Existing Research on Plateaus
In early studies, Ference, Stoners and Warren (1977) proposed the original concept of plateau. It was defined as “The point in a career where the likelihood of additional hierarchal is very low. Career plateau are natural consequence of the way organizations are shaped” (p.
602). They indicated that career plateau is failure or defeat which hinders understanding and management of careers. Veiga (1981) defined career plateau as “the point at which future career mobility, including both upward and lateral moves, is in reasonable doubt because the length of time in the present position has been unduly prolonged in the practice aspect”
(p.566). Tremblay and Roger (1998) defined career plateau as “being a prolonged halt or the feeling that an individual has of being blocked off from promotion” (p. 2). In conclusion, plateau in career represents the concept of cessation and stagnation of individual’s upward
and lateral movements. Scholars applied the concept of plateau to different individual status.
Ference, Stoners and Warren (1977) stated that four types of principal career states. First, the employees who are categorized as "learners" or "comers” have high potential for promotion but their presently performance under standard. Those employees are usually new comer of the organization. They still learn how to do well at work. Second, "Stars" means that the employees who do outstanding work are viewed as high potential worker for further promotion. They are like a star to attract everyone’s attention. They are aggressive to engage in activities of the organization. Third, “Solid citizens" means that the employees’
performance is ranked as outstanding status, but they have little opportunity for future promotion. Forth, "Deadwoods" means that these individuals have little potential for promotion, and their performance is ranked as low level. The reason for being deadwood may
be lack of motivation and ability, or personal difficulty. They are regarded as problems in the organization. Furthermore, according to the difference of performance rating, the “solid citizens” are considered effective plateau, and the ”Deadwoods” are considered ineffective plateau. This basic model can be recognized to acquire sources of plateauing and to examine different types of career plateau.
Current Performance Likelihood of future promotion
Low High Table 2.1 A Model of Managerial Careers. Adapted from “. Managing the career plateau.
” by Ference, T. P., Stoner, J. A. F, & Warren, E. K.,1977, Academy of Management Review, (4), p.603.
In addition to these four types of career plateau, there are two types of career plateau are organizational plateau and personal plateau. Furthermore, the explanation of organizational plateau is that individual has ability to perform well in high level job on grounds of lacking of opportunities to get promotion in organization. The source of organizational plateau could be competition, tenure, organizational need, and narrowing pyramid organizational structure. Personal plateau was introduced that individual lacks ability for higher job, or he or she does not desire a higher level job. The source of personal plateau could be lack of technical and managerial skills, lack of career skills and lack of sufficient desire (Ference et al, 1977). In general, the solid citizens tended to have organizationally plateaued in that they were capable of performing well for higher level job but they lack opportunities. On the other side, dead woods were inclined to have personally
plateaued. They usually lacked of ability or desiring for higher job (Veiga, 1981; Appelbaum
& Finestone, 1994).
Stoner, Ference, and Warren (1980) suggested two major types of career plateaus:
successful career plateau and unsuccessful career plateau. Employees with unsuccessful career plateau perform their jobs under satisfactory level. However, Employees with successful career plateau performed their jobs successfully.
Bardwick (1986) divided career plateau into three categories: structure plateau, content plateau and life plateau. Structure plateau occurs when organization is not well designed, and workers will feel limited because of their development in the organizational level. It also means the end of promotion. Content plateau refers to when workers have job-related skill and knowledge but they don’t develop skill and knowledge or take challenges during work.
They feel bored at their work. Live plateau also called individual plateau which means the stagnation of workers’ lives. When employees feel stuck at their work, they will extend the feeling to their lives and be trapped in life.
Feldman and Weitz (1988) concluded the concept of career plateau. They explained that hierarchal plateau is when workers get the point which they cannot move higher that current position, they will feel limited for their career development in the organization. The likelihood of getting promoted is limited. Job content plateau means that workers feel bored in their job content. They think that they have no challenges at work.
Tremblay, Roger, and Toulouse (1995) identified two types of career plateaus. One is objective plateau, the other one is subjective plateau. Objective plateau is associated with excessive length of time (tenure). It is measured by five years in the same position in the company. That is to say, people who stay in current position beyond 5 years are considered as being objective plateau. Subjective plateau is associated with individual perception. It is measured by the expected period of time before the next promotion or movement or the perceived probability of getting a promotion in the future.
