Homefront fuel for career growth: the role of career crafting and work–life balance

PurposeIn the evolving landscape of work, individuals are transitioning from relying on employers to self-manage their careers in pursuit of progression and growth. This study aims to advance the understanding of career growth by identifying family motivation as a crucial antecedent. Drawing upon the wise proactivity perspective, we examine how family motivation influences career growth through the mediating role of career crafting, with work–family balance serving as a moderator.Design/methodology/approachA three-wave survey involving 244 employees in China was conducted to test hypotheses using hierarchical regression in SPSS 26.0 and Mplus 8.FindingsThe results indicate that family motivation positively influences career growth through the mediating role of career crafting, with the effects amplified under high work–family balance.Practical implicationsOrganizations can promote career growth by enhancing work–family balance through flexible work arrangements, improved welfare policies, and relevant training programs. For employees, understanding and leveraging family motivation can encourage proactive career crafting and reflection, enabling individuals to align professional goals with family focused values. By fostering this alignment, the study offers insights into achieving sustained career growth while supporting individual and organizational development.Originality/valueThis study clarifies the mediating mechanism from family motivation to career growth from the wise proactivity perspective, thereby expanding the literature on career crafting. Also, it extends the wise proactivity perspective into the family and career domains, enriching research on the antecedents of career growth.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Career Development International

• Publication date

  2025-05-06

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1108/cdi-01-2024-0007
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• The relationship between objective overqualification, perceived overqualification and job satisfaction: employment opportunity matters

  2024cited by this paper
• Why employees engage in proactive career behavior: examining the role of family motivation

  2023cited by this paper
• A New Construct in Career Research: Career Crafting

  2023cited by this paper
• The Double‐Edged Sword of Error Sharing in Organizations: From A Self‐Disclosure Perspective

  2023cited by this paper
• From job crafting to job quitting? Testing a wise proactivity perspective

  2023cited by this paper
• To stand out or fit in? How perceived overqualification motivates proactive and affiliative performance

  2023cited by this paper
• Self-goal setting as a way to career sustainability: exploring the roles of career crafting and perceived organizational goal clarity

  2023cited by this paper
• Moving Forward: Diverse Conceptual and Theoretical Perspectives to Advance Career Proactivity Research

  2022cited by this paper
• Is Resting and Sleeping Well Helpful to Job Crafting? Daily Relationship between Recovery Experiences, Sleep Quality, Feelings of Recovery, and Job Crafting

  2022cited by this paper
• Career Proactivity: A Bibliometric Literature Review and A Future Research Agenda

  2022cited by this paper
• Maintaining job crafting over time: joint effect of autonomy and career support from family and friends

  2022cited by this paper
• Development and Validation of the Career Crafting Assessment (CCA)

  2021cited by this paper
• A state-of-the-art overview of job-crafting research: current trends and future research directions

  2021cited by this paper
• A moderated mediation study of high performance work systems and insomnia on New Zealand employees: job burnout mediating and work-life balance moderating

  2021cited by this paper
• Century plus journeys: using career crafting to explore the career success of pioneer women accountants

  2021cited by this paper
• A Career Crafting Training Program: Results of an Intervention Study

  2021cited by this paper
• Sustainable careers across the lifespan: Moving the field forward

  2020cited by this paper
• From ideal workers to ideal work for all: A 50-year review integrating careers and work-family research with a future research agenda

  2020cited by this paper
• Individuals’ Career Growth Within and Across Organizations: A Review and Agenda for Future Research

  2020cited by this paper
• Work–life balance in Asia: A systematic review

  2020cited by this paper
• Work-Life Balance and Employee Performance: A Literature Review

  2020cited by this paper
• Playing It Safe for My Family: Exploring the Dual Effects of Family Motivation on Employee Productivity and Creativity

  2020cited by this paper
• When Is Proactivity Wise? A Review of Factors That Influence the Individual Outcomes of Proactive Behavior

  2019cited by this paper
• Does family come first? Family motivation-individual’s OCB assessment via self-efficacy

  2019cited by this paper
• A resources perspective on when and how proactive work behaviour leads to employee withdrawal

  2019cited by this paper
• Stress and turnover intents in international organizations: social support and work–life balance as resources

  2019cited by this paper
• Why am I still doing this job? The examination of family motivation on employees’ work behaviors under abusive supervision

  2018cited by this paper
• Modelling linkages between flexible work arrangements' use and organizational outcomes

  2018cited by this paper
• All of work? All of life? Reconceptualising work‐life balance for the 21st century

  2018cited by this paper
• Motives matter: The emotional consequences of recalled self- and other- focused prosocial acts

  2017cited by this paper
• When Job Performance is All Relative: How Family Motivation Energizes Effort and Compensates for Intrinsic Motivation

  2017cited by this paper
• Wise proactivity: How to be proactive and wise in building your career

  2016cited by this paper
• Career competencies and job crafting: How proactive employees influence their well-being

  2016cited by this paper
• Helping people to ‘make things happen’: A framework for proactivity at work

  2015cited by this paper
• An Index and Test of Linear Moderated Mediation

  2015cited by this paper
• Work–life balance: a longitudinal evaluation of a new measure across Australia and New Zealand workers

  2014cited by this paper
• Career growth opportunities and employee turnover intentions in public accounting firms

  2013cited by this paper
• Organizational career growth, affective occupational commitment and turnover intentions

  2012cited by this paper
• Sources of method bias in social science research and recommendations on how to control it.

  2012cited by this paper
• The Agency Gap in Work-Life Balance: Applying Sen's Capabilities Framework Within European Contexts

  2011cited by this paper
• Career growth study: scale development and validity test

  2011cited by this paper
• New Questions for Vocational Psychology: Premises, Paradigms, and Practices

  2011cited by this paper
• A meta-analysis of work-family conflict and various outcomes with a special emphasis on cross-domain versus matching-domain relations.

  2011cited by this paper
• Are You Willing and Able? Roles of Motivation, Power, and Politics in Career Growth

  2010cited by this paper
• The relationship between career growth and organizational commitment

  2010cited by this paper
• Does intrinsic motivation fuel the prosocial fire? Motivational synergy in predicting persistence, performance, and productivity.

  2008cited by this paper
• Work–life balance: A review of the meaning of the balance construct

  2008cited by this paper
• Age, proactivity and career development

  2008cited by this paper
• The influence of family responsibilities, career fields and gender on career success

  2008cited by this paper
• Positive organizational behavior: Engaged employees in flourishing organizations

  2008cited by this paper
• Toward a Systems Theory of Motivated Behavior in Work Teams

  2006cited by this paper
• Measuring the positive side of the work-family interface: Development and validation of a work-family enrichment scale.

  2006cited by this paper
• Enhancing career benefits of employee proactive personality: The role of fit with jobs and organizations.

  2005cited by this paper
• Investment in work and family roles: A test of identity and utilitarian motives.

  2003cited by this paper
• The Contours of Positive Human Health

  1998cited by this paper
• A Balance Theory of Wisdom

  1998cited by this paper
• Career commitment and expected utility of present job as predictors of turnover intentions and turnover behavior

  1991cited by this paper
• Effects of Race on Organizational Experiences, Job Performance Evaluations, and Career Outcomes

  1990cited by this paper
• Evaluating Structural Equation Models with Unobservable Variables and Measurement Error

  1981cited by this paper

• No citing papers are available for this paper.