The Differential Effect of Career Anchor Profiles on the Relationship between Career Plateau and Turnover Intention

Abstract

無中文摘要Career plateau is a situation that individuals will face sooner or later in their career life. It generally leads to negative outcomes such as dissatisfaction toward the job, low organizational commitment, and even worse high turnover intention and turnover rate. In this study, the researcher intended to discover the relationship between career plateau, turnover intention and career anchors to help resolve the talent management problem. Therefore, two hypotheses were proposed. First, career plateau had a relationship with turnover intention. Second, career anchor profiles had a moderating effect on the relationship between career plateau and turnover intention. A quantitative research was conducted and the data was collected through online questionnaires. The participants in this study were the current employees in Taiwan who have been working for at least one year in private sectors. The final number of valid responses was 412. After the statistical analysis, three clusters: low career pursuers, mid-career pursuers and high career pursuers, were generated. The result demonstrated an individual’s career development stages. In the beginning, individuals focus more on the stability/security and lifestyle anchors. After accumulation of experiences and explored their career, individuals developed into mid-career pursuers who paid great attention to technical/functional competence and service/ dedication to a cause anchors. Finally, when they were well developed in their career and became the high career pursuers, the general managerial competence and entrepreneurial creativity seem to be the most important anchors at the stage. The effects of the three cluster profiles on the relationship between career plateau and turnover intention also support the aforementioned findings.