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Employees with higher career adaptability (CA) have been shown in previous research to be more likely to build high-quality social exchange relations with current employers, thereby displaying a lower intention to leave. Based on boundaryless careers and career ecosystem perspectives, this study aimed to challenge and enrich the extant understanding of this important question by examining the mixed effects of CA on turnover behavior. Results from a three-wave survey study with 179 Chinese employees show that after controlling the baseline turnover intention (Time 1), CA (Time 1) predicted both affective commitment and relative deprivation at Time 2 (6 months after Time 1), which in turn produced opposite effects on voluntary turnover behavior at Time 3 (12 months after Time 1). Moreover, the boundaryless career mindset positively moderated the relationship between CA and relative deprivation and strengthened the indirect positive effect of CA on turnover behavior via relative deprivation. These results offer a more comprehensive and balanced view of the mixed role of CA in employees' turnover behavior and carry important implications for human resource management

We examined a dual-path model to explain the opposite roles of career adaptability and organizational performance. We used a time-lagged survey of 53 supervisors and 327 employees in China to collect data. Results show that career-oriented proactive behavior mediated the negative effect of career adaptability on performance, and work unitoriented proactive behavior mediated the positive effect of career adaptability on performance. Moreover, the effects of career adaptability and career-oriented proactive behavior on performance were significant only for employees with high independent selfconstrual, and the effects of career adaptability and work unit-oriented proactive behavior on performance were significant only for employees with high interdependent self-construal. This study extends career construction theory in the organizational behavior field and has practical significance for the effective guiding of adaptable employees' contribution to organizational performance.

Extant empirical research tends to focus on the negative effect of career adaptability on turnover intention, which is often explained by career construction and social exchange theories. This stud...