The Impact of Career Anchors on Job Satisfaction: The Moderating Effect of Gender (A Study of Executive Level Employees in ABC Company)

Abstract

In this new era of knowledge management, competition for career advancement becomes one of the key issues of human resource management. A growing number of employees stuck in the middle of their careers due to different reasons, such as poor knowledge about technical/functional competence, general managerial competence, autonomy /independence, security/stability, entrepreneurial creativity. Service/dedication to a cause, pure challenge, and lifestyle which makes dissatisfied employees. This is especially true for women employees that the lifestyle and service anchors emerged from the responses of female samples. Although anecdotal evidence proved that career anchor has a significant impact on job satisfaction, from extant empirical evidence, we know little about how career anchor influences job satisfaction. Thus, the current study aims to examine the impact of career anchor on job satisfaction and to study how this relationship varies across employee gender. Based on prior literature, the researcher developed a conceptual model and developed two hypotheses to test the model. The model was empirically tested by collecting data from 56 executive employees in one of the reputed organizations in the leather and footwear industry in Sri Lanka. The sample was selected using simple random sampling method. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 24. The results of regression analysis showed that there is a significant impact of career anchor on job satisfaction. However, the moderating effect of gender on the relationship between career anchor and job satisfaction was not significant. Hence, organizations should be aware of the career anchor of employees and no need to consider gender as a moderating role of these two variables.