Edited by: Annamaria Di Fabio, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy
Reviewed by: Imran Ali, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia; Monica Molino, University of Turin, Italy
This article was submitted to Organizational Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
This study examined the relationship between two personal resources, career adaptability and general self-efficacy, and two career outcomes, self-perceived employability and entrepreneurial intentions in a West African context, characterized by a developing economy. A Togolese sample of 334 university students and 216 job seekers completed French versions of the General Self-Efficacy Scale, the Self-Perceived Employability Scale, the Entrepreneurial Intentions Scale and an adapted form of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale. A multi-group path analysis showed that the results are similar for both groups. Career adaptability and general self-efficacy were positively related to self-perceived employability. The contribution of career adaptability was especially strong for job seekers. Only general self-efficacy was related to entrepreneurial intentions. Furthermore, perceived employability was positively related in some way to entrepreneurial intentions in both groups. Career adaptability seems to be especially important for employability among job seekers (activation of resources), whereas entrepreneurial intentions may be more context-dependent. Finally, perceived employability failed to mediate the relationship between personal resources and entrepreneurial intentions in both samples.
The transition from education to work is considered a serious challenge for many young people, especially those with low social capital (
Togo is a French-speaking Sub-Saharan African country with a population of approximately 7 million inhabitants (
In fact, occupational integration has become a major issue for both the government and the populations of this country. As in most Sub-Saharan African countries, the economic context has deteriorated since the early 1990s with the implementation of structural adjustment measures (e.g., budget reduction) recommended by the Bretton Woods Institutions (
The resumption of development cooperation with the European Union in the late 2000s, however, enabled the Government of Togo to start implementing measures in support of employment and entrepreneurship. Over the last few years, an entrepreneurship movement emerged in Togo through diverse national and international initiatives such as the
Multiple conceptualizations of employability reflecting the interplay between individual characteristics and contextual factors have been documented (for a review, see
There has been a substantial interest in entrepreneurship in recent years, especially in low-income countries, where it has been found to be an important factor for economic growth, productivity, and social development (
Both self-perceived employability and entrepreneurial intentions have been linked separately to several variables in the career literature (
The career construction theory (CCT;
This study aimed at investigating the effect of career adaptability and self-efficacy on two vocational outcomes, self-perceived employability and entrepreneurial intentions across university students and job seekers in a context subject to extreme unemployment and economic constraints. Furthermore, the study investigated for the first time the link between self-perceived employability and entrepreneurial intentions, and explored if perceived employability would mediate between resources and entrepreneurial intentions. University students and recent graduates seeking work are two populations that are not at the same level regarding the transition from education to work. Given the fact that job seekers are facing occupational integration challenges and certain social pressures, it is likely that adapt-abilities have been significantly activated in this sub-population as observed by
A sample of 557 adults were surveyed. Seven profiles including two university students and five job seekers with more than 10% of missing data were excluded. The remaining 550 profiles (67.1% men and 32.9% women), aged 18 to 44 (
Career adapt-abilities were assessed using the French version of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS;
General self-efficacy in terms of personal beliefs was assessed using the French version of the General Self-Efficacy Scale (
Self-perceived employability was measured using the student version of the Self-Perceived Employability Scale (
The French-translation (A. Battistelli, personal communication, November 21, 2015) of the Entrepreneurial Intention Scale (
University students were recruited from several departments at the University of Lomé. In each department, response sessions were organized under the supervision of the fourth author working at that university. Questionnaires were paper-pencil. Job seekers were recruited at the National Employment Agency in Lomé, within the framework of a training designed for new graduates looking for occupational integration. The second author was responsible for data collection from job seekers. Response sessions were organized in collaboration with the staff of the Agency. In the same manner as that of the university students, participants responded to a paper-pencil questionnaire. According to Togo national guidelines, questionnaire based research conducted by public institutions does not currently require ethics committee approval. However, we respected the codes of practice and ethics in research and in particular the Declaration of Helsinki. Accordingly, all participants provided informed written consent and volunteered for this study.
