Conclusions
Due to the rapid change of economic environment, technology, and job variety, individuals tend to gain the ability to adapt the changes evoked in their work and life. As long as they gain the adaptability in their career, the thought of becoming a self-employed person may pop up, as they are able to deal with any circumstances that they encountered. In this case, the researcher hypothesized that career adaptability is positively related to entrepreneurial intention (H1), and that under the effect of risk aversion (H2) and entrepreneurial opportunity (H3), the relationship of career adaptability and entrepreneurial intention will either be
strengthened or weakened. Thus, after the analysis of the collected data, the results are discussed in this section, to understand whether the independent variable plays a core role in predicting entrepreneurial intention, or under certain circumstances may affect the relation of career adaptability to entrepreneurial intention. Moreover, the researcher investigated whether entrepreneurial intention differs in gender and career status.
Firstly, the result has conveyed that only the first Hypothesis (H1), “the relation of career adaptability and entrepreneurial intention is positively related”, is supported, which means that Taiwanese with higher career adaptability is more likely to have the intention of becoming an entrepreneur. Second, Hypothesis of the moderating effect of risk aversion (H2) weakening the relation of having the ability to adapt in the career and intention of being a self-employed, is not supported. The result revealed that risk aversion does not function as a moderator in the relation of career adaptability and entrepreneurial intention. Nevertheless, risk aversion is significantly and negatively related to career adaptability, entrepreneurial intention, and entrepreneurial opportunity. In the last Hypothesis H3, the intervention of entrepreneurial
opportunity does not affect the relation of entrepreneurial intention and career adaptability;
instead, entrepreneurial opportunity predicts entrepreneurial intention.
Besides the stated Hypotheses, through the analysis, gender types show a difference in entrepreneurial intention, as male are more likely to have the intention of pursuing self-employment in Taiwan, which is as stated in the previous study that male have higher intention than female (Schwarz et al., 2009). Moreover, the researcher compared the career status to inspect whether the different career status will matter in possessing the intention of being self-employed; as a result, the full-time workers have a significantly lower intention of entrepreneurship than temporary workers, part-time workers, contactors, and seasonal workers.
In this study, career adaptability was not hypothesized at dimensional level; however, the researcher performed the analysis for each dimension of career adaptability, to investigate whether each of the dimensions was related to other study variables in this study. The result revealed that concern and curiosity were related to entrepreneurial intention, while control and confidence were not.
Discussion
The first Hypothesis of this study was also supported in the study of Tolentino et al. (2014) and McKenna et al. (2016) who argued that career adaptability does predict entrepreneurial intention. This shows that career adaptability is an influential factor in forming a change from current career to another, such as becoming an entrepreneur, which is formed through the ability of self-regulation (Tolentino et al., 2014). When the researcher dug deeper into the analysis of the relationship for career adaptability at dimensional level and entrepreneurial intention, the result showed that concern is highly significant and positively related to
entrepreneurial intention, which indicated that individuals in Taiwan, who plan and look forward to the future, are more likely to have the intention of becoming self-employed (McKenna et al., 2016). In addition, curiosity in career adaptability is significantly related to the dependent variable as well, which could mean that those who explore the possibilities of oneself and one’s role in various environment have higher intention toward becoming a self-employed (Uy et al., 2015).
The rejected result of the second Hypothesis may be due to the different perception of risk among individuals. The individuals perceived risk differently on the things or circumstances they encounter. For example, someone may delay the decision of buying a latest smart phone considering it as a risk because the phone may get cheaper as the time goes; while others may think that buying the latest model is an icon of fashion or trendy. In considering risk aversion as a factor to affect the relationship of career adaptability and entrepreneurial intention, literature had mentioned that an individual would develop an aversion toward risk when making decisions under the ambiguous economic environment (Tversky & Kahneman, 1992).
The result shows that risk aversion has a direct effect to entrepreneurial intention and career adaptability respectively. Therefore, risk aversion may be a predictor of entrepreneurial intention or a mediator between career adaptability and entrepreneurial intention.
Hypothesis 3 was not supported; however, entrepreneurial opportunity is found to significantly predict the dependent variable, entrepreneurial intention. Claimed by Shane and Venkataraman, (2000) opportunity plays a critical role for the start-up or becoming self-employed; thus, the researcher had proposed the opportunity as an environmental context, which exists around the individual, without considering that to seek and discover entrepreneurial opportunity requires certain abilities of an individual. Meanwhile, career
adaptability is defined as an ability that an individual possesses that involves the experience, competence, and needed resource to adapt to the changes in the working circumstances (Savickas & Porfeli, 2012). Therefore, it is logical that career adaptability directly affects the ability to identify the resources and entrepreneurial opportunities that an individual encounter (McKenna et al., 2016). Following this argument, entrepreneurial opportunity may serve better as the mediator between career adaptability and the intention to be an entrepreneur.
