External and Internal Reasons for Career Plateauing
Authors:
Open Access
- 14 November 2014
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Group & Organization Management
- Vol. 40 (4) , 529-559
Abstract
Career plateauing has received little attention in the literature of late, even when employees are retaining their positions longer with little likelihood for advancement or increased job responsibilities. Relationships between reasons for structural and content plateauing and work outcomes are investigated among professional accounting association members. Contributing to the literature, our findings confirm existence of external and internal plateauing reasons and various relationships with outcomes. External reasons for structural plateauing were negatively related to job and career satisfaction, while content plateauing for external reasons was negatively related to job involvement and work motivation. Structural plateauing for internal reasons lowered job involvement, but increased job and career satisfaction, as well as intention to stay. Job involvement and work motivation mediated relationships between several reasons and job satisfaction, career satisfaction, and intention to stay. Managerial implications and future research opportunities are noted.Keywords
This publication has 65 references indexed in Scilit:
- Age and work‐related motives: Results of a meta‐analysisJournal of Organizational Behavior, 2011
- Career plateauing and work attitudes: Moderating effects of mentoring others with Nigerian employeesEurope’s Journal of Psychology, 2010
- Older workers' motivation to continue to work: five meanings of ageJournal of Managerial Psychology, 2008
- Resampling and Distribution of the Product Methods for Testing Indirect Effects in Complex ModelsStructural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 2008
- Kaleidoscope careers: An alternate explanation for the “opt-out“ revolutionAcademy of Management Perspectives, 2005
- Mechanisms Linking Work and Family: Clarifying the Relationship Between Work and Family ConstructsAcademy of Management Review, 2000
- Career plateau and professional plateauACM SIGCPR Computer Personnel, 1999
- Plateaued Careers, Productivity, and Career Satisfaction of College of Education FacultyThe Career Development Quarterly, 1987
- Managing the Career PlateauAcademy of Management Review, 1977
- Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality: Fact or fiction?Psychological Bulletin, 1975