Career Locus of Control and Career Success Among Chinese Employees

Abstract

The current research aimed to develop a multidimensional measure of career locus of control (LOC) and examine its predictive validity on objective and subjective career success among Chinese employees. Items of career LOC were generated based on literature review of the significant predictors of career success, as well as the open-ended responses among Chinese employees (N ¼ 30). Principal component analysis (Study 1, N ¼ 204) revealed that career LOC consists of three factors: internal factor, external factor, and chance factor, which was consistent with the framework proposed by Levenson (1974). Results of confirmatory factor analysis among another sample of Chinese employees (Study 2, N ¼ 646) supported this three-factor structure. Predictive validity analysis showed that after controlling for the effects of demographic, organizational and industrial variables, internal career LOC was positively related to both objective and subjective career success; chance factor was negatively related to subjective career success, but not related to objective career success. Theoretical and practical implications of this research were discussed.

SCCT Research in the International Context

“…Côte, Mizokami, Roberts, and Nakama (2016) found that college students in the United States had a higher internal locus of control than their counterparts in Japan, and internal locus of control was a predictor of identity development only for American but not for Japanese students. Furthermore, locus of control has been found to be related to vocational outcome expectations among undergraduate students in Turkey (Işik, 2013) and job satisfaction among adults in Australia (Wu, Griffin, & Parker, 2015) and China (Guan et al, 2012). Inclusion of additional trait variables can provide the opportunity to explore how social cognitive predictors mediate effects of these variables on different vocational outcomes within the same country or across different cultural contexts.…”

Self-Referent and Other-Referent Career Successes, Career Satisfaction, and Turnover Intention Among Chinese Employees

“…Participants' were asked to evaluate the overall satisfaction with their careers on a short-form scale that was used in previous research (Guan et al, 2013), with 2 items (a ¼ .88) to measure the overall career satisfaction: ''I am satisfied with the success achieved in my career'' and ''I am satisfied with the progress I have made to meet career objectives.'' The validity of this scale in the Chinese context was supported by its positive relations with Chinese employees' salary and managerial level as well as career self-efficacy (Guan et al, 2013). The responses were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 ¼ strongly disagree, 5 ¼ strongly agree).…”

The Work Cognition Inventory

“…Some researchers have built P-E fit items around diverse topics such as social efficacy (e.g., Fan et al, 2013) or career indecision (Hacker, Carr, Abrams, & Brown, 2013), while others (e.g., Guan, et al 2012) have built around personal values and personal attributes such as career locus of control. When using such measures of direct fit, researchers and practitioners may learn what the quality of the fit is without gaining insight into why such a level of fit exists.…”