To move or not to move? : The relationship between career management and preferred career moves

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore professional employees' career move preferences and the impact of both individual and organizational career management. Departing from theoretical work on the “new career”, different types of career moves employees can make on the internal labor market are discussed and related to the literature on both organizational and individual career management. Design/methodology/approach – To test the hypotheses, a cross‐sectional survey of 472 professional employees from one company is presented. Findings – The preferences for both vertical career moves and moves relating to job enrichment and temporary moves are significantly affected by individual career management, but not by organizational career management practices. The preference for making lateral moves could not be explained by our antecedent variables. Research limitations/implications – Future research should involve a larger sample of organizations in order to collect empirical data about the extent to which OCM practices impact career preferences. Our results provide evidence for the relationship between individual career management and career move preferences and thereby adds to the literature on the “new career”. Practical implications – This study has a number of practical implications that relate to the ways in which organizations can stimulate different career moves among their employees through the enhancement of personal career initiatives. Originality/value – The value of this paper is the contribution it makes to the career literature by relating to different streams of research, about career mobility on the one hand and individual and organizational career management on the other.