Table of Contents

Introduction

Success Criterion Deficiency

Multi-Dimensional Measurement

Subjective Success Criteria Types

Other-Referent and Self-Referent Criteria

Career Success Factors

Career Type and Contextual & Individual Factors
Four Categories Predictors
Person Organizational Fit
Cultural Differences
Family Support, Referent Choice, Career Stage, Life Events

Method

Participants
Data Collection and Analysis
Types of Subjective Success Criteria

Discussion of Findings

Implications
Limitations

Conclusion

References

Appendix A

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Introduction
Career success has been defined as collective outcome as a result of ones work experiences over time
(Seibert, Crant & Kraimer, 1999). Career success is an interest not only to individuals, but to
organizations too as individual personal success may ultimately contribute to the organizational
success. How individual conceptualize their career success can be understand from individual level
(e.g., socio-demographic status, personality traits, etc.) and organizational level (e.g., corporate
culture, person-organizational-fit, industry sectors, etc.) and they are interdependence. It is not just
financial rewards, occupational prestige and job satisfaction that individual are looking for, and life
satisfaction does plays along. Modern Career is progressively becoming boundary less, hence a wider
range of criteria has to be considered in different career context and in-depth interview may disclose
further on the neglected aspect of career success.

Success Criterion Deficiency

Many studies have identified that success criterion has been operationalized in a deficient manner and
success criterion can be affected by a number of factors, not just objective criteria alone. Objective
career success is characterized by objective achievements (E.g.: pay, promotions and occupational
prestige) which have been acknowledged as the signs of career success (Nicholson, 2000).
Organizational changes such as the effect of globalization on organizations has accountable to have
moderated the importance of a few conventional objective indicators of career success like prospect
for promotion and desirability of the job have been reduced (Reitman & Schneer, 2003). It is
perplexing that pay and promotions keep on being connected as a basis of career success despite the
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fact that the shortcomings of salary as a measure of mans progress are well known (Hilton & Dill,
1962). Contaminated (i.e., above ones control such as labor market conditions) and deficient are the
two key limitations on performance evaluation of pay and promotion (Campbell, Dunnette, Lawler, &
Weick, 1970). Objective achievements are not all that individual look for from their career, but can be
subjective outcomes like work-life balance (Finegold & Mohrman, 2001), a sense of meaning,
purpose and input from their job (Hall, 2002). Subjective career success is characterized by ones
values, feelings, perceptions and preferences about their career. Job satisfaction cannot be used as a
one and only substitute for it.

Multi-Dimensional Measurement
Measure subjective success criteria along with objective achievements can be dealt with the
deficiency of objective success criteria. And to improve the subjective career success measurement,
social comparison cannot be neglected because an appropriate examination of career success goes to
the heart of how the societies function (Frank & Cook, 1995). Knowing what employees want (e.g.,
work-life balance, appreciation), knowing who is (e.g., different industry sectors individual may
conceptualize different career success meaning: teachers, business owner, actors), and knowing how
to adopt more qualitative methods (e.g., in-depth interviews regarding the meaning of career success),
these three elements are established by Parker and Arthur (2002) as a measurement for subjective
career success. Both other-referent and self-referent criteria should be taken into consideration while
assessing subjective career success in order to enhance the precision of the results obtained.

Subjective Success Criteria Types

Other-Referent and Self-Referent Criteria
There is considerable hypothetical and observational source to trust that other-referent and selfreferent criteria are relative to each other and are drawn from objective and subjective domains when
individuals access their career outcomes (Heslin, 2005). Other-referent success criteria refer to
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comparing the achievements and expectations of others. Whereas self-referent success criteria reflect
personal aspirations and self-satisfaction which act according to individual standard much more
greatly than material rewards (Hall, 2002). Self-referent criteria may likewise relate to objective
criteria (e.g.: ones career objective is to be a Vice President by the age of 36).

Career Success Factors

Career Type and Contextual & Individual Factors
Both contextual factors (e.g.: winner-take-all markets and organizational culture), likewise individual
factors (e.g.: work orientation and goal orientation) are appeared to be the possibly impact of criteria
that are most significant to individuals when they assess their career success (Gunz and Heslin, 2005).
Implicit Person Theory (IPT) which is about ones ability and personality plays a major role in
affecting ones goal orientation. For example, performance goal pursuer is typically an entity theorist
which generally has a low self-referent criteria in consideration for career success (Heslin, 2003).
Career type (i.e., linear and non-linear) is an interaction variable between contextual and individual
requirement which may influence the different types of subjective success criteria. For example,
organization downsizing and outsourcings will have an impact on linear career success like
employees corporate ladder advancement is diminished, and employee might even transform into a
non-linear career if they experienced adversity or tragedy happened to them.

