Career inertia among employees and students. A test and extension of the Theory of Career Inaction.

Many countries’ labour market is characterized by prolonged educational paths and low job mobility, while at the same time, many people are not very satisfied with their career. These trends have been associated with high individual (e.g., more burnout), organizational (e.g., lower productivity) and societal costs (e.g., enhanced educational costs). This project aims to understand these phenomena by examining (1) the role of non-rational cognitive processes in the career decision making process that could trigger these phenomena (2) as well as the health, well-being, career and performance outcomes of these phenomena. To this end, I will build on the recently developed theory of career inaction (Verbruggen & De Vos, 2020) and aim to enrich this theory with insights from behavioural economics. By examining antecedents and outcomes of career inaction, I hope that the insights from my project can contribute to a more sustainable labour market.