Occupational embeddedness and job performance

Abstract

While researchers have recently focused their attention on job embeddedness, occupational embeddedness has received little theoretical and empirical attention. Using multisource data on 162 employees in multiple jobs and organizations, we found that employees tend to view their own occupational embeddedness in a favorable, rather than an unfavorable, light. Moreover, occupational embeddedness is positively related to both task performance and creativity and is negatively related to counterproductive work behavior, even after controlling for the effects of job embeddedness. In addition, we found that positive affect plays a significant mediating role in the relationships of occupational embeddedness to task performance and creativity, while negative affect mediates the relationship between occupational embeddedness and counterproductive work behavior. The article concludes with implications for theory and practice.