SUCCESS IN A MANAGEMENT TRAINEESHIP CONTEXT
Master thesis, M.Sc., specialization Human Resource Management University Groningen, Faculty Economics and Business
February 23, 2015 MARJOLEIN GEURTZEN Student number: 1912682 Eendrachtskade zuidzijde 12-16 9726 CW Groningen tel.: +31 (0) 653853662 e-mail: marjoleingeurtzen@gmail.com Supervisor E. Molleman University of Groningen
ARE YOU BORN TO SUCCEED? – THE IMPACT OF PERSONALITY TRAITS, GENERAL COGNITIVE ABILITY, GENDER, AND JOB-RELATED TENURE ON CAREER SUCCESS
IN A MANAGEMENT TRAINEESHIP CONTEXT
ABSTRACT
This paper investigates the critical factors that management trainees require in order to be successful within their careers. A new approach, focuses on the sponsored-mobility perspective providing a unique study as predictors of career success have mainly been studied by means of a contest-mobility lens. Literature review identified these predictors as the Big Five personality traits, general cognitive ability, gender and job-related tenure. Predictor scores were obtained from a sample of 102 management trainees from Company X. Unfortunately, at a late stage of the study it became clear that for several individual level variables only cohort level scores could be used. Multi-level analysis was performed and results suggested that emotional stability, conscientiousness, openness to experience and job-related tenure made statistically significant contributions. It is remarkable that openness to experience proved to have a negative relationship with career success in contrast to the other statistically significant predictors. The results follow from the fact that it is burdensome to predict individual career success based on group level predictors, which is concurrently the main limitation of this study.
1. INTRODUCTION
The war for talent is on! Since its recognition in the early 2000s the war for talent has been discussed in various workforce trend reviews. Until now it remains a hot topic and companies are concerned with their ability to meet leadership demands for the future (Church & Christopher, 2013). Therefore, it is important for organizations to identify so called ‘high-potentials’ and develop them to be able to fulfill these future leadership positions, which will significantly impact the organizational success or failure (McDonnell, Lamare, Gunnigle, & Lavelle, 2010). The companies studied by Silzer and Church (2009: 382) identify high-potential as: ‘the potential to effectively move into top/senior management roles’. Special talent management programs exist to attract, develop, deploy and retain this talent in order to meet future business needs and accomplish strategic objectives (Silzer & Church, 2009). These talent management programs are very popular nowadays among highly educated Dutch graduates and research showed that over 60% of the visitors of a career event in Utrecht consider a talent management program as the best start of their career (Carrière, 2011). These programs are extremely popular because organizations devote a lot of resources to high-potentials for them to eventually end up in high managerial positions. These ‘organizational sponsorship’1 activities (management traineeships) are for instance: supervisor support, training and skill development opportunities (Thomas, Eby, Sorensen, & Feldman, 2005). Despite the popularity and the need for management traineeships, are they considered to be effective? What are the critical factors of a high-potential regarding his/her career success?
Personality traits have been found to be stable predictors of career success as careers develop over time by one’s lasting attitudes and behaviors (Boudreau, Boswell, Judge, & Bretz, 2001; Seibert, Crant, & Kraimer, 1999). Previous research also identified gender and job-related tenure as predictors of career success and will therefore, together with personality traits, be included in the present study (Powell & Mainiero, 1992; Melamed ,1995; Judge, Cable, Boudreau, & Bretz, 1995; Baron, Baron, Davis-Blake and Bielby, 1986; Cox & Harquail, 1991; Gutteridge, 1973; Jaskolka, Beyer, & Trice, 1985; Judge & Bretz, 1994; Pfeffer & Ross, 1982; Whitely, Dougherty, & Dreher, 1991).
1
The focus of this research is on a large Dutch organization. It is a leader in its market and counts over 30.000 employees. For privacy reasons, the organization will be referred to as Company X. The company offers six traineeships including one management traineeship, which was established around eight years ago. Throughout these years the company employed 198 management trainees. Twice a year, a group of around 10 management trainees starts with their talent management program. Recently, the company started to assess this program in terms of effectiveness (e.g. does this program deliver the demanded future leaders?). This study will complement the present evaluation of the program as it aims to identify the critical factors of successful management trainees. The following research questions are addressed:
RQ1: “Are personality traits and general cognitive ability the critical factors of management trainees that results in their career success?”
