Sustainable career development of new urban immigrants: A psychological capital perspective

Sustainable development goals (SDGs) emphasize decent work and well-being, while sustainable career development is a key determinant of these two parts. Based on Psychological Capital Theory, we investigate the micro mechanism of new urban immigrants' sustainable career development which is good to their social incorporation and sustainability. Especially this paper constructs a model including job performance as mediator and origin region as moderator to propose the relationship between psychological capital and new urban immigrants' career successes. Several hypotheses are supported by empirical evidence of a sample of 306 questionnaires filled by supervisors and employees with 11 firms. We found that psychological capital has a significant impact on career development including opportunities and satisfaction through job performance. Employees' origin region moderates the relationship between psychological capital and job performance. Compared to urban employees, the psychological capital of rural employees has a stronger influence on job performance. Origin region also significantly moderates the relationship between job performance and career development opportunities. Namely at the same level of performance, supervisors give more career development opportunities to rural employees. In regard to career development, psychological capital is more important to new urban immigrants than urban aborigines. We suggest that government and firms should pay more attention to new urban immigrants' psychological capital to propel them achieve sustainable career development which is good to society sustainability. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.