Career Locus of Control and Career Success among Chinese Employees: A Multidimensional Approach

The current research aimed to develop a multidimensional measure of career locus of control (LOC) and examine its predictive validity on objective and subjective career success among Chinese employees. Items of career LOC were generated based on literature review of the significant predictors of career success, as well as the open-ended responses among Chinese employees ("N" = 30). Principal component analysis (Study 1, "N" = 204) revealed that career LOC consists of three factors: internal factor, external factor, and chance factor, which was consistent with the framework proposed by Levenson (1974). Results of confirmatory factor analysis among another sample of Chinese employees (Study 2, "N" = 646) supported this three-factor structure. Predictive validity analysis showed that after controlling for the effects of demographic, organizational and industrial variables, internal career LOC was positively related to both objective and subjective career success; chance factor was negatively related to subjective career success, but not related to objective career success. Theoretical and practical implications of this research were discussed. (Contains 5 tables.)