Career Success in the early 21st Century:
A well-researched but poorly
conceptualised construct
John Arnold and Laurie Cohen
The Business School, Loughborough University, UK
Our aims
To offer a picture of major themes
and issues arising from recent
research and theory on indicators
and predictors of career success
To identify what we see as the key
developments needed in research
and theory
To pay attention to gender along the
way
2
Definitions
 Career: The evolving sequence
of a person’s work experiences
over time (Arthur, Hall &
Lawrence, 1989)
 Career Success: The
accomplishment of desirable
work-related outcomes at any
point in a person’s work
experiences over time (Arthur,
Khapova, & Wilderom, 2005)
3
Research output about career success
Articles on Web of Knowledge with “career
success” as a keyword:
4
1970s
1980s
1990s
5
37
116
2000s
353
Research output about career success
Articles on Web of Knowledge with “career
success” and (“gender” or “women”) as keywords:
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
5
1
2
50
147
Objective vs subjective career success
The distinction that is made all the time.
Objective Career Success (OCS):
Verifiable, measureable, and directly
observable attainments
Subjective Career Success (SCS): An
individual’s reactions to his or her
unfolding career experiences
(from Hughes, 1937; Heslin, 2005)
6
“Objective”
Earnings
Rate of earnings growth
Status
Rate of Advancement
(Lack of) involuntary
unemployment
Qualifications achieved/
documented evidence of
marketable skills
Bonuses/fringe benefits
Informal power/influence
Job or financial security
7
v.
“Subjective”
Career satisfaction
Job satisfaction
Balancing career and family
Being where one wants to
be
Self-efficacy
Clear career identity
Sense of safety,
marketability or
employability
Achievement of personally
meaningful goals
OCS and SCS aren’t as different as they look
 Contrary to what is often assumed, OCS indicators are not
always easily observed
 Some measurement and construct validity issues occur with
both OCS and SCS
 Career satisfaction is quite often measured with questions
regarding satisfaction with one’s OCS – not very imaginative!
 OCS indicators often depend on someone else’s subjective
judgement e.g. whether the boss gives us a pay rise
 They seem to influence each other: interestingly there is some
evidence that the SCS→OCS link is stronger than OCS→SCS.
OCS & SCS are usually correlated between .2 and .3
 In some contexts, people’s conception of their personal
development is closely aligned to their movement through
organizational structures
8
Which is more important: SCS or OCS?
OCS because it represents the tangible resources and
power (and consequent health and life expectancy) that
accrue to different people in society and is in limited
supply. SCS is a way of keeping people happy when they
have few privileges (e.g. Nicholson and De Waal Andrews,
2005)
SCS because it represents people’s freedom to drive their
own career in line with their own values, and is potentially
in unlimited supply. It frees them from OCS’s traditional
assumptions about how to “make it” (e.g. Hall, 2002)
Key question: SCS as liberation or a resigned response
to oppression?
9
Gender and Career Success Criteria
 Women experience less
OCS than men.
 Some small signs that the
gap is decreasing.
 Typically no gender
difference in SCS.
 Women value SCS criteria
more highly relative to OCS
criteria than men do.
 Women and men’s success
may be evaluated (by
others) on different criteria
10
Adorable women, expert men?
Kirchler (1992)
Examined newspaper obituaries of 477 male and 85
female managers
11
Words used more
often for men than
women
Words used more
often for women than
men
Expert
Decision-maker
Intelligent
Entrepreneurial
Adorable
Faithful
Courageous
Amiable
Possible patterns of women’s careers (1)
Phase 1: Idealistic achievement: Emphasis on personal
control, career satisfaction and achievement, and positive
impact on others.
Phase 2: Pragmatic endurance: Doing what has to be done,
whilst managing multiple relationships and responsibilities.
Less personal control; more dissatisfaction especially with
organisations and managers.
Phase 3: Re-inventive contribution: To organizations,
families and communities, without losing sight of self.
Careers as learning opportunities and a chance to make a
difference to others.
Source: O’Neil and Bilimoria (2005)
12
Possible patterns of women’s careers (2)
Mainiero and Sullivan (2005) “Kaleidoscope Careers”:
Early career: typical major concern is Challenge
Mid career: typical major concern is Balance
Late career: typical major concern is Authenticity
Gersick and Kram (2002): Remarkable match between highachieving women’s career phases and Levinson’s theory, though
some of the personal issues at each phase were a little different.
