The Effects of Subjective Career Success and Perceived Shared Leadership on Personal Growth Initiative: Moderating Effects of Challenging Job Experience

Abstract

A recent trend in career development is individual-centered and draws on individual initiatives while the organization takes on a supportive role for career development. In addition, many companies have flattened their organizational structures and abandoned traditional hierarchies to reduce management decision time and to empower individual employees (Littler et al., 2003; Mohrman et al., 1995). This change has led to fewer leadership positions in the organizational hierarchy, which used to be regarded as an employee motivator in employees’ career development. Despite efforts to integrate perspectives on career development, scholars have paid less attention to antecedents of personal initiative for career development. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effects of subjective career success and perceived shared leadership on personal growth initiative (PGI). It also examines the moderating effects of challenging job experiences (private and public challenging experiences and satisfaction with challenging job performance compared with an expectation) on the relationships between subjective career success and PGI and between perceived shared leadership and PGI.To answer the research questions of this study, an online survey was conducted with employees working in South Korea. A validity test, descriptive and correlation analysis, and regression assumptions test were conducted. Then, hypotheses were tested through hierarchical regression analyses and two-way and three-way interaction plots. The results of this research revealed that both subjective career success and perceived shared leadership, respectively, are positively related to PGI. There was also a moderating effect of public challenging job experiences on the relationship between subjective career success and PGI. In addition, the results supported that when the public challenging job experiences level of satisfaction with the challenging job performance compared with an expectation is high, there is a strong positive relationship between perceived shared leadership and PGI. The findings of this study provide insights for researchers on employee motivation and engagement and extend related theories including the theory of planned behavior and prospect theory on individual career development. This study also provides managers and HRD practitioners with practical implications.