Abstract
The current research aimed to develop a multidimensional measure on the criteria of career success in a Chinese context. Items on the criteria of career success were obtained using a qualitative approach among 30 Chinese employees; exploratory factor analysis was conducted to select items and determine the factor structure among a new sample of Chinese employees (N = 550); confirmatory factor analysis was conducted among another sample of Chinese employees (N = 199). The results showed that Chinese employees regard intrinsic fulfillment, external compensation, and work–life balance as the major components of career success. The developed scale showed good reliability and structure validity. Implications for future research on career success were discussed.
Career success is often defined as the accumulated positive work and psychological outcomes resulting from one’s work experiences (Judge, Cable, Boudreau, & Bretz, 1995). On one hand, career success is reflected by observable “objective” success, such as managerial level, number of promotions, salary, salary progression, and so on (e.g., Dries, Pepermans, Hofmans, & Rypens, 2009; Ng & Feldman, 2010). On other hand, career success could also be defined as “subjective” success, such as individuals’ subjective evaluations on various aspects of their careers (Greenhaus, Parasuraman, & Wormley, 1990). The current article will be focusing on the subjective dimension of career success.
Subjective career success is an important outcome variable in career research and much work has been done on the predictors of employees’ subjective career success (e.g., Greenhaus et al., 1990; Ng, Eby, Sorensen, & Feldman, 2005). However, there still exists inconsistency on the conceptualization of subjective career success across theoretical reasoning, qualitative results, and quantitative measures. Specifically, theories and qualitative findings often used a multidimensional approach to discuss subjective career success (e.g., Dries, Pepermans, & Carlier, 2008; Schein, 1985; Super, 1962); however, in quantitative studies, subjective career success was often measured by a single-dimension scale (e.g., Greenhaus et al., 1990).
As Arthur and colleagues (Arthur, 1994; Arthur, Khapova, & Wilderom, 2005) argued, to constrain the multiple facets of subjective career success to a one-dimensional measure will limit the understanding of this complicated concept, and may further result in biased findings on this construct. A comprehensive measure of subjective career success should be developed to ensure the validity of quantitative studies on this important concept. To address this gap, the current study aimed to develop a multidimensional scale on criteria of career success by integrating findings from qualitative and quantitative approaches among Chinese employees.
To fully understand the meaning of subjective career success in a Chinese context, we used qualitative approach to collect items on subjective career success among Chinese employees. Quantitative approach was then adopted to select appropriate items, explore the factor structure and confirm the factor structure of subjective career success. Based on the results of qualitative approach, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), we developed a three-dimensional scale on career success criteria. In order to situate the current research, the relevant literature on subjective career success will be reviewed and will lead to empirical questions, which will be subsequently addressed with multiple studies among Chinese employees.
Multidimensionality of Subjective Career Success
Traditionally, career was often defined as a succession of related jobs arranged in a hierarchy of prestige, through which people move in ordered sequence (Wilensky, 1961). Following this definition, career success should be measured by the “objective” dimension of career success mentioned above, such as managerial level, salary, and so on (Dries et al., 2009; Kirchmeyer, 2006; Ng et al., 2005; Ng & Feldman, 2010; Poole, Langan-Fox, & Omodei, 1993). However, since there exist diverse motivations (e.g., safety, relations, respect, and self-actualization) underlying human behavior (Maslow, 1943), individuals may have multiple work motivations and may develop multiple criteria for their career success.
Theories on work motivation argue that employees have diverse psychological needs to fulfill in their work. For example, Ginzberg, Ginsburg, Axelrad, and Herma (1951) posited that people’s motivations in their work could be divided into three categories: rewards (monetary and prestige), concomitants (good social relations and environmental conditions), and intrinsic satisfactions (pleasure in the activity and in the accomplishment of specific ends). In addition, the motivation–hygiene theory (Herzberg, 1965; Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman, 1959) differentiates “motivation” factors (e.g., recognition for achievement, intrinsic interest in the task, etc.) from “hygiene” factors (working conditions, salary, etc.), and posits that “motivation” factors are better predictors for employees’ positive work attitudes since these factors are instrumental for psychological growth, rather than fulfill the needs to avoid unpleasant environments. In the research on work values, Super (1962) also identified diverse goals (e.g., self-expressive, altruism, creativity, independence, security, prestige, and relations) that guide people’s working behavior and career development.