Successive tasks seemed to be:
Finding a role in life
Making career-family trade-offs
Coming into one’s own
13
Beyond OCS vs SCS as success criteria (1)
 Other-referent vs self-referent (Heslin, 2005). Do men and
women show different emphases between or within these
categories?
 Neglect of work-life balance in measures of career success
(Heslin, 2005). To the extent that this is a bigger issue on
average for women than for men, in what ways does the
neglect distort our understanding?
 Little consideration of career success relative to career
stage/career concerns. What might success look like for
women during the “pragmatic endurance” phase? Or would
success be avoiding that phase altogether?
 Lack of focus on avoiding losses (rather than making gains)
and on what success might look like for people at the margins
of the labour market e.g. forced migrants. A particular issue for
“trailing spouses”?
14
Beyond OCS vs SCS (2)
(From Dries et al, 2008)
Inter-Personal
Affect
Recognition e.g. being
recognised for one’s
accomplishments
Performance e.g. going to great
lengths to achieve good things
Co-operation e.g. having a
good understanding with one’s
employer
Advancement e.g. getting
promoted; climbing the ladder
Experienced Contribution
e.g. realizing that one person
can make a world of difference
in an organization
Factual Contribution e.g.
demonstrating that one is a
valuable asset to the organization
Security e.g. experiencing job
security
Creativity e.g. developing
innovative, extraordinary ideas
Work-Life Balance e.g. feeling
healthy and happy, at home as
well as at work
Goal Attainment e.g.
accomplishing one’s own goals
Achievement Satisfaction e.g.
being proud of oneself and
one’s achievements
Career Self-Management e.g.
creating opportunities in life
Achievement
Intra-Personal
15
Beyond OCS vs SCS as success criteria (3)
What is an outcome and what is a predictor?
Arguably, in an uncertain career world we should focus more
on how well people are equipped to deal with it, rather than
what they achieve or how happy they are – at least in the
short and medium term.
Career-related Competencies e.g. Knowing How, Knowing
Why and Knowing Whom (e.g. Eby et al, 2003) – but poorly
conceptualized and measured
Employability (e.g. Van der Heijden et al, 2009)
Conceptualized in various ways; popular in social policy and
starting to be in W & O Psychology
Career Capital (e.g. Dickmann & Doherty, 2008)
Accumulated economic, social and cultural resources
16
More radical approaches to success criteria (1)
1. Career Success as being able and willing to
speak the language of the employer and/or
customers/clients (e.g. knowing and using
“buzz words”) (Cohen et al, 2009)
Key question: conformist, or pursuing one’s
own interests under the guise of representing
the interests of others?
2. For people who cross national boundaries,
part of career success is the ability to hold
simultaneously global and local identities.
Also, citizenship as an indicator of inclusion?
17
More radical approaches to success criteria (2)
3. Career Success as being able to construct
narratives that satisfactorily explain one’s
career to self and salient audiences
(Sugarman, 2001)
Key points: emphasises “construction”
rather than “reaction”; Different narratives
for different audiences
Key questions: how can we define a
“good” narrative, or set of narratives? How
do people account for gaps between their
narratives and dominant ones? Does this
manifest itself differently for men and
women?
18
Is the distinction between OCS and SCS useful?
“Objective” indicators are meaningless
until we attribute meaning to them
More important questions to ask might
concern:
Whose interests are being served by
these definitions of career success?
Is there evidence of resistance to
dominant criteria? If so, from whom and
why?
How do meanings of career success vary
over time and space?
19
Predictors of career success - an early example
Predictor
Being a graduate of a top university
Being married
Having a non-working spouse
Having a high performance rating
Each 7 years of age
Ambition (per level of hierarchy)
Being male
Working extra (one evening per week)
Based on Judge et al. (1995).
Population was US executives.
Predictors are not cumulative!
20
$ Salary Value
31,000
28,000
22,000
12,000
10,000
9,000
6,500
4,000
Results of Ng et al (2005) meta-analysis
Type of predictor
Mean correlation with
Salary
Career Sat.