RQ2: “Do gender and job-related tenure influence the career success of management trainees?”
In order to answer the aforementioned research questions, literature will be reviewed in the following section. The methodology applied in this study will be presented in section 3. Followed by section 4, which will provide the results of the performed analyses and section 5 concludes with a discussion, conclusion and indicators for future research.
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In this section, the main concepts of the study will be defined and literature concerning career success and personality traits will be reviewed.
Career Success
with his or her career, which is partially based on objective indicators’ (Wayne, Liden, Kraimer, & Graf, 1999: 579). In the present research, the focus is on objective career success because these measures are not easily influenced by the perceptions of the management trainee. Subjective career success on the other hand is subject to the person´s state of mind as it measures career success by the management trainee’s self-perception. For this reason, objective career success is preferred. Although it is recognized that there are two components of career success, the wording ‘’career success’’ is applied in the coming sections to include one component of the concept, namely objective career success and not subjective career success.
As illustrated in the introduction, this study has a specific context: a management traineeship, which needs to be considered since it is the bases of the study.
Identifying the study’s context
Studies concerning upward mobility are of significant importance for career success since employees who are capable of climbing up the organizational hierarchy are considered as successful and possibly see themselves as successful (Thomas et al., 2005). There are two systems identified in previous research for upward mobility: contest mobility and sponsored mobility (Turner, 1960). Contest mobility involves employees making promotion due to their own abilities and contributions to organizational performance. ´The sponsored-mobility perspective suggests that established elites pay special attention to those members who are deemed to have high-potential and then provide sponsoring activities to them to help them win the competition´ (Thomas et al., 2005: 369). Career sponsorship is the amount of sponsorship that employees obtain from senior managers and mentors inside the organization.
Case study. Within the present case study, trainees are intensively supported by a
supervisor and a management development advisor during their 2 year traineeship. Moreover, the trainee will be assigned to a mentor, which is an executive board member or a senior manager.
Within talent management programs it is common that high-potentials are assigned to a mentor. It was found by Allen, Eby, Poteet, Lentz and Lima (2004) that mentored protégés have a higher level of career success than non-mentored protégés. This is not surprising since career-related mentoring is intended to prepare the protégé for making developments in his/her career. Accordingly, literature shows that aspects of management traineeships like mentoring and other sponsoring activities have positive influences on career success. But does this external support weaken personality traits as predictors of career success? According to trait activation theory, a situation needs to be relevant for traits in order to express trait-relevant behavior. The strength of a situation is important here since strong situations include clear behavioral demands where the results of behavior are clearly agreed upon and shared. Consequently, individuals will not significantly differ in the way they respond. On the other hand, weak situations are considered with more unclear behavioral demands and will result in more variation in behaviors among individuals (Tett & Guterman, 2000; Mischel, 1973). Since the work environment of management trainees involves these ambiguous expectations, personality traits are expected to be significant predictors of career success despite the fact that there is external support for all of them.
Personality Traits
Emotional Stability is a prominent trait in nearly every measure of personality. When one
is found to be emotionally stable, he or she is able to balance feelings and emotions, feels confident and has the impression of having situations under control. Therefore emotionally stable people are better in mastering stressful situations and view problems rationally (Judge, Higgins, Thoresen, & Barrick, 1999). Thus, individuals scoring low on emotional stability usually are inadequate when it comes to positive psychological adjustment. Therefore, emotional stability is expected to be positively related to career success, since emotional stability and confidence are likely to increase job performance and facilitate effective career management (Thomas et al., 2005; Judge et al., 1999). In addition, it was found by Judge, Bono, and Gerhardt (2002) that being emotionally unstable (neurotic) was the only personality trait that was negatively related to leadership. Though, leadership is not the same as career success, it should be noted in this study as trainees in this case are supposed to become future leaders within the organization.
Management trainees in general have a demanding job where performances are tracked and where it is expected that, you as a trainee, experience growth. This can lead to stress which the trainee needs to be able to cope with during his/her entire career. Therefore Company X favors trainees that are emotionally stable. Due to previous findings and the (management traineeship) context of this study, the following is hypothesized:
Hypothesis 1: Emotional stability is positively related to career success in a management traineeship context.
Extraversion. According to Watson and Clark (1997: p.769), ‘extraverts are more
Hypothesis 2: Extraversion is positively related to career success in a management traineeship context.
