Luo Xingqi, Yin Jie, Zou Yang, Liu Xianwei, Ma Wanli, Deng Yichu
College of Marxism, Xi'an University of Technology, Xi'an 710054, China.
School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Baoji University of Arts and Sciences, Baoji 721016, China.
Behav Sci (Basel). 2025 Jan 24;15(2):123. doi: 10.3390/bs15020123.
Increasing the attractiveness of research careers for PhD students has been a key objective of science, technology, and innovation policies worldwide. This study draws on an expanded career construction theory framework to examine the effects of proactive personality, employability social capital, and career adaptability on PhD students' research career intentions as well as the moderating role of gender in this structural model. We collected data from 795 Chinese PhD students at 10 universities via an online questionnaire survey. Structural equation modeling analysis revealed that proactive personality had no significant direct effect on research career intentions; however, it could influence research career intentions indirectly via the separate and chain mediating effects of employability social capital and career adaptability. In addition, gender was shown to moderate the relationship between employability social capital and research career intentions. The theoretical and practical implications of this research are highlighted, and recommendations for future research are discussed.
提高博士生研究职业的吸引力一直是全球科技与创新政策的一项关键目标。本研究借鉴了扩展的职业建构理论框架，以考察积极型人格、就业社会资本和职业适应性对博士生研究职业意向的影响，以及性别在这一结构模型中的调节作用。我们通过在线问卷调查从10所大学的795名中国博士生中收集了数据。结构方程模型分析表明，积极型人格对研究职业意向没有显著的直接影响；然而，它可以通过就业社会资本和职业适应性的单独及链式中介效应间接影响研究职业意向。此外，研究表明性别会调节就业社会资本与研究职业意向之间的关系。本研究突出了理论和实践意义，并讨论了对未来研究的建议。