A total of 557 participants completed the paper-pencil questionnaire. Seven cases were deleted due to being over the cut off of 10% missing data (
Descriptive statistics including the means (
Structural validity was assessed for each construct by means of confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) using AMOS statistical package 24.0, with maximum likelihood estimation. Various model fit indices were analyzed: χ2 per degree of freedom (χ2/
Furthermore, convergent, discriminant and incremental validity were assessed for the CAAS-Togo. As
Finally, four-factor measurement models of the overall data and of the two groups were assessed, with career adaptability, general self-efficacy, self-perceived employability, and entrepreneurial intentions considered as latent variables. In this respect, the four career adapt-abilities (i.e., concern, control, curiosity, and confidence) were assessed for the observed variables. As item-level models usually result in large modification indices and poor fit — needing an increase of covariance links between related error terms to obtain substantial improvement of the fit—, item parceling solution was considered for some scales in defining our hypothesized model as recommended by
Means, standard deviations, skewness, kurtosis, internal reliabilities, and inter-correlations for all scales and per group are presented in
Descriptive statistics, internal reliabilities, and inter-correlations for career adapt-abilities, GSE, SPE, and EI for both sub-samples.
Students ( |
Job seekers ( |
Correlations |
||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Scale | α | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | |||||||
(1) CA | 3.75 | 0.50 | 3.97 | 0.54 | −0.43∗∗∗ | −0.15 | −0.14 | 0.91 | − | 0.76∗∗∗ | 0.85∗∗∗ | 0.87∗∗∗ | 0.86∗∗∗ | 0.38∗∗∗ | 0.38∗∗∗ | 0.18∗∗ |
(2) Concern | 3.80 | 0.64 | 3.96 | 0.63 | −0.25∗∗ | −0.24 | −0.40 | 0.75 | 0.76∗∗∗ | − | 0.56∗∗∗ | 0.53∗∗∗ | 0.50∗∗∗ | 0.27∗∗∗ | 0.26∗∗∗ | 0.20∗∗ |
(3) Control | 3.91 | 0.60 | 4.08 | 0.61 | −0.29∗∗ | −0.54 | 0.15 | 0.72 | 0.80∗∗∗ | 0.51∗∗∗ | − | 0.66∗∗∗ | 0.65∗∗∗ | 0.30∗∗∗ | 0.29∗∗∗ | 0.09 |
(4) Curiosity | 3.54 | 0.63 | 3.74 | 0.71 | −0.31∗∗∗ | −0.04 | −0.27 | 0.78 | 0.81∗∗∗ | 0.47∗∗∗ | 0.53∗∗∗ | − | 0.68∗∗∗ | 0.33∗∗∗ | 0.38∗∗∗ | 0.17∗ |
(5) Confidence | 3.75 | 0.62 | 4.08 | 0.63 | −0.52∗∗∗ | −0.32 | −0.27 | 0.83 | 0.83∗∗∗ | 0.47∗∗∗ | 0.54∗∗∗ | 0.59∗∗∗ | − | 0.36∗∗∗ | 0.34∗∗∗ | 0.15∗ |
(6) GSE | 3.25 | 0.46 | 3.29 | 0.44 | −0.09 | −0.56 | 0.27 | 0.76 | 0.46∗∗∗ | 0.37∗∗∗ | 0.35∗∗∗ | 0.30∗∗∗ | 0.43∗∗∗ | − | 0.28∗∗∗ | 0.20∗∗ |
(7) SPE | 3.49 | 0.59 | 3.54 | 0.64 | −0.09 | −0.21 | 0.06 | 0.76 | 0.31∗∗∗ | 0.26∗∗∗ | 0.22∗∗∗ | 0.24∗∗∗ | 0.27∗∗∗ | 0.28∗∗∗ | − | 0.19∗∗ |
(8) EI | 3.89 | 0.87 | 4.20 | 0.86 | −0.36∗∗∗ | −0.89 | 0.29 | 0.87 | 0.14∗ | 0.13∗ | 0.06 | 0.08 | 0.17∗∗ | 0.20∗∗∗ | 0.14∗ | − |
Based on the theoretical model of the CAAS (
Structural validity of the measuring instruments and fit indices of the hypothesized model.