Openness to experience, is best described by intellectance (philosophical and
intellectual) and unconventionality (imaginative, autonomous, and nonconforming) (Judge et al., 1999). Individuals who score high on openness to experience are more creative and unconventional (Thomas et al., 2005). These attributes are expected to be positively related to career success in certain professions where creativity and teamwork are important. However, they can also hinder career success where creativity and unconventionality are not desired (e.g. production work). Regarding leadership, it was found that openness to experience has a positive relationship (Judge et al, 1999). An open mindset is highly valued within management traineeships since it can lead to new and valuable projects. Although previous literature does not provide a clear direction of the relationship between openness to experience and career success, as it depends on the nature of the job, it is expected to be positive due to the context of this study. The following is hypothesized:
Hypothesis 3: Openness to experience is positively related to career success in a management traineeship context.
Agreeableness is a trait that includes cooperativeness (trusting of others and caring) and
likeability (good-natured, cheerful, and gentle) (Judge et al., 1999). This personality trait might be positively related to career success because it can cause better working relationships (Seibert et al., 1999). Better working relationships could relate to better networking skills which have found to have a positive impact on career success. The most successful managers in the study of Luthans, Hodgetts, and Rosenkrantz (1988), spent 70 percent more time on networking than their less successful colleagues.
due to the fact that agreeableness was found to have a minor positive impact on leadership the following is hypothesized:
Hypothesis 4: Agreeableness is positively related to career success in a management traineeship context.
Conscientiousness proves to be the personality trait that has the most consistent
relationship with job performance (Barrick & Mount, 1991). Even though job performance is not the same as career success it provides an indication of the nature of the relationship. Conscientiousness is marked by three components: achievement orientation (hardworking and persistent), dependability (responsible and careful), and orderliness (planful and organized) (Judge et al., 1999). Individuals who score high on conscientiousness are more achievement oriented, obtain a high degree of self-control, and are more persistent. The importance of conscientiousness at work is found by various researchers (Hogan & Ones, 1997; Wanberg, Watt & Rumsey 1996; Judge, Martocchio, & Thoresen, 1997) and it is therefore predicted that conscientiousness is positively related to career success. The following is hypothesized:
Hypothesis 5: Conscientiousness is positively related to career success in a management traineeship context.
Since previous research indicates that general cognitive ability is a consistent predictor of job performance and career advancement, it will be included in the present study as a possible predictor of career success (Schmidt, Ones, & Hunter, 1992; Dreher & Bretz, 1991; Howard & Bray, 1988).
General cognitive ability (GCA), like conceptual/strategic thinking, intellect, dealing
Moreover, numerous studies provided evidence that general mental ability positively predict earnings (Gottfredson & Crouse, 1986; Siegel & Ghiselli, 1971). Therefore the following is hypothesized:
Hypothesis 6: General cognitive ability is positively related to career success in a management traineeship context.
Additional predictors: gender and job-related tenure
Literature regarding career success has often examined the relation between gender and career success in the past. Powell and Mainiero (1992) reviewed the literature and found that women experience various factors and constraints while making decisions concerning their careers and relationships with others. As Company X strives for an equal distribution of male and female management trainees, it is interesting to investigate if gender influences career success and gender is therefore added as a possible predictor of career success.
Management trainees are considered high-potentials, since they possess the right qualities to climb up the organization ladder. These qualities are expected to better predict career success than a management trainee's related tenure, however, to investigate whether this is true job-related tenure has to be included as a possible predictor of career success as well.
Gender. According to Powell and Mainiero (1992) as opposed to men, women are
similar access to training and development opportunities, they probably won’t receive the necessary training to prepare them for high paying/status jobs since they don’t hold positions that are stepping stones to these jobs. But within this case study, there are no differences between men and women regarding initial job levels since they all start at the same job level with the same pay and the same training and development opportunities. However, due to the fact that women face more constraints during their careers than men do, the following is hypothesized:
Hypothesis 7: Men have more career success than women in a management traineeship context.
Job-related tenure. The finding that job-related tenure is positively related to career
success by previous research is not surprising because when one experiences a long tenure, he or she has more time to climb up the corporate ladder than one having a short tenure (Cox & Harquail, 1991; Gutteridge, 1973; Jaskolka et al., 1985; Judge & Bretz, 1994; Pfeffer & Ross, 1982; Whitely et al., 1991). Management trainees that started their careers earlier than other management trainees are expected to have realized more promotions. Thus the following is hypothesized:
Hypothesis 8: Job-related tenure is positively related to career success in a management traineeship context.
