Can success lead to happiness? The moderators between career success and happiness

Can success lead to happiness? Themoderators between career successand happiness

Jingzhou Pan Renmin University of China, China

Wenxia Zhou Renmin University of China, China

The purpose of the study is to explore the relationship between career success and happiness using

specific moderators during the process. Data was collected on MBA classes in China and 994 employ-

ees participated in the study. Regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses. Results showed two

things: first that career success value (internal satisfaction) does in fact moderate the salary–happiness

relationship, and second, that career commitment does moderate the career satisfaction–happiness

relationship. This paper makes a valuable contribution to both happiness and career success literature

by being one of the first to examine the moderating effects of career success value and career commit-

ment and the relationships between these important career concepts.

Keywords: career commitment, career success, career success value, happiness, salary

Are successful people more likely to be happier over time? Similar questions, which are notmerely of academic interest or idle curiosity, have been debated for centuries. Many indi-viduals are personally interested in these questions because of the important implicationsthat often determine how they should deal with their life. Organizations are also veryconcerned with these questions because employees’ career success will likely impact theoutcomes of an organization. A wealth of research has discussed the theme, suggesting thathappy individuals are relatively more successful in their career (Cropanzano and Wright

Correspondence: Prof. Wenxia Zhou, School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin Universityof China, no. 59 Zhongguancun Street, Beijing, China; e-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

Accepted for publication 14 March 2012.

Key points1 The present study explored the relationship between career success and happiness

and the result generally supports the positive association between the two constructs.

2 Career success value (internal satisfaction) does moderate the salary–happiness

relationship.

3 Career commitment does moderate the career satisfaction–happiness relationship.

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Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources (2012) ••, •• doi:10.1111/j.1744-7941.2012.00033.x

© 2012 Australian Human Resources Institute

1999; Diener and Biswas-Diener 2002; George 1991; Iverson, Olekalns and Erwin 1998).Because happiness has an important cultural component and the dominant values of theculture in question affect the subjective perception of employees (Bretones and Gonzalez2010). Diener, Diener and Diener (1995), it should be noted that most of this research wasconducted in western countries. Not only organizational elements but also cultural ele-ments (e.g. individualism or cultural heterogeneity) should be considered in the study ofhappiness. Based on these necessary implications, the present study will test the conjectureput forward by western scholars; that an employee’s career success largely influences hap-piness in China. Furthermore, although a number of researchers have dealt with therelationship between success and happiness, it still appears that there are some gaps whichneed to be addressed, because of its complexity. For one thing, many previous studies wereconducted from a psychological or sociological perspective by psychologists and sociolo-gists, who indicated success with a simple index (e.g. income), rather than the term ‘careersuccess’. In fact, career success, which consists of different aspects of career and work fields,is a special and complicated issue in career literatures that has been discussed for many years(e.g. Dries et al. 2009; Greenhaus, Parasuraman and Wormley 1990; Thorndike 1934). Thepresent study, from a career perspective, will define and discuss career success with morecomplex indicators – including not only objective career success, but also subjective careersuccess, so as to take an advanced step toward discussing success and happiness. Thedisconnect also remains to be resolved between those who achieve great things and feelhappy and those who are successful but remain unhappy. The complexity of this relation-ship between career success and happiness lies in the fact that there are some moderatingvariables between the two constructs. This is the key point that we shall focus on.

For more than 30 years, China’s comprehensive national strengths have been steadilyenhanced and the living standards of its citizens have improved. Along with the explosiveeconomic development, there have been many remarkable changes, which have launchedcontemporary China into a period of social transition – from social, to economic, tocultural changes. Not surprisingly, China’s traditional value system has been under attack,even though the new value system is only beginning to develop. It is a common phenom-enon that people hold different opinions towards the same problem including differingperspectives for the notion of success. But what does this mean during a period of socialtransition in China? Is career success associated with happiness? Can different valuesmoderate this relationship? We shall discuss these issues in next parts.

Literature review and research hypotheses

Career success and happinessCareer success is often defined as the accumulated positive work and psychological out-comes resulting from one’s work experiences (Judge et al. 1995). The theme of careersuccess has been discussed for more than 70 years (Zhou and Sun 2010), since career successwas first put forward by Thorndike (1934) in the book Prediction of vocational success. Alarge amount of research has shown that career success is a very important variable, which

Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources ••

© 2012 Australian Human Resources Institute2

not only is associated with an individual’s psychological health and life satisfaction, but alsois related to the development of organization (Judge et al. 1999).

