Individual and contextual antecedents of older managerial employees' willingness to accept intra-organizational job changes

Abstract

This study examines the respective influence of individual characteristics and contextual factors on employees' willingness to accept major internal job changes – i.e. domestic relocation, international assignment and change of discipline – in their late careers. Data were obtained from a two-wave longitudinal survey of 584 management-level employees from different private-sector organizations located in France. Three separate hierarchical regression equations were run to test the relationships of interest in this study, one for each of the three internal mobility opportunities. The set of attitudinal variables was found to explain a significant proportion of the variance in the willingness to change discipline, but its influence was weak or null respectively in explaining willingness to accept an international posting or domestic relocation. Off-the-job embeddedness and spouse's unwillingness to move were confirmed as strong deterrents to relocation. As for the individual characteristics, openness to experience was identified as a major determinant of all the types of mobility included in this study. The results suggest that a much more dynamic role could be envisaged for late-career managers, at least for respondents corresponding to certain individual and contextual variables.

Keywords:

• intra-organizational mobility
• job change
• late career
• older workers
• relocation