FIGURE 1
Hypothesized Model of Personality Traits, GCA, Gender, and Job-related tenure on Career Success
METHOD
The following section describes the applied procedure of data gathering and data analysis. Fourteen large Dutch organizations were approached by email proposing the present research project accompanied with an invitation to participate once interested. Three companies showed significant interest in the study and face to face meetings were arranged to discuss the research project. Due to various reasons (e.g. data concerns, previously held research) two companies were not suitable for the study resulting in the contribution of Company X.
Sample and Procedures
non-western origin. The minimum tenure of a management trainee was 6 months, and the maximum 74 months (SD = 21.59, M = 34.42). On average, management trainees had earned 0.72 promotions in their career with a minimum of zero promotions and a maximum of three. Promotion is moderately skewed (0.96) and shows a flat distribution with a kurtosis of -.06.
The selection procedure of Company X regarding its management traineeship program consisted of 4 phases (see Table 1).
TABLE 1
Components of the Selection Procedure
Selection phase Description
1. Résumé and motivation letter check Evaluating the candidates past performances and motivation for the job and company. 2. E-Assessment The E-Assessment included a general
cognitive ability test and a personality questionnaire.
3. Selection conversation The selection conversation was held with a recruiter from the company and a
management development advisor.
4. Assessment The assessment entails a business case and a pecha kucha presentation.
For this study, data was exclusively retrieved from selection phase 2 (E-assessment) through contact with the by Company X contracted assessment center. The assessment center provided the requested data (Big Five and GCA) for all the management trainees that the company assessed (groups 1 till 13). Data concerning career success and demographics of the management trainees were retrieved from Company X through contact with the program manager of the traineeship. Both databases were digitally received as an Excel file and had to be converted into SPSS.
was considerably reduced with data available of just 13 cohorts. As a result, I couldn’t test most of my hypotheses since they are all based on an individual level. This would mean that I should rewrite my entire theory section and develop hypotheses such as ‘Being in an emotional stable cohort is positively related to career success in a management traineeship context’. To find sound arguments for such hypotheses would be very difficult and even if I would be able to do so, the number of observations (number of cohorts) would be 13. This number is too low to conduct meaningful statistical analyses.
This was certainly a frustrating and disappointing experience for me. Therefore I discussed the situation together with my supervisor and the director of the master program and concluded that I could continue my research as intended and that I have ´to make do with what I have´. For this reason, the way I tested most of my hypotheses is far from optimal. But the situation evolved in a way that was beyond my control. Because I received data on both the individual level and the cohort level, cohort data was disaggregated to the individual level before merging both databases. To correct for this, I used multilevel analyses in my regression analyses. Measures
Independent variables. Information on personality traits and cognitive general ability were
obtained from selection phase 2 executed by the contracted assessment center.
The Big Five Personality traits (Emotional Stability, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) were measured by the NEO-Personality Inventory on a 5-point-Likert scale (1= strongly disagree, 5= strongly agree) constructed by Costa and McCrae (1985). Each personality trait was measured by various items (see Table 2).
TABLE 2 Big Five Personality Trait Items
Emotional Stability Extraversion Openness to Experience Agreeableness Conscientiousness 1. Sobriety 1. Sociability 1. Imagination 1. Alacrity 1. Working
systematically 2. Task-oriented stress resistance 2. Dominance 2. Independent thinking 2. Trust 2. Self discipline
3. Relational stress resistance 3. Energy 3. Responsibility
General Cognitive Ability was measured by using 3 tests: verbal, numeric, and abstract, as constructed by the assessment center. The verbal test contained 40 items and had 4 answering possibilities. The numeric test included 30 items and 5 answering possibilities. The abstract test included 30 items and the respondents had to select 2 out of 6 answers. These tests together made up a final score on general cognitive ability. This was done through calculating the composite
score by using standardized scores and adding them up.
Gender. Males were coded with number zero and females were coded with the number one. Tenure in Months was measured based on counting the number of months between the date of hiring of the particular management trainee and the starting date of this study: 09/2014.