The pursuit of happiness or subjective well-being is one of the most persistent topics ofhuman interest. Employees’ happiness is a major research concern in the organizationalfield (Page and Vella-Brodrick 2009). Happiness is defined as an ongoing state of psycho-logical wellness, comprising both cognitive judgments and affective reactions (Diener1984). There are three defining characteristics in psychological well-being (Wright andCropanzano 2000). First of all, happiness is a phenomenological event (Diener 1994), whichmeans people are happy when they subjectively believe themselves to be so. Moreover,happiness involves some emotional conditions (Argyle 1987). In other words, happy indi-viduals always experience positive emotions, such as joy, satisfaction, contentment, enthu-siasm, interest, and so on. Lastly, happiness refers to a global evaluation for one’s life as awhole (Diener 1994). Career experiences are certainly one important determinant of hap-piness (Judge and Locke 1993), even though happiness also includes other aspects, such aseconomic prosperity, good health, a stable family, and personality dispositions.

Career, which is one of the most important fields for employees’ life, has a largeinfluence on a person’s feelings of happiness. Previous studies have demonstrated theconjecture that there is a positive relationship between career success and happiness(Boehm and Lyubomirsky 2008). For example, happiness is related to income (Diener andBiswas-Diener 2002), favorable evaluations by a superior (Cropanzano and Wright 1999),helping fellow workers (George 1991), and social support from colleagues and supervisors(Iverson, Olekalns and Erwin 1998). In the field of success–happiness, the hot point is therelationship between income and happiness that has been discussed not only by psycholo-gists, socialists and managerialists, but also by economists. A payment policy or system inmost organizations in western societies is based on the proposition that improvements inobjective income circumstances will, on average, make employees better off and thereforehappier. Is this correct? The accepted viewpoint demonstrated by most studies appears to bethat objective income circumstances have only a small, though statistically significant, effecton measures of happiness (Diener and Biswas-Diener 2002). Until now, most success–happiness studies have focused on only income’s association with happiness rather thanother variables which can also be seen as indicators of objective success. For example,promotion, which is related with income largely, has also been put forward by manyresearchers as an important indicator of career success (Judge and Bretz 1994; Judge et al.1995; Seibert, Crant and Kraimer 1999).

Based on these previous studies, a hypothesis can be warranted despite some cautions:

Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between objective career success (salary(H1a) and managerial level (H1b)) and happiness.

Although objective and subjective career success are related, they are conceptuallydistinct with potentially different causes (Judge and Bretz 1994). Subjective career success isan important outcome variable in vocational psychology; nevertheless, inconsistency existsin the conceptualization of subjective career success across theoretical reasoning, qualitative

Jingzhou Pan and Wenxia Zhou

© 2012 Australian Human Resources Institute 3

results and quantitative measures. In quantitative studies, subjective career success is alwaysindicated by job satisfaction (Judge and Bretz 1994), career satisfaction (Greenhaus, Para-suraman and Wormley 1990), career commitment (Johnson and Stokes 2002), perceivedcareer success (Turban and Dougherty 1994) and wage satisfaction (Lyness and Thompson1997). In most studies, subjective career success is indicated by ‘satisfaction’, under theassumption that a subjectively successful worker is a worker who feels satisfied in workdomain. At the same time, satisfaction is quite highly correlated with overall happiness, andcan be seen as one of its main components (Wright and Cropanzano 2000). Career (or job,wage) satisfaction, which is specific to one’s work and does not include aspects of one’s lifeoutside of work, stands in contrast to happiness, which is typically considered as a broaderconstruct than job satisfaction and refers to aspects of an individual’s life as a whole (Diener1984). But job and career are essential parts of any individual’s life. So from a logicalperspective, perceived subjective success can promote employees’ happiness. There is alsoempirical evidence for this thesis (e.g. Bretones and Gonzalez 2010; Burke 2001; Judge andHulin 1993). Burke (2001), using different samples of managerial and professional women infive countries including Bulgaria, Canada, Norway, Philippines and Singapore, explored theassociation between work experience and emotional well-being. The results indicated thatmanagerial and professional women reporting more subjective career success (e.g. jobsatisfaction, career satisfaction) had higher levels of psychological well-being. Despite thestatement that there are differences among different cultures (Hofstede 1980), the correla-tions of favorable career outcomes and well-being among the five measures showed a similarpattern in each country. That is to say, cultural factors did not influence the subjective successeffect on employees’ happiness. In a meta-analytic review, Tait, Padgett and Baldwin (1989)found the average correlation between job and life satisfaction was 0.44, which was inter-preted by some researchers as evidence for the association between well-being and jobsatisfaction (see Staw and Ross 1985). Judge and Hulin (1993) found a significant causal effectof job satisfaction on happiness.

