University of Groningen Career roles de Jong, Nicole

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University of Groningen

Career roles

de Jong, Nicole

DOI:

10.33612/diss.101440931

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Publication date: 2019

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de Jong, N. (2019). Career roles: their Measurements, Determinants and Consequences. Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. https://doi.org/10.33612/diss.101440931

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536582-L-sub01-bw-Jong 536582-L-sub01-bw-Jong 536582-L-sub01-bw-Jong 536582-L-sub01-bw-Jong Processed on: 16-10-2019 Processed on: 16-10-2019 Processed on: 16-10-2019

Processed on: 16-10-2019 PDF page: 1PDF page: 1PDF page: 1PDF page: 1

Career Roles

Their Measurements,

Determinants

and Consequences

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This research was supported by GITP International BV, the Insitute for Integration and Social Efficacy and the University of Groningen. Financial support for printing this thesis was received from the University of Groningen.

Cover inspiration: Morgan Shimeld Cover & layout: Douwe Oppewal Printed by: Ipskamp Printing BV.

ISBN 978-94-034-2116-2 (printed version) ISBN 978-94-034-2115-5 (electronic version)

© Nicole de Jong. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without permission in writing from the author.

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Career Roles

Their Measurements, Determinants and Consequences

Proefschrift

ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

op gezag van de

rector magnificus prof. dr. C. Wijmenga en volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties.

De openbare verdediging zal plaatsvinden op donderdag 5 december 2019 om 16.15 uur

door

Nicole de Jong geboren op 28 juni 1986

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4 Promotor Prof. dr. B. M. Wisse Copromotor Dr. J. A. M. Heesink Beoordelingscommissie Prof. dr. G. G. Anthonio Prof. dr. M. Ph. Born Prof. dr. S. Otten

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Chapter 1 General Introduction 7

Chapter 2 Measuring Identification with Career Roles.

CRIQ: An Innovative Measure using Comparison Awareness

to avoid Self-presentation Tactics 19

Chapter 3 Personality Traits and Career Role Enactment:

Career Role Preferences as a Mediator 43

Chapter 4 Career Role Enactment and Perceived Employability:

the Moderating Role of Ambidextrous Leadership 85

Chapter 5 General Discussion 109

References 121

Appendix 133

Dutch Summary | Nederlandse Samenvatting 141

Acknowledgements | Dankwoord 149

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General Introduction

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For many people work and career are a major part of their everyday life. Work can provide income, fulfilment and a sense of purpose. As such, careers can become a part of who we are, providing a source for identity, status and social connections (Baruch, 2004, 2006). In the past, careers have often been portrayed as a ladder. Starting at the bottom with a relatively low-level job, people took years to climb up the hierarchical steps, getting a better position with every step upwards. Moreover, careers usually remained within one single company (Sullivan & Baruch, 2009; Super, 1957). In these past times, perceptions of one’s position in life was primarily based on the number of promotions, the increases in salary and the associated societal status (Baruch, 2004, 2006). This traditional perspective on careers is underlined by early career definitions such as: ‘The moving perspective in which persons orient themselves with reference to the social order, and of the typical sequences and concatenation of office’ (Hughes, 1937). Careers were, in other terms, predictable, stable and fairly straightforward. Nowadays, such careers are no longer the norm and difficult to come by. Instead, it seems the work landscape has become less predictable (Savickas et al., 2009), and in want of a more individualized and dynamic approach.

In current time, careers can be perceived as a developmental process of the employee along ‘a path of experiences and jobs in one or more organizations’ (Baruch & Rosenstein, 1992). Other scholars have, in a similar vein, defined a career as ‘the sequence of individually perceived work-related experiences and attitudes that occur over the span of a person’s work life’ (Hall, 1987, p1). As such, it has been argued that careers can be described as ‘protean’ and ‘boundaryless’ (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996; Briscoe & Hall, 2006) which underscores the dynamic character of contemporary careers. In contrast to staying within one company, in one track (usually upwards), employees cross various (physical and psychological) boundaries and occupy different jobs and work roles in various organizations over time (Bravo, Seibert, Kraimer, Wayne, & Liden, 2017). Consequently, new career routes are likely to be less fixed and less clear, and people have ample options for moving within and across organizations. Thus, instead of as a ladder, careers can nowadays best be visualized as a jungle gym (Sandberg, 2013).

Even though careers are considered to be ‘protean’ and ‘boundaryless’ nowadays, they are not less important than in the past. A persons’ career history contains essential meaning for the individual as well as for the environment. For many individuals, their career is a large part of the meaning of their life’s journey, and hence of their identity (Inkson, 2007). Hoekstra (2011) argues that the formation of one’s career identity over the years is a self-regulative process. He contends that a persons’ career is a continually updated and revised “work in progress” in which the person him/herself as well as the (organizational) context are important operators. To understand how careers evolve over time, Hoekstra (2006, 2011) developed the career role concept.

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9 Capturing Career Development: Career Roles

In light of this new career perspective (in which the career is more a jungle gym instead of a ladder), the notion emerged that jobs themselves can no longer be captured into a clear defined bundle of tasks (Hoekstra, 2011). Especially higher level jobs have increasingly room for change as a result of job crafting behaviors and own initiative (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Consequently, employees are provided with an opportunity to make adaptations at work, customizing their jobs respectively (Organ, Podsakoff, & MacKenzie, 2006; Parker, 2000). These adjustments can gradually shape, strengthen, and change tasks, responsibilities and roles that employees fulfill at work (Hoekstra, 2011). It is through these development processes that career identity formation and strengthening can take place (Ashforth, 2001; Crant, 2000; Hall & Moss, 1998; Hoekstra, 2011).

