Anchored in Savickas’s (2013) model of psychological career adaptation, career agility denotes a mindset of adaptivity which is the psychological readiness to embrace the complexities and ill-defined occupational and work challenges of the digital-era world of work (Coetzee, 2021a; Hirschi, Herrmann, & Keller, 2015; Savickas, 2013). Career agility (i.e. individuals’ willingness to speedily and proactively adapt and respond to changes that influence their career success) acts as a precondition for the active use of the career adaptability resources needed for agentic career exploration and self-regulatory career management (Coetzee et al., 2021a; Savickas, 2013).

Individuals’ career adaptivity is reflected in the mindset states of technological adaptivity (i.e. optimism and problem-solving orientation towards seeking out new occupational and upskilling opportunities made possible by technological advancement), agile learning (i.e. energetic positivity towards searching out continuous learning and growth opportunities) and career navigation (i.e. self-efficacy in adapting to the changing career environment, and identifying gaps in the employment market that one could fill in unique ways; Coetzee, Bester, Ferreira, & Potgieter, 2020; Coetzee, 2021b). These mindset states allude to the protean-like agentic aspects of openness to new experiences, volition, personal autonomy and control over one’s career that facilitate the use of career adaptability resources such as active career planning, career decidedness, extrinsic career exploration and career self-efficacy beliefs (Coetzee et al., 2020; Hall et al., 2018; Hirschi et al., 2015). Research has shown links between openness to new experiences and higher levels of productive career planning and exploration (Ting & Datu, 2020).

Theoretically, it appears that the assessment of career agility may be useful as a tool in career exploration counselling to elucidate individuals’ adaptive readiness to confidently and intentionally engage in extrinsic career exploration. However, individuals need a strong internal compass (i.e. a meaningful value-driven passion towards a career domain) to not only guide their career decisions and development, but also to activate their career agency in extrinsic career exploration (Hall et al., 2018). In the present study, Schein’s (1990) concept of career orientations is explored as a component of intrinsic career exploration that activates individuals’ extrinsic career exploration in the form of digital-era world of work awareness and career agility.

Research suggests that individuals’ personal values (i.e. desirable goals and life aspirations) have become essential for career decisions and choices, and lifelong agentic career development in times of uncertain career prospects (Abessolo, Rossier, & Hirschi, 2017). In this regard, individuals’ career orientations provide purpose and meaning to their career choices and behaviour (Abessolo et al., 2017; Coetzee & Schreuder, 2014; Rodrigues, Guest, & Budjanovcanin, 2013; Schein & Van Maanen, 2016). The master motivational values that underpin individuals’ career orientations serve as criteria for subjective career success that act as an internal cognitive compass pulling individuals towards specific career choices and decisions (Abessolo et al., 2021).

Schein’s (1990) eight types of career orientations (anchors) denote four clusters of career-values mindsets (Wils, Wils, & Tremblay, 2010): careerist mindset (associated with the general managerial competence career orientation), protean mindset (associated with the technical and functional competence, entrepreneurial creativity, pure challenge, and autonomy and independence career orientations), social mindset (associated with lifestyle and Service and dedication to a cause career orientations) and bureaucratic mindset (associated with the security/stability career orientation). The careerist mindset of the general management competence orientation denotes self-enhancement as basic value (i.e. professional success, influence and power). The protean-mindset-associated career orientations allude to openness to change and agency (self-regulatory) values, a readiness for change and to autonomously pursue new challenging occupational and career challenges for personal growth and development. The social-mindset type of career orientations subscribes to human values of self-transcendence that emphasise social needs and benevolent connections. The bureaucratic mindset of the security and stability career orientation is associated with the basic human value of conservation (i.e. continuity, stability and bureaucratic links with others in the organisation; Abessolo et al., 2017; Schwartz et al., 2012; Wils et al., 2010).

