How collectivism influences college students’ job search behavior: A serial mediation model of proactive personality and job search self-efficacy

Tian Yingwei, Li Lina and Jirawan Deeprasert

African Educational Research Journal
Published: March 5 2026
Volume 14, Issue 1
Pages 134-147
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18877661

Abstract

Drawing on Social Cognitive Theory, this study investigates how individual-level collectivistic value orientation influences job search behavior by proposing a serial mediation model involving proactive personality and job search self-efficacy. Survey data were collected from 380 students in higher vocational colleges in Heilongjiang Province, and the hypothesized mediation effects were tested using the Bootstrap method with 5,000 resamples. The results show that individual-level collectivistic value orientation exerts no significant direct effect on job search behavior, and its influence is entirely transmitted through indirect pathways. Specifically, individual-level collectivistic value orientation positively predicts proactive personality, which in turn enhances job search self-efficacy and thereby promotes job search behavior. Both the separate mediating effects of the two variables and the serial mediation pathway were statistically significant. In addition, a pattern of competitive mediation emerged, whereby individual-level collectivistic value orientation exerted a positive indirect effect but a negative direct effect on job search behavior, suggesting that collectivism at the individual level may simultaneously facilitate and constrain job search behavior through different psychological mechanisms. Overall, this study integrates individual-level cultural value orientation, personality traits, and cognitive motivational factors into a unified framework, advancing the understanding of culturally embedded job search processes and offering practical implications for career education and intervention programs in collectivist cultural contexts, particularly through the cultivation of proactive personality and job search self-efficacy.

Keywords: Collectivism, job search behavior, proactive personality, job search self-efficacy, vocational college student.

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