In sum, it appears that career success, in the form of self-administered rewards (e.g.career satisfaction), should lead to more happiness. Therefore, we proposed:

Hypothesis 2: Subjective career success will be positively related to happiness.

Career success value, career commitment and happinessHistorically, there have been two theoretical trends with respect to the variables which havean effect on happiness (Brief et al. 1993; Heady, Veenhoven and Wearing 1991): one is abottom–up approach which seeks to identify the external factors that impact on a person’shappiness; and the other one is a top–down approach which aims to identify the internalfactors that determine how a person perceives their circumstances and how these factorsaffect their evaluation of happiness. The study is a typical one of the latter trend adopting thetop–down approach. Previous studies have illustrated that values are important in theperception of happiness, regardless of objective situations. According to Sagiv and Schwartz(2000), individuals may adapt their behavior so as to achieve happiness according to their



profile of priority values; meanwhile, when personal values are successfully developed, theirhappiness increases according to the degree to which their priority values are fulfilled.

A person’s own perspective of success is essential to consider in that people who haveachieved success in the objective sense may not actually feel successful or proud of theirachievements (Korman, Wittig-Berman and Lang 1981). Therefore, the notion of careersuccess value, a type of occupational value specific to career success, was proposed by Zhouand Sun (2010) to encapsulate the overall assessment that employees made after sub-jectively evaluating different aspects for their careers. Different people pursue various kindsof career goals depending on the factors they pay more attention to. That is to say, employ-ees have diverse needs to fulfill in their work, no matter what they earn. In the research onwork values, Super (1962) identified diverse goals (e.g. self-expressive, altruism, creativity,independence, security, prestige, relations) that guided people’s working behavior andcareer development. The model of ‘career anchor’ (Schein 1996) proposed that individuals’career goals were closely related to their own values and needs as they pertained to thecareer, such as autonomy, security, competence, creativity, challenge, life style, and so on.

It is posited that people’s conceptualization of career success is partly shaped by thehistorical and cultural contexts surrounding them (Young and Collin 2004). Hofstede(2001) argued that Chinese values are characterized as higher in power, distance, collectiv-ism, and long-term orientation and lower in uncertainty avoidance, which is distinctivefrom western cultures. So, there may exist some culture-specific understanding of a sub-jective career among Chinese employees. Zhou and Sun (2010) explored the structure ofcareer success values in China. The result showed that there were three dimensions. The firstone mainly referred to the intrinsic fulfillment from one’s career, such as fully developingone’s talent and potential, accumulation of knowledge and skills, excellent performance,unique contribution to the organization, benefiting society and a good reputation in one’soccupation. The second one (harmony and balance) referred to the positive emotions andwork–life balance in one’s career, such as being happy during work, a good work–familybalance, good physical health, and good mental health. The third one referred to theexternal compensation, such as the money, power, job security and social capital achievedfrom the career. Like the general value’s influence on the perception of happiness, employ-ees’ career success value, as a specific form of general value, also can impact their view of therelationship between happiness and success.

Based on these arguments above, we can conclude: the career success value of employeescan be a moderator between career success and happiness. Specifically, as employees with ahigher level of internal satisfaction emphasize internal rewards rather than externalachievements (e.g. salary), we proposed the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3: Internal satisfaction will moderate the relationship between objectivecareer success (i.e. salary) and happiness, such that the relationship will be stronger atlower than at higher levels of internal satisfaction.

