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C ar ee r c om mi tm en t a nd c ar ee rs uc ce ss : m od er at in g r ol e o f

e mot ion pe rc ept i onJune M.L. Poon

Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia,Bangi, Malaysia

Keywords Job commitment, Career satisfaction, Intelligence, Perception

AbstractThis study examined the moderating effect of emotion perception a basic componentof emotional intelligence on the relationship between career commitment and career success.White-collar employees from a diverse set of occupations and organizations in Malaysia were

surveyed. Moderated multiple regression results showed that career commitment predictedobjective career success (i.e. salary level) only for employees with average to high emotion

perception but not for those with low emotion perception. Emotion perception, however, did notmoderate the effects of career commitment on subjective career success (i.e. career satisfaction).

Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Why are some people more successful in their careers than others? Given that mostpeople who work have a career, this is an interesting and important question fororganizational practitioners and researchers. An examination of the literature on careersuccess revealed several individual difference factors that influence career successincluding demographic variables (e.g. Gattiker and Larwood, 1988), dispositional traits(e.g. Seibert et al., 1999), motivation (e.g. OReilly and Chatman, 1994), and political

influence behaviors (e.g. Judge and Bretz, 1994). Human capital attributes such ascognitive ability (e.g. Dreher and Bretz, 1991), education (e.g. Childs and Klimoski,1986), and job tenure (e.g. Judge et al., 1995) have also been demonstrated to predictcareer success. Recently, organizational scholars have suggested that anotherimportant human capital predictor of career success is emotional intelligence.

In many of the writings on emotional intelligence, the components and competenciesunderlying this construct have been touted as important determinants of life and careersuccess (cf. Cooper and Sawaf, 1997; Goleman, 1995). Most of these claims, however,are anecdotal and derivative (Dulewicz and Higgs, 1999, 2000), and to date there is littlesystematic empirical evidence to support these claims (Jordan et al., 2002a; Mayer,1999). Thus, the validity of emotional intelligence as a determinant of career successrests mostly on conceptual work. In addition, with the exception of a few works

(e.g. Ciarrochi et al., 2002; Jordan et al., 2002b) most of the theorizing and research onthe effects of emotional intelligence have framed it as a variable that has direct effectson its outcomes. The effects of emotional intelligence, however, need not be direct.Emotional intelligence, for example, could boost the effects of other determinants ofcareer success by way of moderation.

The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

w w w .em eraldinsight.com/res earchregister www.em eraldinsight.com/1 3 6 2 -0 4 3 6 .htm

An earlier version of this article was presented at the 44th Western Academy of ManagementConference in Palm Springs, USA on 12 April 2003.

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Received August 2003Revised April 2004Accepted April 2004

Career Development International

Vol. 9 No. 4, 2004

pp. 374-390

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

1362-0436

DOI 10.1108/13620430410544337

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregisterhttp://www.emeraldinsight.com/1362-0436.htmhttp://www.emeraldinsight.com/1362-0436.htmhttp://www.emeraldinsight.com/1362-0436.htmhttp://www.emeraldinsight.com/1362-0436.htmhttp://www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister

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Therefore, I hope to expand research on career success by examining whetheremotion perception, a core component of emotional intelligence, predicts career successindirectly through moderation. In this study, I used career commitment as theindependent variable. People who are committed to their careers should experience

more career success than those who are less committed, although empirical researchtesting such a link is still limited. In sum, the primary purpose of this study was toexamine the moderating effect of emotion perception on the relationship betweencareer commitment and career success. This is perhaps the first study to test such anidea.

C o n ce p t u al i z a ti o n a n d p r e d ic t i o n o f c a r e er s u c ce s sArthur et al. (1989, p. 8) have defined a career as an evolving sequence of a personswork experiences over time. The accumulation of achievements (real or perceived)arising from these work experiences is career success (Judge et al., 1999). Careerresearchers (e.g. Gattiker and Larwood, 1988; Judge et al., 1995; Nabi, 1999) have

generally conceptualized career success to comprise both extrinsic and intrinsicoutcomes and, accordingly, measured this construct using objective indicators as wellas subjective reactions. Extrinsic outcomes of career success (labeled objective careersuccess) comprise visible outcomes such as pay and promotion and are, therefore,relatively more observable than intrinsic outcomes of career success (labeled subjectivecareer success), which depend on a persons appraisal of his or her own success (Judgeet al., 1995). Whereas objective career success takes a third-person perspective,subjective career success refers to a persons own internal perspective of success. It isones feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction with ones career (Judge et al., 1995).

