1-1 Research Background and Motives
With economic recessions occurring from time to time, many organizations adopt downsizing or restructure into flatter organizations to respond to such change in business environment. These decisions can not only alter the structure of organizations and the way companies operate, but also individuals‟ career experiences (Greenhaus, 2002; McCleese &
Eby, 2007). These changes may result in midcareer employees competing more intensely for the fewer promotion opportunities, and staying longer in their current positions due to
decrease in vertical mobility (Elsass & Ralston, 1989; Feldman, 1996). Younger employees may also find themselves facing career stagnation earlier than they expected (Ettington, 1998;
Rotondo & Perrewe, 2000). In other words, the business environment today can lead
employees to experience career plateau, regardless of their age and career stages (Greenhaus, 2002).
Career plateau was originally defined as a point in career where chances of hierarchical promotion do not seem possible (Ference, Stoner, & Warren, 1977). It was further
categorized into hierarchical (i.e., structural) plateau, which occurs when the chance of further promotion becomes unlikely and job content plateau, which refers to the lack of
challenges in jobs or the lack of new responsibilities given to an individual (Bardwick, 1986).
Although the relationship between career plateau and job performance remains controversial (Allen, Poteet, & Russell, 1998; Ettington, 1992; Ference, et al., 1977; Patterson, Sutton, &
Schuttenberg, 1987; Stout, Slocum, & Cron, 1988), career plateau is often considered as an undesirable and stressful experience for employees (Elsass & Ralston, 1989; McCleese &
Eby, 2007) and has shown to be often related with negative job attitudes or behaviors (Allen, et al., 1998; Chao, 1990; Near, 1980). Indeed, previous studies suggest that lack of
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opportunities for promotion or perceived underpromotion would serve as sources of stress (Cooper, 2001; Rotondo, 1999; Sonnentag & Frese, 2002), and hierarchal plateaued
employees tend to suffer from more stress (Elsass & Ralston, 1989; McCleese & Eby, 2007) than non-plateaued employees. Nonetheless, empirical inquiry into the process and the boundary conditions of the relationship between career plateau and stress remains in paucity.
Specifically, there are at least three research gaps that merit further examination. First, studies relating job content plateau with stress have been scarce and whether job content plateau also serves as source of stress has not been discussed. Attention should be given in this area because studies have shown that job content plateau has a greater negative impact on employees‟ working attitude than that of hierarchical plateau (Allen, et al., 1998).
Second, little has known about the psychological processes through which plateaus relate to consequences of career plateaus, even though several researchers have concluded that career plateau brings stress to individuals (Elsass & Ralston, 1989; Feldman & Weitz, 1988;
McCleese & Eby, 2007). Understanding the psychological processes that plateaued employee experience is important because it helps explain the reason behind the cause of stress and negative job attitudes, and provides potential venues for intervention.
A third important issue that has been neglected in the career plateau literature is the moderating effect between career plateau and its outcomes. Much research effort has been made in identifying effective coping responses of career plateau such as social support, mentoring or finding other personal meaning in work (Allen, et al., 1998; Elsass & Ralston, 1989). However, only few examine the factors that moderate the relationship between career plateaus and their outcomes (Lentz & Allen, 2009). The lack of research in this area needs attention because moderators that alleviate negative plateau outcomes can have practical values in providing insights for potential interventions.
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One potential moderator is employees‟ spirituality at work, which refers to the extent to which an individual experiences the meaningfulness of work to individuals, belongingness to the work community and fulfillment of their inner lives in organizations (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000). The concept of spirituality in the workplace has been continually receiving attention in corporate America since the 1990s. Studies have shown that individuals in a spiritually healthy working environment perform better (Elm, 2003; Garcia-Zamor, 2003; White, 2003), and work groups also have higher achievements in work units with greater spiritual climate (Duchon & Plowman, 2005). Mitroff (1999b) even firmly concluded that organizations must consider spirituality in management, otherwise they wouldn‟t survive in today‟s business environment. Despite the importance of workplace spirituality, few empirical studies look at whether it has influences on such psychological correlates as stress or whether it could moderates career plateau and related psychological processes. This domain is worth
investigating in that workplace spirituality may serve as a factor that alleviates the negative influence of career plateau on employee outcomes. Thus, it is in the researcher‟s interest to examine the moderating effect of spirituality in the workplace between career plateau and psychological processes.
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1-2 Research Objectives
Based on the research background and motives in Section 1-1, this study uses occupational stress model as foundation to examine the following research questions:
1. Examine the relationship between two types of career plateau and employee outcomes such as emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, job involvement and affective organizational commitment.
2. Identify the psychological processes that mediate the influence of hierarchical plateau and job content plateau on employee outcomes.
3. Examine the moderating effect of workplace spirituality on the relationship between the two types of career plateau and employee outcomes.
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