Theoretical Implications
As stated in the studies, career adaptability is a double-edge sword, which can predict two different outcomes, affirmative commitment versus turnover intention and entrepreneurship. It is possible that a person with higher career adaptability is more likely to remain in the same position, especially full-time workers and public servants or educational workers; since the individual is able to cope with the changes in current career, there is no strong motivation to leave the organization to become an entrepreneur. As the tenure increases, these workers will have less willingness of leaving the comfort zone. On the other hand, the study reveals that workers with higher adaptability of career and life are more vulnerable in staying in their current position, as the individuals are more competitive in the market (Spurk, Kauffeld, Meincke, & Ebner, 2016; Zacher, Ambiel, & Noronha, 2015). Although career adaptability does predict entrepreneurial intention, the relationship is not strong enough. Thus, a mediator is preferable in between career adaptability and entrepreneurial intention, such as self-efficacy (Tolentino et al., 2014), risk aversion, or entrepreneurial opportunity.
In the original theory, career adaptability was consisted of four dimensions; however, in the study, the researcher found that only concern and curiosity were significantly related to
entrepreneurial intention, which has a similar result with the previous studies of McKenna et al., 2016 and Uy et al., 2015. This may have been why career adaptability has a low correlation with entrepreneurial intention in this study; further research is needed to investigate career adaptability at dimensional level (McKenna et al., 2016).
In this study, risk aversion is not supported in moderating the relationship of career adaptability and entrepreneurial intention, however, the relationship of risk aversion and entrepreneurial intention is significant; in addition, risk aversion is also correlated to career adaptability. From the evidences presented above, risk aversion appears to be more appropriate to be a predictor of entrepreneurial intention, or to be a mediator in the mechanism between career adaptability and entrepreneurial intention. Similarly, for entrepreneurial opportunity, the construct is better serving as a mediator between career adaptability and entrepreneurial intention or as a predictor of entrepreneurial intention, as opportunity is more likely to be identified by individuals having higher ability to look for and utilize the resources in coping with career development difficulties.
Practical Implications
This study reveals that the workers in northern Taiwan, who were the majority of the convenience sample, have low intention to become entrepreneurs. This phenomenon can be attributed to the fact that most well-known companies are located in Taipei, the capital city.
However, the Taiwan government has devoted much effort into providing sufficient resources and friendlier context for individuals to establish entrepreneurship. For example, the regulation was modified to provide the individual more accessible domain for entrepreneurship and the government established a platform for the individuals to have more information and resources,
such as entrepreneurship training and certified courses to enhance planning for entrepreneurship. As a conclusion, no matter how hard the government promotes, especially in northern Taiwan, the outcome is disappointing, as few individuals are interested in being a start-up. The government shall see this as a warning sign and look into the possibility that either the policies and platforms did not reach the individuals, or the distribution of resources and policies are in need of adjustment. The sample of this study was mostly individuals working in northern Taiwan, therefore, it is possible that the individuals in the south of Taiwan may have a different score on entrepreneurial intention. In this case, the government should consider geographical differences in developing entrepreneurship related policies that is suitable for citizens in all regions of Taiwan to generate a higher level of entrepreneurship.
This study reveals that workers in Taiwan scored high in the ability of adapting the changes in career. As Zacher et al. (2015) presented that the higher the career adaptability is, the more likely the individual will have the intention to leave current job or to seek for other career option such as becoming self-employed. Thus, the HR should pay more attention to the employees’ career development, starting from the recruiting process, understanding the level of career adaptability of the candidates to predict their intention of becoming self-employed in the future. Organizations who are planning to have branches, franchises, or a new subsidiary, can consider appointing employees with high career adaptability to be the potential intrapreneurs, who start up within the current organization and receive supports from current organization (Lumpkin, 2007). In addition, lend an ear to the employees’ career development to make sure that employee’s career goal is the same as the organizational goal or whether the organization has the task or challenge to keep the employee on pursuing the career goal. The literature also suggested that having higher involvement in the organizational practices and
receiving higher support from the organization do affect the commitment of employees (Ito &
Brotheridge, 2005).
Limitations and Suggestions
The result supported the main Hypothesis between career adaptability and entrepreneurial intention, but failed to find evidence for the moderating effect of risk aversion and entrepreneurial opportunity. The study was conducted with several limitations. Firstly, this study collected from various types of workers, including full time workers to temporary workers, even the unemployed is included. Therefore, the result is not focused on a specific type of workers. Secondly, the study used a convenience sample, therefore the result may not represent all the workers in Taiwan, since most respondents are working in Taipei. Thus, for future research, the sample can be narrowed down to temporary workers, contractors, seasonal workers, or dual-occupational workers, who encounter more challenges and uncertainties in the job and may have developed useful abilities to cope with work. Previous researchers suggested that the study of career adaptability can consider collecting data from different period of time, as individuals accumulate the competence, skill and resources from the work experience and life experience; thus, in different period, the individuals may answer the questionnaire in different way (Johnston, 2018). Future research can consider the time differences within one or two years, to compare the differences between career adaptability among the same participants or organizations. Last but not the least, although the research had taken moderators into account, there are important mediators that play a key role in the relationship between career adaptability and having the intention of becoming self-employed.
For further research, researchers can pursue self-efficacy and opportunity as mediators in the
relationship between ability to adapt in the career and having the thought of starting up a business.
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