As an example we will look at two different university professors (professor A and professor B). These two professors are likely to behave differently in their jobs although the initial job descriptions may in fact have been very similar at the start of their tenure. Emphasizing different aspects of the job and working in a different manner to achieve targets, such as writing and publishing articles, both professors are likely to show different work behaviors. For example, while professor A may highly enjoy student contact, therefore actively seeking out opportunities to allow for more student involvement in research opportunities, professor B may value uninterrupted research time, thus keeping (unnecessary) student contact to a minimum. Both strategies may work equally well when publication output is compared, however, tasks and responsibilities are likely to differ for both professors. Including more people in the research process, professor A is likely to adopt a social and managing role in order to keep an overview of all the collaborations and the output. In contrast, professor B works highly independent throughout the entire process and is more likely to take on the role of the autonomous expert. Consequently, although the work output is similar, the work roles (‘a set of activities that are generally carried out by an individual or group with some organizationally relevant responsibility’; Huckvale & Ould, 1995, p. 338) that both professors enact and develop will differ. Needless to say, this is a fictitious and simplified portrayal of the tasks, processes and roles a professor at the university can encounter. Nonetheless I hope this example gives an impression how, due to individual choices and adaptations, job enactment can differ between employees with a similar job description.

Notably, depending on the career stage employees are in, different processes can influence career identity formation. Specifically, career development can be seen as a gradual, interactive process that is the result of two forces: role pressure and granting on the one hand, and role taking on the other (De Jong et al., 2014; Hoekstra, 2011; Wille et al., 2012). Role pressure or role granting describes the process in which employees are selected into certain roles as a result of external demands, expectations, or

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wishes (the environment influences the individual). Role taking describes the process in which employees select fitting roles based on personal preferences, personality and competencies (the individual influences the environment). In the early stages of peoples’ career external role pressure processes will probably be leading, which results in role learning (Graen & Scandura, 1987; Miller, Johnson, Hart, & Peterson, 1988). Later on, as people start to recognize what roles are fitting and important to them, role taking processes may become more important. Moreover, because of the dynamic between self-regulation (e.g., role taking) and external pressures (role pressure) roles will become a hybrid private-public construct (Hoekstra, 2011). Going back to our example this means that although both professors may indeed have their own personal preferences, their boss or the university could have specific wishes or demands that may influence the extent to which both employees are able to enact in and develop their preferred role repertoire. For example, if the university highly encourages student involvement, professor B - whose first instinct is to work alone on research projects – might need to enact and develop more social and management skills as this is requested by the organization. Taken together this means that although employees nowadays often have the freedom to negotiate and proactively shape their jobs and subsequently careers, the roles they develop are still subject to social validation from the environment. Therefore, although employees may opt for certain roles, and although nowadays employees can have a large amount of influence on which roles they take on, these roles also need to be recognized and granted by external parties such as one’s supervisor, colleagues or the organization.

In order to discuss the concept of roles in the career domain the Career Roles Model has been proposed as a content taxonomy for career development (Hoekstra, 2011). Career roles describe the content of career positions rather than job titles, making them easily recognizable and independent of jobs and levels of functioning. Specifically, a career role is seen as ‘a coherent and enduring set of characteristics of the perceived effects of the way a person is doing his or her work’ (Hoekstra, 2011 p. 164). The selection and choice of roles that people acquire in their work is guided by individual motives that drive people in their work and organizational themes that guide organizations to adapt and survive (Hogan, 2007; March, 1999). In the Career Roles Model three main individual motives can be distinguished; distinction (e.g., autonomy and agency), integration (e.g., connectedness and belonging) and structure (e.g., collective meaning and cohesion, Ford, 1992; Hogan, 1983). These motives are thought to underlie employees’ career commitments: meanings of positions, long-term goals, or values to be attained in the work context. The model also posits two organizational motives; exploitation (e.g., processes focusing on stability) and exploration (e.g., processes aimed at innovation and change, March, 1999). These two motives focus on continuity and change capacity and determine the adaptability of the organization in its environment. Combining both individual and organizational motives, the Career Roles Model distinguishes between six

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11 classes of career roles that are the result of the combination of the three main individual motives and the two organizational motives acting as environmental pressures for the person (see Table 1). Each career role is described by a broad label that is intended to be easily recognizable. The Maker role is focused on direct and tangible results, attaining goals and making things happen. In the Expert role, one focuses on questions and problems rather than on the direct results. Developing new insights and coming up with solutions are important in this role. The Presenter role is focused on influencing others using form, style, and impression management. In the Guide role, helping and guiding others is important. The focus is on relationships and the connection with others. The Director role focuses on the use of means and resources of the current collective to the best possible use in the long run. It focuses on attaining long term goals and realizing strategies. In the Inspirer role, one explores the possibilities for change and innovation and focuses on ideals, values and principles to be upheld in the collective (Hoekstra, 2011). While some employees prefer to broaden or adapt their scope of career roles over time, others prefer their role repertoire to remain stable and unchanged (Parker, 2007; Roberts, 2006). As such, people can differ strongly in the amount and type of roles they wish to develop and enact in at work. For the professors from our example this could mean that, working at various universities, over the course of their career professor A probably has found opportunities to enact in and further develop the Guide and Inspirer role. On the other hand, professor B can probably look back on a career where the Expert role has been highly developed.

Table 1 The Career Roles Model: Six Career Roles

Dominant Personal Motives

Organizational Performance Domains Exploitation

Production, Results Innovation, ChangeExploration

Distinction motives

Autonomy / Agency

Self – assertion Maker Expert

Integration motives

Connectedness, Belonging,

Cooperation, Sharing Presenter Guide

Structure motives

Collective meaning, Cohesion,

Institutional structure Director Inspirer

Note. Adapted from “A career roles model of career development” by H. A. Hoekstra, 2011, Journal of Vocational Behavior, 78(2),

Individual Differences and Career Roles

As a result of a more individualized career approach, individual differences such as person’s values, goals and personality characteristics have become important determinants of current career development (Hall, 2004; Savickas, 2013; Wille, Beyers, & De Fruyt, 2012).