Similarly, in the field of vocational psychology, the definition of career and career success are focusing more and more on individuals’ personal experience, rather than organizational factors (Savickas, 1995). Super (1980) proposed that career should be regarded as the combination and sequence of roles played by a person during the course of a lifetime. Furthermore, Arthur, Hall, and Lawrence (1989) defined career as the evolving sequence of a person’s work experiences over time. The model of “career anchor” (Schein, 1985, 1996) also proposes that an individual’s career goals are closely related to their own values and needs as they pertain to the career, such as autonomy, security, competence, creativity, challenge, lifestyle, and so on. From these perspectives, career success should be assessed by employees’ subjective evaluations on different aspects of their careers.
The rapidly changing employment context also influenced people’s understanding of career development and career success. For example, in nowadays, some people are laid off due to the downsizing of organizations and have to make plans on what to do next in their careers; some people have the flexibility to work on projects with multiple organizations. According to Arthur (1994), contemporary employees’ careers are becoming more and more “boundaryless,” which means that career paths are not bounded within specific organizations but grow through project-based competency development across different organizations. This changing employment pattern makes employees more concerned with the fulfillment of their own needs rather than organizational goals (Eby, Butts, & Lockwood, 2003). Therefore, a multidimensional approach on people’s subjective career success will help researchers’ understanding of this important construct.
Qualitative research has also provided evidence on the existence of multiple dimensions of career success. For example, in a qualitative study conducted by Pellegrin and Coates (1957), top-level executives and first-line supervisors were interviewed on important dimensions of career success. The executives regarded the achievement of high position as success, whereas the supervisor defined success in terms of security, respect, and happiness. In a recent qualitative study conducted by Dries, Pepermans, and Carlier (2008), a multidimensional framework of the criteria for career success was elicited based on the interviews among 22 managers from 5 Belgian organizations. These dimensions of subjective career success include performance, advancement, self-development, creativity, security, satisfaction, recognition, cooperation, and contribution. This study provided important evidence on the multiple components of career success; however, no quantitative measures have yet been developed based on this framework.
Quantitative Measures of Career Success
As discussed above, theories and qualitative findings suggest that there exist multiple components for the concept of subjective career success. It follows that quantitative research on subjective career success should establish the multiple components of this construct before investigating the relations between this concept and other variables. Some of the early quantitative research into subjective career success tapped different aspects of this construct. For example, Miller (1954) differentiated the criteria of career success into four categories: security, career satisfaction, prestige, and social rewards, and compared the relative importance of these categories among U.S. college students. Childs and Klimoski (1986) also differentiated subjective career success into multiple aspects (perceived occupation prestige and career identification) in their research. However, these dimensions were all selected by researchers to fit their specific research purposes and may not be generalized to other populations; in addition, no results were reported to confirm the construct validity of these measures, which limited the application of these measures in further research.
Among recent studies conducted on subjective career success, the most widely used instrument on subjective career success was the 5-item measure developed by Greenhaus, Parasuraman, and Wormley (1990) among U.S. managers. In this measure, the 1st item taps individuals’ overall satisfaction with the success they have achieved in their careers; the 2nd item taps individuals’ satisfaction with the progress they have made toward overall career goals; the other 3 items taps satisfaction with the progress toward their goals for income, advancement, and development of new skills, respectively. The first 2 items of this scale are overall evaluations for individuals’ career success and the last 3 items only tap limited aspects of employees’ subjective career success; therefore, the adequacy of this framework of career success is questionable.