Tremblay and Roger (1993) divided the determinants of career plateau into two categories which are individual and familial factors and organizational factors. Individual and familial factors include education level, salary and satisfactory family life. Organizational factors are structural characteristics and span of control.
Veiga (1981) examined the career attitudes on plateaued employees by investigating their fear of stagnation, career impatience, marketability and propensity to leave. The result demonstrated that the plateaued employees did not perform significantly lower fear of stagnation. The deadwoods expressed lower career impatience due to lack of sufficient desire.
It could contribute to the source of personal plateaued. On the contrary, non-plateaued employees expressed higher confidence on their marketability. It could be attributed their belief for ongoing career development in the current organizations. Hence, career plateaued employees were inclined to change companies. It is plausible that employees with career plateau less actively engage in seeking out and analyzing career opportunities in other companies. It reduced the degree to which they believe they are marketability.
Career Commitment
Super and Hall (1978) defined career as “ a sequence of positions occupied by a person during the course of the life-time” (p.334). In social psychology, Erikson (1956) identified that commitment is the faith of individuals to perform their behaviors. Commitment is an individual internal decision, and it occurs when one's thoughts and emotions are pointing out to the same direction (Adio, 2010). Also, commitment could be regarded as a willingness to persist in action. (Cooper-Hakim & Viswesvaran, 2005 ). Regarding career commitment, Hall (1971) initially defined career commitment as “The strength of one’s motivation to work in a chosen career role” (p. 59), Buchanan (1974) described that career commitment is demonstrated by an individual who values the goals of his or her profession, and performs professional duties effectively. In other words, Meyer, Allen, and Smith (1993) introduced
that career commitment is people's motivation to work towards personal advancement in their profession. Blau (1985) defined career commitment as “One's attitude towards one's profession or vocation” (p.278). Colarelli and Bishop (1990) described career commitment as “The development of personal career goals, the attachment to, identification with, and involvement in those goals.” (p.159). They noted that career commitment involved self-generated goals and commitment to one’s own career. Aryee and Tan (1992) defined career commitment as an affective concept which represents one’s identification in career and capability to cope with disappointments in the pursuit of career goals. Vandenberg and Scarpello (1994) described that career commitment is “a person’s belief in and acceptance of willingness to maintain membership in that occupation” (p.535). Jones and Goulding (1999) observed that commitment to a career can be viewed as willingness to undertake further training. Besides, Goulet and Singh (2002) defined career commitment as “The extent to which someone identifies with and values his or her profession or vocation and the amount of time and effort spent acquiring relevant knowledge” (p.75). They stated that if a person is willing to exert energy and be persistent in pursuing personal career goals, He or she could be considered to have high career commitment. In general, Career commitment is psychological concept, and it is related motivation, persistence, and willingness.
Some studies suggested that career commitment is considered motivation in essence.
(Hall, 1971; Meyer, Allen, & Smith, 1993). Aryee and Tan (1992) propounded the concept of career commitment based on London’s (1983) theory of career motivation and organization commitment. Building on the work of London (1983), career commitment is multidimensional construct and conceptualized as three theoretical dimensions: (1) career identity, it refers to “How central one’s career is to one’s identity”. Career commitment consisted of two subdomains, work involvement and desire for upward mobility. Work involvement included job involvement, professional orientation, commitment to managerial work and identification with the organization. Desire for upward mobility included the needs
for advancement, recognition, dominance, and money. (2) career insight, this is “The extent to which the person has realistic perceptions of him or herself and the organization and relates theses perceptions to career goals”. It is positively related to goal clarity, path goal clarity, social perceptiveness, self-objectivity, realism of expectations, career decision making, and future time orientation. (3) career resilience, it means that” “A person’s resistance to career disruption in a less than optimal environment ” (p. 621). There are three subdomains in career resilience. First subdomains is self-efficacy, and it included self-esteem, need autonomy, adaptability, internal control, need achievement, initiative, need creativity, inner work standards, and development orientation. Second subdomain is risk taking. It involved risk taking tendency, fear of failure, need security, and tolerance of uncertainty and ambiguity.
