Career anchors and their impact on the job satisfaction of general managers and functional-level managers in four professional management organizations

• Main Author: Cortez, Jaime V.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2005
• Subjects: Executives > Job satisfaction; Business enterprises; Professions; Business Administration, Management, and Operations
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/97; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_doctoral/article/1096/viewcontent/TG03978_F_Partial.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study is a validation of Scheins (1978; 1990; 1996) Career Anchor Theory --- that theory concerned with the study of peoples self-perceived talents, abilities, motives, needs, attitudes, and values that serve as guides, constraints, stabilizers, and integrators of careers. Using a sample of 117 participants (39 general managers and 78 functional-level managers in the fields of human resource management, marketing management, and production and operations management) from four professional management organizations in the Philippines, it profiled managers of Philippine businesses and industries according to their inclinations to the eight career anchor types of technical-functional competence, general management competence, entrepreneurial creativity, autonomy/independence, stability security, service/dedication to a cause, lifestyle, and pure challenge. Founded on the congruency or person-job fit model of job satisfaction, this study also modeled the relationship between career anchor inclinations and job satisfaction. It found job satisfaction to be positively related to inclination to the service/dedication to a cause anchor among general managers, and to inclination to the stability/security anchor among functionallevel managers. Moreover, it found that the job satisfaction of human resource managers is positively related to inclination to the technical-functional competence and pure challenge anchors, and negatively related to inclination to the general management competence anchor. On the other hand, the job satisfaction of marketing managers was seen to be positively related to the autonomy/independence and stability/security anchors, and negatively related to the entrepreneurial creativity anchor; while that of production and operations managers, to be positively related to inclination to the stability/ security anchor. Career anchors 13 De La Salle Professional Schools, Inc. The study also tested the differential impact of single (primary) and multiple (primary and secondary) anchors to job satisfaction, compared levels of job satisfaction among groups and sub-groups of managers, and established a taxonomy of career anchors that consisted of two factors: secured dynamism and managed freedom. To the development of these anchors, the role of career choices, both past and present was examined. Results of the study may be used to raise the level of job satisfaction among managers, primarily through the design of jobs and the creation of management systems that are aligned with career anchors found to be the predictors of job satisfaction among these very important, if not the most important, members of business organizations.