The Mediating Role of Career Development in its Antecedents and Outcomes: Empirical Evidence from Pakistan

The impression of strengthening human capital to promote innovation and creation by planning the careers of organizational members in light of HRM practices and policies and to develop distinct mentalities, competencies and skills with the sole objective of providing a series of novel services and products has been getting importance. The current paper dig into the importance of career planning along with the career management as input for the career development and career commitment, and career satisfaction as the output of this relationship. A sample of 395 teaching staff of the colleges of Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan was randomly selected for the current research. To test the hypotheses of the study, structural equation modeling as a statistical technique for analysis of the empirical data was employed. Empirical results supported all the hypotheses of the study. These results illustrated that career planning along with the career management are very important roots of the career development which further engenders career commitment and career satisfaction. These results also validated the mediating role of career development in the relationship of career management and career planning on the one hand as antecedents and career commitment and career satisfaction as outcomes on the other hand. The study has uniqueness in the sense that the study is the first one that tests these hypotheses in colleges in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. And that is why the study has both academic and practical implications. At the end a few recommendations has been put forwarded for future research.