Career Development Initiatives for Third party Employees: Development and Validation of a Scale

Abstract

The study develops and validates an instrument to measure the perception of third-party employees (TPEs) towards career development initiatives undertaken by the client organization. Based on the review of the literature and the interviews held with subject experts and practitioners, different constructs (capturing career development initiatives for TPEs) were identified. To validate the study, the process of scale development was conducted in two phases using two distinct samples (N = 117 and N = 167). Initially, 61 items representing career development initiatives as perceived by TPEs, were developed. This was followed by the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to extract and reduce the items. Using EFA, five factors were extracted, namely, mentoring, training, challenging assignments, performance appraisal and feedback, and internal job postings, consisting of 18 items, all of which met the criteria of EFA. These 18 items were reported to a different sample of TPEs to check the model fit through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). This included the reliability and validity assessment of the measurement scale. The results supported a five-factor model, consisting of 16 items (two items were not supported), which collectively formed the scale on perceived investment in career development (PICD) for TPEs.