A persons own perspective of success is important to consider because people whohave achieved success in the objective sense may not actually feel successful or proudof their achievements (Korman et al., 1981). Although related, objective and subjective

career success are conceptually distinct with potentially different causes (Judge andBretz, 1994; Nabi, 1999). For example, one study found educational achievement to be apredictor of objective career success but not subjective career success and workcentrality to be a predictor of subjective career success but not objective career success(e.g. Nabi, 1999). Therefore, both objective and subjective career success should beconsidered in models of career success.

Career commitmentCareer commitment refers to identification with and involvement in ones occupation(Mueller et al., 1992, p. 212) and is characterized by the development of andcommitment to career goals (Colarelli and Bishop, 1990). In brief, it refers to onesmotivation to work in a chosen vocation (Hall, 1971).

People who are committed to their careers should experience more subjective careersuccess (e.g. have more positive feelings for the career) than those who are lesscommitted. Past studies, for example, have found that employees who commit to a jobor career tend to develop attitudes consistent with that commitment (e.g. Carson et al.,1999; Kiesler, 1971). In a study of the influence of career commitment andorganizational commitment on work-related outcomes, Carson et al. (1999) foundmedical librarians high on career commitment to have higher career satisfaction thanthose low on career commitment. In addition, Lee et al. (2000) in their meta-analytic

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study of occupational commitment found this variable to correlate positively withcareer satisfaction.

People who are committed to their careers should also experience more objectivecareer success than those who are less committed. Committed individuals should be

willing to make significant investments in their careers (e.g. put forth more effort,acquire new knowledge and skills). One study, for example, found career commitmentto predict learning motivation and learning transfer (Cheng and Ho, 2001). In addition,people who are committed to their career will likely set high career goals forthemselves and put forth effort as well as persist in pursuing these goals even in theface of obstacles and setbacks (Colarelli and Bishop, 1990). Greater effort andperseverance generally leads to higher performance (Bandura, 1993; Locke andLatham, 1990a). High performance, in turn, should result in extrinsic rewards such ashigher salaries or promotions (e.g. Greenhaus and Parasuraman, 1993) as well asintrinsic rewards such as self-satisfaction, which stem from positive appraisals thatpeople make of themselves when their performance is successful relative to theirinternal standards (Bandura, 1986; Locke and Latham, 1990b).

In sum, career commitment should lead to more successful careers in the form ofother-administered rewards (e.g. salary attainment) or self-administered rewards(e.g. career satisfaction). Therefore, I propose:

H1a. Career commitment will be positively related to salary level.

H1b. Career commitment will be positively related to career satisfaction.

Emotional intelligenceEmotional intelligence, an individual difference that can be developed, is related to, yetdistinct from, other intelligences (Ashkanasy and Daus, 2002). It refers to the ability to

perceive emotion, integrate it in thought, understand it, and manage it successfully(Ashkanasy et al., 2002; Mayer, 1999). People who are emotionally intelligent are able torecognize and use their own emotional states as well as that of others to regulatebehavior and deal with the environment (Huy, 1999).

Various models of emotional intelligence have been forwarded for conceptualizingand operationalizing the construct. Those found in the popular literature tend toincorporate personality, motivational, and relationship skill variables(e.g. self-confidence, integrity, initiative, resilience, influence tactics, leadership skills)in their conceptualization. For example, Golemans (1998a, b) emotional competenceframework comprises the dimensions of self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation,empathy, and social skills. Cooper and Sawafs (1997) four-cornerstone model relates avariety of competencies, values, beliefs, and tendencies to the broad dimensions of

emotional literacy, fitness, depth, and alchemy. Finally, the competency framework ofDulewicz and Higgs (2000) consists of 16 competencies, many of which correlate highlywith existing personality measures. Because emotional intelligence as defined in thesemodels cannot be easily distinguished from that of existing personality or motivationalconstructs, does not meet the traditional criteria for an intelligence, and goes beyondwhat is meant by the term emotion, these models are not pure models of emotionalintelligence (Hedlund and Sternberg, 2000; Mayer, 1999). In order for emotionalintelligence to add value to the study of abilities, it must be differentiated from

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personality variables and general intelligence (Davies et al., 1998), as is the case withMayer and Saloveys (1997) more restrictive ability model of emotional intelligence.

