1. Introduction
At work, all people apply their skills and competencies hoping that success will come as a consequence of a good performance, and therefore of a satisfactory result in carrying out their work tasks [
1]. Two complementary forms of professional success have traditionally been distinguished: objective and subjective/perceived success [
2]. The first refers to quantifiable and measurable aspects such as salary, status, professional category, and professional career, while the second are related to more qualitative aspects depending on individuals’ assessments of their professional experience, and on the comparisons that the individual makes with the rest of the employees.
Studies focused on evaluating objective success have found it difficult to consider aspects such as status or salary in a non-biased way, which are not a priority in certain professions, differences between men and women, or intercultural variations regarding the organic structures of companies and employee development plans [
3]. Some research [
4] suggests that there is an interdependence between objective and subjective success, indicating that objective success does not always lead to subjective or perceived success, but rather that perceived success precedes objective success. Subjective job success reflects an individual’s internal evaluation of his or her career, across every element that is perceived as important by the individual [
2], and it has become particularly important in the current work environment because only individuals themselves can meaningfully define and assess their success with reference to their own self-defined standards, needs, values and aspirations. Subjective professional success is important as it has consequences on several beneficial organizational outcomes, such as productivity, employee commitment, or organizational retention [
5,
6]. Here, we present a study carried out to verify the possible influence of several personal and organizational factors on the self-assessed job performance of a sample of employees in different professional sectors.
4. Results
Table 1 shows the mean and standard deviation of success among the qualitative variables of the study.
Table 2 shows the Pearson’s correlation coefficients between the continuous variables of the study.
To test relationships between personal and organizational variables, a chi-squared test was used. We found an association between sex and professional sector (χ2 = 86.91, p < 0.001), there being a higher percentage of men in Industry and more women in Education and Health. Size of the company were linked to the Business field (χ2 = 155.00, p < 0.001), showing that the bigger companies are international. Professional sector and size of the company were also related (χ2 = 318.06, p < 0.001) as Education and Health were the sectors in which a median size was the most frequent, while in the other sectors there were more large companies. The type of contract was also related to professional sector (χ2 = 94.67, p < 0.001), as permanent contracts predominate in all sectors except Health.
No significant relations were found between sex and marital status, or having children or job seniority (p > 0.1)
To test differences in psychosocial factors and personality due to sex, means comparisons were computed. Sex differences were found in EE (
T = 3.26,
p = 0.001), PA (
T = 3.65,
p < 0.001), autonomy (
T = 6.20,
p < 0.001), rewards satisfaction (
T = 5.32,
p < 0.001), neuroticism (
T = 3.99,
p < 0.001), extraversion (
T = 3.91,
p < 0.001), openness (
T = 2.08,
p = 0.038), agreeableness (
T = 2.24,
p = 0.025), cognitive demands (
T = 3.19,
p = 0.001), emotional demands (
T = 5.64,
p < 0.001), temporal demands (
T = 2.71,
p = 0.007), and performance demands (
T = 2.13,
p = 0.033).
Table 3 shows the means and standard deviations of these variables for men and women.
To test differences in psychosocial factors due to the professional sector, means comparisons were computed. Significant differences (
p < 0.05) were found in all factors except organizational support.
Table 4 shows the means and standard deviations (
SD) of psychosocial factors for each professional sector.
Table 5 shows the results that were statistically significant in each step of the regression analysis. The final model (
R2 = 20.18) showed significant effects for age, resulting that the older the worker, the greater the perceived success; conscientiousness (the greater the conscientiousness, the greater the sensation of success); and extraversion (more extroverted, more perceived success). The type of contract also was significant so employees with a permanent contract (Mean = 8.47,
SD = 1.27)) were more successful than temporary ones (Mean = 8.07,
SD =1.40) and participants who worked on weekends showed a greater sense of success (Mean = 8.43,
SD = 1.25), than those who only work from Monday to Friday (Mean = 8.21,
SD = 1.42). Significant effects of emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, and performance demands were also found.