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Highlighting personal agency, scholars in the vocational psychology domain have repeatedly investigated a broad range of individual differences connected to work behavior and career development and success. Researchers have for instance focused on proactive work behaviors (Bindl & Parker, 2010), job crafting behaviors (Tims & Bakker, 2010), vocational interest (Holland, 1997) and personality traits (Wille et al., 2012) as determinants of work outcomes. Specifically, Holland (1997) proposed that ‘people’s vocational interests flow from their life history and personality’(p.8). Holland defined six personality types based on personal preferences and objections that can influence the type of work environment -including tasks, activities and roles – that employees seek out. These six types are Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Artistic (A), Social (S), Enterprising (E), and Conventional (C), together known as the RIASEC types. Individuals will select those work environments that are fitting based on their personality characteristics (Roberts, 2007). Moreover, research seems to indicate that individuals not only seek out certain environments, but also selectively strengthen and deepen those work and environment characteristics that match well with their preferences (Wille & De Fruyt, 2014). Similarly, specific personality characteristics also seem to influence development in certain career roles over time (Wille et al., 2012). This provides the opportunity to predict what type of work environments and career roles employees are likely to engage in based on personality trait scores.

Importantly, how people view their job in terms of tasks and roles may influence their job satisfaction and performance (Parker, 2007; Porter, Lawler, & Hackman, 1975). For example, compared to employees who hold a restrictive view about their job, results have shown that a flexible orientation enhances job performance, career potential and career success (Briscoe & Hall, 2006; Morrison, 1994; Parker, Wall, & Jackson, 1997). Moreover, experience in a variety and diversity of jobs/functions and roles has been associated positively with promotion, salary level, and overall positive affect (Campion, Cheraskin, & Stevens, 1994). Thus, in general, it seems that there are benefits to ‘thinking outside of the box’ and broadening one’s role repertoire has certain advantages for one’s career development.

Because careers have changed so much, the nature of career success must also be redefined (Baruch, 2004). Additional to success in terms of the number of promotions and salary, personal preferences such as personal development, satisfaction, work-life balance, freedom or autonomy are to be included as possible measures for success. As careers change, we need to understand a) who is in charge of careers and b) what is needed for successful long-term career development.

Career Development and Employability

It seems an ongoing negotiation between society, organizations and individuals has unfolded concerning who’s responsibility careers actually are. Stemming from the 1950’s employability focused mainly on achieving full employment as a social goal (Feintuch, 1955). During times of economic prosperity, governments tried to stimulate participation in the labor market for all social groups (Forrier & Sels, 2005). This is reflected

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13 in early career development theories as well. For example, Super (1957) perceived career development as ‘a lifelong, continuous process of developing and implementing a self-concept, testing it against reality, with satisfaction to self and benefit to society’ (p. 282).

However, as economic conditions changed and employment demands diversified, attention shifted towards the necessity to keep individual workers as employable as possible. Consequently, in the 1980’s, the dominant approach became a matter of organizational policy, shifting towards an organizational perspective (Forrier & Sels, 2005). Employability was seen as a proxy for organizational flexibility, to be attained through Human Resource Development. The idea was that highly employable workers would enable companies to cope with internationalization and competition in a constantly changing environment (see Nauta, Van Vianen, Van der Heijden, Van Dam, & Willemsen, 2009). In this sense, employability refers to company flexibility through the skills of their employees: highly skilled employees enable organizations to meet the changing demands of the environment (Van Dam, 2004).

Changing perspective again, during the last three decades the focus has shifted towards the individual employee (Dirkx, Gilley, & Gilley, 2004; Ellinger, 2004). Career development for individual workers was focused on ‘the alignment of individual subjective career aspects and the more objective career aspects of the organization in order to achieve the best fit between individual and organizational needs as well as personal characteristics and career roles’ (Boudreoux, 2001, p. 805). Furthermore, individual workers were increasingly held responsible for their own career (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996; Briscoe & Hall, 2006; Sullivan & Arthur, 2006). Thus, within this individualized career climate, although organizations and individuals can share in the responsibility, ultimately it is considered up to employees themselves to seek opportunities to become versatile, flexible, adaptable (Briscoe & Hall, 2006; Briscoe, Hall, & Frautschy Demuth, 2006).

Unresolved Questions and the Aims of this Dissertation

In the above, I have provided a short overview of relevant (yet not exhaustive) research insights in careers, career role development and employability. However, within these domains there are areas where our knowledge is still insufficient. This dissertation aims to enhance our knowledge on career development processes by addressing specific areas which still lack adequate scientific understanding. As such, the main goal of this dissertation is to provide a more advanced understanding of the measurement of career roles, of the process that explains how individuals may come to enact certain career roles, and of the extent to which career role enactment relates to flexibility and employability of individual employees in a landscape where individual agency becomes more and more apparent (Savickas, 2013).

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First, focusing on the difference between career role preferences and role enactment, this dissertation will explore the process of role acquisition. Notably, as employees progress in their career the process of selecting tasks and roles ideally is a conscious decision (Crant, 2000; Parker, 2007). Unfortunately, in reality we are not always provided with opportunities to select our own roles. Instead, our decisions are guided by both role taking and role pressure processes. Although over time employees can start to commit to certain roles as a result of self-regulation processes, they are also bound to external demands from the environment (such as expectations from the organization, co-workers, supervisors, etc. etc.). Therefore, it is highly likely that some tension may arise between self-regulatory role taking and external (social) driven role pressure processes (Hoekstra, 2011). Consequently, the roles we may initially prefer may not be the roles that are granted to us in our work environment. As such, differentiating between career role preferences and career role enactment in both meaning and measurements, can enhance our understanding in career development processes. Special emphasis will be given to how specific personality traits influence preferences and career role development, as our understanding of the mechanisms behind development processes that underlies career role development is still lacking.