Four Categories Predictors

Based on Ng et al. (2005) meta-analysis study, there are four predictors sets of career success have
been categorized as: human capital (e.g. education, experiences), organizational sponsorship (e.g.
support, learning and development opportunity), socio-demographic status (e.g. gender, marital status,
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age) and individual differences (e.g. ability, personality traits). Their findings has proposed that
organizational sponsorship and individual differences are more relevant to subjective career success,
as they influence individuals psychological well-being. Individuals cognitive ability, openness to
experience, proactivity, conscientiousness, extroversion and locus of control are positively correlated
with career success. Whereas, human capital and socio-demographic status are more relevant to
objective career success. Arnania-Kepuladze (2010) revealed that women tend to take interpersonal
relations, family, surroundings, and lifestyle into consideration for their career success assessment. On
the other hand, desire for power, status, personal achievement, self-assertion and independenceoriented are the traits that can be found in men. Therefore, men and women are tend to construct a
different meaning of career success.
Person Organizational Fit
Bretz and Judge (1994) study has shown that Person Organizational Fit (POF) was a substantial
predictor of both objective and subjective achievements. POF should influence not only on
satisfaction and tenure with the organization, but also measure of pay and job level attained in career
success. Individual who fit into the organizational environment would display higher job involvement,
greater commitment and higher job satisfaction level which result low turnover, more practical
adaptive manner and eventually contribute to the organizational success. This fit will lead to
organizations sponsorship decisions and provide indications to employees that they are appreciated.
Having an appealing corporate culture, career development opportunity, supervisor support, strong
value system, positive social network and high autonomy organization might attract and retain the
employees which in turn influence their "fit" level, their perception and meaning of career success.

Cultural Differences
With the growth of globalization, todays social space of career has gone worldwide, and therefore
culture does play a part to stimulus and shape ones career objective. Briscoe, Hall, & Mayrhofer
(2011) has defined culture consists of language, ideas, beliefs, customs, taboos, codes, institutions,
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tools, techniques, work of art, rituals and symbol. Individuals from different beliefs, languages,
institutions, etc. will have diverse life experiences. The cultural diversity can be explained based on
Hofstedes (2001) five cultural dimensions (i.e., power distance, individualism, masculinity,
uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation). Organizational values and individuals career
preferences are shape by these cultural dimensions. For example, a leader who perceived high power
distance, may not give empowerment to the employees, therefore low level of autonomy may result in
low job satisfaction. Employee who is an individualist might lose connections with other colleagues,
as they focus on personal goals, social recognition and career advancement. On the other hand,
collectivist employee demonstrate higher commitment, with group responsibility and may expect
support from others in the organization. There is a need for the organization to identify and
understand the cultural differences in order to prepare a set of practices to facilitate the career
development among employees.

Family Support, Referent Choice, Career Stage, Life Events

Family relationship may provide the basis for subjective career success and it can either be leading the
individual to be motivated and self-efficacy of their work or demoralize them. Who they use as a
referent choice especially on subjective aspect also need to be examined. When individuals at
different career stage, their career success meaning tends to evolve too. Life events such as marriage,
illness, bankruptcy, etc. can cause an individual either become more resilience or less resilience,
whether individual can face down reality, search for meaning and continually improvise. All these
factors are playing a role on how individuals conceptualize their career success.

Method
Participants

This semi-structured interview, conducted in University of Kent was part of the primary qualitative
evidence gathered on how students in the university conceptualize their career success. Five students
consist of three males and two females from different countries have been selected.

Data Collection and Analysis

The objective was to discover and understand the career success meaning from the participants with
different backgrounds. The Interview session was tape-recorded after obtaining consent from the
participants. Demographic characteristics of participants were gathered and as shown in Table 1.

