Rhetoric but whose reality? The influence of employability messages on employee mobility tactics and work group identification

Abstract

Over the past decade, employability has been presented by its advocates as the solution to employment uncertainty, and by its critics as a management rhetoric possessing little relevance to the experiences of most workers. This article suggests that while employability has failed to develop into a key research area, a deeper probing of its message is warranted. In particular, it is suggested that employability may have resonance with employees as workers rather than as employees of their immediate employing organization. This demands a slightly different approach to studying employability than some other related phenomena such as employee commitment, which has resonance only in relation to the employing organization. In adopting a social identity approach, the significance of the employability message is shown to lie not only in employees' willingness to disassociate from their existing work groups and pursue individual mobility, but also in its capacity to undermine workers' collective responses to grievances and unwanted organizational changes. A future research agenda is presented which highlights the need to address recent attempts to develop employability expectations among graduate career entrants, and for a closer critical engagement with management writings that attempt to justify the unnecessary espousal of the self-development message.

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