Furthermore, I will investigate how career role enactment influences employability. Because of the shift to individual employability the generic nature of the concept has lost a core part of its meaning. Under the societal and organizational perspectives employability necessarily referred to a certain organization or sector of society. Employability was simply a manner of ‘how, and ‘where’. Under the individual perspective however the employability construct is so broad that it becomes almost meaningless, in need of direction. Otherwise, employability becomes equivalent to talent or individual potential. Therefore, the current notion of individual employability invites us to further investigate and specify what determines if someone is employable. From a practical standpoint, individual employability may be captured by the specific career roles that employees engage in. Having a clear language will help identify what it means to be employable, which is important for understanding employability and career development in general.

Overview of this Dissertation

In addition to the current introductory chapter, this dissertation consists of three empirical chapters, as well as a final concluding chapter that summarizes the findings and offers general conclusions and discussion points of the present research. All three empirical chapters of my dissertation aim to increase our understanding of peoples’ career role development in organizations. I do so by disentangling career role preferences from career role enactment, subsequently zooming in on determinants for career role

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15 enactment and by focusing on potential key consequences of career role enactment. First, adding to the development of practices and instruments that can improve our understanding of career role development, a new measure for career role preference is developed (Chapter 2). Second, the influence that personality characteristics and career role preferences have on peoples’ career role enactment is investigated (Chapter 3). Third, the relationship between career role enactment and employability is explored (Chapter 4).

The three empirical chapters in this dissertation are written as research articles. As such, they can be read independent of one another, and as a consequence, theoretical overlap may occur across chapters. Furthermore, all presented research was conducted in collaboration with colleagues, therefore, throughout the remainder of this dissertation I will use ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ from this point onwards.

Chapter Two

A reliable scale for measuring the extent to which people engage in the mental act of identifying a particular career role as part of the self was lacking in the literature. One of the challenges in constructing such a scale is to prevent self-serving motives dominating the responses (Robins & John, 1997). Indeed, oftentimes people tend to enhance one or more self-components either for self-protection or self-enhancement (Alicke & Sedikides, 2009). Especially if these aspects are important for one’s self-concept, social desirable answering can occur (Alicke & Sedikides, 2011; Paulhus, Harms, Bruce, & Lysy, 2003). The Comparison Awareness Inducing Technique (CAIT) may be an instrument that can reduce the effects of self-presentation tactics. Chapter 2 reports on the development of a measure for career role preference, the Career Role Identification Questionnaire (CRIQ) that is relatively insensitive to self-presentation tactics.

Chapter Three

As mentioned, the concept of a job as a well-defined bundle of tasks has become less applicable. This is especially the case in high level jobs, as they oftentimes have room for making individual adjustments to one’s role repertoire at work (Organ, Podsakoff, & MacKenzie, 2006; Parker, 2000). This has led careers to become more driven by values, preferences and personality characteristics. Although the role of personality characteristics in career role enactment has been studied in the past (Bakker, Tims, & Derks, 2012; Wille et al., 2012), the question as to how personality is associated with a certain role repertoire is still unanswered. Chapter 3 therefore explores the relationship between personality and (expected) career role enactment with career role preferences as a potential mediating mechanism.

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Chapter Four

In today’s business environment people no longer have the security of life-long employment (Hall & Mirvis, 1995), and a consequence they need to ensure that they remain employable throughout their career (Sullivan & Arthur, 2006). We argue that the influence of specific types of career roles (i.e., explorative roles) on employability may depend on the wider social context in which the employee functions. Investigating both supplementary and complementary fit perspectives we formulate competing hypotheses and test the role of closing and opening leadership behaviors in the relationship between employee explorative career role enactment and their employability. In order words, we address whether the relationship between exploration career role enactment and employability is particularly strong in situations where the supervisor is (supplementary fit) or is not (complementary fit) able to fulfill tasks associated with the focal career roles. Chapter 4 therefore focuses on the influence of career role enactment at work on employability and the role of the supervisor.

General Discussion

This chapter summarizes the main findings of the empirical chapters. It also reflects on how our research, focusing on the identification and measurement of career roles, their determinants, and their effects on employability, adds to a more elaborate theoretical understanding of career development processes. It provides suggestions for how future research may build upon our findings and it presents a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of our research. Finally, this section provides practical implications of our findings for individuals who want to craft their own careers and for coaches, consultants, and HR-specialists who want to make sure that the wishes and needs of every employee are considered so that they may meet their full potential.

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Measuring Identification

with Career Roles

CRIQ: An Innovative Measure using Comparison

Awareness to avoid Self-presentation Tactics*

2

The chapter presents a new measure for career role identification, the Career Role Identification Questionnaire (CRIQ). In constructing the CRIQ, we used the Comparison Awareness Inducing Technique (CAIT), a new and innovative method to reduce the effects of self-presentation tactics. The results show that the CRIQ measures identification with the six career roles conceptualized by Hoekstra (2011). Furthermore, the inventory has reliable scales and a clear factorial structure. The CAIT receives some support as a new way to deal with the problem of social desirability in self-report measures as this technique is thought to induce comparison awareness and thus suppress various response tendencies. Further limitations and implications are discussed.

* Chapter based on De Jong, N., Van Leeuwen, R. G. J., Hoekstra, H. A., & Van der Zee, K. I. (2014). Measuring identification

with career roles. CRIQ: An innovative measure using comparison awareness to avoid self-presentation tactics. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 85(2).199-214. doi: 10.1016/j.jvb.2014.07.01

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In a dynamic and complex work environment, the nature of jobs is changing. While jobs used to be described in terms of a set of fixed tasks that had to be performed by one person, today tasks are subject to rapid changes and development (Arthur, Khapova, & Wilderom, 2005). As a result, the dominant view on career development changed in such a way that jobs can better be described in terms of a set of roles (Hoekstra, 2011; Parker, 2007). With the changing nature of jobs, the view on careers also changes towards a perspective that is less focused on the sequence of jobs, but more on combinations and sequences of different roles in one’s work. The development of practices and instruments that address the changes in the occupational landscape has just begun. Recently, a model was proposed that specifies the nature and development of career roles (Hoekstra, 2011). Career roles refer to the stable and repetitive patterns in one’s way of functioning; attributed on the basis of perceived reality of functioning, not on assigned job titles. Workers may perceive their own career roles differently than their environment. Furthermore, persons may identify with career roles not conquered yet, as much as with the roles they believe to fulfill. In these perceptions the dynamics of careers are formed.