Career orientations guide intrinsic career exploration which evokes a feeling of curiosity towards the type of job and career that would bring the most fulfilment and career success (Schein, 1990; Su, 2020). Assessment and conversational exploration of career orientation mindsets enliven or activate the epistemic curiosity needed to intentionally (purposefully) engage in extrinsic career exploration to not only gain more information about the digital-era world of work career options that fit one’s career orientations but also to be career agile by proactively adapting and responding to changes that influence one’s career success (Coetzee et al., 2021a; Grossnickle, 2016; Su, 2020).

Like career agility, digital-era world of work awareness is a person-in-environment construct of extrinsic career exploration (Jiang et al., 2019). In the present study, individuals’ world of work awareness denotes their conscious, purposive cognitions that afford them access to information about the nature of work, occupations and jobs in the digital-era world of employment. Such information includes an understanding of the impact of technological advancement on job and employment opportunities, and the changing nature of work (Brown et al., 2018: Deloitte, 2021; Deloitte Insights, 2019; McKinsey Global Institute, 2015, 2016). Individuals’ awareness of the changing world of work helps them gain information on potential new digitally driven occupational opportunities in their field of interest, and the new type of skills and knowledge they need to qualify for new forms of jobs and occupations (Brown et al., 2018; Coetzee et al., 2021b; Deloitte, 2021).

It stands to reason that individuals’ cognitions and feelings about their preferred career orientations will be positively associated with the extrinsic career exploration cognitions of world of work awareness. Schein and Van Maanen (2016) suggest that the protean-type career orientations technical and functional competence, entrepreneurial creativity, pure challenge and Autonomy and independence career orientations may be especially open-minded towards and curious about the new career opportunities proffered by the digital-era world of work. However, research on links between individuals’ career orientations and the construct of digital-era world of work awareness is non-existent. The following research question ensued from this research gap:

In the present study, it was also assumed that individuals’ world of work awareness will enhance their career agility because of the information and knowledge they have about the world of work. World-of-work-aware individuals recognise the need for rapid Upskilling, reskilling and continuous learning for optimal adaptation to, and functioning within the digital-era employment market (Coetzee et al., 2021b; Kohl & Swartz, 2019). Digital-era world of work awareness is characteristic of the career agile mindset; individuals are able to rapidly learn, unlearn, relearn and adjust their personal worldviews, beliefs, career goals, interests and behaviour for re-achieving optimal person–environment congruence (Brown et al., 2018; Kohl & Swartz, 2019).

It further appears that some of the career orientations, such as the protean mindset type of career orientations, may also show a stronger link to individuals’ career agility than, for example, the careerist, social and bureaucratic type of mindsets because of the underpinning values that direct career cognitions and actions. Individuals who ascribe to the protean-type career need for technical and functional competence (i.e. opportunities for continuous upskilling of one’s expertise through challenging work), autonomy and independence (i.e. self-reliant navigation of world of work for self-expression), entrepreneurial creativity (i.e. readiness to discover and pursue new self-expression opportunities) and pure challenge (i.e. the pursuit of new self-challenging career opportunities) generally tend to demonstrate a career-agile interest in and awareness of changes in the world of work (Schein & Van Maanen, 2016). However, research on the associations between individuals’ career orientations, digital-era world of work awareness and career agility is non-existent. The following research question was posed:

The participants were a randomly selected sample (n = 486) of South African distance learning undergraduate adult learners in the economic and management sciences field. The participants comprised of women (65%) and men (35%) with a mean age of 34 years (standard deviation [SD] 9.12 years). In line with the South African Employment Equity Act categorisation of race groups, the sample was represented by 85% black learners (African: 73%; Coloured: 7%; Indian: 5%) and 15% white learners. Seventy-two per cent of the participants had full-time employment and 28% were unemployed.

The university’s internal lime survey facilities were utilised for data collection. The participants were invited via their student emails with a URL link to the research questionnaire to voluntarily complete the online survey for research purposes.

Descriptive statistics, reliability coefficients and Pearson’s product–moment correlations were calculated and analysed using IBM Corp. (2020) Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 27. Linear regression analysis was done by using Hayes’s (2018) PROCESS Procedure for SPSS Version 3.5.3. The bootstrapping stringent lower level confidence interval (LLCI) and upper level confidence interval (ULCI) range not containing zero was used to interpret significant direct (prediction) effects at the 95% confidence interval (Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2010).

