🧭 Career Success Factors
Personal Strategy #51 - Strategic thinking applied to your life.
This is a slightly technical post, while searching for fresh insights for improving my career strategy models.
For anyone who wants to geek out a bit about careers, you can find below some relevant points from the recent review article (open access) published in the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, by authors Scott Seibert, Jos Akkermans, and Cheng-Huan (Jerry) Liut - highlights mine:
This article provides a critical review of developments in the literature on career success.
⚛︎
Subjective Career Success (SCS) dimensions
Based on this integration of SCS conceptualizations, we see eight main dimensions emerging, which focus on people's satisfaction or experience of:
(a) financial concerns,
(b) advancement in responsibility, status, and influence,
(c) interpersonal relations,
(d) challenge and mastery,
(e) meaning and impact,
(f) self-development,
(g) career opportunities and control,
and (h) the work-life interface.
In addition, an overall assessment of one's SCS or satisfaction with one's career is also part of several frameworks.
⚛︎
Career Success Predictors
1/ Human Capital
Human Capital Theory was designed to explain the level of investment in education as a function of the rational expectation of the net financial and psychic benefits such investments would yield over the course of one's lifetime.
It assumes that education, training, and work experience increase employee productivity, which the labor market rewards with higher earnings and higher status occupations.
2/ Internal and External Labor Markets
The internal labor market (ILM) perspective suggests that to understand careers, one must understand the process of allocating promotions within organizations.
Although careers unfolding in a single organization are now less common, internal promotions and lateral job moves continue to be an important aspect of most careers.
Several perspectives consider the way competition, relative standing, and promotion history play a role in internal career mobility. For example, Rosenbaum's (1979) formulation of tournament theory showed that employees who experienced promotions early in their careers had higher probabilities of future promotion and reached higher levels overall, supporting a historical or path-dependent model of mobility.
In fact, lingering too long at any level reduced the probability of future promotions. More recently, management scholars have found evidence that performance trajectories (Sturman 2003) and promotion trajectories (Alessandri et al. 2021) play a role in subsequent promotions.
Again, senior managers' perceptions of employee promotability may play a critical but to date little-explored role in linking job performance to promotion (Seibert et al. 2017, Wayne et al. 1999).
Another stream of research has more directly examined the way ILMs shape employee career paths and success. For example, Bidwell & Keller (2014) and Keller (2018) demonstrated the benefits of internal promotions for the firm in terms of employee performance and retention.
Dlugos & Keller (2021) found that being passed over for promotion could lead an employee to leave the organization unless they received signals of future promotion opportunities.
Other research has focused on the interplay between internal and external labor market moves. For instance, Bidwell & Briscoe (2010) showed that technology workers construct their own interorganizational career ladder by initially favoring employment in large organizations, presumably to benefit from training opportunities, but moving to organizations that concentrated on their occupational specialty later in their careers, to capitalize on their accumulated skills.
Bidwell & Mollick (2015) found that upward mobility within a single organization was most likely to result in greater managerial responsibility, higher pay, and higher career satisfaction, whereas external moves tended to lead to higher pay relative to staying, but relatively smaller increases in responsibilities and career satisfaction than internal upward moves.
The topic of organizational career systems once generated considerable interest (Sonnenfeld & Peiperl 1988).
3 / Sponsorship, Developmental Support, and Developmental Networks
During the early 1990s, organizational scholars began to recognize and incorporate social support and relationships at work as a determinant of career success.
Sponsored mobility, however, describes an organizational career system in which individuals are selected for success early and specialized efforts are made to induct them into elite status.
In practice, the sponsorship perspective has been used to explain why a range of types of interpersonal support, including high-quality leader-member exchange relationships, supervisor support, and mentoring from senior managers, should be positively related to career success (e.g., Dreher & Bretz 1991, Wayne et al. 1999).
A high-quality exchange relationship with one's leader (leader-member exchange) is likely to have positive consequences for one's career (Wayne et al. 1999).
Both performance and support from influential members of the organization play a role in career success.