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, we present a new measure of role identification, the Career Role Identification Questionnaire (CRIQ). Second, we apply the Comparison Awareness Inducing Technique (CAIT) to reduce the effects of self-presentation tactics. We will first explain the construct of career roles and role acquisition processes, and then discuss career role identification. After describing the development of the CRIQ as a measure of career roles identification, and the new item-presentation technique CAIT that was used, we report a study of the psychometric properties of the CRIQ.

Roles in Life and Career

People play a variety of roles in their lives; some existent from childhood, others appear as people mature. In this regard, one of the pioneers in this area of research, Super (1980) distinguished nine major life roles (e.g., child, student, worker, partner, parent, citizen, homemaker, leisurite and pensioner). Each of these life roles may play an important part in people’s lives across different domains and settings (e.g., home, school, work and community). A career in this sense is a constellation of interacting, varying and changing life-roles. Conceptualizing a career as such, career development can be described in terms of a sequence of positions and occupations (Super, 1957). Overall, a more diverse role repertoire may result in greater satisfaction than simultaneously playing very similar roles (Super, 1980, 1990).

The notion of holding multiple roles is important, not only for life-roles in general, but also within today’s complex work environment. Nowadays there is increased room for job crafting within many jobs, affecting the meaning of one’s work and allowing workers to see beyond the boundaries of their job description (Wrzesniewski & Dutton,

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21 2001). As a result, role boundaries and perceptions change; allowing employees to broaden their role orientation and become more flexible (Parker, 2000). How people view their job in terms of roles can have a great influence on their job satisfaction and performance (Parker, 2007; Porter, Lawler, & Hackman, 1975). First, flexibility in terms of role breadth can influence one’s job performance, career potential and career success (Briscoe & Hall, 2006; Morrison, 1994; Parker et al., 1997). Second, experience in a variety of functional experiences (e.g., diversity of roles) has been associated positively with promotion, salary level, and overall positive affect (Campion, Cheraskin & Stevens, 1994).

Table 1 The Career Roles Model: Six Career Roles

Dominant Personal Motives

Organizational Performance Domains Exploitation

Production, Results Innovation, ChangeExploration

Distinction motives

Autonomy / Agency

Self – assertion Maker Expert

Integration motives

Connectedness, Belonging,

Cooperation, Sharing Presenter Guide

Structure motives

Collective meaning, Cohesion,

Institutional structure Director Inspirer

Note. Adapted from “A career roles model of career development” by H. A. Hoekstra, 2011, Journal of Vocational Behavior, 78(2),

Recently (Hoekstra, 2011) developed a model of 6 universal career roles (see Table 1). The model assumes that over time enacted work roles may grow into stable and enduring career roles (Hall, 1976; Hoekstra, 2011). Hoekstra defines a career role independent of jobs and functioning level, as ‘a coherent and enduring set of characteristics of the perceived effects of the way a person is doing his or her work’ (Hoekstra, 2011, p. 164). Hoekstra based his model on the systematic combination of three classes of individual motives (distinction, integration and structure, derived from Hogan, 2007) and two essential organizational themes (exploitation and exploration, derived from March, 1999). First, distinction refers to dominant personal motives of autonomy, agency, and self-assertion; integration refers to motives of connectedness, belonging, cooperation, and sharing; structure refers to motives of collective meaning, cohesion, purpose, institutional structure. Second, exploitation refers to performance directed at production and results, exploration is aimed at innovation and change. Combining both individual and organizational motives, the Career Roles Model distinguishes between six career roles, each of which typically serves a certain group of motives, characterized by the combination of an individual and an organizational theme. Hoekstra proposes the Maker, Expert, Guide, Presenter, Director and Inspirer role as building blocks for career

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development (Hoekstra, 2011). The Maker role involves direct results and making things happen. The Expert role involves questions and problems rather than direct results. The Presenter role involves influencing others. The Guide role involves helping and guiding others. The Director role involves the use of means and resources of the current collective to the best possible use in the long run. The Inspirer role involves exploration of possibilities for change and innovation.

Role Acquisition Processes

Role acquisition is, to a large extent driven by the processes of role taking and role pressure. Both processes drive actual fulfillment of career roles, but are also involved in identifying with those roles. For most people, the first career roles that develop will result from the expectations and demands of others, by a process called role pressure. Later on, people may increasingly work their way towards roles they prefer for themselves, a process we denote as role taking (see Wille, Beyers, & De Fruyt, 2012).

Individual, organizational and external motives may all play an important part in a person’s role acquisition. When role pressure is very high, presumably there is not much room for changes guided by identification with other than actual roles. When role pressure is moderate, identification with certain roles will determine a person’s role-taking ambitions and behaviors. Good performance in turn will enhance the possibilities to work one’s way towards preferred roles. In sum, as people grow in their work and become more confident and autonomous, although still bound to external pressure on the job, the process of selecting tasks and roles ideally would become a more conscious decision, reinforcing and differentiating career role identification, and hence also role taking (Crant, 2000; Parker, 2007).

An instrument to measure the six career roles just described has recently been published (Hoekstra, 2011). In Hoekstra’s conception of career roles, self-perceived and other-perceived fulfillment of roles, as well as the identification with career roles are all important elements of career dynamics. Too much discrepancy between career role enactment and career role identification may have negative effects on job performance, job satisfaction, and psychological well-being (Fugate & Kinicki, 2008). Subsequently, this can have major consequences for career role enactment in terms of motivation or performance (Hall, 2002). Therefore, the identification with each of these career roles was the measurement target for the CRIQ instrument described next.