Ethics clearance for the research (ERC Reference: 2020_CEMS_IOP_031) and permission to conduct the survey among the students (Ref #: 2020_RPC_051) were granted by the university. Participation was voluntary, anonymous, confidential and with informed consent to use the data for group-based research purposes.

Table 1 shows that all the scale variables had good reliability coefficients (α ≥ 0.74) except for the technical/functional competence (α = 0.60), autonomy/independence (α = 0.65) and lifestyle (α = 0.69) career self-concept orientations. The correlations between career agility, world of work awareness and the career self-concept orientations were significant and positive (r ≥ 0.16 and ≤ 0.53; p ≤ 0.001; small to large practical effect). However, the general management career self-concept orientation had no significant correlation with the career agility variable.

The linear regression F-statistic estimate (see Witten, Hastie, & Tibshirani, 2013) reported in Table 2 was significant. The F-statistic model explained 32% (R² = 0.32; large practical effect) of the variance in the construct. Table 2 shows that the Technical and functional competence (β = 0.32; p = 0.000; LLCI = 0.21; ULCI = 0.45), autonomy and independence (β = 0.13; p = 0.01; LLCI = 0.03; ULCI = 0.19) and pure challenge (β = 0.14; p = 0.01; LLCI = 0.03; ULCI = 0.24) career orientations significantly predicted world of work awareness. In terms of research question 1, the results provided evidence that individuals’ career orientations predict their digital-era world of work awareness.

The F-statistic in Table 3 was significant. The F-statistic model shows that digital-era world of work awareness and eight career orientations as predictor variables explained 34% (R² = 0.34; large practical effect) of the variance in career agility. In terms of research question 2, the results provided evidence that individuals’ career orientations and their digital-era world of work awareness predict their career agility.

Table 3 shows that the world of work awareness variable (β = 0.42; p = 0.000; LLCI = 0.31; ULCI = 0.48), the technical and functional competence (β = 0.13; p = 0.04; LLCI = 0.01; ULCI = 0.24) and pure challenge (β = 0.20; p = 0.000; LLCI = 0.09; ULCI = 0.28) career orientations significantly predicted career agility. The general management competence career orientation (β = −0.11; p = 0.01; LLCI = −0.12; ULCI = −0.02) had a significant and negative prediction effect on career agility.

The central implication for purpose-enhancing career exploration counselling from this study is the challenge to help individuals translate the intrinsic exploration of, and insight into, career orientation values into self-regulatory extrinsic career exploration activity. Such actions involve gaining knowledge about the changing nature of jobs and careers in the digital-era world of work and the career agility mindsets they need to successfully craft new, unplanned career opportunities for sustainable employability. Although individuals who subscribe to protean-mindset career orientations (technical and functional competence, pure challenge and autonomy and independence) may be more susceptible to such activity, career counselling should focus on guiding individuals not acquiescing to protean-like career values to become more world of work aware and career agile. Career research suggests that the combination of both career values and self-regulatory agency (e.g. career agility) has a stronger prediction effect on positive responses to change than either attribute alone (Briscoe, Hoobler, & Byle, 2010; Hall et al., 2018). Inadequate self-regulatory agency with a strong career values drive may result in a rigid career orientation and inhibit career proactivity (Briscoe & Hall, 2006). Individuals may, through purpose-driven intrinsic and extrinsic career exploration techniques, learn to explore apart from a dominant career orientation also their secondary and tertiary career orientations, and how these career values either enable or thwart their world of work awareness and career agility.

The new insights and contributions of the current study should be seen in the light of the exploratory, cross-sectional research design. No causal effects could be established between the variables, only the direction and magnitude of associations. The sample was limited to adult learners in the economic and management sciences field. Future research may investigate the associations across different occupational fields and in longitudinal studies of true causal processes. Future qualitative studies may also investigate the application of the COI, DWWAS and CAS in career exploration counselling and report on client narratives around the usefulness of these assessments in purpose-driven career development.