Compared with career success value, subjective career success (e.g. career satisfaction,job satisfaction) is one’s feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction with all aspects of



one’s career, depending on the appraisal of his or her success (Judge et al. 1995). Asmentioned above, subjective career success, which is specific to one’s work, does not includeaspects of one’s life outside of work (Diener 1984). When the effect of subjective careersuccess on happiness is considered, the importance of work or career for employees shouldbe taken into account. Whether individuals pay more attention to their work field mayinfluence the relationship between subjective career success and happiness. That is to say,for employees who greatly value work outcomes, career success is a stronger predictor ofhappiness. Empirical evidence has shown the moderating effect of job importance on thejob and life satisfaction relationship (e.g. Iris and Barrea 1972). Career commitment refersto identification with and involvement in one’s occupation (Mueller, Wallace and Price1992) and is characterized by the development of and commitment to career goals(Colarelli and Bishop 1990). Thus, career commitment indicates the extent to whichemployees value and are involved in their occupation and work. People who are committedto their career are not only likely to set high career goals for themselves and to put in effortand persist in pursuing these goals (Colarelli and Bishop 1990), but also to experience moresubjective career success (Carson et al. 1999) and more happiness. In other words, employ-ees, who are not committed to their careers or work, will not feel happy, even if theycontinue to achieve. Subjective career success will have a strong influence on happiness forpeople with a higher level of career commitment but may reduce the effect on happiness forpeople with lower post. We proposed:

Hypothesis 4: Career commitment will moderate the relationship between subjectivecareer success and happiness, such that the relationship will be stronger at higherlevels than at lower levels of career commitment.

Figure 1 outlines the theoretical framework developed in the paper.

Method

Measures

Objective career successWe measured objective career success by monthly income before tax (in 8 steps ‘lessthan 3000 RMB’, coded as 1; ‘3001 RMB–5000 RMB’, coded as 2; ‘5001 RMB–8000 RMB’,coded as 3; ‘8001 RMB–10 000 RMB’, coded as 4; ‘10 001 RMB–20 000 RMB’, coded as 5;‘20 001 RMB–30 000 RMB’, coded as 6; ‘30 001 RMB–50 000 RMB’, coded as 7 and ‘morethan 50 000 RMB’, coded as 8) and by three variables assessing hierarchical statusof managerial level (elementary class, coded as 1; medium class, coded as 2; and seniorclass, coded as 3). This measure is consistent with previous research in this field thatused salary and promotion as indicators of objective success (e.g. Judge et al. 1995).Although self-reports aboutsalary are subjective, it has been demonstrated in previousstudies that these self-reports correlate highly with archival company records (Judge et al.1995).



Subjective career successConsistent with previous research (e.g. Judge et al. 1995; Seibert, Crant and Kraimer 1999),career satisfaction was used an indicator of subjective career success. Participants wereasked to rate their career satisfaction on Greenhaus, Parasuraman and Wormley’s (1990)measure of subjective career success, which consisted 5 items. For example: ‘I am satisfiedwith the progress I have made toward meeting my overall career goals’.

Career success valueParticipants were asked to rate the extent to which each item is appropriate to assess careersuccess. All of items were from a subquestionnaire, consisting 8 items (internal satisfaction)of the Career Success Value Questionnaire (Zhou and Sun 2010). For example, ‘Careersuccess is that one can afford good houses, cars, dressings, and have a high living standard’.

Career commitmentParticipants were asked to rate their career satisfaction on the Blau (1985)’ career commit-ment scale which consists of 8 items. For example: ‘I’m not satisfied with my present career’.

HappinessWe used the global approach to measure happiness of respondents, who were asked toindicate the extent they feel happy globally. The global measure is a simple but accuratemethod. Previous studies have indicated that the global measure does have a degree of

Subjective career success

Salary

Objective career success

Managerial

level

Career

satisfaction

Happiness

Career

commitment

Career success

value

Figure 1 Hypothetical model



validity, correlating at moderate levels with other indicants of happiness such as informantreports, experience sampling measures, and interviewer ratings (Sandvik, Diener and Seidl-itz 1993).

All items except objective career success were rated using a 6-point, Likert-type responsescale ranging from 1 (‘strongly disagree’) to 6 (‘strongly agree’).

Demographic informationParticipants were asked to indicate their age, gender, education and information of theirwork. Previous studies have demonstrated variables such as gender, education, and workexperience affect career success (e.g. Judge and Bretz 1994; Judge et al. 1995). Therefore,these variables were included as control variables in the analyses.