Career Role Identification

Differences between role taking and role pressure acquire additional meaning when looking at the way people relate to and identify with their own roles. Enacted roles will not always be what a person identifies with and aspired roles may in reality be out of reach for all sorts of reasons. By career role enactment we mean the observed activities of a person in a job and their effects, fitting a specific role. However, people may feel

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23 attracted to, or strive for, roles that are not frequently (or not at all) enacted. In doing so, people can relate to career roles in multiple private ways as well.

Specifically, we define career role identification as ‘the mental act of identifying the career role as part of the self’. This can be done by elaborate self-construction (Holland, 1997), unreflected commitment (Brisbin & Savickas, 1994) or by external pressure. Career role identification is not publicly observable by definition, but a private event in the person’s mind. This ‘private’ career role identification can be a conscious identification as well as an unconscious preference. For instance, a person may aspire to work in the Director role and thus have a preference for strategic leadership, also when this position is still out of reach effectively. Or, one might unconsciously long for a role as Presenter, attracting attention and having influence on others, without knowledge of such a preference.

Measuring Career Role Identification

The purpose of this study was to develop a measure for career role identification, the Career Role Identification Questionnaire (CRIQ). Because career role identification is such a private matter, a reasonable way to access one’s identification with career roles is through the use of self-report measures. One of the challenges in constructing such measures is to prevent self-serving motives dominating the responses (Robins & John, 1997). As previous research has shown, a high number of people tend to identify to a considerable extent with all career roles, possibly fearing to present a narrow profile that might reduce career chances (Hoekstra & Groen, 2008).

Self-presentation Tactics

People tend to enhance one or more self-components or defend themselves against negative views using serving motives such as enhancement and self-protection (Alicke & Sedikides, 2009). Furthermore, self-serving motives enable a form of damage control and operate when a part of the self is threatened to drop below a tolerated point. Under influence of both self-enhancement and self-protection processes, people can (consciously as well as unconsciously) adopt self-presentation tactics while answering to self-report measures.

An important self-presentation tactic is socially desirable responding, which is responding in such a way to portray oneself as appealing. This response set includes faking answers and impression management (Paulhus, 1991). The tendency towards socially desirable responding is even more likely to occur when the evaluation is perceived as important to one’s self-concept and global self-esteem (Alicke & Sedikides, 2011; Paulhus et al 2003). As career roles are situated in a work context, and respondents are likely to feel evaluated in their work, the tendency to respond in a socially desirable way must be considered very likely.

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The Influence of Self-presentation Tactics

There are a number of ways in which self-presentation tactics can influence the rating process and lead to biases in self-reports. First, self-presentation motives may reflect roles that people aim, or hope for (Alicke & Sedikides, 2009; Paulhus, 1991). Second, identification with a career role may (un-)consciously be influenced by the importance that a role has been given in the employment context in such a way that a general base level is required by the company. This is, for example, the case for health care institutions where the Guide-role is prevalent. Third, identification with an already acquired role may unconsciously enhance identification-tendencies as one is already familiar with that role. Related, general attractiveness of a career role may influence personal attractivity ratings above personally felt identification. For instance, ratings of the Director role will presumably seldom be very low among management, because such scores might reflect a lack of ambition which is socially undesirable for them. In the rating process, a consequence can be that the self-presenting person will focus more on the image of the role than on one’s own feelings about the role. As such, self-presentation can be used if employees have specific goals in portraying themselves or wish to impress others. Self-report measures include a self-evaluative component; therefore numerous individual differences possibly play a role in self-presentation biases such as narcissism, self-concept certainty or clarity and self-handicapping (Morf, Horvath, & Torchetti, 2011; Paulhus & John, 1998; Sedikides & Gregg, 2008; Sedikides & Strube, 1997).

Minimizing the Effects of Self-presentation Tactics

Overall, Likert type scales are the dominant measurement tool in questionnaires (Ogden & Lo, 2011). To minimize self-presentation tactics and avoid response style problems, use of other types of scales, such as the forced-choice, ipsative measures have been suggested. This technique results in Forced Choice Ipsative Data (FCID) (Edwards, 1953). Ipsative data however have the clear disadvantage of implying scale interdependence. Scales are no longer measured independently (Meade, 2004), which poses serious problems when analyzing the scales, especially with multivariate techniques (e.g., Baron, 1996; Cornwell & Dunlap, 1994).

To overcome problems of both ipsative and traditional Likert scales and still reap some of the intended advantages of the choice paradigm, we developed a new item format designated the Comparison Awareness Inducing Technique (CAIT). Applying the CAIT people are free to respond on the items as they would on a Likert scale, responding to every single word-item on a [1 – 7] range without forced comparison between the items, thus avoiding the problems of forced choice measures. At the same time, some awareness of comparison between different items is induced in respondents by presenting the items in a threefold set. For the CAIT, on each page three word-items representing different roles are presented in the form of a triangle imposed on a circle. The respondent is asked to rate each of the three items by indicating a preferred

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25 position for each of the three items. By the threefold presentation of the word-items a comparative mindset is thought to be induced in respondents so as to mitigate self-presentation tendencies. A more elaborate description will be presented on the following pages.

The Comparison Awareness Inducing Technique (CAIT)

The Comparison Awareness Induction Technique (CAIT) is based on a number of assumptions about the item response process. First, responses to Likert items often fall prey to acquiescence (Dittrich, Francis, Hatzinger & Katzenbeisser, 2007). Consciously or unconsciously respondents tend to agree with seemingly desirable items and disagree with undesirable items, engaging in socially desirable responding (for an overview see Zickar & Gibby, 2006). Thus, on any rating scale representing single dimension scale-points in the direction of the socially desirable scale-end will tend to be overrated. Second, when actively comparing equally desirable or equally undesirable options, respondents will be induced to moderate strong preferences and extreme ratings. And third, even if active comparison is not required, the presence of comparable options will enhance awareness of relative differences and thus moderate the ratings of options unless they are very strongly preferred or rejected. In comparison, previous research has shown high mean scores when asking for identification as well as high correlations between scales with career roles with a Likert method (Hoekstra & Groen, 2008). With the CAIT, we intend to induce comparison awareness, resulting in a downward rating adjustment. We expect that this comparison will result in lower overall ratings and increased differences between the item-words within item-sets.