Dependent variable. Information on career success was obtained from Company X by
means of promotion rates.
Number of promotions was measured by the upward changes in job levels that management trainees obtained. All management trainees started at the same job level (1) and were able to earn
3 promotions up to job level 4.
Promotion rate was measured through dividing the number of promotions by organizational tenure in years (c.f., Kirchmeyer, 1998).
Analysis
As previously mentioned, most of my data was only available at the cohort level. Therefore, I also had to test most of my hypotheses at the cohort level and disaggregated the data accordingly. To correct for this I applied multilevel analysis which allows looking at different levels simultaneously, in my case: the trainee level and the cohort level (Snijders & Bosker, 1999).
4. RESULTS
In the following section, the empirical findings regarding the previously formulated hypotheses will be presented.
Preliminary analysis
Table 3 provides the means, standard deviations and correlations of all the predictors.
TABLE 3
Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlationsa,b
Variable Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. Promotion .72 .87 2. Promotion rate .16 .19 .94** 3. Emotional stability 2.84 .25 .52 .42 4. Extraversion 3.69 .24 .41 .53 .08 5. Openness to experience 3.33 .19 .08 .25 .16 .42 6. Agreeableness 3.08 .34 .05 .06 -.35 .31 -.16 7. Conscientiousness 3.47 .40 -.01 0.1 -.56* .50 .37 .62* 8. General cognitive ability 3.21 .64 -.74** -.66** -.25 -.43 -22 .09 .02 9. Gender .56 .50 .01 -.00 .21* .14 .11 -.09 -1.03 -1.22 10. Job-related tenure 34.42 21.59 .79** .66** .46 .35 .07 .08 -.05 -.82** .08 a
For variables: 1, 2, 9, and 10 N = 102 b For variables: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 N = 13
* p < .05 ** p < .01
TABLE 4
Means and Standard Deviations of the Predictors per Groupa
Independent variables Group Emotional
Stability
Extraversion Openness Agreeableness Conscientiousness GCA
# Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
1 3.04 0.96 3.78 0.33 3.24 0.58 3.06 0.67 3.14 0.73 1.90 0.25 2 2.94 0.58 3.56 0.91 3.18 0.61 2.69 0.84 3.05 0.48 2.67 0.78 3 2.83 0.59 3.78 0.68 3.11 1.01 3.69 1.06 3.73 0.70 2.59 0.91 4 3.32 0.71 3.37 0.72 3.49 0.48 2.98 0.97 2.97 0.89 3.17 0.77 5 3.10 1.10 3.93 0.53 3.38 0.94 2.73 0.84 3.32 0.93 2.90 0.50 6 2.97 0.57 4.05 0.68 3.60 0.94 3.38 0.75 4.24 0.57 3.33 0.82 7 3.09 0.52 4.00 0.76 3.56 0.63 2.68 0.74 3.13 0.47 2.68 0.72 8 2.53 0.89 3.76 0.47 3.35 0.94 3.28 1.11 3.97 0.62 3.27 0.69 9 2.43 0.94 3.54 0.65 3.40 0.79 2.99 0.78 3.74 0.79 2.76 0.66 10 2.68 0.91 3.85 0.64 3.15 1.01 3.64 0.71 3.52 0.88 4.04 0.68 11 2.71 0.87 3.58 0.54 3.55 0.78 2.98 1.47 3.68 1.09 3.89 0.77 12 2.76 0.36 3.29 0.55 3.17 0.55 2.92 0.69 3.14 0.30 4.10 0.71 13 2.94 0.44 3.31 0.35 2.96 0.33 2.84 0.48 2.99 0.30 4.36 0.49 a N = 13
As can be seen, the groups differ considerably regarding their personality traits. Conscientiousness shows the largest variation amongst the groups: group four having a mean of 2.97 whereas group six has a mean of 4.24 (a difference of 1.27). Openness to experience shows the least deviation between the groups with only a difference of 0.55. The distribution of men and women across groups also differs substantially. Group six for instance has a large percentage of women (78 %) whereas group nine barely has women (27 %).