Participants and procedureData was collected from part-time MBA students and on-the-job postgraduates with aminimum of two years of work experience in 13 different classes at four leading universitiesin Beijing. The surveys were handed out at the end of the class and were collected after 30minutes. Collecting data in classes assists in getting a diverse sample, because the students arefrom various organizations located in different cities throughout China, and it also enhancesthe rate of response. Compared with collecting data from specific organizations, choosingthis sample does have a limitation in that it lacks organizational background – the respon-dents do not come from the same organizations. However, as the study focuses more on theemployees’ career rather than their organization, the sample is appropriate in this case.

A total of 1200 surveys were distributed, with 1097 (91.4%) responses returned fromparticipants. After removing questionnaires with missing data, the usable sample consistedof 994 individuals (629 males and 365 females). The average age of participants was 35.86(SD = 8.843) and the average number of working years in the current position was 5.13 (SD= 5.089). Regarding education, 5.1% of participants had high school education or below,16% had an associate college degree, 56.1% had a bachelor’s degree, 21.1% had a Master’sdegree and 1.6% had a doctorate. Regarding managerial level, 29.1% were at a low level,49.5% were at a medium level and 21.2% were at a high level.

Data analysisWe used hierarchical multiple regression to test the hypotheses, entering the control vari-ables first, the main effect variables second, and the multiplicative interaction term last.Before conducting multiple regressions, we examined the assumptions of multiple regres-sions by testing the assumptions of linearity, independence of residuals, collinearity andnormality. The results showed that data met these assumptions, indicating that the data isappropriate for use in multiple regression analysis. Before forming the interaction term, wecentered the predictor and moderator variables (i.e. transformed the raw scores into devia-tion scores with means equal to zero) to reduce the potential problem of multicollinearitywith the interaction term due to scaling (Aiken and West 1991).



Results

Preliminary analysisThe education variable was recoded into five dummy variables. Table 1 presents the means,standard deviations, correlations, and reliability coefficients of the study variables. Thealpha reliabilities of all measures exceeded 0.70 (Nunnally 1978). On average, respondentsreported experiencing a happiness level of 4.55, a salary level of 2.37, a tenure level of 5.13,a managerial level of 1.92 and a career satisfaction level of 3.92. Career satisfaction (r =0.356, p � 0.001) and career success value (r = 0.165, p � 0.001) were significantlycorrelated with happiness, whereas the correlations of salary (r = 0.057, p = 0.074) andmanagerial level (r = 0.016 p = .625) with happiness were not significant, which wasinconsistent with our expectation.

The effects of objective and subjective career success on happinessTo test the effects of salary and managerial level on happiness, a hierarchical multipleregression equation was used. The sets of controls were entered followed by the set of directeffects. The regression coefficient for managerial level on happiness was not significant (b= 0.060, p = .120), which was the same as the correlation analysis. Hypothesis 1b is thus notsupported. However, the regression coefficient for salary on happiness was significant (b =0.077, p = 0.018), after controlling the effects of age, gender and education (shown inTable 2), in support of hypothesis 1a. The result of salary demonstrated that salary has onlya small effect on happiness (Diener and Biswas-Diener 2002). Some studies have alsoargued that income when low was more closely related with happiness (Diener and Biswas-Diener 2002). To explore that proposition, we looked at the distribution of the relationshipbetween salary and happiness. We found that a low level salary (0–5000 RMB) is hardly

Table 1 Descriptive statistics, reliabilities, and inter-correlations among variables

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1 Age 35.86 8.843 –

2 Gender 1.37 .482 -.206** –

3 Education 3.96 .861 -.234** .064* –

4 Salary 2.37 1.483 .219** -.067* .008 –

5 Managerial

level

1.92 .707 .550** -.204 -.035 .388 –

6 Career

satisfaction

3.9207 .9119 .127** -.085** .001 .226** .218** .876#

7 Internal

satisfaction

4.4486 .6286 -.019 .053 .104** .010 .015 .183** .768#

8 Career

commitment

3.9258 .8253 .108** -.062 .014 .141** .153** .493** .183** .783#

9 Happiness 4.5473 .9721 -.041 .065* .032 .057 .016 .356** .165** .328** –

Two-tailed, * p � 0.05, ** p � 0.01; # reliability coefficient of variable.



related to happiness. And the happiness of people whose salaries are higher than 30 000RMB plateaus at a medium level and hardly grows with further increases of salary. There-fore, we decided to focus on participants with a medium income and regression analysis wasconducted on this group, after control variables were taken into account. The resultsshowed the effect of salary on happiness among these employees was very significant (b =0.111, p = 0.047), indicating that income was a strong predictor for happiness whenindividuals earned a middle level salary.