According to Mayer and Saloveys (1997) model, four main hierarchically-arrangedabilities underlie the emotional intelligence construct: emotion perception, emotional

facilitation of thinking, understanding of emotions, and regulation or management ofemotions. In this study, I decided to focus on emotion perception because it is commonto all the major models of emotional intelligence (see Rozell et al., 2002, for a review)and has been demonstrated to relate with important organizational outcomes includingsupervisory status, leadership skills, and job performance (Elfenbein and Ambady,2002a). Also, Davies et al. (1998) in a series of studies using a comprehensive set ofinstruments that have been proposed to measure emotional intelligence found only thefactor of emotion perception to emerge as distinct from personality or generalintelligence.

Moderating role of emotion perception

Emotion perception, the first and most basic component of emotional intelligence inMayer and Saloveys (1997) model, refers to the ability to identify emotions (in oneselfand in others), express emotions accurately, and discriminate between accurate andinaccurate expressions of emotions. This concept is similar to the self-awareness andsocial awareness dimensions of other emotional intelligence models (e.g. Goleman et al.,2002) and Gardners (1983) intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence. According toMayer and Salovey (1997), only when the ability to perceive, appraise, and expressemotions is mastered can one advance to the emotional facilitation of thinking,understanding of emotions, and management of emotions.

Although emotion perception may directly influence work-related outcomes, it maybe better conceived as a variable that facilitates the effects of other variables on careersuccess. According to theories of motivation and performance (e.g. Locke and Latham,

1990b), what drives behavior and subsequent performance are factors such as goals,self-efficacy, rewards, and commitment not the ability to perceive and expressemotions. At the empirical level, recent meta-analytic work has shown emotionperception to have only a weak relationship with performance (Van Rooy andViswesvaran, in press). Although such ability may not be a strong predictor ofperformance and career success in and of itself, it can help boost the effects of the maindrivers of performance and success. In this study, I propose that emotion perceptionwill play a moderating role in the career commitment-career success linkage. Althoughthere is no direct empirical evidence for this assertion, there are theoretical reasonsfor it.

As argued earlier, career commitment motivates people to set career goals andinvest in their career by putting forth effort to achieve such goals. These career

strategies can be enhanced by emotion perception in various ways. For example,emotional self-awareness facilitates the use of emotional input to form judgments,make choices, and decide among options and the ability to express emotions enablesone to effectively communicate with others to realize ones goals (George, 2000).Therefore, people who are able to perceive and understand their own feelings should beable to better assess their job skills and interests, set appropriate career objectives,develop realistic career plans, and obtain the developmental experiences needed to takeadvantage of career opportunities. Engaging in these activities will enhance career

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progression (London and Stumpf, 1982). In addition, emotion perception should enablepeople to keep their career decisions in harmony with their needs and values and,consequently, experience career satisfaction.

Also, because most jobs require interactions with others (e.g. customers, co-workers,

supervisors), whether or not ones career commitment can be translated into careersuccess will depend on ones level of interpersonal perceptiveness and skills. Peoplewho are able to perceive and understand emotions in others should be socially adeptand be able to relate well with others (Schutte et al., 2001). In addition, the ability toperceive emotion has been found to be related to empathy (e.g. Mayer et al., 1999;Mayer et al., 1990). These qualities should help one secure positive reactions andevaluations from others (e.g. favorable job performance ratings from supervisors),foster and maintain high quality relationships with others, and accumulate socialcapital. A supportive relationship with superiors is an important contributor to onescareer advancement (Igbaria and Wormley, 1992), and social capital the networks ofconnections and alliances one forms with others can be leveraged to maximize careersuccess (Ferris et al., 2000). There is evidence that career progress and otherorganizational rewards are determined on the basis of influence or interpersonalbehaviors (see Ferris and Judge, 1991, for a review).

