IBS Lunchtime Research Seminar - A Study of New Labour Market Entrants’ Job Satisfaction Trajectories During a Series of Consecutive Job Changes

You are cordially invited to attend an IBS lunchtime research seminar by Dr Min Zou, Henley Business School. Please join us in Room 108, Henley Business School. If you have not received the email invite please email Angie Clark.

Please make sure you let me know in advance if you intend to attend in person so that the correct amount of catering is booked.

Title: A Study of New Labour Market Entrants’ Job Satisfaction Trajectories During a Series of Consecutive Job Changes

Date: Wednesday 8^th February 2023

Time: 13.00 – 14.15pm

Teams: A Teams link to the seminar is included for those who cannot attend in person, however attendance in person is preferred.

Abstract:

Previous research has shown that employees generally experience a ‘honeymoon-hangover’ effect when they change their jobs. However, the extant research has neither theorised nor empirically examined how individuals react and adapt to multiple job changes in their career journey. Drawing on social cognitive career theory and hedonic adaptation theory, we developed two contrasting predictions of the potential impact of multiple job changes on job satisfaction trajectory and tested these predictions against two large-scale long running national longitudinal datasets from the UK and Australia. Applying fixed effect models to track individuals’ job satisfaction trajectories during their first four job changes since entering the labour market, our analyses showed that the amplitude of the ‘honeymoon-hangover’ pattern increased significantly with each successive job change. Nonetheless, the positive effect of job change is largely transitory as individuals eventually returned to their baseline wellbeing after they have adapted to their new jobs. This study extends the ‘honeymoon-hangover’ literature to understanding career dynamics from a life span perspective and develops a new theory of job mobility which takes into account both proactivity and adaptivity.