Title: Optimism and career engagement in employees: an empirical test

Authors: Teena Bharti; Santosh Rangnekar

Addresses: Department of Management Studies, IIT Roorkee, Roorkee, Haridwar Highway, Uttarakhand, 247667, India ' Department of Management Studies, IIT Roorkee, Roorkee, Haridwar Highway, Uttarakhand, 247667, India

Abstract: The current study sought to investigate the relation between optimism and career engagement. The study implemented a cross-sectional design of research using a sample of 315 managers from private and public sector organisations in North India. Optimism was measured under the broad categories of personal optimism and self-efficacy optimism in alignment with the earlier studies. Further, hierarchical regression was used to measure the relationship between the independent variable (optimism) and the dependent variable (career engagement). The findings reflected that self-efficacy optimism has a significant relationship with career engagement; however, personal optimism has a less significant relationship with career engagement. Therefore, the given study has established the significant role of optimism in influencing the career outcomes such as career engagement in an emerging non-western nation like India. Also, the theoretical and future implications of the present study were discussed.

Keywords: optimism; career; career engagement; personal optimism; SCCT; self-efficacy optimism.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBEX.2019.102834

International Journal of Business Excellence, 2019 Vol.19 No.3, pp.429 - 446

Received: 09 Apr 2018
Accepted: 28 Jul 2018
Published online: 08 Oct 2019 *

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