<ABSTRACT>
Building upon the research of psychological contract and marketability in the boundaryless career, this study examines how psychological contract and perceived marketability affect work orientations (i.e., commitment and intent to turnover) differentially among professionals and nonprofessionals in Korea. Specifically, defining perceived marketability as the degree to which employees believe they have labor market leverage in terms of human capital values for either the current employer or others in the external market (Eby, Butts, & Lockwood, 2003), we predict that professionals have more resilience than nonprofessionals in terms of marketability and changes in perceived marketability affect professionals’ intent to turnover more significantly than nonprofessionals’. In turn, conceptualizing psychological contract as employees’ beliefs about what they and their employers are entitled to receive and obligated to give in exchange of each other’s contribution (Levinson, Price, Munden, Mandl, & Solley, 1962), we predict that perceptions of psychological contract breach decrease organizational commitment more substantially among professionals than nonprofessionals. The rationale is that professionals have higher expectations on the fulfillment and obligation of psychological contract than nonprofessionals. The hypotheses were tested with the sample of 138 professionals and 396 nonprofessionals in Korea. The results provided overall support for Hypothesis 1 and partial support for Hypothesis 2.
