Relationships between career motivation, empowerment and support for career development

Abstract

This paper examines relationships between empowerment, supervisor's support for career development and components of career motivation: career resilience, career insight and career identity. In Study 1, self‐ratings of career insight and identity from 183 employees were positively related to supervisor ratings of the degree to which the subordinate is empowered and receives support for career development. Self‐ratings of empowerment and support for career development were related to supervisor ratings on all three career motivation variables. Study 2 collected supervisor and self‐ratings of the same variables for another sample of 59 employees at two points in time with a 3½‐month interval to examine the test–retest reliability of the measures and further study their interrelationships. The results supported the test–retest reliability of the measures, indicated that career identity may be composed of two independent dimensions, work identity and organization identity, and suggested that individuals who are higher on organizational identity are those who are rated lower on empowerment by their supervisors. The discussion considers directions for research on variables that affect perceptions of empowerment, support for career development and career motivation.