It can be seen from Table 3 that, in step 2, the regression coefficient of career satisfactionon happiness was significant (b = 0.371, p � 0.0001), after controlling the effects of age,gender and education, in support of hypothesis 2.

The moderating effect of career success value on the relationship between objectivecareer success and happinessThe results of step 3 shown in Table 2 indicated a significant interaction (b = 0.08, p =0.010) between salary and internal satisfaction on happiness. As suggested by Aiken andWest (1991), we chose the four points of the standard deviation of salary and internalsatisfaction’s average as the benchmark for drawing an interaction relational graph to test

Table 2 Results of hierarchical regression analysis for relationship between salary and happiness,

internal satisfaction as a moderator

Variables Step 1: Controls Step 2: Main effects Step 3: Moderating effect

b t b t b t

Controls

Age -.032 -.934 -.050 -1.470 -.048 -1.415

Gender .054 1.657 .046 1.429 .048 1.494

Education 2 -.038 -.767 -.061 -1.234 -.055 -1.127

Education 3 -.124 -1.428 -.185* -2.147* -.179* -2.081*

Education 4 -.184 -1.632 -.274* -2.446* -.264* -2.359*

Education 5 -.062 -.645 -.136 -1.433 -.128 -1.355

Education 6 -.024 -.580 -.057 -1.349 -.053 -1.255

�R2 .015*

Main effects

Salary .076* 2.346* .074* 2.307*

Internal satisfaction .168*** 5.352*** .168*** 5.346***

�R2 .028***

Moderator

Salary¥Internal satisfaction .080* 2.575*

�R2 .006*

R2 .015 .048 .055

F 2.140* 5.540*** 5.678***

* p � 0.05, ***p � 0.001.



the interaction between them. From Figure 2, we can see that in general, the regressionslope was steeper for employees with low internal satisfaction than for those with a higherinternal satisfaction. Thus it is concluded that the career success value (internal satisfaction)moderates the effects of salary level on happiness, which supports hypothesis 3.

Table 3 Results of hierarchical regression analysis for relationship between career satisfaction and

happiness, career commitment as a moderator

Variables Step 1: Controls Step 2: Main effects Step 3: Moderating effect

b t b t b t

Controls

Age -.003 -.909 -.087*** -2.774*** -.088*** -2.805***

Gender .106 1.618 .079*** 2.667*** .078*** 2.640***

Education 2 -.215 -.772 -.025 -.557 -.025 -.540

Education 3 -.330 -1.432 -.096 -1.203 -.096 -1.216

Education 4 -.362 -1.639 -.163 -1.584 -.163 -1.586

Education 5 -.142 -.627 -.057 -.653 -.058 -.663

Education 6 -.189 -.582 -.029 -.759 -.030 -.776

�R2 .015*

Main effects

Career satisfaction .272** 8.128** .278*** 8.296***

Career commitment .205*** 6.139*** .211*** 6.320***

�R2 .031***

Moderator

Career satisfaction¥ Career

commitment

.066* 2.273*

�R2 .004*

R2 .015 .181 .186

F 2.158* 24.150*** 22.344***

* p � 0.05, ** p � 0.01, *** p � 0.001.

-0.4

-0.2

0

0.2

0.4

-1 1

Salary

Hap

pine

ss Low internalsatisfaction

High internalsatisfaction

Figure 2 Graphical representation of the moderating effect of internal satisfaction on therelationship between salary and happiness



The moderating effect of career commitment on the relationship between subjectivecareer success and happinessIn step 3 shown in Table 3, the interaction effect between career satisfaction and careercommitment on happiness was also significant (b = 0.066, p � 0.0001). A clearer picture ofthe form of the interaction can be obtained by examining the plotted interaction effect inFigure 3. The regression slope was steeper for employees with high career commitment thanfor those with low. Thus, we can conclude that career commitment moderates the impactof career satisfaction on happiness, which supports hypothesis 4.