To conclude, the effects of career commitment on career success can be facilitatedby emotion perception. Career commitment should have a strong influence on careersuccess among people high in emotion perception but may add relatively little to careersuccess among people low in emotion perception. Therefore, I propose:

H2a. Emotion perception will moderate the relationship between careercommitment and salary level such that the relationship will be stronger athigher than at lower levels of emotion perception.

H2b. Emotion perception will moderate the relationship between career

commitment and career satisfaction such that the relationship will bestronger at higher than at lower levels of emotion perception.

MethodSample and procedurePart-time graduate business students (with full-time employment) from three largepublic universities in Malaysia (located in the same state and not more than 60 kmfrom one another) were surveyed. Although this study used a non-western sample, Iexpect career commitment and emotion perception to influence career success aspredicted by western models of career success. I know of no research addressing thespecific issues of this study in a cross-cultural context; however, there is some relatedresearch evidence that supports my assertion. For example, a recent comparative study

of Australian and Malaysian managers found no significant differences between thetwo groups with regard to career identity and career planning commitment (Noordinet al., 2002), and a study of MBA graduates in Hong Kong found career commitment topredict learning motivation and transfer as predicted in western models (Cheng andHo, 2001). With regard to emotion perception, a recent meta-analytic study foundemotions to be recognized universally at better than chance levels (Elfenbein andAmbady, 2002b), and a study of emotional intelligence in seven countries (Bangladesh,China, Greece, Hong Kong, Portugal, South Africa, and USA) yielded results that were

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generally consistent across the countries (Rahim et al., 2002). Therefore, the use of thisAsian sample should yield results not too different from those obtained using westernsamples.

An accompanying cover letter stated that the study was solely for academic

purposes and was aimed at examining peoples attitudes toward their job, career, andlife in general. Participants completed the questionnaires anonymously and returnedthem to the researchers or course instructors who distributed the questionnaires.Because the survey was administered in-class (taking between 15-20 minutes of classtime), almost all students enrolled in the classes involved in the study participated,giving a response rate of 93 percent. Non-respondents comprised mainly those whowere absent during survey administration.

Of the 201 participants who completed the survey questionnaire, 19 did not providesalary data which were crucial for the analyses and were dropped from thesample. Two respondents, found in data screening analyses to be univariate outliersusing a criterion of z . ^ 3.00 (cf. Tabachnick and Fidell, 1989), were also droppedfrom the sample. Therefore, the final analytic sample comprised 180 employees (114men, 66 women) from more than 100 organizations. This sample of respondentsrepresented a wide range of functional backgrounds and occupations includingadministrative, managerial, professional, and technical jobs. The mean age of thisdiversified sample was 33.28 years (SD 7.34), the mean organizational tenure was7.08 years (SD 6.87), and the mean years of total work experience was 9.79(SD 7.69). About 58 percent of the respondents were married, and 95 percent held anundergraduate or a more advanced degree.

MeasuresThe major measures for the study were career commitment, emotion perception, andcareer success. Unless stated otherwise, participants responded to all questionnaire

items for these measures using a rating scale ranging from 0 totally disagree) to 10(totally agree). I averaged ratings on items for each measure to form an overall score forthe measure. A higher score indicated a higher standing on the measure.

Emotion perception. As noted by some scholars (cf. Van Rooy and Viswesvaran, inpress; Wong and Law, 2002), the measurement of emotional intelligence is still in itsinfancy, and little is known about the psychometric properties of existing measures ofemotional intelligence. Therefore, I developed an emotion perception measurespecifically for this study. I did not use the multifacet emotional intelligence scale(Mayer et al., 1999) because it was not practical to use this performance test whichused 186 items to assess emotion perception for the purpose of this study.

Drawing on reviews of the emotional intelligence literature and available measures(e.g. Goleman, 1995; Mayer and Salovey, 1997; Salovey et al., 1995; Schutte et al., 1998;

Wong and Law, 2002), I generated 12 items to assess emotion perception. To check foritem suitability, I subjected these items to an exploratory factor analysis using pilotdata from 97 employed, part-time undergraduate business students. Three factorsemerged with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 that cumulatively explained 59 percent ofthe common variance (see Appendix). Only the first two factors, however, wereretained for further analyses with the present data because the third factor, whichcomprised only two items, posed a reliability problem. The first factor included fiveitems that referred to perceptions about ones own emotions (e.g. I am usually aware of

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how I feel), and the second factor included five items that referred to perceptions aboutthe emotions of others (e.g. I can tell how people feel by looking at their bodylanguage).