Table 1
Participant
Code
P1

Age

Gender

Nationality

Male

Marital
Status
Single

24

P2

27

Female

Single

Thai

MSc in
Finance and
Management

P3

24

Male

Single

Ecuadorian

P4

25

Male

Single

Pakistani

P5

30

Female

Single

Singaporean

MSc in
Finance and
Management
MSc in
Applied
Actuarial
Science
MSc in
Finance and
Management

Portuguese

Current
Education
MSc in
International
Banking
Finance

Previous Job
Designation
Corporate
Finance
Trainee (9
months
working
experience)
Assistance
Finance
Analyst (3
years working
experience)
N/A

Risk Analyst (3
years working
experience)
Payroll
Executive (7
years working
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experience)
Types of Subjective Success Criteria
Participants were asked to response to the following questions as it will add to the understanding of
how they view career success:
-

Share some background (i.e.: family, work).

What does career success mean to you?
What would it take for you to consider yourself as being successful?

The analysis of participants responses are grouped into self-referent and other-referent criteria that
drawn from both objective and subjective domains as shown in Table 2.

Table 2
(Please refer to Appendix A for participants career success definitions)
Objective Domain
Subjective Domain
Self-Referent
a) Objective/Self-Referent
b) Subjective/Self-Referent
Emphasis on pay rather than title My goals are work life balance, learning
Domain
(P5)
path is important, must be satisfied with
my job (P1)
Like to challenge myself, dont mind to
invest on courses to develop myself
further learning goals (P2, P5)
Work-life balance still important (P4)
A sense of achievements, help the needy,
make a difference (P5)
Other-Referent

c) Objective/Other-Referent

Domain

Pay is important,
progression (P1)

look

d) Subjective/Other-Referent
for

Would like to see myself in

progress (P2)
Pay,
title
and
upward
advancement are important (P3)
I see work as a way to get the
money I need to live my life (P4)
Discussion of Findings
Pay, work life balance and learning path are the three most mentioned career success related elements
among participants. Other factors such as education is also a factor that influencing their career
success. Partly due to their home countries company entry requirements which is emphasizing more
on the qualifications. Personal history like family educational background also seemed as an internal
influencing. The national cultural differences doesnt seem to be influencing one another in a basic
need to succeed. P3 is an entity theorist which adopted only other-referent criteria for his career
success assessment and only one participant mentioned about the sense of achievements and making a
difference, this could be due to the age factor and experiences.
Implications
Objective/other-referent and subjective/self-referent domains are found in this study to explain
significant in overall career success. Those in early career stage seems to value objective
achievements, organizational learning and development more rather than about making a difference.
Employer should not consider one-size-fits-all approach but accommodate accordingly to early and
mid/late career stage employees, have to think about the POF factor as it eventually beneficial to the
organization.
Limitations
This qualitative study was based on a small sample, all are students, not much working experience,
and thus it is rather hard to evaluate a substantial results with other possible career success variables.
Conclusion
Apart from the limitations, this findings has highlight the importance of human capital, organizational
sponsorship, socio-demographic and individual differences variables in understanding career success.
Other factors also need to be examine in order to be more completely understand the complicated
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phenomenon of career success. And it can be conclude that most individuals do assess their career
success relative to both self-referent and other-referent criteria.

