Are Boundaryless Careerists a Breed apart from Organization? Insights from South Korea and United States

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the paths through which boundaryless career attitudes lead to knowledge sharing through self-regulated learning. Based on social capital theory, we contended that boundaryless careerists enhance career competencies and share them in the form of knowledge. Utilizing mixed samples in South Korea and the United States, we found that among the sub-dimensions of boundaryless career attitudes, boundaryless mindset led to knowledge sharing through self-regulated learning, while organizational mobility preference demonstrated both a significant direct and indirect effect on knowledge sharing through self-regulated learning, with both paths operating in a negative direction. In this intra-organizational mechanism, we also discovered that nationality (South Korea vs. the United States) had a significant moderating effect. By unpacking the heterogeneous nature of boundaryless career attitudes and identifying how national context shapes the translation of individual career orientations into collective organizational outcomes, this study offers novel theoretical and practical insights into the role of contemporary career orientations in organizational knowledge processes.
Further implications and future directions are discussed.