Employable, successful and healthy, or vice versa? A three-wave cross-lagged analysis

This three-wave cross-lagged study aimed to examine the relationships between resource-based employability and work-related well-being, as mediated by subjective and objective career success, and to test for reversed associations. Work-related well-being was assessed by means of two complementary indicators: vigour at work and emotional exhaustion. Three hundred and eighty-one Italian employees were sampled on all the study variables across three time points over a period of eight months. Associations between variables were examined through structural equation modelling after checking for scalar invariance. The reciprocal causation model fitted the data better than other structural models (stability, direct, and reversed causation). Employability T1 positively predicted vigour, subjective and objective career success T2. Subjective career success T2 was positively predicted by emotional exhaustion T1 and negatively predicted emotional exhaustion T3. Subjective career success T2 also mediated the negative association between employability T1 and emotional exhaustion T3. This study contributed to the theory and practice by examining the predictive role of a novel resource-based conceptualization of employability over three data waves, and by testing the differential mediating roles of subjective and objective career success examining direct and reversed causation links to and from employability and work-related well-being indicators.