Career Plateau and Counterproductive Work Behaviors among Generation Y: A Moderated mediation model of political skill and job satisfaction

Abstract

無中文摘要Downsizing, restructuring, and framing are taken by organizations, a horizontal structure limited hierarchical advancement and career plateau becomes a common issue in organizations regardless the age or tenure. The workplace is gradually leading by Generation Y, who inherent to seek a high mobility and challenging job is currently facing the plateau issues from intrinsic factor and extrinsic difficulties. The purpose of this study was investigated the relationship between career plateau and counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs), and see if job satisfaction could serve as a buffer between them. Political skill was set to examine the moderating effect on the relationship between career plateau and job satisfaction. Nevertheless, a moderated mediation model was proposed to investigate the effect on whole model. Total sample size was 311 full-time employees among Generation Y. Quantitative approach and convenient sampling method was adopted. SPSS v22.0 and AMOS v22.0 was adopted to conduct confirmatory factor analysis, hierarchical regression analysis, and structure equation modeling. The result showed that career plateau was significantly positive related to CWBs, and job satisfaction was partial mediates the relationship between them. Political skill significantly moderated the relationship between career plateau and job satisfaction. However, the moderated mediation model did not show significant effect on CWBs. The findings bring some direction to HR practitioners to understand the CWBs might occurs on plateaued employee and implement employee assistance programs (EAPs) and role modeling could train employees’ political skill and overall increasing the job satisfaction.