The third subdomain is dependency. It included career dependency, need for peer approval, need for superior approval.
Meyer and Allen (1991) conducted three-component model of organizational commitment. Three components of organization commitment are affective organization commitment, continuance organization commitment, and normative organization commitment. In 1993, because organization commitment is highly related to career commitment, Meyer and Allen proved that three components model could be applied to career commitment. Affective career commitment is that people have emotional identification in the occupation. Continuance career commitment is regarded as the individual made investments. It would be reduced in value if he or she is to change occupations. Normative career commitment is viewed as the receipt of benefits that created a sense of obligation to reciprocate.
Carson and Bedeian (1994) constructed measurement of career commitment. It included 12 items and three dimensions: 1) career identification, a close emotional association with one’s career. 2) career resilience, resisting career disruption in the face of adversity 3) career planning, determining one’s developmental needs and establishing a career plan.
Job Content Plateau and Career Commitment
Many studies have been stated that career plateau was significantly negative related to organizational commitment (Allen,Poteet, & Russell,1998; Chay, Aryee, & Chew, 1995;
Choy & Savery,1998; Jung & Tak, 2008; McCleese & Eby, 2006; Nachbabauer &
Riedal, 2002; Lapalme,Tremblay, & Simard, 2009;Lee, 2003;Lemire,Sabs, & Gagnon, 1999;Tong& Jung, 2011). Choy and Savery (1999) explored the relationships among employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment and the plateauing phenomenon in the sample of approximately 4,000 employees in all areas of Western Australia with 2,700 in the metropolitan region of the State Capital of Perth. They divided sample into two groups, plateaued employees and non-plateaued employees, by a criterion of staying in the same position for seven years. This study shows that plateaued employees had lower loyalty to the organization and less favorable view of the organization. Hence, employees with high career plateau will express lower organization commitment.
Lapalme, Tremblay and Simard (2009) examined the relationship between career plateau and organization commitment in the sample of 575 hospital employees. In this study, they identified the direct link between career plateau and affective commitment to the organization. The result showed that when employees faced career plateau feel less committed to their organizations. Besieds, Heilman, Holt, and Rilovick (2008) described that career plateau was positively related to turnover intention based on the sample of 223 military members of three different organizations. Because employees view career plateau as hindrance from development and promotion in the organization, they with higher career plateau had lower commitment to the organization. However, McCleese and Eby (2006) investigated that job content plateaued is negatively associated with organizational commitment in the sample of 1708 from 76 organizations. Job content plateaued employees had greater organizational commitment under the condition they
were not also experiencing a hierarchical plateau. Employees believe that they will move upward to obtain the opportunity to higher position. Also, their jobs will become more challengeable than current position. Nachbabauer and Riedal (2002) described that work content plateau is negatively related to affective commitment but positively related to continuance commitment in the sample of 165 faculty and 77 teachers. Moreover, it is not significant among objective structural plateau, affective commitment and continuance commitment. Because the employees thought they have not ready for advanced job than current job, they feel satisfied and think their ability is consistent of current job. Previous research indicated that organizational commitment correlated with career commitment ( Blau, 1985; Chang, 1999; Colarelli & Bishop, 1990; Goulet & Singh, 2002; Mathieu & Zajac,1990;
Meyer & Allen, 1993; Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002). Colarelli and Bishop (1990) noted that if people have stronger career commitment, they tended to develop commitment to work group and organization and consider commitment as serving career goal. Goulet and Singh (2002) found that “an employee who is very committed to his or her organization, and who is satisfied with his or her job, is most likely in a rewarding job situation and in line with career aspirations, thus the higher career commitment” (p.86). In essence, organizational commitment is significant determinants of career commitment.
Some research showed that career mobility will increase employees’commitment to the organization (Grusky, 1966 ; Gaertner & Nollen, 1989). The career mobility was defined as promotion from first position of the organization. Grusky (1966) obtained a survey on 1649 managers of the large single enterprise in the United Stated and results showed that the more employees promoted to the higher position, the more they received the rewards from organization. On that account, the more employees received the rewards, the greater they express commitment to the organization. Gaertner and Nollen (1989) stated that employees believed that if the company provides a long-term development opportunity for employees,
they will express higher commitment to the organization.
