Career Success free essay sample

Despite the increasing importance of the organizational commitment and the relevance of subjective success in the current context of the professional careers, a gap exists in specialized literature. The hypotheses were tested by means of a structural equations model and it has been observed that individual perception of the success achieved in professional careers has a positive relation to affective commitment and a negative relation o employees’ continuance commitment. The relation between these two types of commitment and the intention to leave are those anticipated in the current literature. Finally, contextualising the present paradigm shift in psychological contracts and the pro? les of a professional career, the implications of this study on human resources policies are considered and future lines of investigation are suggested. 1. Introduction For more than three decades, scientific literature (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Meyer et al. , 2002) has been reflecting the impor tance of organizational commitment. With the exception of some critical contributions (Baruch, 1998), and regardless of the contextual changes that have occurred as well as the alteration to psychological contracts (Rousseau, 1989; Rousseau and Wade-Benzoni, 1995), present empirical evidence seems to continue to stress the importance of organizational commitment (Meyer et al. We will write a custom essay sample on Career Success or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page , 2002; Luchak and Gellatly, 2007). That is to say, from the point of view of employees, organizational commitment can lead to greater self-esteem and greater psychological well-being, which affects the organization (Escrig-Tena, Roca and Bou, 2002). For the organization, to have committed employees implies, among other positive aspects, higher performance, lower cost associated to voluntary absenteeism, lower indices of counter-productive behaviour, greater citizen behaviour, lower turnover of personnel and therefore a greater capacity to retain talent (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Meyer and Allen, 1997; Meyer and Herscovitch, 2001; Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, and Topolnytsky, 2002). In this way, society in general tends to benefit from the fact that organizations have committed employees, in terms of greater national productivity and efficiency at work (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990). In the same way, in recent years, the fight for talent has become a very important factor in the current organizational context (Somaya and Williamson, 2008). Attracting, retaining and assuring the satisfaction of key employees constitutes one of the fundamental factors in obtaining sustainable competitive advantages. Therefore, promoting organizational commitment of talented workers ensures a higher level of intellectual capital in organizations (Ulrich, 1998) and lasting returns. In a similar way, according to Judge, Cable, Boudreau and Bretz (1995), organizations are more effective if they promote the psychological success of their employees, that is to say, the more effective are those that have employees with greater intrinsic satisfaction with their professional careers, as well as objective progress. Previously, the existing literature has concentrated mainly on the objective aspects of professional careers, but in the present context, subjective success perceived by employees has gained in importance (DeVos, Dewettnick and Buyens, 2008), although it is still a developing subject for investigation. With regard to records on organizational commitment, investigations conducted by Lee (1971), Mowday et al. (1982) and Steers (1977), confirmed later by meta-analyses by Mathieu and Zajac (1990) and Meyer et al. (2002), observed three categories that included: personal variables (i. . , age, gender, level of education, seniority), variables associated to the work and its purpose (i. e. , ambiguity of the work, level of autonomy, timetable, workload, career mobility), and variables associated with structural factors (social participation, personal importance and training). All of these have displayed different empirical results in degrees of significance and relation, using the different policies of human resources as a base (Smeenk et al. , 2006). However, in spite of the impact suggested in relation to the satisfaction on the part of employees with their 145 rofessional career in organizational spheres, there are few empirical investigations that back this up. For this reason, and given the importance of organizational commitment as a precedent for many desirable behaviours in organizations, we asked ourselves if a connection exists, and of what type, between subjective success of employees and their organizational commitment. In this way, we tried to fill in a substantial gap in current specialized literature, as well as analyze possible future lines and practical implications for policies in human resources. In order to undertake the study, an empirical investigation has been carried out with 150 participants, which allowed us to test the hypotheses through a model of structural equations. Given that organizational commitment constitutes one of the central predictors of intention to leave an organization (Meyer and Herscovitch, 2001), when opting to extend the model this variable was included, allowing in this way confirming relations already outlined in several preceding studies (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Meyer et al. 2002). The reminder of this article is structured as follows: an introduction of the theoretical framework is presented, where we consider the hypotheses of work, followed by the methodology to follow where the techniques of analysis used are reflected. Finally, the results are presented and discussed, and we conclude by analyzing the future limitations of this investigation, as well as future lines and the possible practical implications on human resources policies. 2. The oretical framework and hypotheses Recent decades have been characterized by deep transformations in the labour world, such as globalisation, rapid technological advances, an increase in competitive pressures, a reduction in the job security and the democratization of labour life (Gratton and Ghoshal, 2003). In the West, and in particular in Europe, increasing emphasis has been made to policies of human resources that attempt to attract and improve intellectual resources in order to create sustainable competitive advantages. Career Success free essay sample This study proposes to analyze the relation between subjective success, the affective and continuance components of organizational ommitment and the intention to leave the organization, in order to re? ect the repercussions on organizational and individual levels. Despite the increasing importance of the organizational commitment and the relevance of subjective success in the current context of the professional careers, a gap exists in specialized literature. The hypotheses were tested by means of a structural equations model and it has been observed that individual perception of the success achieved in professional careers has a positive relation to affective commitment and a negative relation o employees’ continuance commitment. The relation between these two types of commitment and the intention to leave are those anticipated in the current literature. Finally, contextualising the present paradigm shift in psychological contracts and the pro? les of a professional career, the implications of this study on human resources policies are considered and future lines of investigation are suggested. We will write a custom essay sample on Career Success or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page , In this way, society in general tends to benefit from the fact that organizations have committed employees, in terms of greater national productivity and efficiency at work (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990). In the same way, in recent years, the fight for talent has become a very important factor in the current organizational context (Somaya and Williamson, 2008). Attracting, retaining and assuring the satisfaction of key employees constitutes one of the fundamental factors in obtaining sustainable competitive advantages. Therefore, promoting organizational commitment of talented workers ensures a higher level of intellectual capital in organizations (Ulrich, 1998) and lasting returns. In a similar way, according to Judge, Cable, Boudreau and Bretz (1995), organizations are more effective if they promote the psychological success of their employees, that is to say, the more effective are those that have employees with greater intrinsic satisfaction with their professional careers, as well as objective progress.