TABLE 5
Means and Standard Deviations of the Dependent Variable and Job-related tenure per Groupa
Dependent Variable Career Success Job-related tenure
Group # Mean SD Mean SD
1 1.67 0.52 66.33 11.18 2 1.67 1.00 68.11 2.42 3 1.86 0.90 67 1.41 4 1.33 0.50 56.8 2.90 5 1.60 0.55 55.17 1.17 6 1.14 0.69 44.63 1.19 7 0.57 0.53 37.36 1.80 8 0.67 0.65 31.83 0.39 9 0.00 0.00 24.57 0.85 10 0.00 0.00 19.42 0.51 11 0.00 0.00 16.50 12.73 12 0.00 0.00 6.00 0.00 13 0.00 0.00 6.00 0.00 a N = 13
A one-way between-groups analysis of variance was conducted to explore the impact of groups on levels of promotion, as measured by the number of promotions. Subjects were divided into 13 groups. There was a statistically significant difference (F(12, 89) = 19.4, p < .01) for the 13 management trainee groups. Post-hoc comparisons using the Tukey HSD test indicated that groups 9 till 13 were significantly different from the other groups. The main reason for this is that those groups did not experience promotion up till now as these management trainees recently started their careers and did not conclude their management traineeship yet. It is not surprising that trainees who started their career earlier experience more promotions since they had more time. The effect size calculated by the eta squared was 0.73, which is considered as a large effect. Thus the strength of the difference between groups is considerably high.
Multi-level analysis
Multilevel analysis was used to assess the ability of the Big Five personality traits, general cognitive ability, gender and job-related tenure to predict the level of career success. The results with regard to the Big Five and GCA as predictors of career success are displayed in Table 6.
TABLE 6
Standardized Estimates of Fixed Effectsa
Parameter Estimate Std. Error t
Intercept .82 .06 14.47 Emotional Stability .67** .09 7.40 Extraversion -.06 .08 -.71 Openness to Experience -.32** .09 -3.77 Agreeableness -.05 .09 -.57 Conscientiousness .50** .13 3.73
General Cognitive Ability -.45** .06 -7.84
a N = 100
** p < .01
TABLE 7
Standardized Estimates of Fixed Effects including the Variables Gender and Job-related tenurea
Parameter Estimate Std. Error t
Intercept 1.01 .07 14.16 Emotional Stability .36** .11 3.20 Extraversion -.01 .08 -.19 Openness to Experience -.21* .08 -2.51 Agreeableness -.11 .09 -1.26 Conscientiousness .34** .13 2.65
General Cognitive Ability -.10 .11 -.95
Gender -.08 .05 -1.50 Job-related tenure .62** .16 3.88 a N = 100 * p < .05 ** p < .01
with a higher level of career success.
The relationship between general cognitive ability and career success was tested by hypothesis 6 and proved to be significant but contrary to this hypothesis, the sign of the weight is negative (see Table 6). Therefore, hypothesis 6 is not supported by the data as general cognitive ability was negatively related to career success.
The additional predictors, gender and job-related tenure were added to the model to test hypotheses 7 and 8. The relationship between gender and career success proved to be non-significant (see Table 7), so hypothesis 7 was not supported by the data. Job-related tenure on the other hand proved to have a significant relationship with career success and shows the predicted direction (see Table 7). So higher levels of job-related tenure are associated with higher levels of career success, therefore hypothesis 8 can be retained. There is however one remarkable result when adding job-related tenure to the model. All previously stated results, regarding the Big Five, remained about the same except for the predictor general cognitive ability. When job-related tenure is added, general cognitive ability proved to have a non-significant relationship with career success. In addition, the weight changed with +.30. Correlations were assessed between job-related tenure, general cognitive ability and career success and all proved to be significant (see Table 3).
Previously stated hypotheses were also tested by applying promotion rate as the dependent variable. The results indicated that all the predictors showed the same trend as for the number of promotions in place of the dependent variable.
5. DISCUSSION
The aim of this research was to identify the critical factors of management trainees, employed by Company X, that lead to their career success. The results indicate that these factors are partially consistent with prior research. Where Thomas et al. (2005), and Judge et al. (1999), found that nearly all the Big Five personality traits are positively related to career success (emotional stability, extraversion, openness to experience and conscientiousness), my research shows some deviating results.
