Employability is highly important to individuals in coping with job insecurity. Although many employability models have been developed, few studies have tested determinants of employability empirically. This longitudinal study aims to analyze core determinants of perceived employability. These were tested using a sample of 465 employees (time 1) taken from four companies in Switzerland and surveyed at three points in time. In order to include data from all participants, we used multilevel analysis (level 1: time, level 2: person). Results showed that education, support for career and skill development, current level of job‐related skills, and willingness to change jobs were significant predictors of perceived employability. Contrary to our hypotheses, willingness to develop new competencies, opportunity awareness, and self‐presentation skill failed to predict perceived employability. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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This longitudinal study probes the relationship between employability and burnout among employees from a company undergoing reorganization. We advanced employability as a personal resource that relates negatively to burnout. We expected that this hypothesis would hold for different operationalizations of employability, including (1) job-related and (2) transferable skills, (3) willingness to change jobs and (4) to develop competences, (5) opportunity awareness, (6) self-esteem, and (7) self-perceived employability (i.e., perceived employment opportunities). In a similar vein, we expected that the hypothesis would hold for the different dimensions of burnout; namely emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. We used longitudinal Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) to test our hypotheses. Employees from a Swiss company undergoing a major reorganization were surveyed at three times with a total time lag of 19 months (Time 1: N = 287; Time 2: N = 128; Time 3: N = 107). Our results indicate that particularly self-esteem, but also job-related and transferable skills as indicators of one's employability were important predictors of burnout, with all relationships being negative.

This study examined the generalizability of types of career orientation. Exploratory latent class analyses were used to examine whether structurally the same career orientations can be found across a large sample of Swiss German (N=737), Swiss French (N=319), and British (N=1,002) employees. The finding showed that the generalizability of career orientations was not supported across the two countries and not even between the German‐ and French‐speaking parts of Switzerland. At least four career orientations were found in all samples. Country‐specific inspection of these four career orientations showed that they differed in terms of their combinations of specific components (boundaryless, protean, advancement, and time orientation). Mixtures of types of career orientations exist and make it difficult to identify fully the same type of career orientation across different cultural contexts. Explanations for differences in career orientation are discussed focusing on the cultural and economic context of Switzerland and Great Britain. Implications for organizational career management practices as well as theory of the career orientation concept are discussed.

In this study, we validated a questionnaire measuring psychological contracts in a Swiss employment context. We argue that this measure sufficiently considers the characteristics of a stable employment situation and meets the criteria for the validity of psychological contract measures. The sample consisted of the employees of two firms and portfolio workers. An item and scale analysis was conducted and the dimensionality of the instrument was tested by means of confirmatory factor analyses. Finally, the instrument consists of three factors measuring employee expectations and employer inducements as well as two factors measuring employer expectations and employee contributions. Validity was evaluated by comparing groups with different employment status and by hierarchical regression analyses predicting intention to quit and performance.

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