Understanding Contemporary Career Success: A Critical Review

Abstract

This article provides a critical review of developments in the literature on career success. We review work from both the organizational psychology (OP) and organizational behavior (OB) disciplines, highlighting the different perspectives, strengths, and weaknesses of each area, and attempt to reconcile these perspectives on career success to suggest productive new research directions. First, the article reflects on conceptualizations of objective and subjective career success and their relative value to the field. We then discuss several categories of career success predictors drawn from economic, sociological, and social-psychological perspectives used in OP and OB. These include human capital, internal and external labor markets, sponsorship and social capital, stable and malleable individual differences, and career self-management behaviors. We provide research suggestions within each of those sections as well as an integrative research agenda built around several emerging issues and theoretical perspectives, encouraging future research on the implications of sustainable careers, career shocks, marginalized group experiences, and alternative employment arrangements for career success.