The influence of psychological characteristics and training participation on sustainable careers among young researchers – a five-year longitudinal study

Young researchers frequently experience career challenges, including low well-being, mental health issues, and burnout, yet these aspects have rarely been investigated in an integrated manner. This study draws on SCCT to examine whether sustainable career outcomes – perceived internal marketability, career satisfaction, and sickness absence – can be predicted by psychological characteristics (career optimism and intrinsic career goals) and contextual factors (hard and soft skill training), with occupational self-efficacy as a mediator. We conducted a five-year longitudinal study with 1,218 early-career researchers in Germany, using Multilevel modelling to separate person-level from year-level effects. The results indicate that career optimism positively influenced career satisfaction and perceived internal marketability but not sickness absence. Intrinsic career goals predicted career satisfaction but had no effect on perceived internal marketability or sickness absence. Surprisingly, training participation at Time 1 did not affect any outcome over time. Occupational self-efficacy mediated all significant relationships and additionally linked intrinsic career goals to perceived internal marketability. These findings underline the importance of career optimism, intrinsic career goals, and occupational self-efficacy in young researchers’ career development, but show that the role of training is more complex than expected. Theoretical and practical implications for researchers, leaders, and university management are discussed.

青年研究者常面临职业发展困境，包括幸福感低下、心理健康问题与职业倦怠，但目前鲜有研究对这些维度进行整合式探讨。本研究依托社会认知职业理论（SCCT），旨在检验心理特质（职业乐观主义（career optimism）与内在职业目标（intrinsic career goals））及情境因素（软硬技能培训（hard and soft skill training））能否预测可持续职业结果——感知内部市场竞争力（perceived internal marketability）、职业满意度与病假缺勤（sickness absence），并以职业自我效能感（occupational self-efficacy）作为中介变量。本研究针对德国1218名早期职业研究者开展了为期五年的纵向追踪研究，采用多层建模（Multilevel modelling）方法区分个体层面与年度层面的效应。结果显示，职业乐观主义对职业满意度与感知内部市场竞争力具有正向影响，但对病假缺勤无显著作用；内在职业目标可正向预测职业满意度，但对感知内部市场竞争力与病假缺勤均无显著影响。令人意外的是，Time 1的培训参与并未对后续各类结果变量产生持续影响。职业自我效能感在所有显著关联中均发挥中介作用，此外还介导了内在职业目标与感知内部市场竞争力之间的关系。本研究结果凸显了职业乐观主义、内在职业目标与职业自我效能感在青年研究者职业发展中的重要性，同时表明培训的作用比预期更为复杂。最后，本文探讨了相关发现对研究者、管理者以及高校管理部门的理论与实践启示。