Once the variables related to perceived success were determined, and to better understand which of them could differentiate between those with a clear perception of success from those who did not, a binary logistic regression analysis was performed starting from the categorisation of participants into two groups (the successful, with success scores equal to 9 and 10) and the unsuccessful (the rest)). The results (
Table 6) showed that emotional exhaustion and working on weekends did not serve to differentiate both groups, however, the rest of the variables did, allowing 66.00% of the participants to be correctly classified.
5. Discussion
Most studies show factors that affect objective measures of success, such as salary or number of promotions. While objective measures are important in assessing how far a person’s career has progressed, subjective measures are just as important, as people have job expectations beyond financial compensation or promotion [
65]. There seems to be no consistent results showing which variables influence subjective job success. The purpose of this study was to examine what type of personal and organizational variables are associated with the perception of job success from a sample of people who currently work in different professional sectors. Self-assessed job performance was used as an indicator of the perceived degree of success. As predictors, sociodemographic and personality variables of the workers were measured, as well as organizational and job variables, combined with psychosocial measures (demands, burnout, support, autonomy, and satisfaction with rewards).
The main results showed that, of the personal variables, the most significant dimensions were conscientiousness, extraversion, and age. Although men showed greater perceived success than women, the gender variable did not reach sufficient predictive value in the analyses. A possible explanation for the fact that previous studies have found differences between men and women [
18] could be that these studies have focused more on analyzing variables related to family responsibilities, professional sector, or difficulties to obtain a promotion in the position (need for mobility, competitiveness, etc.) [
16] without considering aspects related to personality and psychosocial factors at work (such as burnout, organizational support, rewards, etc.). Our study indicates that when personality is incorporated, the differences between men and women in their perceived success are reduced considerably. Other studies have also found no differences between men and women in perceived job success. For example, Supangco [
49] found, using a Philippine sample, that gender did not explain variation in total compensation, number of levels from the company president, and career satisfaction.
Our results confirm that conscientiousness is the dimension most associated with perceived success [
14]. In agreement with previous research [
66], conscientiousness and extraversion appeared as predictors of success, conscientiousness being the most important of both. In this sense, more conscientious people show a higher perception of success, which is even higher when the worker is extroverted. Thus, for example, Witt [
66] have shown that, when extraversion is present together with conscientiousness, subjective performance is better, but if conscientiousness is low, performance deteriorates. In this sense, the results of previous studies [
11] stand out, highlighting that organizations can improve job performance by selecting employees with a high level of consciousness, and that high-quality social exchange relationships at job can compensate for the lack of this characteristic in employees. This has important practical implications because in a situation where a manager has an employee who is unscrupulous or agreeable, developing a high-quality social relationship could be an option for improving job performance.
We have found a direct relationship between age and perceived success, such that older people perceive greater professional success [
29]. Previous studies have explained this relation since older workers have accumulated more human and social capital, which they have acquired over time through their professional and life experiences [
67], and also have better emotional regulation, which allows them to have a greater tolerance for stress in adverse conditions; thus, they are less likely to fail [
68]. In addition, the life span theory explains how adult development involves loss, growth, and reorganization of psychological functioning through times periods, balancing for gains and losses, and that adult interests and needs change over time [
69]. Through a structural equation analysis using a multi-source data set from 147 companies, the results of Kunze et al. [
29] suggest that human resource policies that increase age heterogeneity in companies have positive effects on work climate and success at work. Our results agree with this positive effect that age diversity has on organizations.
Other specific individual factors such as education and marital status have been found to predict subjective success in other studies [
15], indicating, for example, that married employees in general, and married women in particular, are more satisfied than those who are not. However, our results did not confirm these relationships from a multidimensional approach. For example, in the study carried out by Valcour and Ladge [
15], in which relationships were found between marital status or the number of children with subjective success, the sample was made up exclusively of working women mothers, which limits the generalization of the results to the general working population. More in line with our results are those obtained by Punnett et al. [
33] with a sample of 1146 successful women from different countries of the American continent (Canada, Chile, Mexico, USA, Brazil, Argentina, and the Antilles), according to which there were no differences in performance satisfaction according to occupation or country, and most of the demographic variables investigated did not have a significant relationship with perceived success. Only age and being married showed any relationship with perceived success, although small, being more associated with higher self-efficacy and need for achievement scores and a greater internal locus of control, all of them being personality-related variables.