Discussion

The results of the present study revealed that salary level had a small effect on happiness.Specifically, the effect of salary on happiness is significant for people with a middle levelincome [see note above re ‘middle class’], whereas, for individuals with a low income or ahigh income, the effect is not significant. This result differs from the results of the pastresearch (Diener and Biswas-Diener 2002), which was conducted in western society andargued that if individuals were of middle class or upper class, gaining more income, wasunlikely to substantially bolster happiness. The difference can be explained with the fol-lowing reasons. First of all, although China has continued to develop for a long time, ingeneral, it is still a developing country rather than a developed country, meaning that thereare a number of poor people earning a very low income. Second, as a developing country,the gap between rich and poor is very large. Finally, workers in China earn less than thosewho have similar jobs in developed countries, which may be why China is famous for its lowcost of labor. From these points, it can be concluded that it is difficult for people in Chinawith low incomes to meet all of their basic needs, especially as the cost of living, taking intoaccount the price of real estate, is growing. These people, even with increases in salary,would have little ability to enhance their standard of significantly or to enjoy a wealthy life.Previous studies have demonstrated that income enhanced happiness only insofar as ithelped people meet their basic needs (Diener and Biswas-Diener 2002). For persons with ahigher income, their earnings are high enough for them to lead a prosperous life, and any

-0.6

-0.4

-0.2

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

-1 1

Career satisfaction

Hap

pine

ss High careercommitment

Low careercommitment

Figure 3 Graphical representation of the moderating effect of career commitment on therelationship between career satisfaction and happiness



increase in salary would not be likely to lead to a significant change in lifestyle. Therefore,income at a low level, as well as a high level, does not promote employees’ happiness.

Hypothesis 1b is not supported. Although people with a higher position have morepower, they also have more responsibilities and face more stress, more complicatedproblems, and more difficult assignments, which can harm their chances for increasedhappiness.

While various researchers have attempted to clarify the relationship between successand happiness, the issue is still not fully understood and is very complex. The complexitystems from there being a number of moderators between the two constructs (e.g. Dienerand Biswas-Diener 2002; Diener and Oishi 2000). Exploring and testing the moderators isone of the present study’s contributions. The moderating effect of career success values onthe relationship between objective career success and happiness is supported in the presentstudy. This is the first attempt to explore the question from the perspective of career successvalue and the finding seems consistent with other studies about ‘value’ (Diener and Oishi2000). The result can be explained by ‘needs theory’, which indicates that income boostshappiness to the extent that it allows people to meet these needs. Human needs can beexpanded beyond homeostatic ones (for food, water, clothes and so on) to include self-respect, status, self-actualization, and so forth. According to the ‘self-determination theory’of Deci and Ryan (1980), happiness devolved from the expression of intrinsic and autono-mous strivings. The relationship between salary and happiness will be invariant to thedegree that salary can be used to purchase things that are truly pleasurable and are able tofulfill innate requirements. If a person focuses on intrinsic needs rather than externalrewards, the influence of income on happiness is weak.

In the present study, we also explored the relation between subjective career success andhappiness, especially introducing career commitment as a moderating variable. The pre-dictive effect of career satisfaction, as the indicator of subjective career success, on happi-ness was confirmed, as well as the moderator. Thus, satisfaction from the work field can betransferred to global happiness depending on the extent employees commit to their careers.It also can be explained by need theory mentioned above. If a person identifies with and isinvolved in his or her career, the need for career achievement will override other aspects tohave a direct impact on happiness. The evaluation theory proposed by Diener and Lucas(2000) can provide another explanation. They believed that the fulfillment of desires,especially those adopted as active goals, would remain as salient standards for people, andtherefore would be the most ubiquitous standard influencing happiness. So when employ-ees, who commit to their career and adopt work or job desire as their most essential goal,perceive greater career satisfaction, global happiness will surely increase.

