Future Time Perspective, Exploration Goals, and Career Exploration Behavior: An Empirical Study of Chinese University Students

Employee career management has been a challenging issue among organizations as well as scholars due to globalization. Previous studies have indicated that career management has an important impact on individual and organizational success. Focused on one of the most important steps of career management, this study aims to explore a new antecedent of career exploration behavior and to discuss the boundary effect of mentor career support on such a process. Using a sample of 220 Chinese university students, we found that future time perspective was positively related to career exploration behavior via exploration goals. Furthermore, mentor career support moderated the relationship between future time perspective and exploration goals. Moreover, our findings carry practical implications for improving individual future time perspective and career exploration behavior.