International Journal of Organizational Leadership

Abstract

Career adaptability has found a special place among the predictive variables of job satisfaction in the recent decade. In fact, the effect of adaptability in different situations may be different depending on factors such as leader-member exchange. In this study, the mediating role of leader-member exchange in the effect of career adaptability was studied using Hayes’s fourth model (2013) and collecting 167 samples from the employees of public sector in Ardabil. First, confirmatory factor analysis was performed on the dimensions of career adaptability and leader-member exchange and only two questions of career adaptability questions were removed from the questionnaire due to undesired factor loading. According to the results, job satisfaction and leader-member exchange had the highest correlation with control (one of the dimensions of career adaptability). Moreover, career adaptability and leader-member exchange had the predictive role in job satisfaction (B= 0.29 and 0.55, respectively). The analysis of the mediating role of leader-member exchange was significant (0.162), which indicates that managers of public sector must pay considerable attention to leader-member exchange, so that they can moderate the effect of career adaptability on job satisfaction even if career adaptability is not satisfactory.