层级高原和内容高原对立业阶段员工工作满意度、离职倾向的影响——总效应、效应差异及调节因素

The Influence of Hierarchical Plateau,Job Content Plateau on Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intention of Employees in Career Establishment:Total Effect,Respective Effects and Moderator

本研究采用问卷法考察了层级高原、内容高原对于立业阶段员工工作满意度、离职倾向的影响。对来自471名立业阶段员工的数据进行层级回归分析和优势分析发现:(1)在控制了社会-人口统计学变量之后,层级高原和内容高原对工作满意度有显著负面影响,对离职倾向有显著正向影响,总效应(R2)分别为0.34和0.20;(2)相对于层级高原而言,内容高原能更大程度地解释立业阶段员工工作满意度、离职倾向的变化;(3)组织职业生涯阶段能显著调节层级高原与工作满意度和离职倾向之间的关系。但是,不能调节内容高原与工作满意度和离职倾向之间的关系。

Employees who are at career establishment stage are core human resources of organizations, and play an important role in enterprise innovation. So, their continuous development has been a salient driver of organ izational growth. However, due to the flattened organizational structure, accelerated knowledge depreciation, as well as the increasing entrance of higheducated and aspired employees into the workplace, more and more employ ees perceived career plateau at their early stage of career. Though a number of scholars argue that individual career is protean that transcends organizational boundaries, upward advancement is still the predominant sign of career success in society especially in China. So, it＇ s imperative for the Chinese managers to cope with increasing career plateau the employees face to motivate and retain them. So far, a great number of researchers have conducted stud ies on the effects of career plateau on the employees＇ job attitudes and behavior. But there are two gaps. One is that the respective effects of hierarchical plateau and job content plateau on employees＇ job attitudes and behavior is not been fully discussed. According to Law et al. （1998）, career plateau is a multiple construct defined by a profile model. But extant literature didn＇ t notice that. Another gap is that the underlying mechanism moderating the relationship between career plateau and outcomes, is not been fully discussed. Our sample is composed of 471 employees who are at career establishment stage and from eight companies lo cated in South China. Before commencing the survey, the first author contacted managers of the HR department or participating department in the eight companies. Then, we mailed each manager a large packet with questionnaires. A cover letter was attached to explain our research purpose, provide guidelines to distribute and complete the ques tionnaire, and ensure the research confidentiality. The managers were asked to hand out the questionnaires to the voluntary employees. One week after mailing the packets, the researchers collected the questionnaires from the re spondents in person. Our final sample was composed of 36. 90% employees of stateowned enterprises, 17.40% employees of joint venture enterprises, 45.00% employees of private enterprises. The individuals in our sample av eraged 29.54 years old. Most of participants were male （ 59.00% ） and those with at least a bachelor degree （79.60%）. Based on the lifespan career development theory and needsatisfaction models, this study examined the effects of hierarchical plateau, job content plateau on job satisfaction and turnover intention of employees who were at ca reer establishment stage. The hierarchical regression and dominant analysis were applied to test our hypotheses. The results show ： （ 1 ） Hierarchical plateau and job content plateau still have significantly effects on job satisfaction and turnover intention, after controlling the sociodemographic variables. Total effects of career plateau are 0. 34and 0. 20, respectively. （2） Compared to hierarchical plateau, job content plateau can explain more variance of job satisfaction and turnover intention ; （ 3 ） organizational career stages can moderate the relationship between hi erarchical plateau and job satisfaction, turnover intention. The moderating effects of organizational career stages do not appear in the relationship between job content plateau and job satisfaction, turnover intention. The primary theoretical contribution of this study is that hierarchical plateau and job content plateau may have different predicting power to employees＇ work attitudes in the context of Chinese culture. The second theoretical contribution is that the study clarified the specific relationship between career plateau and job satisfaction, and turn over intention with the employee＇ s career development in an organization. Our findings provide some implications for managers to effectively cope with career plateau. First, the managers should do well in managing the organiza tional promotion in case employees perceive hierarchical plateau too early. Second, managers should invest in em ployee training at any time in order to avoid job content plateau. The study carries limitations that suggest avenues for further research. One of potential limitations of this study is that the crosssectional data do not eliminate models associated with different causality assumptions. Another lim itation is that the study operationalized the organizational career stage as organization tenure. Future studies can di rectly measure the organizational career stage and replicate the findings.