EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Vulnerable Workers’ Employability Competences: The Role of Establishing Clear Expectations, Developmental Inducements, and Social Organizational Goals

Mieke Audenaert (), Beatrice Heijden (), Neil Conway (), Saskia Crucke () and Adelien Decramer ()
Additional contact information
Mieke Audenaert: Ghent University
Beatrice Heijden: Radboud University
Neil Conway: University of London
Saskia Crucke: Ghent University
Adelien Decramer: Ghent University

Journal of Business Ethics, 2020, vol. 166, issue 3, No 11, 627-641

Abstract: Abstract Using an ethical approach to the study of employability, we question the mainstream approach to career self-direction. We focus on a specific category of employees that has been neglected in past research, namely vulnerable workers who have been unemployed for several years and who have faced multiple psychosocial problems. Building on the Ability-Motivation-Opportunity model, we examine how establishing clear expectations, developmental inducements, and social organizational goals can foster employability competences of vulnerable workers. Our study took place in the particularly relevant context of social enterprises, which have a primary goal to enhance the employability competences of vulnerable workers. Multilevel analysis of data from 38 CEOs of social enterprises, 121 leaders and 594 workers, demonstrated that establishing clear expectations and developmental inducements enable vulnerable workers to anticipate and optimize their employability competences. Furthermore, a positive association was found between establishing clear expectations and the balance dimension of employability, yet only in social enterprises that prioritize social organizational goals, suggesting the need to recognize the extent organizational goals shape opportunities for vulnerable workers. Establishing clear expectations and developmental inducements can therefore enhance vulnerable workers’ employability competences in supportive contexts; however, there may be detrimental side effects to drifting away from social organizational goals.

Keywords: Employability competences; Vulnerable workers; AMO model; Establishing clear expectations; Developmental inducements; Social organizational goals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-019-04140-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:166:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s10551-019-04140-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-019-04140-9

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:166:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s10551-019-04140-9