Human Capital e.g. Hours worked, Work
.21
.10
sponsorship, Training and skill devt,
Supervisor support
.13
.31
Socio-demographics e.g. Gender, White vs
.20
.02
.18
.01
.11
.24
experience, Education level, Career planning,
Social capital
Organizational Sponsorship e.g. Career
Non-white, Marital status, Age
Gender specifically
Stable Individual Differences e.g. “Big Five”
personality, Proactivity, Locus of control,
Cognitive ability
21
Problems with research on predictors of career success
 Many classifications of variables and predictions about them are
distinctly arbitrary e.g. Ng et al’s contest mobility vs sponsored
mobility
 It’s often not clear whether predictor variables are causal
antecedents, statistical predictors or correlates (partly because
much research is cross-sectional)
 What career success means to the people researched, and how it is
understood in the wider context researched, is rarely examined
 There is probably some contamination between some predictors
and some outcome measures, especially for SCS
 Although there are some theories that might help to explain what
leads to career success, they are not comprehensive (nor do they
claim to be) and they are rarely used systematically
22
Some interesting areas of research on predictors (1)
1.
Mentoring Much research over many years. At last the
demonstrated benefits are starting to catch up with the hype
(e.g. Allen et al, 2004).
2.
Social networks (e.g. Siebert et al, 2001). Evidence that the
extent and nature of social networks is related to success.
Longitudinal work is starting to appear. But network measures
tend to be weak and how exactly networks affect success is
still unclear, though it is somewhat theorised.
3.
Career self-management (e.g. King, 2004). All the rhetoric
on 21st century careers says that it is essential for success,
but this is hard to demonstrate. Attention to the “dark side” of
career self-management is beginning (e.g. Harris and
Ogbonna, 2006).
23
Some interesting areas of research on predictors (2)
1.
The role of prior organisational
affiliations and their impact on the
reputation of the individual (e.g.
Hamori, 2007).
2.
“Most of the important rules of the
workplace are unspoken. Some
people learn them; others do not.”
(Sternberg et al, 2000). Why is this,
and what role does tacit knowledge
play in career success?
1 is highly contextual; 2 is highly
individual (and also contextual).
This shows the breadth of thinking
needed.
24
Gender as a predictor of career success (1)
 Even within top management, women tend to get less
attractive opportunities than men and their job moves
reap fewer rewards.
 Some evidence that personality traits are related
differently to women’s vs. men’s OCS e.g.
“Agreeableness”.
 Some evidence of double or even triple jeopardy for
women e.g. gender combined with age and/or ethnicity.
 The correlations of education level and hours worked
with salary are stronger for women than for men (Ng et
al, 2005)
 Career breaks (for any reason) hinder success even
many years later.
25
Gender as a predictor of career success (2)
 Having a partner and family is more often positively
related to success for men than for women.
 Women feel more ambivalence about engaging in
politics than men do
 Women often have less easy access to careerenhancing social networks than men do
 Women tend to use different, and possibly less
success-enhancing, impression management
techniques than men do
 Attributions by gatekeepers of men’s and women’s
motives, contributions and life preferences play a
significant part in some of the findings on thjis slide
and the previous one.
26
The social processes of career success?
Size, composition
and structural
properties of social
networks (e.g.
structural holes,
loose ties)
Gender
Number and nature
of developmental
relationships
27
Outcomes
Access to and
use of career
helpers (Bosley
et al, in press)
Use of political
behaviour
Use of influence
tactics
Social support
Aspects of
OCS
?Aspects of
SCS
Decisions
and
perceptions
of powerful
others
Conclusions (1)
Criteria for assessing career
success need:





28
Inclusion of process as well as
outcome aspects
Better matching with the individual’s
circumstances, priorities and cultural
milieu
More careful attention to definition and
measurement
Innovative development via qualitative
research and verbal as well as
numerical data
Better analysis of the meanings people
attach to them, and why
Conclusions (2)
Research on predictors of career
success needs:
 Careful attention to conceptual grouping
of variables
 More rigorous theorising about why
predictors might matter, and testing of
the theory
 More careful attention to how social
processes play a part in career success
 More attention to gender and other
“demographic” variables as moderators
rather than main effects
29
Conclusions (3)
Three general points:
 Moves between countries (voluntary and
involuntary, corporate and individual) offer
rich insights into different forms of career
success and how they evolve
 Perhaps the concept of career success
could be extended to collectives (e.g.
families; occupations) and more links made
with work on the sociology of occupations,
professions
 More use could be made of ideas from
vocational psychology, such as career
exploration and career-related self-efficacy
30
Discussion
31