Abstract:
This research explores the impact of the protean career attitude on employee
engagement among audit professionals in the Colombo District, Sri Lanka. A protean
career attitude emphasises self-direction and self-value congruity in career choice,
which is hypothesised to influence engagement. The research paper focuses on the
correlation between personal career management strategies and the degree of
engagement within the auditing setting. A quantitative survey was cross-sectional,
where individual audit professionals were surveyed using a structured questionnaire.
A population of about 3,000 auditors was used as the estimated population in
Colombo, where 341 questionnaires were obtained, and 210 responses that were
found to be valid were analysed. The data were entered into SPSS version 21, and
correlation analysis and descriptive statistics were performed to investigate the
relationships between variables, and simple and multiple regression were conducted
to test the predictive effects. Each measurement scale indicated a high level of
reliability. The result of the correlation analysis revealed that self-directed career
behaviour and value-driven career attitude had a positive relationship with employee
engagement. Regression analyses revealed that the two dimensions were found to be
significant predictors of engagement with value-driven career attitude, exhibiting a
larger effect size. That is, audit professionals who made their career choices in line
with their values were likely to be more engaged compared to those whose choice
was more about autonomy.