As argued by Arthur, Khapova, and Wilderom (2005), some important dimensions might be missed in previous studies on subjective career success. Moreover, the measure developed by Greenhaus et al. (1990) was often treated as a one-dimensional scale and the score on subjective career success was often computed by the average score across the 5 items of this scale. To constrain this multidimensional construct to one-dimensional interpretation may result in misleading findings on the causes and consequences of individuals’ subjective career success. Some researchers have realized the necessity to measure career success from different aspects and used multiple measures on different aspects of employees’ subjective career success. For example, Eby, Butts, and Lockwood (2003) measured employees’ subjective career success from three aspects: their career satisfaction (Greenhaus et al., 1990), perceived intrinsic marketability (whether their companies view them a value-added resource and whether they have many opportunities in their companies), and perceived external marketability (whether there exist many jobs available for them given their skills and experience). These different aspects of subjective career success were found distinctive from each other and were related to different predictors. This study empirically demonstrated the importance of measuring subjective career from different aspects.
In sum, most measures of subjective career success could not fully tap the multiple dimensions suggested by various theories and qualitative findings. The one-dimensional measure of subjective career success may result in biased conclusions, and may decrease the validity of quantitative research findings on this topic. Although some researchers included additional measures of subjective career success as a remedy for the missing dimensions (Eby et al., 2003), the selected variables for some specific studies may not be applicable for other studies. Therefore, we propose that it is necessary to develop a multidimensional scale on subjective career success, to pave the way for further investigation on this construct.
The Current Research
To address the gap outlined above, the current research aimed to develop a multidimensional measure of subjective career success among Chinese employees. Although previous research has provided quite a few dimensions of subjective career success, there still exists inconsistency across different research samples. In addition, researchers also posited that people’s conceptualization of career success is partly shaped by the historical and cultural contexts surrounding them (Stead, 2004; Young & Collin, 2004). According to Hofstede (2001), Chinese values are characterized as higher in power distance, collectivism, long-term orientation, and lower in uncertainty avoidance, which are distinctive from Western cultures. Therefore, there may exist some culture-specific understanding of subjective career among Chinese employees. To avoid arbitrarily imposing previous models and the authors’ understanding of career success into the scale, we collected items on subjective career success among Chinese employees through a grounded theory method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967).
The phenomenological and inductive nature of grounded theory approach enables researchers to develop a theory through a bottom-up process. Based on the grounded theory method, the current research incorporates a reflexive approach to collect items on the concept of subjective career success among Chinese employees. In addition, quantitative approach was then used to explore the factor structure and validate the obtained structure. Specifically, we collected items on the criteria of subjective career success among 30 Chinese employees through structured interview (Study 1); conducted an EFA to select items and determine the factor structure among 550 Chinese employees (Study 2); then conducted a CFA using a different sample of Chinese employees (N = 199) to validate the factor structure obtained in Study 2 (Study 3).
Study 1: Item Generation
Method
Procedures and materials. To generate items on the criteria of career success, structured interviews were conducted among 30 Chinese employees from different organizations (15 males and 15 females). Twenty percent of participants were 30 years old or below; 40% were between 31 and 40 years old; 40% were between 41 and 50 years old. Regarding education, 50% had a bachelor’s degree, 50% had a master’s degree or above. Forty percent of participants worked in companies, 30% worked in government, and 30% worked in universities or research institutes. To ensure a standard and consistent procedure, all interviews were conducted by one experimenter, a PhD candidate in organizational behavior. Eighteen interviews were conducted face to face (N = 18) and 12 interviews were conducted though phone. Interviews lasted 20–30 min. Face-to-face interviews were conducted at a university in a conference room and phone interviews were conducted when participants were free of work. To avoid inducing anxiety among participants, the experimenter did not record the interviews by audio or video equipments. Notes were taken by the investigator to capture reflections about the definition of career success from each participant.
Three major questions were designed to elicit thoughts and beliefs about career success. The first one was a warm-up question “Is career success important to you?” The purpose of this question was to draw participants’ attention to the topic of career success. The second question was “In your view, what are the criteria of career success?”; the second question was the key question for generating items on career success. The third question was “Can you describe an example of people who have a successful career? Why do you think the person is successful in his (her) career?” The third question was to validate the consistency and adequacy of the criteria proposed by participants.