As Figure 1 shows, the CAIT provides three word-items at once, introducing comparison awareness between options. Hence, chances for one desirability dimension to dominate the mind-set of the respondent are supposed to diminish. Even if such differences are not consciously processed and weighted in the response process, the format will contribute to avoidance of simple desirability connotations. The number three is thought to be crucial here. For example, presenting two options simultaneously, the respondent will most likely enter the mind-set of an either-or script. The comparison leads to the association with choice and competition between items. However, presenting three word-items instead is thought to balance the options within the given context (career roles). Simultaneously identification is being operationalized as being part of the self, by asking participants: ‘To what extent do roles relate to you as a person’ (Expert, Guide, and Inspirer role). As a result, we believe this fits the assumption that through comparison awareness people show less desirable responding patterns and will more inclined to balance extreme scores.

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Figure 1 Example Item Comparison Awareness Inducing Technique. People are asked to rate to what

extent each of the presented words relate to them as a person. The item “Know” refers to the Expert role, “Connect” to the Guide role, and “Stimulate” to the Inspirer Role, respectively.

Graphic item presentation

As shown in figure 1 the word-items in an item-set are graphically positioned on a circle in such a way that they form an equilateral triangle. The orientation within the circle of the item-set triangle is chosen randomly, to make sure the location of the word-items does not influence the reported ratings. As starting position, each item is shown with a rating value of 4, which is the scale-midpoint. Respondents can vary each rating value independently between [1 - 7].

Item-sets as threesomes

An item-set consists of three word-items that are simultaneously shown to participants. Participants are asked to rate all three word-items on their own 7-point Likert scale. There are no constraints how to answer the three individual items. All three word-items can be rated on their own 7-point Likert scale by moving the points to the inner or outer part of the circle.

Item combinations

The number of word-items, and hence item-sets, were chosen such that full competition between all different scales was realized. Thus, the six role scales are pitched against each other an equal number of times.

CHAPTER 2

To what extend do the following words relate to you as a person.

1 = does not relate to me 7 = strongly relates to me

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27 Development of the Career Role Identification Questionnaire (CRIQ)

The Career Role Identification Questionnaire (CRIQ) was constructed, using the CAIT, to measure identification with each of the six career roles in the Career Roles Model (Hoekstra, 2011).

Generating word-items

Word-items were developed using existing literature and specification of the career role construct (Hoekstra, 2006: Hoekstra, 2011). Starting point was the VLR-30 (a Dutch 30 item-survey for career roles) which was originally developed by Hoekstra (2006). Furthermore, concept definition and presumed effects of the six different career roles served as the basis for word-item generation. All generated word-items were intended to reflect the career role in actions or outcomes. With the career role definitions as guidelines, the first and the third author generated as many verbs (for role-typical actions) and nouns (for role-typical outcomes) as possible to generate a large item-pool. Word reduction

The initial item pool with both verbs and nouns was reviewed by experts to maximize content validity (DeVellis, 1991). Six experts in career development and psychology were provided with the pool of word-items along with the construct definition for the career roles. The experts were asked to rate each word on a scale from 1 (not representative) to 5 (completely representative). To remain in the pool a word-item had to be rated a three or higher by each of the experts. Subsequently, the five nouns and the five verbs for each of the six career roles that received the highest average scores from the experts, and fitted best, were used for further scale development (see Table 2). This resulted in a total of 60 word-items.

Table 2 Mean Scores Expert-ratings for Each Career Role

Maker Expert Presenter Guide Director Inspirer

Verbs 4.73 4.67 4.20 4.83 4.70 4.70

Nouns 4.30 4.63 4 4.54 4.77 4.23

Total 4.52 4.65 4.10 4.69 4.73 4.50

Note. Ratings range from 1-5.

Operationalizing item-sets

The five verbs and nouns representing each scale were all used twice in constructing item-sets, in order to have a full competition for the six career role scales. This resulted in a total of 120 word-items composing 40 item-sets of three word-items each. For each item-set, three word-items from different career role scales are used. Word-items referring to the same career role scale were never used in one item-set. For every word-item in the word-item-set we asked participants to rate on a 7-point scale: ‘To what extent do

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the following words relate to you as a person’ ranging from 1 (I do not relate to this word) to 7 (I strongly relate to this word). Examples of (translated) word-items are ‘Make’(Maker role), ‘Know’(Expert role), ‘Show’ (Presenter role), ‘Connect’ (Guide role), ‘Control’ (Director role) and ‘Stimulate’ (Inspirer role). All Likert rating combinations are possible in every item-set (for example, 2-2-2, 5-3-1 or 2-6-7, see Figure 2).

Overview of the Studies

In the first study we investigated the characteristics of the CAIT, exploring the CAIT-assumptions comparison awareness and sufficiently independent answering. The second study focused on reliability and construct validity of the CRIQ assessing internal consistency and factorial structure of the CRIQ with exploratory factor analyses.

Figure 2 Example Item Comparison Awareness Inducing Technique People are asked to rate to what

extent each of the presented words relate to them as a person. The item “Know” refers to the Expert role, “Connect” to the Guide role, and “Stimulate” to the Inspirer Role, respectively.

CHAPTER 2

To what extend do the following words relate to you as a person.

1 = does not relate to me 7 = strongly relates to me

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Study 1: A Simulation Study of Scale Independence

The goal of study 1 was to test the assumptions behind the CAIT. The first assumption is that the scores for the six role-scales are non-ipsative, rendering sufficiently independent scales. Ipsative measurements result in negative correlations between scales. This follows from the notion that the sum-score of each respondent is a constant, and therefore has zero variance. Because the variance of the sum equals the sum of the variances and covariances, some, if not all of the covariances should be negative to cancel the positive sum of the variances. The correlations will also be negative, at least their mean. If all scale-variances are about equal the mean correlation is about equal to -1/(k-1), where k is the number of scales. For example, with two scales a correlation of -1 is found between them, while the mean inter-correlation between three scales will be around -.50. It is important to note that these correlations are an artifact of the ipsative measurement method. The question is whether this method will by itself generate negative correlations between scales as does the ipsative method. As stated, we suppose this will not be the case. The second assumption is that the semi-comparative response format leads to moderation of all-out desirable responding, in turn causing low to medium correlations between items within sets (i.e. from different role scales).