Are differential sponsorship, investment, and cumulative advantage processes important for core versus peripheral members of the organization?
Characteristics of the protégé, such as personality, interpersonal skills, and positive self-concept, as well as deep-level similarity with the mentor are associated with more positive outcomes (Eby et al. 2013).
Subsequent work incorporates behaviors on the part of the employee to gain interpersonal support, such as networking and social networks.
Networking focuses on activities to meet others that might be helpful in someone's career (see also Sections 4.5 and 4.6).
Social network research focuses on the career consequences of developing an effective constellation of supportive relationships at work.
Seibert et al. (2001) examined structural properties of employees' developmental network, focusing on the strength of the developmental ties, the extent to which ties reached across otherwise disconnected social groups, and the social resources reached by those ties.
They found that the prevalence of weak ties and ties that spanned structural holes was associated with a network that reached people in a diverse range of organizational functions and levels, which in turn led to greater objective and subjective career success.
Together, these studies suggest that it is not simply the amount of developmental support one receives, but also the extent to which the constellation of one's developmental ties spans diverse social worlds and reaches influential others that contributes to career success.
4 / Gender and Women's Career Equality
The research on women's career equality focuses on the degree to which women, compared to men, have equal access to career opportunities and experience equal work, career, and nonwork outcomes (Kossek et al. 2017).
Three broad theoretical perspectives are used to examine women's career (in)equality: career preferences, work-family conflict, and gender bias.
Women have a greater preference for work-family balance and opportunities to work with people, which leads them to choose occupations with lower salaries (Barbulescu & Bidwell 2013).
The work-family perspective attributes career inequality to the experience of greater work-family conflict among women.
Gendered differences in the division of domestic labor, perceived work-family pressures, and the differential effects of family structure may have complex influences on women's career opportunities and outcomes (Kossek et al. 2017).
Mainiero & Sullivan's (2005) kaleidoscope model suggests that women's careers are less linear than men's, with issues of work-life balance taking precedence mid-career for women but not men.
Consistent with the opting-out perspective, recent research shows that women work fewer hours, have lower career centrality, and accumulate less human capital (Frear et al. 2019).
At the same time, reflecting the pushed-out perspective, there is considerable evidence showing that the work environment is disadvantageous to women's career success due to gendered role expectations, stereotypes, and organizational climates hostile to female leaders (Hebl et al. 2020).
Women face more obstacles and barriers but receive less support and opportunities than men throughout their careers (Lyness & Thompson 2000).
Regarding subjective career success, Ng & Feldman (2014) found that women did not report lower levels of career satisfaction than did men.
Unequal division of domestic labor, a lack of workplace support, gender bias, and national culture may lead women to appear to choose to opt out when in fact that choice is driven by contextual factors outside of the individual's control.
5 / Stable Individual Differences
5.1 Personality
Meta-analytic evidence (Ng et al. 2005) supports the predictive role of personality traits in career success.
For example, individuals who are more extroverted and conscientious and less neurotic tend to have a higher salary, receive more promotions, and experience higher levels of career satisfaction.
Interestingly, agreeableness correlated positively with career satisfaction but negatively with salary and promotions, whereas openness to experience is only positively correlated with salary and career satisfaction.
Overall, the Big Five personality traits have larger effects on subjective career success than on objective career success (Ng et al. 2005).
In addition to the Big Five, several studies have identified proactive personality as a key determinant of career success, providing incremental explanatory power beyond a broad range of individual and occupational variables (Seibert et al. 1999).
Seibert et al. (2001) showed that proactive personality influenced career success through a set of proactive behaviors, including career self-management (CSM) behaviors, and Erdogan & Bauer (2005) showed that proactive personality predicted subjective career success only when person-organization or person-job fit was high.
Ng et al. (2005) provided meta-analysis evidence showing proactive personality positively associated with salary, promotions, and career satisfaction.
The core self-evaluation trait—a broad personality factor based on the shared variance among neuroticism, locus of control, generalized self-efficacy, and self-esteem and said to represent fundamental evaluations of the self - has also been reliably linked to career success (Ng & Feldman 2014).
