Underlying Factor Structure of Schein’s Career Anchor Model

Abstract

More than 20 years after Edgar H. Schein introduced career anchor theory (1977), Daniel Feldman and Mark Bolino critiqued both the theory and the methods Schein used to describe career anchors. They propose that understanding the underlying factor structure of the Career Orientations Inventory (COI) will give insight into the relationships between multiple career anchors. These relationships describe which career anchors are complementary (i.e., having congruous characteristics) or mutually inconsistent (i.e., having oppositional characteristics) and enable a study of the degree to which those relationships have an impact upon career outcomes. This study examined how well each of the four models of career anchor relationships, found in the career anchor literature, describe mutually inconsistent relationships found within data from seven empirical career anchor studies. The mutually inconsistent career anchor pairs suggested by Feldman and Bolino were not found to have stronger negative correlations with one another than those proposed by the other three models. Also, the mutually inconsistent pairs proposed by Feldman and Bolino were not found to have on the whole a better fit from confirmatory factor analysis than those proposed by the other three models. Instead, Schein’s proposed model of mutual inconsistency was the best fit, albeit, a weak fit. Weaknesses were also found in the two-dimensional octagonal models proposed by Feldman and Bolino, by Chapman, and by Bristow. The data do not support a two-dimensional model. An additional finding was that the relationship between the anchors actually fits an orthogonal model better than either the complementary or mutually inconsistent representations proposed by each of the four models. Continued research opportunities are available for those interested in studying career anchor theory.