To assess the adequacy of the derived emotion perception measure for use with the

present data, I subjected the retained ten items to a confirmatory factor analysis usingEQS 5.1 (Bentler, 1995), comparing a correlated two-factor (first-order factor) structureto a second-order factor structure (in which emotion perception was specified as ahigher order factor to account for the correlation between the two lower order factors).The result of a chi-square difference test was not significant; therefore, on the basis ofparsimony, I decided to adopt the second-order factor model (chi-square 35.49,df 33; CFI 0.98; GFI 0.96; AGFI 0.94; RMSR 0.83), which positionsemotion perception as a higher order construct that is made up of twosub-dimensions (self perception and other perception). Accordingly, I formed anoverall measure of emotion perception by averaging the ratings of the ten items(Cronbach alpha 0.78).

Career commitment. I measured career commitment using Colarelli and Bishops(1990) 17-item career commitment scale (e.g. I am willing to put in a great deal of effortbeyond that normally expected in order to be successful in this career). Theseresearchers reported an internal consistency of 0.94 for this measure and providedevidence of good convergent validity and modest discriminant validity. In the presentstudy, the internal consistency was 0.88.

Career success. I assessed career success using salary level as the objective indicatorand career satisfaction as the subjective indicator. For the salary variable, participantsindicated their current monthly salary. Because the salary data was positively skewed(z 10.56, p , 0.001) and kurtotic (z 11.81, p , 0.001), I transformed the salaryvariable using a natural logarithmic transformation. Such transformation of salarydata is consistent with the practice of other researchers (e.g. Judge et al., 1995; Seibert

et al., 2001).For the career satisfaction measure, participants evaluated their career satisfactionusing a five-item scale taken from Greenhaus et al. (1990). A sample item is I amsatisfied with the success I have achieved in my career. Greenhaus et al. reported aninternal consistency of 0.88 for this scale. In the present study, the internal consistencywas 0.83.

Control variables. Past studies have found variables such as gender, education, andwork experience to affect career success (e.g. Aryee et al., 1996; Judge and Bretz, 1994;

Judge et al., 1995; Nabi, 1999). Therefore, these variables were included as controlvariables in the analyses. Gender was analyzed as a dichotomous variable (dummycoding 0 male, 1 female). Work experience was measured with a single item thatasked participants to state the number of years of their total work experience. Finally,

because almost all participants held at least an undergraduate degree and wereenrolled in a graduate program, educational attainment was controlled for.

Data analysisI checked the data for violations of the assumptions of normality, linearity,heteroscedasticity, and multicollinearity; no significant problems were evident aftertwo outlier cases were deleted and two variables (salary and work experience) logtransformed.

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I used hierarchical multiple regression to test the study hypotheses, entering thecontrol variables first, the main effect variables (i.e. career commitment and emotionperception) second, and the multiplicative interaction term last. Before forming theinteraction term, I centered the predictor and moderator variables (i.e. transformed the

raw scores into deviation scores with means equal to zero) to reduce the potentialproblem of multicollinearity with the interaction term due to scaling (Aiken and West,1991; Jaccard et al., 1990). The variance inflation factor scores associated with eachregression coefficient ranging from 1.03 to 1.13 indicated that multicollinearity was nota problem after conducting the centering procedure.

The significance of the interaction was determined by examining the significance ofthe increment in criterion variance (beyond the variance accounted for by the maineffects) that is explained by the interaction term. To have a clearer picture of themoderation effect, I plotted the interaction graphically following procedures used inrecent research (e.g. Ferris et al., 2001). I used values one standard deviation below andabove the mean for the predictor variable and values one standard deviation below, at,and above the mean for the moderator variable for the plot. Finally, at each of the threevalues of the moderator, I computed the coefficient for the slope of the dependentvariable on the predictor variable following the procedures of Jaccard et al. (1990).