Implications for human resource managementWhat kinds of rewards should employees expect to get? Most organizations want to knowthe answer to this question. The present study tackles the issue. The finding regardingincome showed that salary, in terms of motivation, plays a greater role when it helpsemployees to meet their basic needs and enhance their lifestyle significantly. However, for



those whose have a high enough salary, an increase in their salary does not act as a strongmotivator any more. Inspiration needs to be found elsewhere, such as through oral appre-ciation, work flexibility, empowerment, work climate and so forth.

The test for moderation indicated that career success value moderates the relationshipbetween career success and happiness. Specifically, salary level has a weak impact onhappiness for people who value internal satisfaction. Money is not everything and it doesnot have the same impact on everyone. Instead, an individual’s sense of value plays a vitalrole on his or her behavior at work.

Consequently, it is better to set up a flexible compensation and benefit system foremployees with different career success values, so that different employees can be stimu-lated appropriately.

There are of course limits to resources and senior positions which make it impossiblefor everyone to earn a high salary or be promoted quickly. The present study demonstratedthat besides salary level, subjective career success also affected happiness significantly, evenmore so than did objective success. Because career satisfaction comes from employees’evaluation of different aspects of their careers, various methods of encouragement, includ-ing acknowledging employees’ contributions as well as material stimulants, would helpthem to balance their work and life and provide additional support for their assignments.

Another HRM implication of the findings of this study is related to career commitmentthat managers should consider when selecting and training employees. Although the intrin-sic career success has a significant effect on happiness globally, its influence depends on theextent that employees commit to their career. Career commitment determines whether theachievement from work is able to transfer to global happiness. If an employee does notidentify with and value his or her career, inspiration/motivation programs will not work,regardless of how attractive the offering is. There are two issues here. On the one hand,employers should select employees according to the extent that the candidates commit totheir career; such commitment is not only beneficial to the organization, but also helpful forindividuals’ career development. On the other hand, training about career identificationshould be strengthened, in that career commitment, which has been ignored by manyemployers, can enhance the effectiveness of the work reward from the organization. Insummary, the main implication of this study for HRM practitioners is that the role of ideasheld by employees needs to be considered as an essential factor during the HRM process.

Limitations and future researchDespite the relatively large sample, the present study has some limitations. To begin with,even though we tested the different effects on happiness among respondents with thedifferent salary levels, the lowest level of salary (below 3000 RMB) needed to be furthersubdivided (e.g. �1000, 1000–2000, 2000–3000) when exploring the relationship betweensalary and happiness.

Furthermore, the present study is a cross-sectional study of the relationship betweensuccess and happiness, which presents difficulties in establishing the direction of causality,although we conducted a multiple regression analysis and paid particular attention to the



moderators. Even though a cross-sectional study is critical to the analysis, as it verifies therelationship between the two variables, longitudinal studies will be helpful in addressing thequestion of causal direction by providing evidence of temporal order (see, Boehm andLyubomirsky 2008).

Various cross-cultural studies have revealed significant differences in happiness ofpeople from diverse cultures (Rice and Steele 2004). Fewer cross-cultural studies attempt todiscuss the moderators between salary and happiness (e.g. Cropanzano and Wright 1999;Diener and Biswas-Diener 2002).Future cross-cultural studies should be encouraged so thatthe complex puzzle can be clarified more precisely, especially among different countries.

Conclusion

This study explored the relationship between success and happiness from a career perspec-tive, especially in terms of the moderators of these constructs. Career success encompassestwo aspects (objective and subjective career success) and we tested the respective modera-tors. The results confirmed that career success value (internal satisfaction) does moderatethe salary–happiness relationship and career commitment does moderate the careersatisfaction–happiness relationship.

Acknowledgments

The two authors contributed equally to this article. We gratefully acknowledge the invalu-able comments and advice from editor Carla Taines and the two anonymous reviewers. Wealso thank Craig Hall for his generous and great help in copyediting. This work has beensupported by a grant from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities,and the Research Funds of Renmin University of China (12XNH089).

Jingzhou Pan is a PhD student in human resource management at the School of Labor and Human

Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China. His current key research interests are career

development and Chinese guanxi.

Wenxia Zhou (PhD) is a professor and the chair of Department of Career Development and Man-

agement at the School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China. She has been

contributing to the body of knowledge on career development for more than 10 years. Recently, Dr

Zhou has focused on career success and has published a series of studies concerning career success

value. Her research interests also include leadership, training and development, career choice and

career development strategy.

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