The assumption behind the ‘awareness inducing’ method is that, although the respondent is free to rate each item on a 1 - 7 Likert scale, the three word-items in an item-set will presumably not be rated independent of each other. We suppose that each word-item is rated in comparison to the other two word-items in the item-set, resulting in some kind of ‘weighted’ scores. This line of reasoning has two implications for the characteristics of surveys using CAIT: First, the data should show no negative correlations within item-sets as would be the case for ipsative data because with CAIT people are free to rate word-items independent of each other. Furthermore, through comparison awareness word-items within item-sets should show low to medium positive correlations. Finally, we expect that word-items from the same scales show moderate to high correlations between same role word-items over different item-sets confirming consistency of the scale. This leads to the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1. There are no negative correlations between different scales.

Hypothesis 2. Within item-sets, presented word-items have lower or equal correlations compared to same scale word- items between-sets.

Hypothesis 3. Between item-sets, same scale word-items show moderate to high correlations (.30 < r > .60).

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Method Study 1

To test the CAIT- assumptions a program was written by the second author (in DelphiXE2) to perform a number of simulations. The program generated uncorrelated data resembling the data-structure from the CRIQ, N = 235, 40 item-sets consisting of 3 word-items each, constituting six scales. Although uncorrelated, a number of restrictions and parameters apply to the generated simulation-data. First, the upper and lower bounds for the sum-score allowed could be set to any value from 3 to 21, resulting in intervals with a range of 0 (both bounds set to the same value) to 18 (bounds set to the interval [3-21]). Second, the variability of preferences for the six scales, and (independently) the variability of the word-items within each scale, could be varied. The ‘comparison awareness’ is simulated by generating three ratings for the word-items independently on the basis of preference for the scales, and then adjusting them to the given range and standard deviation of the sum-score. The simulation-data is used to (a) test the CAIT-assumptions in a simulated data-set with uncorrelated scales and (b) compare the simulated results for different parameters, with the CRIQ-results from the empirical sample. The found differences can be indicative for the ‘true state of mind’ when answering the CAIT.

Results Study 1

Table 3 shows the results of multiple simulated data-sets varying in item-set interval ranges. For comparison, the final row of table 3 shows the values found in the empirical sample (Study 2). As Table 3 shows, for fairly ipsative conditions (range 3 - 7) negative overall correlations between the six scales were found. However, with a relatively small range of allowable sum-scores of the item-sets (range > 9) negative between scales correlations disappear. These results are comparable for all values of the between-scales and within-scales variances, within reasonable boundaries. Furthermore, the mean between-set correlation for word-items of the same scale remains .33 overall, which indicates that the six scales are reliable (note that the value is the mean correlation between two word-items, not a reliability coefficient alpha). The mean between-set correlation for word-items of a different scale is slightly negative in the near-ipsative condition and rises to low positive values. The mean within-set word-item correlation is close to -.50 in the near-ipsative condition, as expected, and becomes positive when the interval range increases. The mean correlation between scales is close to -.20 in the near-ipsative condition, as expected, and becomes positive for larger interval ranges. Altogether, it seems fair to conclude that this procedure generates moderate correlations for the six scales when there is no range restriction for the item-set [3 - 21] and considerable range within item-sets [1 - 7].

Hypothesis 1. There are no negative correlations between different scales.

In the simulation that resemble the empirical data most, in mean and in standard

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31 deviation of item-scores and item-sets, a mean r = .21 over all scales is found confirming hypothesis 1.

Hypothesis 2. Within item-sets, presented word-items have lower or equal correlations compared to same scale word- items between-sets.

In the simulation that resemble the empirical data most, in mean and in standard deviation of item-scores and item-sets, a within-set of r = .22 is found, which is similar to the empirical value of r = .26. These values are lower than the between item-set same scale word-item r =.34 in the simulation study and r = .48 in the empirical study. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 is confirmed.

Hypothesis 3. Between item-sets, same scale word-items show moderate to high correlations (.30 < r > .60).

In the simulation that resembled the empirical data most, a between item-set same scale word-item r = .34 is found which is slightly lower than the empirical value of r = .48. Both results fall in the expected range of correlations, therefore Hypothesis 3 is accepted.

To a large extent the results support our assumptions. In the next study we test the assumptions in an empirical sample and evaluate and compare the empirical sample to the simulation-study.

Table 3 Generated Simulated Results Varying Degrees of Ipsativity.

Range interval Mean item-score SD item-score Mean sum item-set SD item-set mean r within-sets (on item level) Mean r between-sets same scale (on item level) Mean r between-sets different scale (on item level) Mean r scales over all scales (scale level) 3 4.37 1.16 13.11 0.64 -0.43 0.33 -0.06 -0.19 5 4.37 1.27 13.10 1.51 -0.21 0.29 -0.05 -0.14 7 4.44 1.39 13.33 2.04 -0.08 0.31 -0.04 -0.07 9 4.49 1.48 13.47 2.58 0.06 0.33 -0.01 0.06 11 4.52 1.57 13.57 3.17 0.22 0.34 0.04 0.21 13 4.54 1.59 13.65 3.32 0.25 0.36 0.05 0.21 15 4.66 1.73 14.03 4.05 0.42 0.34 0.12 0.40 17 4.51 1.74 13.57 4.08 0.42 0.37 0.13 0.39 19 4.36 1.78 13.10 4.27 0.46 0.37 0.14 0.44 19 4.90 1.55 14.75 3.20 0.26 0.48 0.28 0.54

Note. N = 235. The last row shows results found in the empirical sample.