One hundred and eleven items on criteria of career success were obtained after the interviews. Item selection was conducted by the experimenter: Items with ambiguous meanings were dropped; for identical items, one representative item was kept and the redundant ones were dropped. Twenty-five items were selected after this procedure. The experimenter then asked eight raters (three PhDs in industrial and organizational [I/O] psychology and five PhD candidates in I/O psychology) to categorize these items. Each rater was asked to complete a questionnaire with the 25 items. The instructions were “Please read the following items that could be used to describe one’s career success, and put items with similar meanings into the same category. Each item must be put into only one category. Please finish this task independently.” After each rater finished the independent rating, a group discussion was conducted to resolve the inconsistency across different raters. The results were reported below.
Results
As a result of independent ratings and group discussion, three categories of criteria on career success emerged. The first category (11 items) mainly referred to the intrinsic fulfillment from one’s career, such as fully utilizing one’s talents and potential capacities, continuously engaged in challenging work; highly respected by colleagues; resolving difficult problems and make contributions to one’s organization; being enthusiastic and passionate with one’s work; accumulating knowledge and skills and becoming an expert; realizing one’s ideality in one’s career; liking one’s job and being happy during work; being respected by the public for one’s contributions, achieving excellent team performance with group members and good reputation in one’s occupation. The second category (6 items) referred to good balance between one’s work and life in one’s career, such as good work–family balance, good physical health, and mental health and having time to enjoy life. The third category (8 items) referred to the external compensation from one’s career, such as money, power, and economical benefits achieved from one’s career.
To examine the adequacy of these three categories on capturing the concept of career success (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), we distributed open-ended questionnaires among another sample of Chinese employees (N = 30). Participants were asked to write down the criteria of career success from their own perspectives. Items from the survey were coded through the same procedure described above. The results showed that all the items from the survey could be covered by the items in the three categories and no new category relating to career success emerged. Therefore, the theoretical adequacy of this framework on career success was supported.
Study 2: Principal Components Analysis and Content Validity Analysis
Method
Participants
Data were collected among full-time employees from various organizations at Beijing, China. Five hundred and fifty employees (361 males and 184 females) participated in this study. Five participants did not indicate gender. Among the participants, 27% of them were 30 years old or below; 39% of them were between 31 and 40 years old; 34% of them were above 41 years old or above. The average organizational tenure for participants was 8.76 years (standard deviation [SD] = 7.35). Regarding education, 6% of participants had high school education or below, 21% had a associate college degree, 58% had a bachelor’s degree, and 15% had a Master’s degree or above. Sixteen participants did not indicate education information. Participant worked in different types of organizations, including stated-owned organizations (60%), private organizations (15%), and foreign-invested organizations (25%).
Measures
Criteria of career success
Participants were asked to rate the extent to which each item could be used as a criterion of career success by the following instructions: “Everybody has criteria of career success in his or her mind. There are no right or wrong answers for this question. Please read the following items and rate to what extent you agree that each item can be used as a criterion of career success.” Items were rated using a six-point Likert-type response scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). We used six-point scale to avoid participants giving midpoint responses.
Demographic information
Participants were asked to indicate their age, gender, education, and information of their organizations.
Results
The sample size to item ratio of 22 to 1 meets the minimum recommended requirement for obtaining stable factor solutions (Guadagnoli & Velicer, 1988). Principal components analysis with oblique rotation was performed on the 25 items. Based on several criteria including minimum eigenvalues, drops in the scree plot, and interpretability of factors (Ford, MacCallum, & Tait, 1986), a three-factor solution was selected, which supported the framework developed from Study 1. Using a criterion of .40 for the minimum loading of items, 2 items were dropped due to weak loadings to their principal factors and 2 items were dropped due to sizable double loadings (.40 or above) to other factors. Twenty-one items were kept as the final solution after this item selection, which explained 45.24% of the total matrix variance (see Table 1).
Rotated Component Matrix of the Criteria of Career Success (Study 2).
Note. Only loadings larger than .40 are presented.