References
Arnania-Kepuladze, T. (2010) Gender stereotypes and gender feature of job motivation: differences
or similarity? Problems and Perspectives in Management, Vol 8, issue 2.
Bretz, J., Robert D. and Judge, T.A. (1994) PersonOrganization fit and the theory of work
adjustment: Implications for satisfaction, tenure, and career success, Journal of Vocational Behavior,
44(1), pp. 3254.
Briscoe, J.P., Hall, D.T. and Mayrhofer, W. (2011) Careers around the world: Individual and
contextual perspectives. New York: Routledge.
Campbell, J. P., Dunnette, M. D., Lawler, E. E., & Weick, K. E. (1970). Managerial behavior,
performance and effectiveness. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Finegold, D., & Mohrman, S. A. (2001). What do employees really want? The perception vs. the
reality. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland.
Frank, R. H., & Cook, P. J. (1995). The winner-take-all society: How more and more Americans
compete for fewer and bigger prizes, encouraging economic waste, income inequality, and an
impoverished cultural life. New York: Free Press.
Gunz, H.P. and Heslin, P.A. (2005) Reconceptualizing career success, Journal of Organizational
Behavior, 26, 105111.
Hall, D. T. (2002). Careers in and out of organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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Heslin, P.A. (2003) Self- and other-referent criteria of career success, Journal of Career Assessment,
11(3), pp. 262286.
Heslin, P.A. (2005) Conceptualizing and evaluating career success, Journal of Organizational
Behavior, 26(2), pp. 113136.
Hilton, T. L., & Dill,W. R. (1962). Salary growth as a criterion of career progress. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 46, 153158.
Hofstede, G. (2001) Cultures recent consequences: Using dimension scores in theory and
research, International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 1(1), pp. 1117.
Ng, T.W.H., Eby, L.T., Sorensen, K.L. and Feldman, D.C. (2005) Predictors of objective and
subjective career success: A meta-analysis, Personnel Psychology, 58(2), pp. 367408.
Nicholson, N. (2000). Motivationselectionconnection: an evolutionary model of career
development. In M. Peiperl, M. Arthur, R. Goffee, & T. Morris (Eds.), Career frontiers: New concepts
of working life (pp. 5475). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Parker, P. and Arthur, M.B. (2002) Bringing "New Science Into careers research. Management, 5,
105-125.
http://www.cairn.info/revue-management-2002-1-page-105.htm
Reitman, F., & Schneer, J. A. (2003). The promised path: a longitudinal study of managerial careers.
Journal of Managerial Psychology, 18, 6075.
Seibert, S.E., Crant, J.M. and Kraimer, M.L. (1999) Proactive personality and career
success, Journal of Applied Psychology, 84(3), pp. 416427.
Appendix A
P1
Pay is important, but do not preferred a stagnant/routine job. My goal is to learn as much as I can and
then progress. And preferred work-life balance, so that have time for gym, hang out with friends. Not
work till midnight like others (my friends) although can earn more. Might compare the pay with peers
(colleagues, same position level). Education and ongoing learning are important to shape my career
success. It can make me go further although it is not always the case. It is part of the success, but it is
not a main thing, the important one is must be happy with the job. But my career success might
change after I have gained certain working experience. My grandma was a judge, mother is a teacher,
father is an engineer, and siblings obtained master degree qualifications too.
P2
Future is important for me. My bachelor degree was major in English, and now I am doing Finance
Management because I want to move myself into a career in finance. Would like to take up more
challenging job, learn new things, pay is not the main factors for me as long as it meet my minimum
requirement. Would like to see the progression, where I can be in the next level. I dont mind to spend
money to learn new things, acquire new knowledge, and spend more time on the things I think it is
worth it. I dont compare it with my friends who is achieving more, but will use it as a motivation, to
push myself to do more. Most of my friends and even my sister has obtained the master degree
qualifications. Thailand culture also valued people that who have higher qualification, and the
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university that we are graduated from. And mostly people in Thailand will have master degree
provided they have time and fund to do so.
P3
I am looking for higher pay, title and upward advancement in the company. I dont mind to work extra
hours in the first few years to get what I want. Suffer now, enjoy later. Learning curve is also
important, and it really depends on the company I am getting in. And I am looking at starting up my
business in financial sector too, now just need to finish the study, get the working experience and see
what I can take away from the experience.
P4
Looking at the whole remuneration package (pay, learning and development) that the company can
offer. I will not preferred to work extra hours for long term, I want life. I see work as a way to get the
money I need to live my life, I love travelling. I am fairly flexible, depends on the option I end up
getting. Not necessary must be in the top 5 company. If working for an amazing company, I am
willing to let go something like my personal life for some time, but definitely not for long term. I do
believed that productivity will drop if getting too much long hours of work. Most people have master
degree qualification in my home country. Corporations do look at your qualifications, although
bachelor degree still can allow you to get a job, but master degree in any field is more valued by the
corporation.
P5
I will look for higher pay. Title is not really matter for me as long as I can earn more and get a sense
of achievement from my job. I want to have my own spare time to do the things I like. Can be yoga,
gym, and attend some classes to gain some knowledge or skills. And this knowledge doesnt need to
be related to my job, I would preferred it to be my personal development kind of thing. Id love to see
myself to be involve more in voluntary activity, I would like to help the needy, make a difference to
the less fortunate society. And if I have the chance, I would like to run my own business, and money is
what I am aiming for, after that, I can do what I want and love to do (travelling, volunteering, practice
martial art, etc.)

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Available from: https://geert-hofstede.com/portugal.html [Accessed 09 November 2016]

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