With rapidly advancing artificial intelligence and digital transformation, career development is becoming increasingly uncertain and complex. A key strategy for individuals to adapt to dynamic environments is career crafting; however, research on how employees use it to enhance their career outcomes remains limited. Based on the conservation of resources theory and career construction theory, this study posits that career crafting enhances employees' sense of control by helping them cope with career and environmental changes. This increased sense of control fosters greater career engagement and reduces career turnover intentions. Furthermore, we examine supervisor career support mentoring as a key contextual element shaping career crafting effectiveness. We collected three-wave data at one-week intervals from 232 hospitality frontline employees. Employees reported their career crafting, supervisor career support mentoring, and demographic information at Time 1; sense of control at Time 2; and career engagement and career turnover intentions at Time 3. The results indicate that career crafting improves employees' sense of control, which enhances career engagement and reduces career turnover intentions. Additionally, supervisor career support mentoring strengthens the indirect effect of career crafting on career engagement and career turnover intentions through its impact on the sense of control. This study enriches our understanding of career crafting and of effectively leveraging its positive effects in organizational management.
Keywords: career crafting; career engagement; career turnover intentions; sense of control; supervisor career support mentoring.