The Concept of Career Success in the 21st Century: A Well-Researched but Poorly Conceptualized Construct

1. 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

2. 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

3. 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)

4. Research output about career success Articles on Web of Knowledge with “career success” as a keyword: 1970s 5 1980s 37 1990s 116 2000s353

5. Research output about career success Articles on Web of Knowledge with “career success” and (“gender” or “women”) as keywords: 1970s 1 1980s 2 1990s 50 2000s147

6. 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)

7. 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 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 “Objective” v. “Subjective”

8. 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

9. 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?

10. 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

11. Adorable women, expert men?Kirchler (1992) Examined newspaper obituaries of 477 male and 85 female managers Words used more Words used more often for men than often for women than women men Expert Adorable Decision-maker Faithful Intelligent Courageous Entrepreneurial Amiable

12. 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)

13. 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 high-achieving 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

14. 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”?

15. Affect Achievement

16. 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

17. 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?

18. 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?

19. 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?

20. Predictors of career success - an early example Predictor$ Salary Value Being a graduate of a top university 31,000 Being married 28,000 Having a non-working spouse 22,000 Having a high performance rating 12,000 Each 7 years of age 10,000 Ambition (per level of hierarchy) 9,000 Being male 6,500 Working extra (one evening per week) 4,000 Based on Judge et al. (1995). Population was US executives. Predictors are not cumulative!

21. Results of Ng et al (2005) meta-analysis Type of predictor Mean correlation with Salary Career Sat. Human Capitale.g. Hours worked, Work experience, Education level, Career planning, .21 .10 Social capital Organizational Sponsorship e.g. Career sponsorship, Training and skill devt, .13 .31 Supervisor support Socio-demographicse.g. Gender, White vs .20 .02 Non-white, Marital status, Age Gender specifically .18 .01 Stable Individual Differences e.g. “Big Five” personality, Proactivity, Locus of control, .11 .24 Cognitive ability

22. 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

23. Some interesting areas of research on predictors (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). • 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. • 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).

24. Some interesting areas of research on predictors (2) • 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; 2is highly individual (and also contextual). This shows the breadth of thinking needed.

25. 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.

26. 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 career-enhancing 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.

27. The social processes of career success? Size, composition and structural properties of social networks (e.g. structural holes, loose ties) Outcomes Aspects of OCS ?Aspects of SCS Access to and use of career helpers (Bosley et al, in press) Use of political behaviour Use of influence tactics Social support Gender Decisions and perceptions of powerful others Number and nature of developmental relationships

28. Conclusions (1) Criteria for assessing career success need: • 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

29. 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

30. 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

31. Discussion