Proactive personality, goal orientation and meta-skills as predictors of protean and boundaryless career attitudes

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between proactive personality (PP), goal orientation (GO), meta-skills and the underlying dimensions of protean (self-directed and value-driven) and boundaryless (boundaryless mobility and mobility preference) career attitudes among Indian IT professionals. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 600 IT professionals working in six IT companies in the Delhi-NCR (National Capital Region) in India. Structural equation modeling was used to validate the measures of the selected constructs and for testing the hypothesis. Findings: The results of the study revealed that PP significantly affects individuals’ protean and boundaryless career attitudes. Moreover, GO significantly affects protean career attitudes, and meta-skill significantly affects boundaryless mobility, respectively. Practical implications: The study serves as a guide for the HR managers to devise the company’s strategies keeping in mind the employees’ requirements in parallel with the policies for IT industries in India. Originality/value: The study enriches the protean and boundaryless career literature by identifying and empirically establishing the relationship between various personality traits and career patterns opted in the context of the Indian IT industry.