Adjusted model | χ2 | χ2/ |
GFI | CFI | TLI | RMSEA | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CAAS French language form (4-factor model, MI > 20) | 536.65 | 244 | 2.20 | <0.001 | 0.922 | 0.928 | 0.919 | 0.047 |
CAAS Togo-form (4-factor model, MI > 20) | 567.01 | 267 | 2.12 | <0.001 | 0.922 | 0.929 | 0.920 | 0.045 |
Generalized self-efficacy (unidimensional, MI > 10) | 89.10 | 32 | 2.78 | <0.001 | 0.968 | 0.938 | 0.913 | 0.057 |
Self-perceived employability (4-factor model, MI > 10) | 170.55 | 94 | 1.81 | <0.001 | 0.962 | 0.940 | 0.923 | 0.039 |
Entrepreneurial intentions (unidimensional, MI > 20) | 14.55 | 6 | 2.42 | <0.001 | 0.992 | 0.994 | 0.986 | 0.051 |
Hypothesized 4-factor model | 152.11 | 84 | 1.81 | <0.001 | 0.965 | 0.973 | 0.966 | 0.038 |
Hypothesized 4-factor model (multi group) | 241.32 | 170 | 1.42 | <0.001 | 0.947 | 0.971 | 0.965 | 0.028 |
Furthermore, structural validity was also tested for the other instruments. Unidimensional measurement was assessed for the GSE scale (
Finally, a measurement model that simultaneously considered career adaptability, general self-efficacy, self-perceived employability, and entrepreneurial intentions was first tested for the overall sample with four indicators for career adaptability, self-perceived employability, and entrepreneurial intentions, and three indicators for general self-efficacy. The model fit the overall data well: χ2(84) = 152.11,
As shown in
Hypothesized model with standardized estimates for the university students and the job seekers, respectively. Non-significant paths are shown in a broken line. In bold are the amount of variance explained for perceived employability and entrepreneurial intentions across both groups. ∗
A multi-group path analysis yielded fit indices identical to those yielded for the measurement model: χ2(170) = 241.32,
Regarding hypothesis 2, as expected, career adaptability exhibited a stronger effect than self-efficacy (β = 0.38 vs. β = 0.22) in predicting perceived employability across the job seeker group. However, the assumption regarding the detrimental effect of career adaptability on self-efficacy in predicting entrepreneurial intentions was not supported, suggesting a partial confirmation of hypothesis 2.
Finally, correlations between perceived employability and entrepreneurial intentions were positive across the university student group (
This is the first study that investigated the impact of personal resources of career adaptability and self-efficacy on two career outcomes (i.e., self-perceived employability and entrepreneurial intentions) in the Togolese context, with the particular aspect of comparing findings for university students and job seekers, two populations that are at different levels regarding the transition from university to work. Furthermore, the link between self-perceived employability and entrepreneurial intentions, which has not been investigated to date was evaluated for the two subsamples. The CAAS-Togo form and the other instruments fit the data well. The measurement model exhibited good fit indices for the overall data as well as for the two subsamples. Likewise, path analyses yielded good fit indices for the overall data and the subsamples. Thus, hypothesized direct paths were tested.
This study provided an adaptation of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale to the Togolese context. Our findings clearly indicated that this scale exhibited good fit indices and showed adequate convergent, discriminant, and incremental validity. Therefore, we conclude that the CAAS-Togo is a valid and useful measure to assess career adaptability in a Sub-Saharan Africa context. The other scales such as the General Self-Efficacy Scale, the Self-Perceived Employability Scale, and the Entrepreneurial Intentions Scale fit the Togo data well and have shown a strong structural validity across our overall sample. This suggests that these instruments can be used in this context and will contribute filling the gap of the lack of measures in most of Sub-Saharan Africa countries, which is one major limitation for researchers in this area (
Consistent with our expectations, significant and positive direct paths were observed from career adaptability and general self-efficacy to self-perceived employability, for both subsamples. This suggests that the extent to which students and recent graduates seeking employment are confident in their readiness to cope with the university-to-work transition (career adaptability) and/or with a broad range of stressful or challenging demands (general self-efficacy) directly relates to their perceived ability to find a job (self-perceived employability). Our findings contradict those of
Contrary to our expectations, career adaptability was not related to entrepreneurial intentions in either university students and job seekers. Our findings did not replicate those of
As expected, self-perceived employability was positively related to entrepreneurial intentions in the two subsamples. According to our findings, the extent to which either university students or job seekers perceived themselves as employable affected their intentions of becoming an entrepreneur. Employable individuals have been described as being likely to handle difficult situations and cope with change (
Our findings regarding the relationship between personal resources and career outcomes have several implications for educational policies and career counseling in the Togolese context. The strong and significant influence of career adaptability and self-efficacy on perceived employability has been seen for the two groups. However, such influences appeared to less systematically impact entrepreneurial intentions, which may be more context and learning-dependent. This could indicate that public policies should support entrepreneurship by means of structural, macroeconomic, and educational measures. Concerning the impact of educational or training measures,
