Antecedents and outcomes of organizational support for development: The critical role of career opportunities.

TLDR

The study investigates how employees’ prior engagement in formal development activities and developmental relationships influence their perceptions of organizational support for development, and how perceived career opportunity moderates the link between such support and employee outcomes. The authors propose that past participation in training, leader‑member exchange, and career mentoring positively shape perceptions of developmental support, and that perceived career opportunity within the organization moderates the effect of that support on performance and turnover. Results from 264 exempt employees show that training, LMX, and mentoring increase perceived developmental support, and that this support boosts job performance and reduces voluntary turnover only when perceived career opportunity is high, whereas low perceived opportunity links support to higher turnover; the findings illustrate the joint role of social exchange and career motivation theory.

Abstract

This study examines antecedents and behavioral outcomes of employees' perceptions of organizational support for development. We first propose that employees' past participation in formal developmental activities and experience with developmental relationships positively relate to their perceptions of organizational support for development. We then propose that perceived career opportunity within the organization moderates the relationship between organizational support for development and employee performance and turnover. Using a sample of 264 exempt-level employees and their supervisors, we found that participation in training classes, leader-member exchange, and career mentoring were each positively related to employees' perceptions of organizational support for development. We also found support for the moderator hypotheses. Specifically, development support positively related to job performance, but only when perceived career opportunity within the organization was high. Further, development support was associated with reduced voluntary turnover when perceived career opportunity was high, but it was associated with increased turnover when perceived career opportunity was low. Our study demonstrates that social exchange and career motivation theory work together to explain when and how employees' perceptions of organizational support for development relate to turnover and job performance.