Chao(1990) indicated that career plateau is negatively related to career planning for the reason that career plateaued employees expressed as slow-tract and less successful careerist in the sample of 1755 managers. The employees with high career plateau had lower will to engage career plan activities.
According the literature, the hypothesis 1 is conducted
H1. There is a significant negative relationship between job content plateau and career commitment.
H1a.There is a significantly negative relationship between job content plateau and career identity.
H1b. There is a significantly negative relationship between job content plateau and career planning.
H1c. There is a significantly negative relationship between job content plateau and career resilience.
Self-Efficacy
The concept of self-efficacy originated from Bandura’s social cognitive theory in 1977.
It refers to individual inside belief or expectation in accomplishing tasks or performing adequately in particular situation (Bandura, 1977a). Bandura (1986) defined self-efficacy as
‘‘people’s judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances’’ (Bandura, 1986, p. 391). Self-efficacy is associated with social learning theory which explained the human behavior model in terms of interaction among cognitive, behavioral, and environmental determinations. Figure 2.1 which is derived from Bandura’s social learning theory is shown the role of the self-efficacy.
Efficacy expectations are individual convictions which mean one can successfully execute the behavior. Outcome expectations were defined as person’s estimation of certain outcome after
individual behavior. It noted that self-efficacy is a continuous psychological procedure among person, behavior and outcome.
Figure 2.1 Diagrammatic representation of the difference between efficacy and outcome expectations. Adapted from “Social Learning Theory ” by Albert Bandura ,1977, United State of America : Prentice-Hall, Inc. p.79. Copyright 1977 by Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Psychological procedure stressed that how much effort will expend and how long it will be sustained when a person face difficulties and obstacles (Bandura, 1977b). Moreover, four categories of sources of self-efficacy which are performance accomplishment, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion and emotional arousal, and through these resources will enhance individual self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977b). Besides, self-efficacy is associated with behavioral change (Bandura & Adam, 1977). Self-efficacy judgments regulate how much effort people exert and how long they persist when met with resistance. In turn, these behaviors can strongly determine the outcomes ultimately obtained (Bandura, 1977b, 1982).
Hackket and Betz (1981) applied self-efficacy in career-related domain. They proposed that when individual make career choice, he or she will base on the understanding of social cognitive career theory. Based on Bandura’s theory, Taylor and Betz (1983) defined career decision making self-efficacy as an individual’s belief that he or she can successfully complete the activities and tasks necessary to make an effective career decision. More specifically, they defined career decision making self-efficacy as an individual’s belief that he or she can engage in activities such as accurate self-appraisal, gathering of relevant occupational information, and selecting appropriate goals.
Schwarzer and Jerusalem (1995) indicated that self-efficacy is the belief that one can
Person Behavior Outcome
Efficacy Expectation
Outcome Expectation
perform difficult tasks or cope with obstacles in various domains of human functioning. It refers four aspects which are goal setting, effort investment, persistence in face of barriers and recovery from setbacks. Chemers, Hu, and Garcia (2001) applied efficacy theory to predict academic success and personal adjustment of first-year university students. Based on assessments near the beginning and end of the academic year, the findings indicated that, above and beyond any effects of previous ability, academic self-efficacy was a strong and significant predictor of academic goals, academic performance, personal adjustment, and health.
Perceived self-efficacy is defined as people’s judgment of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performance judgment of what one can do with the skills one possesses.
Moderating Role of Self-Efficacy
Career plateau has been influenced by various psychological factors people usually suffer in their working conditions. For example, Feldman and Weitz (1988) noted that employees with high growth need strength are incline to be motivated to pursue and accept new chances on the job on the sample of sales people. Hence, those employees experienced less career plateau than others. If people with high growth need strength, they will express greater desire to encourage themselves, to develop their new capability, and to take more challenge (Alderfer, 1972). Hall and Vardi (1981) discovered that internal locus of control employees tend to experience more career mobility on the sample of non-supervisory workers.
Employees with high internal locus of control will express high career mobility and be active to obtain opportunities in the organization. Locus of control had a clear influence on career
Employees with high internal locus of control will express high career mobility and be active to obtain opportunities in the organization. Locus of control had a clear influence on career