Judge & Hurst (2008) used archival data to show that core self-evaluations predict entry-level pay and occupational attainment as well as the rate of increase in pay and occupational status over a 25-year period, partially mediated by educational attainment.
5.2 Cognitive and emotional intelligence
General mental ability (GMA) is another widely studied individual difference construct that has been linked to career success, especially objective career success outcomes such as income, hierarchical level, and occupational prestige.
Dreher & Bretz (1991) found that the effect of GMA on job level attainment is stronger for individuals who did not have early career success, suggesting that high merit, in the form of the ability to acquire job-relevant knowledge and skills, can make up for a lack of early sponsorship.
Judge et al. (2010) showed that high-GMA individuals experienced more rapid growth in income and occupational prestige over a 28-year period, partially through the acquisition of more education and training.
Recent work further demonstrates that GMA as well as specific cognitive abilities can predict occupation prestige even 50 years after school (Lang & Kell 2020).
Whereas cognitive intelligence enables learning and problem solving, emotional intelligence (EQ) enables interpersonal effectiveness.
Garcia & Costa (2014) showed that EQ added significant variance to the prediction of salary and career satisfaction above and beyond GMA and the Big Five personality traits.
Rode et al. (2017) found that emotionally intelligent individuals are more likely to have higher salary levels because they can develop strong interpersonal relationships.
6 / Career Self-Management Behaviors
The CSM literature focuses on the behaviors individuals use to shape their careers. Although vocational psychologists have long been interested in theories of occupational choice and development, organizational behavior scholars have focused on strategies individuals use to achieve their career goals once they are in paid employment.
Models of CSM are often conceptualized within a more general dynamic self-regulatory framework that includes setting goals, developing and implementing plans and strategies, monitoring progress toward goal accomplishment, and modifying goals (Lord et al. 2010).
Although specific labels differ across CSM frameworks, they typically include behaviors such as planning and goal setting, skill development, feedback seeking, networking, self-nomination for opportunities, and job mobility-related activities (e.g., Gould & Penley 1984, Kossek et al. 1998, Noe 1996, Strauss et al. 2012, Sturges et al. 2002).
Overall, there is no conclusive evidence relating CSM to career success.
CSM models often fail to incorporate aspects of the organizational or occupational context, focusing instead on simple direct effects for specific behaviors.
7 / Malleable Individual Differences
7.1. Contemporary career attitudes
The protean (Hall 1996) and boundaryless (Arthur & Rousseau 1996) career perspectives suggest that employees would or should adopt a new set of expectations and attitudes to attain career success in the contemporary career era.
As operationalized by Briscoe et al. (2006), the protean career attitude consists of two dimensions, being values-driven and self-directed, whereas the boundaryless career attitude encompasses positive attitudes towards psychological mobility and physical mobility.
Overall, empirical research has established the value of these contemporary career orientations. However, the different dimensions do not appear to consistently predict career success.
Meta-analytic results show that the self-directed dimension of the protean career attitude is reliably related to several dimensions of subjective career success, including career satisfaction, work-life balance, and overall well-being.
Although physical mobility preference is related to turnover intentions, it is not reliably related to salary or promotions, and is even negatively related to career satisfaction (Li et al. 2022, Wiernik & Kostal 2019).
7.2. Career competencies and resources
One line of research growing directly out of counseling psychology (Super et al. 1996) focuses on career adaptability, a psychosocial resource that helps individuals deal with career-related challenges.
Savickas & Porfeli (2012) highlighted four career adaptability resources: concern, control, curiosity, and confidence.
Rudolph et al.'s (2017) meta-analysis showed career adaptability relates to objective (e.g., income) and subjective (e.g., career satisfaction, employability, promotability) career success.
A second line of research concerns employability, a construct that is defined as one's ability to realize job opportunities within and between employers over time (Forrier & Sels 2003, Fugate et al. 2021).