The first factor accounted for 24.96% of the total variance and was labeled “intrinsic fulfillment” since the items in this factor tapped whether individuals have a intrinsic fulfillment in their career (8 items), such as fully utilizing one’s talents and potential capacities, continuously engaged in challenging work; highly respected by colleagues; resolving difficult problems and make contributions to one’s organization; being enthusiastic and passionate with one’s work; accumulating knowledge and skills and becoming an expert; realizing one’s ideality in one’s career; liking one’s job and being happy during work. This factor shares similarity with the intrinsic work motivations (Ginzberg, Ginsburg, Axelrad, & Herma, 1951; Herzberg, 1965; Herzberg et al., 1959), the self-expressive and creativity work values (Super, 1962), the “career anchor” of competence, creativity and challenge (Schein, 1985, 1996), as well as the career success components of performance, self-development, creativity, and contribution (Dries et al., 2008).
The second factor accounted for 11.92% of the total variance, and was label “external compensation” (7 items) since the items in this factor mainly tapped the instrumental benefits obtained from one’s career, such as material rewards, money, life conditions, power over others, financial freedom, promotion and power over an organization. This factor mainly reflects people’s subjective perception of the “objective” career success mentioned in previous research (Dries et al., 2009; Kirchmeyer, 2006; Ng et al., 2005; Ng & Feldman, 2010; Poole et al., 1993), and shares similarity with the “hygiene” factor of work motivation (Ginzberg et al., 1951; Herzberg, 1965; Herzberg et al., 1959), the work values on prestige (Super, 1962).
The third factor accounted for 8.36% of the total variance and was label “work–life balance” (six items) since these items tapped the balance between work and other aspects of individual’s life, such as work–life balance, harmonious family life, mental health, physical health, and time to enjoy life. This factor reflects the “concomitant” work motivation (Ginzberg et al., 1951), the “career anchor” of lifestyle (Schein, 1985, 1996), as well as the career success component of satisfaction identified by Dries et al. (2008).
It appears that this measure incorporates diverse elements underlying work motivations, values, and career success identified in previous theories and research, which supported the content validity of this scale. The α coefficient was calculated for each factor as a test of internal consistency, with the following results: intrinsic fulfillment, α = .79; external compensation, α = .80; and work–life balance, α = .76. All these results suggested that the scale has good internal consistency. To further examine the structure validity of this scale, we conducted Study 3 among a new sample of Chinese employees.
Study 3: CFA
Based on the results of Study 1 and Study 2, Study 3 aimed to examine the structure validity of the scale among a new sample of Chinese employees (N = 199). To examine the structure validity, CFA was conducted to examine the appropriateness of the three-factor model for the criteria of career success.
Method
Participants
Data were collected among employees working at different organizations at Beijing, China. One hundred and ninety-nine employees (99 males and 100 females) participated in this study. The average age of participants was 36.53 (SD = 10.46) and the average organizational tenure was 6.04 years (SD = 6.79). Two participants did not indicate age and 12 participants did not indicate working years in the current position. Regarding education, 5% of participants had high school education or below, 11% had an associate college degree, 45% had a bachelor’s degree, 35% had a Master’s degree, and 4% had a doctor’s degree. Participant worked on various positions, including teaching (50%), administrative work (29%), human resource management (12%), marketing (1%), engineering (5%), accounting (2%), and research (1%). Participant worked in different types of organizations, including stated-owned organizations (75%), private organizations (15%), and foreign-invested organizations (10%).
Measures
Criteria of career success
Participants were asked to rate their criteria of career success on the measure developed in Study 2. The 21 items were rated using a six-point, Likert-type response scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree).
Demographic information
Participants were asked to indicate their age, gender, education, and information of their positions.
Results
CFA. We used CFAs to test the factor structure of the scale identified in Study 2. In a CFA, an a priori structure is posited and the adequacy of how well the obtained data fit this structure is tested. We first tested the three-factor model found in Study 2 and the correlations among the three factors were freely estimated. Model fit was assessed using the χ2 test statistic, the comparative-fit indexes (CFI), and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA; Byrne, 2001). The results of the CFA showed that all the factor loadings were significant (p < .05), and the goodness-of-fit indexes indicated acceptable fit to the data of the proposed model, χ 2 = 394.03, degrees of freedom (df) = 186, χ 2 /df = 2.12, CFI = 0.91, and RMSEA = 0.073. These indexes all suggest the appropriateness of this three-factor model (Byrne, 2001; Medsker, Williams, & Holahan, 1994).
