The Link between Career Capital Development and Employees’ Contributions to Organziations: an Empirical Study of Drivers and Consequences

Over three decades ago scholars have recognized career studies as the vanguard for studying the link between individuals and organizations (Barley, 1989). Nevertheless, despite the growing evidence suggesting that individual career self-management has an important economic value for organizations (e.g., Somaya, Williamson, & Lorinkova, 2008), very little empirical studies have extended this line of work to investigate the contribution of such career behavior to organizations. Using an original data set of employees’ career development in 2 public organizations in the Netherlands, this is the first study to empirically examine how contemporary employees, through their career capital development, shape organizational core competencies. Furthermore, this is also the first attempt to investigate the role of career capital as a mediating factor between who people are (i.e. personality traits) and the support they get, and individuals’ contributions to organizations.