The dimensions of the construct most often include a proactive component that involves preparing oneself for change and a reactive component that involves flexibly adapting to changes that occur, including openness to change, proactivity, work identity, and career motivation (Fugate & Kinicki 2008, Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden 2006).
Empirical research indicates that employability competencies can enhance objective and subjective career success (e.g., Bozionelos et al. 2016, Van der Heijde & Van der Heijden 2006).
The political skills construct, although not specifically designed as a career competency, is an important predictor of career success.
Ferris et al. (2005, p. 127) defined political skill as "the ability to effectively understand others at work, and to use such knowledge to influence others to act in ways that enhance one's personal and/or organizational objectives," reflected in the four dimensions of apparent sincerity, social astuteness, interpersonal influence, and networking ability (Ferris et al. 2007).
Meta-analytic results show that political knowledge and skills are related to salary attainment, hierarchical position, and career satisfaction (Munyon et al. 2015, Ng et al. 2005), and Chen et al's (2022) cross-cultural meta-analysis shows that the effects are stronger in eastern than western cultures and stronger at management than employee levels.
The political skills perspectives fit well with an organizational context understanding of careers, and more refined understanding of the mediators, such as reputation and self-efficacy, continues to develop.
Scholars have also focused a considerable amount of research on integrative models built on career-related competencies or resources. Several career competency frameworks have been built around the knowledge, skills, and abilities thought to allow individuals to develop their careers successfully (Eby et al. 2003, Hall 2002, Parker et al. 2009).
Akkermans et al. (2013) presented an integrative model and measurement scale assessing the extent to which individuals reflect upon their career motivation and strengths, know how to network and promote themselves, and are able to explore work opportunities and develop career plans.
An even broader integrative model developed by Hirschi et al. (2018) focuses on career resources. They define career resources as anything that helps an individual attain their career goals. The career resources framework identifies four broad types of resources - human capital, environmental, motivational, and CSM resources.
Career scholars’ attempt to organize career constructs around key sets of competencies is a compelling and useful exercise. However, considerable theoretical and empirical confusion remains.
⚛︎
Topics for future research
Career sustainability
Refers to a dynamic balance of happiness, health, and productivity over the life course.
The sustainable career perspective allows for the inclusion of both objective and subjective elements of career success, as well as the importance of health in career development and success.
This perspective emphasizes the interplay between individual and contextual factors and the importance of adopting a temporal perspective on career success.
Career shocks
Career success research has typically focused on planned and agentic perspectives, but sudden disruptions in career paths, known as career shocks, can also have an impact on career success.
The career shocks perspective integrates theoretical frameworks from different disciplines and can be connected with the notion of career sustainability.
More research is needed to clarify the role of event characteristics, how shocks impact career success, and which types of shocks relate to different facets of objective and subjective career success.
Socially marginalized and underrepresented groups
Considering the career success of socially marginalized groups through a sustainable career lens is important but has been overlooked in the literature.
Future research should examine how intersectionality - the interaction between race and gender - impacts career success among marginalized groups.
Stigma theory could help identify different characteristics of stigma, stigma management strategies, and social contexts that influence career success for marginalized groups.
Alternative employment / work arrangements
Alternative work arrangements, such as self-employment and gig work, have received limited attention in career research despite their increasing prevalence.
The choice or necessity of entering into these arrangements can impact the career success of employees.
Important questions to investigate include the factors that impact objective and subjective career success for entrepreneurs (and other nonstandard workers such as agency and gig workers), the career trajectories of individuals who transition between paid employment and self-employment, and how career success is affected by time spent in entrepreneurship.
Theoretical clean-up time
Career scholars have generated a broad range of constructs but have often been vague regarding their nature, leading to construct proliferation and redundancy.
Future research should focus on empirical studies designed to test the untested theoretical mechanisms, prune unnecessary complexity and redundancy, and conduct comparative theory testing to eliminate weak or redundant theories of career success.
As we’re all navigating through the uncertainty of life, in the Personal Strategy series i’m exploring and playing with strategy concepts and practices applied to personal and professional contexts.
Creator of the series: Bülent Duagi, strategy adviser for CEOs in Tech.