Exploring the relationship between protean and boundaryless career attitudes and affective commitment through the lens of a fuzzy set QCA methodology

Abstract

Sweeping changes in employment relationships and organizational structures have challenged traditional career models and gave way to two emerging paradigms to examine professional careers: the protean and the boundaryless career. During the last decades, researchers and practitioners conducted conceptual and empirical research on new career patterns to explore the impact of boundaryless and protean careers upon individual outcomes, such as subjective and objective career success, adaptability and employability. Nevertheless, we have a limited understanding on how new career orientations affect organizational outcomes (such as, for instance, organizational commitment). Therefore, the objective of this research is twofold: (a) first, to determine whether the protean and the boundaryless career attitudes analysed have any kind of impact on employees’ affective commitment; and (b) second, to offer a guideline to use the fuzzy set methodology to enable conducting research about professional careers