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Influences of human, social, and psychological capital on career adaptability: net and configuration effects

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Abstract

To investigate the net and configuration effects of human, social, and psychological capital on college students’ career adaptability. 312 college students were investigated with human capital scale, social capital scale, psychological capital scale, and career adaptability scale. The results demonstrated the following: (1) The net effect showed that psychological capital had the greatest effect on career adaptability, followed by human and social capital. (2) The configuration effect identified four configurations for achieving high-level career adaptability, which reflected the causal asymmetry. The study showed that psychological capital is the most important variable affecting career adaptability, followed by human and social capital. Individuals who lack certain capital can also achieve high career adaptability.

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Research Data Policy and Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the College Teaching Reform and Innovation Project of Shanxi Province (General Project) [grant number: J2021276] and Postgraduate Education Innovation Project of Shanxi Province [grant number: 2022Y448].

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Author notes

  1. Qian Xu, Zhe Hou, and Chao Zhang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education Science, Shanxi Normal University, Taiyuan, China

    Qian Xu & Chao Zhang

  2. School of Philosophy, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Zhe Hou

  3. School of Teacher Education, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China

    Yifan Cui

  4. School of Education Science, Huaiyin Normal University, Huai’an, China

    Xinyu Hu

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  1. Qian Xu
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  2. Zhe Hou
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Correspondence to Chao Zhang.

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The research was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee, Faculty of Social Sciences, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India. The procedures followed in the study adhere to the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 and its later addenda.

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Xu, Q., Hou, Z., Zhang, C. et al. Influences of human, social, and psychological capital on career adaptability: net and configuration effects. Curr Psychol 43, 2104–2113 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04373-y

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