OCCUPATIONAL EMBEDDEDNESS AND INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL MOBILITY: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY IN A CREATIVE INDUSTRY

Extant research highlights two major categories of predictors of job mobility: one emphasizes structural/macro-economic factors such as economic conditions or industry differences; the second one focuses on individual attitudes and decisional factors. This article aims at contributing to extant literature by using the recently introduced construct of occupational embeddedness to predict individual intention to change organization. More specifically, this study hypothesizes that the intention to leave the present organizational setting may be affected not only by the perceived ease of movement in the labor market that is reflected by perceived job alternatives, and by attitudinal factors, such as the individual predisposition toward protean and boundaryless career, but also by the level in which individuals are enmeshed in their profession. In order to test our research hypothesis, we carried out an exploratory study investigating an occupational community operating in a film industry district. More specifically, we conducted a survey on 106 creative professionals who work for companies of special effects in Soho, London. Results confirm the eminent role played by boundaryless career attitude in predicting intention to change organization. However, they also show that in occupational communities in which there is a great cultural acceptance of inter-organizational mobility, intention to leave present organizational setting is also influenced by the individual level of embeddedness in the occupation.