individual career success. Despite the fact that, management trainees start their careers in groups, they are mentored and trained for their own individual career success. Nonetheless, the results show that emotional stability, openness to experience and conscientiousness at the cohort level proved to be statistically significant predictors of individual career success. Emotional stability and conscientiousness were both found to be positively related to career success as predicted (H1 and H5). Openness to experience however, showed a more remarkable result. Higher levels of openness to experience were found to be associated with lower levels of career success, as opposed to the prediction (H3). A possible explanation for this result is the nature of the work environment as stated by Judge et al (1999). Open personalities may be inclined to job hopping which is certainly not desired in the present context as the company devotes a significant amount of resources to train these management trainees to become future leaders. Perhaps, open minded management trainees left the company by own initiative resulting in a loss of possible promotions. This will in turn negatively affect career success. In addition, it was stated by Company X that an open mind is desired but that trendsetters do not survive within the company. For this reason, a certain level of openness is desired but high levels are not, which might explain the present finding. But this explanation is rather speculative since the openness scores were based at the cohort level. As for extraversion and agreeableness, no significant relationships were found between both predictors and career success. A reason for this could be the fact that Company X does not recruit and select candidates that score low on extraversion and are perceived to be introverts. The company believes that extraverts will perform better in their people oriented organization. Consequently, little variation would be expected in the present sample regarding extraversion scores and this reduces the likelihood of extraversion being able to predict career success. However, there is considerable variation in extraversion scores (see Table 3). Despite the variation in scores, all trainees can be considered as extraverts since the minimum score on extraversion is rather high (3.29). The fact that agreeableness does not predict career success is conceivable since individuals can be successful in their careers while being either friendly or unfriendly. Moreover, the management trainees already receive support from mentors and supervisors so sponsorship activities do not depend on how friendly or unfriendly a management trainee behaves.
reported general cognitive ability is related with lower career success. Since general cognitive ability, job-related tenure and career success are highly correlated, it can be stated that management trainees with a long job-related tenure have lower general cognitive ability scores than management trainees with a short job-related tenure. In other words, the threshold for the general cognitive ability test seems to have changed over time and has become stricter. After consulting Company X about this finding, they acknowledged the fact that they increased their threshold for the general cognitive ability test.
When adding gender and job-related tenure to the model, gender does not show statistical significance in relation to career success whereas job-related tenure proves to be highly statistically significant. The findings partially confirm the expectations as gender does not influence career success whereas job-related tenure is positively related to career success. The fact that gender does not influence career success in a management traineeship can be clarified by the seasons of a woman’s life, identified by Bardwick (1980). Bardwick re-examined Levinson’s (1978) model of male adult maturity in a woman’s context. Three stages are identified where the first stage is about early adult transition in which women center their attention on marriage and plan adult commitments. This first stage occurs between the ages 17 and 28. The second stage is the settling down period and is considered as a unique phase since it differs for the lives of men and women. In this stage women’s choices are guided by their biological clock of parenthood and takes place when women are between their thirties and fortieths. The last stage occurs between women’s fortieths and fifties and is a promising phase for women that pay little attention to their needs regarding relationships. These women develop into more independent women and are more concentrated on their career. Within the present study, most management trainees are considered to be in their early adult transition stage since candidates are mostly selected after they finished their master’s degree of university. So women are not yet influenced by concerns of family life and are able to focus on their careers just like men which explains the aforementioned finding.
Limitations and future research
The main limitation of this study is that individual level predictors were measured at the cohort level. This reduced the sample size in such a way that statistical analyses would be meaningless. It altered the entire research and in some cases resulted in findings that were hard to explain. Therefore, future research needs to perform analysis on an individual level since cohort characteristics presumably do not predict individual career success. Thus, Company X is encouraged to perform the present study as it was intended: with all the variables on an individual level.
Another point of attention for future research is to include data that contains promotion velocity; the time it takes a management trainee to move from one job level to another, as was done by Jansen (2006). This will increase the accuracy of the results as it provides the pace of career success.
Moreover, future research should conduct the present study in both a sponsored-mobility setting and a contest-mobility setting in order to examine the impact of the study’s context. This would yield important information regarding the effectiveness of management traineeships.
As this study made use of data from management trainees employed by Company X, the practical advice is only applicable for the management traineeship of Company X. As mentioned earlier, management traineeships differ across companies as do the recruitment and selection processes for those traineeships. Therefore, the generalizability of the findings to management traineeships in other companies is limited.
Conclusion
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Carriere, traineeships populair onder starters, 2011
http://carriere.blog.nl/actualiteit/2011/10/25/traineeships-populair-onder-starters
