of Technology Innovation, Journal of Managerial Psychology, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management, Event Management, Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism, IEEE Access, and Journal of International Trade Law and Policy.