Investigating the role of career anchors in job satisfaction and organisational commitment; a PJ fit approach

Catherine Steele & Dr Jan Francis-Smythe

Background:

Career anchors are widely used to aid career decisions with the assumption that congruence between anchors and job would have positive outcomes for the individual. The aim of this work was to provide empirical support for this assumption using both a PJ and PO fit approach.

Study Context:

This research was conducted within a UK Police Constabulary and focused on 9 Police Staff job roles. Each role chosen had a high number of job incumbents for example that of Community Support Officer. It was hypothesised that good fit between anchors and job or anchors and the organisation would lead to increased job satisfaction and organisational commitment. It was also hypothesised that career salience would moderate these relationships.

Model to be tested:

For more information please contact c.steele@worc.ac.uk

Study 1: Matching jobs to anchors:

Aim:

The aim of this study was to find out which of the anchors the 9 selected jobs would be suited to.

Method:Firstly, an expert panel of line managers and staff involved in recruitment from the organisation were asked to match the career anchors to each of the 9 jobs. Each job could be matched to more than one anchor and the panel were given clear criteria to determine what constituted a match. Secondly job incumbents (n=101) were asked to complete a questionnaire to assess the career anchors of their job and of the organisation. Inter-rater reliability ranged from 0.61- 0.92.

Results:The results of the 2 approaches were combined and showed a good level of agreement. The expert panel however consistently under recognised the importance of the sense of service anchor.Some similarities were found between the jobs in the ratings given by the job incumbents. For example the General Management anchor was found to be the lowest ranking anchor for 7 out of the 9 job roles. The Sense of Service and Security anchors were in the top 3 for all 9 job roles.

Study 2: Analysis of fit

Aim:

The aim of study 2 was to test the model above using hierarchical regression analysis. It was hoped this would provide empirical support for the notion that congruence between an individual’s career anchors and their job or organisation leads to positive outcomes.

Method:In the first approach (n=122) a direct measurement of fit was taken where individuals were simply asked how well they felt their career anchors matched a) their job and b) their organisation. In the second, (n= 184) a fit score was calculated by correlating the job anchor profile with the individual’s career anchor profile. Job satisfaction was measured using Warr, Cook and Wall’s (1979) measure, Organisational Commitment, using Cook and Wall’s (1980) measure and Career Salience using Allen and Ortlepp’s (2004) measure.Hierarchical regression analysis was used to investigate the relationships hypothesised in the model shown above. Baron & Kenny’s (1986) method for investigating moderating variables was used to examine the role of career salience.

Results:

The findings from study 2 indicate that PJ fit predicts 29% of the variance in job satisfaction, higher than that found in previous studies. No significant moderating effects were found for career salience, suggesting that the concept of congruence is important regardless of the emphasis an individual places on their career. However interestingly, when considered alone, career salience was found to predict both job satisfaction and organisational commitment.

Implications:

These studies provide support for the role of career anchors in improving job satisfaction and organisational commitment. This suggests that a knowledge of career anchors could help individuals make effective job and career choices, ones that will impact on their future job satisfaction. Knowledge of career anchors could also be beneficial to organisations by impacting on individual performance. This research suggests that when considering workforce planning organisations should take account of their employees talents, values and needs as it could lead to greater organisational commitment. It is important to remember that for high levels of fit to be achieved there needs to good self awareness from the individual and open lines of communication between individual and organisation. If the career anchor model is used as a basis for organisational career planning and management then it can facilitate both of these things.

Fit between individual career anchors and

job anchors

Outcomes

Greater job satisfactionIncreased organisational commitment

Improved job performance

Career Salience

Moderator

Positive Fit

Limitations:

The findings of this research are limited as the research was conducted within just one specific organisation. Future work could consider the generalisability of these findings by investigating other organisations. More work to validate the method of assessing job anchors also needs to be conducted, this may effect the way that fit is calculated which in turn may have an impact on the findings.