Planning against qualitative job insecurity: testing two online exercises

Purpose This paper investigates whether career planning can lower qualitative job insecurity through increased goal and option awareness. We also aim to discover whether this mediation depends upon the match between the type of career planning and worker context. Design/methodology/approach Through two online intervention studies (N1 = 256, N2 = 212), we compare the results of Dutch-speaking workers who did an exploitation-based career planning exercise and those who did an exploration-based career planning exercise against a control group. Career commitment (Study 1) and perceived labor market demand (Study 2) were analyzed as moderators to assess the impact of context. Findings Exploitation-based career planning lowered qualitative job insecurity via increased goal awareness in Study 1. Study 2 did not replicate this finding. No intervention effects were found for exploration-based career planning. Goal/Option awareness related negatively to qualitative job insecurity. No support was found for the contextual match hypotheses. Research limitations/implications While more career goal/option awareness related negatively to qualitative job insecurity, the career planning exercises did not reliably increase such awareness. Future researchers may investigate the roles of concern, curiosity and action to further investigate the effectiveness of the career planning exercises. Originality/value This study contributes to the scarce literature on qualitative job insecurity in a time where valued job features are being increasingly threatened. Moreover, it extends prior correlational research with experimental results on the relationship between career planning and qualitative job insecurity.