The results of this investigation underscore the important role of career adaptability and self-efficacy on self-perceived employability. Although this latter construct is subjective, it might be largely influenced by the willingness of people to self-manage their careers. For this reason, career interventions designed for university students and job seekers should aim at strengthening their adapt-abilities. Career construction theorists have highlighted the importance of individuals’ recognition of environmental barriers, development of coping strategies through a mobilization of adapt-abilities (i.e., concern, control, curiosity, and confidence) to self-manage their career and produce significant changes in their lives. These are the focal points that career counselors in contexts subject to extreme unemployment and which seem to be hostile to entrepreneurship should develop in their practice (
Several limitations regarding this study should be mentioned. The lack of a relationship between career adaptability and entrepreneurial intentions could be attributed to the characteristics of the population studied. Regarding this point, first, it is important to keep in mind that the type of education or the education program considerably influences entrepreneurial intentions (
This study addressed the role of personal resources on career outcomes of perceived employability and entrepreneurial intentions in West African populations and opened avenues for further investigations. Moreover, investigating the relationship between these two career outcomes among university students and recent graduates seeking work, especially in countries with high unemployment might provide insights into the occupational integration challenges in such contexts. The study contributed filling the gap that can be observed in the literature regarding the lack of studies on the contribution of personal resources to career outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, it highlighted the usefulness of career adaptability and to a lesser extent self-efficacy as predictors of perceived employability in populations facing extreme unemployment in an economically constrained context. It showed that self-efficacy specifically was linked to entrepreneurial intentions. Finally, the study showed that self-perceived employability covaried positively with entrepreneurial intentions in university students and job seekers in Togo.
KA and JR designed the work. NM and PP collected the data from job seekers and university students, respectively. KA analyzed the data supervised by JR, and wrote the manuscript. LS and JR reviewed the manuscript. NM and PP approved the manuscript.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
We thank the staff of the National Employment Agency in Lomé, Togo, for facilities provided for data collection from job seekers. We also thank Kodjo Sosoe, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Applied Psychology of the University of Lomé for his help in organizing responding sessions at that University.
The French version of the Self-Perceived Employability Scale.
J’obtiens des notes élevées dans mes études/I achieve high grades in relation to my studies.
Je considère mon travail académique comme une priorité absolue/I regard my academic work as top priority.
Les employeurs sont désireux de recruter les jeunes diplômés de mon université/Employers are eager to employ graduates from my university.
La réputation de mon université est un atout important pour ma recherche d’emploi/The status of this university is a significant asset to me in job seeking.
Les employeurs ciblent les étudiants de mon université pour recruter des personnes dans mon/mes domaine(s)/Employers specifically target this university in order to recruit individuals from my subject area(s).
Mon université a une réputation exceptionnelle dans mon/mes domaine(s) d’étude/My university has an outstanding reputation in my field(s) of study.
Ma filière d’étude attire beaucoup plus de candidats qu’il n’y a de places disponibles/A lot more people apply for my degree than there are places available.
Mon/mes domaine(s) d’étude est/sont associé(s) à un statut social très élevé/My chosen subject(s) rank(s) highly in terms of social status.
Les personnes exerçant l’emploi que je vise sont très demandées sur le marché du travail/People in the career I am aiming for are in high demand in the external labor market.
Mon diplôme est perçu comme permettant d’accéder à des emplois très convoités/My degree is seen as leading to a specific career that is generally perceived as highly desirable.
De façon générale, il y a actuellement une forte demande pour les diplômés/There is generally a strong demand for graduates at the present time.
Il y a beaucoup de postes vacants dans la zone géographique où je souhaiterais travailler/There are plenty of job vacancies in the geographical area where I am looking.
Je peux facilement trouver des opportunités dans le domaine que j’ai choisi/I can easily find out about opportunities in my chosen field.
Les compétences et aptitudes que je possède sont ceux que les employeurs recherchent/The skills and abilities that I possess are what employers are looking for.
Généralement, j’ai confiance de réussir les entretiens d’embauche ou concours/I am generally confident of success in job Interviews and selection events.
Je crois pouvoir obtenir n’importe quel emploi pour autant que mes compétences et expériences semblent suffisamment appropriées/I feel I could get any job so long as my skills and experience are reasonably relevant.