In addition, we conducted additional CFA to demonstrate that intrinsic fulfillment, external compensation, and work–life balance were distinguishable constructs. First, all items of these three constructs were assumed to represent a single latent factor (χ2 = 646.28, df = 189, CFI = 0.81, RMSEA = 0.13). The second model assumed two correlated factors by combining items under intrinsic fulfillment and work–life balance as one factor and leaving the items under external compensation as the other factor (χ2 = 420.09, df = 188, CFI = 0.90, RMSEA = 0.081). The third model also assumed two correlated factors, by combining items under intrinsic fulfillment and external compensation as one factor and leaving the items under work–life balance as the other factor (χ2 = 593.72, df = 188, CFI = 0.83, RMSEA = 0.12). The fourth model also assumed two correlated factors by combining items under work–life balance and external compensation as one factor and leaving the items under intrinsic fulfillment as the other factor (χ2 = 573.51, df = 188, CFI = 0.84, RMSEA = 0.12).
Fit indicators provided evidence that the three-factor model fit the data reasonably well and significantly better than the single-factor model (Δχ2 = 252.79, df = 3, p < .001), as well as all the two-factor models (Δχ2s ≥ 26.06, dfs = 2, ps < .001). The α coefficient was calculated for each factor as a test of internal consistency, with the following results: intrinsic fulfillment, α = .76; external compensation, α = .81; and work–life balance, α = .75. All these results suggested that the scale has good internal consistency. Items on each factor were averaged to give scores for each of the three factors, which refer to the extent to which employees use intrinsic fulfillment, external compensation, and work–life balance as criteria of career success.
Descriptives and correlations. The descriptive statistics and correlations among three criteria of career success were displayed in Table 2. The results showed that all these three criteria were positively related to each other: external compensation and internal fulfillment, r (199) = .30, p < .001; external compensation and work–life balance, r (199) = .28, p < .001; internal fulfillment and work–life balance, r (199) = .60, p < .001. Although the correlation between internal fulfillment and work–life balance was relatively strong, the results of CFA suggested that these two factors were distinctive from each other; therefore, we still treat these factors as separate criteria of career success.
Descriptive Statistics, Reliabilities, and Intercorrelations Among Criteria of Career Success (Study 3).
Note. ***p < .001. Reliability coefficients appear on the diagonal in bold.
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to advocate the multidimensionality of subjective career success and develop a Chinese scale for the multiple criteria of career success, to facilitate future research on this construct. We expanded the subjective career success construct to include three dimensions: intrinsic fulfillment, external compensation, and work–life balance. Our results indicated that this three-factor structure was supported, which synthesized most elements proposed and revealed in previous work (e.g., Dries et al., 2008; Ginzberg et al., 1951; Super, 1962). The results provided evidence that employees generally regarded career success as multidimensional and there exist individual differences on which are the most important criteria of career success. Due to the importance of analyzing career success and its predictors in career research, the current article makes a substantive theoretical contribution by developing this multidimensional framework of career success.
Theoretical Implications
Subjective career success has been investigated as an important outcome variable for decades, but is rarely operationalized in a well-reasoned manner, which hinders accumulation of knowledge about the construct. The grounded theory approach used in Study 1 incorporated the Chinese cultural background of subjective career success without discarding, ignoring, or assuming away relevant components. An instrument was further developed with a quantitative approach, which provides a useful instrument for further quantitative research on this concept. Based on the qualitative and quantitative approaches used in the current research, the scale appears to be a comprehensive and reliable measure of subjective career success, and showed great congruence with previous theories and qualitative findings (Dries et al., 2008; Ginzberg et al., 1951; Herzberg, 1965; Herzberg et al., 1959; Schein, 1985, 1996; Super, 1962).