Among organizational factors, we found positive associations between perceived success and having long-lasting employment, and working on weekends and having higher performance demands. Considering that a short-term or temporary contract has been associated to lesser job demands and workload [
53], and that performance demands refer to the degree to which the worker cannot make mistakes when accomplishing his/her responsibilities, since the consequences of his/her errors are serious, it seems clear that the participants with jobs that involve more responsibility and that require greater involvement in their work (even during the weekends) feel more satisfied with their performance and therefore have a greater perception of success. This result agrees with previous research on work engagement, indicating a positive relationship between work commitment and job success [
70].
Greater success was mainly associated with more personal accomplishment and less emotional exhaustion, both dimensions of the so-called burnout syndrome. The other burnout factor considered in this study, depersonalization, showed a negative relationship with success, but not in a statistically significant way. In conclusion, the working conditions with the highest risk of the worker suffering from burnout problems are associated with feelings of job disappointment. This result would support research that considers workers’ psychological health variables, such as burnout and related variables, as indicators of perceived success [
32,
59]. All organizations are required to ensure the physical and psychological health of their employees, so our results emphasize the importance of developing adequate strategies for HRM and for prevention of psychosocial risks at work. In contrast with previous research [
60], although a positive correlation was found between social support and the perception of success at work, this was not statistically significant in the multivariate analysis and the relationship between autonomy and success was low.
6. Conclusions
This paper identifies some factors affecting job success using subjective measures. The main conclusion is that perceived success is greater in the conscientious, extroverted, older participants with stable employment who have a job with high responsibility, and that provides them with greater feelings of personal fulfillment.
Research on perceived job success is very important to both the individual and the organization. For individuals, job success is a logical expectation since they dedicate about a third of their time to work and have normally invested significant efforts in their professional training. For organizations, if employees have achieved their professional goals, this implies that the organization has also benefited from the performance of its workforce, which has given it a great competitive advantage.
To achieve professional success, both the individual and the organization spend time, effort, and resources in professional development actions. Although professional development is the joint responsibility of the individual and the organization, some organizational activities such as downsizing or reorganization, which result in fewer opportunities for employees, make professional development more difficult. In a constantly changing context, it is ever more essential for organizations to be healthier and for individuals to assume a more proactive role in the development of their feelings of success.
We believe that our study has as its main strengths that it is carried out with a large sample of workers from various professional sectors, with a multivariate analysis perspective, since the importance of multiple personal and organizational factors is jointly analyzed and that, as far as we know, this is the only study of these characteristics that has been carried out with Spanish workers. However, it also has limitations. First, we used an incidental sample, which, although large, cannot be considered representative of the Spanish working population. In addition, this is a cross-sectional study, not longitudinal or experimental, so we can only draw conclusions about correlation relationships between variables and not about cause–effect relations. The final regression model only explained 20% of the variance of perceived success, which is small. A possible explanation may be that all the participants had a job, so very little variability was found in self-perceived success. It would be convenient in future studies to include participants who are unemployed or looking for a job in the sample, since this will probably increase the variability in the perception of job success. In addition, it would be very convenient to incorporate other variables that have not been taken into account here, such as work hours, the company’s human resource management policies, the hierarchical level of the participant’s job, or the influence of gender in traditionally masculinized or feminized professions [
71,
72].
Our study may have important practical implications for human resource management, since it shows the convenience of giving meaning and content to the job, with high performance demands that make the worker feel relevant and increase their feelings of personal fulfillment, thus avoiding burnout risk situations. Our results indicate that this aspect is more relevant for the worker than the rewards that he/she receives for his/her work. It is also important to ensure job stability with long-term contracts. It is also important to highlight that companies should value the most scrupulous workers because they are the ones who will show the most commitment to their job and will therefore be more motivated to do a good job. Finally, it is necessary to highlight the value that older employees bring to the organization, avoiding situations of discrimination based on age or ageism.