Work volition and career control in retail workers

Abstract

The Work Volition Scale (WVS) is a brief measure of the perceived capacity to make career decisions despite constraints; however, systematic validation of item responses to the scale is still in its infancy. The present article reports on research conducted to investigate the latent structure of WVS, its invariance across gender, and mean differences in work volition across income in a sample of retail workers. A bifactor structure of the WVS accounted for construct-relevant multidimensionality in scores due to the presence of general and specific volition dimensions. Tests of gender invariance revealed the equivalence of item loadings, thresholds, uniquenesses, and factor means. Support was also found for plausible latent mean differences in general volition across income, with retail workers earning high wages reporting greater volition than those earning low wages. Finally, evidence was obtained for theoretically meaningful relations of the general and specific volition dimensions with career control.