Although we offered a framework of subjective career success, we see many other interesting directions for future research involving this construct based on the results of our research. Next, we outline some questions pertaining to the new scale’s validity as well as the predictors and consequences of different aspects career success, which should be addressed in future studies.
First of all, our results showed that although the three criteria of career success were correlated with each other, the results of content analysis (Study 1 and Study 2) and CFA (Study 3) demonstrated the distinctiveness of the three dimensions and also pointed out the importance to consider individual difference on these criteria of career success when conducting research on this topic. Future research may continue to examine whether employees’ emphasis on different aspects of career success would influence other outcome variables, such as career decision making and turnover behavior. For example, employees emphasizing the external compensation may be motivated to occupations that offer high salaries and power, whereas employees emphasizing intrinsic may focus more on the fit between themselves and their work.
Second, researchers have conducted much work to identify individual and contextual predictors of career success. The findings of the current study may also serve as the basis for investigating antecedents of different dimensions of career success, rather than treating career success as a single-dimensional construct. The work of Eby et al. (2003) provides a promising area for future research because it highlights a comprehensive perspective on career success, by including multiple outcome variables as the indexes of career success. As many predictors (e.g., human capital and general mental ability) have been identified as significant predictors of overall objective and/or subjective career success; by using a multidimensional measure of career success, researchers will be able to refine previous findings by examining the specific relations between different kinds of predictors, and different dimensions of career success.
Third but not last, future research should also address the question that whether career success on these three dimensions could make unique contributions to further outcome variables, such as life satisfaction and subjective well-being. It is highly possible that the three aspects of career success may have unique prediction on people’s life satisfaction and subjective well-being. Moreover, there may exist interplay among employees’ criteria of subjective career success and their career achievements on these outcome variables, as revealed in the current research; these possibilities should be examined in future research.
Practical Implications
First of all, the new subjective career success scale has the potential to identify different ways managers can use to help employees achieve their sense of success and promote their work motivation. The limited material resources and senior positions in organizations suggest that there always exist employees that are not highly paid or quickly promoted. As suggested by the new model of subjective career success and many previous theories (e.g., Dries et al., 2008; Ginzberg et al., 1951; Herzberg, 1965; Herzberg et al., 1959; Schein, 1985, 1996; Super, 1962), managers may use other ways, such as acknowledging employees’ contributions, help them to balance their work and life, and to help employees to form more positive attitudes toward their careers.
In addition, the results of the current research have implications in career counseling practice. Since individuals have different conceptualization of career success, it will be crucial to help clients understand their own goals in future career, as the basis for further intervention. The practice to match individuals’ psychological orientations (e.g., interests) with their future work (Holland, Gottfredson, & Baker, 1990) should be encouraged and the three-dimensional career success framework identified in the current research may help practitioners to test individuals’ career orientation and may help in giving career advice.
Possible Limitations and Future Research Directions
Despite the theoretical and practical implications discussed above, there are possible limitations associated with the current research. First of all, the research findings reported in the current article was obtained under Chinese culture, which is characterized as a collectivistic culture (Hofstede, 2001); it is possible that the framework obtained in this research may not be generalized to employees from other cultures, especially individualistic cultures. Although the three dimensions we identified in the current research were generally consistent with many theories and qualitative findings from western researchers, future empirical investigations should seek to corroborate these findings with employees from other cultures.
In addition, when measuring the criteria of career success, participants were asked to rate to what extent they agree that each item can be used as a criterion of career success. This instruction may not fully capture the importance of each item to one’s career success. Although the congruent findings of the three studies with both qualitative and quantitative approaches suggest that the current measure has a stable structure, we call for more research to examine which instruction is optimal for this measure.
Conclusion
In sum, the current research provided evidence that Chinese employees’ criteria of career success consist of three dimensions: intrinsic fulfillment, external compensation, and work–life balance. Based on the promising findings of the current article, future empirical investigations related to subjective career success should attempt to integrate the multidimensionality of career success into this field of research.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities,and the Research Funds of Renmin University of China (Project 10XNI015)