ResultsTable I presents the means, standard deviations, zero-order correlations, and reliabilitycoefficients of the study variables. All the measures had alpha reliabilities thatexceeded 0.70 (Nunnally, 1978). On the average, respondents reported experiencing alevel of career commitment of 6.26, a level of emotion perception of 6.78, and a level ofcareer satisfaction of 6.32 (measured on an 11-point scale). Career commitment, emotionperception, and the control variables were significantly correlated with the career

success variables.H1a predicted that career commitment would be positively related to salary level,

and H1b predicted that career commitment would be positively related to careersatisfaction. Multiple regression analyses testing a main effects model yielded asignificant and positive regression coefficient for career commitment on salary(b 0.21, p , 0.01) and on career satisfaction (b 0.68, p , 0.001), suggestingsupport for the two hypotheses. As expected, emotion perception was not significantlyrelated to career success after career commitment and the control variables were takeninto account.

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Gendera 0.37 0.48 2. Work experienceb 1.91 0.95 20.17* 3. Career commitment 6.26 1.49 0.01 0.07 (0.88)4. Emotion perception 6.78 1.06 0.02 0.04 0.32*** (0.78)5. Salary level

b7.96 0.48 20.18* 0.50*** 0.27*** 0.18*

6. Career satisfaction 6.32 1.85 20.05 0.18* 0.69*** 0.20** 0.25** (0.83)

Notes: Alpha reliabilities are shown in parentheses on the diagonal; acoded 0male, 1 female;b

natural logarithm; *p , 0.05, **p , 0.01, ***p , 0.001

T a b l e I .Descriptive statistics,scale reliabilities, andcorrelations of study

variables (n 180)

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H2a stated that emotion perception would moderate the relationship between careercommitment and salary, and H2b stated that emotion perception would moderate therelationship between career commitment and career satisfaction. The results of model 3

shown in Table II indicated a significant interaction between emotion perception and

career commitment for salary that explained variance in the model beyond that due tothe main effects (DR20.02, p , 0.05). The interaction term, however, was notsignificant for career satisfaction (see Table III). Thus, H2a received support, but H2bdid not.

A clearer picture of the form of the interaction for H2a can be obtained byexamining the plotted interaction effect in Figure 1. In general, the regression slope

was steeper for employees with high emotion perception than for those with low

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3Variable B b B b B b

Step 1: control variablesGendera 20.10 20.10 20.11 20.11 20.11 20.11Work experienceb 0.24*** 0.48*** 0.23*** 0.46*** 00.23*** 0.45***

Step 2: main effectsCareer commitment 0.07** 0.21** 0.06** 0.19**Emotion perception 0.04 0.10 0.04 0.09

Step 3: interaction effectCareer commitment emotion perception 0.04* 0.16*

R2 0.26*** 0.32*** 0.34***R2 change 0.06*** 0.02*

Notes: aCoded 0male, 1 female; bnatural logarithm; p , 0.10, *p , 0.05, **p , 0.01,***p , 0.001

T a b l e I I .Hierarchical regressionresults for the effects ofcareer commitment and

emotion perception onsalary level (n 180)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3Variable B b B b B b

Step 1: control variablesGendera 20.08 20.02 20.15 20.04 20.15 20.04Work experience

b0.35* 0.18* 0.25* 0.13* 0.25* 0.13*

Step 2: main effectsCareer commitment 0.85** 0.68** 0.85** 0.68**Emotion perception 20.03 20.02 20.03 20.02

Step 3: interaction effectCareer commitment emotionperception 0.01 0.01

R2 0.03* 0.49** 0.49**R2 change 0.46** 0.00

Notes: aCoded 0male, 1 female; bnatural logarithm; *p , .05, **p , 0.001

T a b l e I I I .Hierarchical regressionresults for the effects ofcareer commitment andemotion perception oncareer satisfaction(n 180)

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emotion perception.Post-hoc analyses of the slopes confirmed this observation. At highemotion perception, the slope estimate was 0.11 (t 4.05, p , 0.01); at mean emotionperception, the slope estimate was 0.06 (t =2.88, p , 0.05); and at low emotionperception, the slope estimate was 0.01 (t=0.49, ns). These results indicate that there isa relationship between career commitment and salary level only at average to highlevels of emotion perception but not at low levels of emotion perception.

Together, the above results showed that career commitment was positively relatedto both salary level and career satisfaction. For salary level, however, this relationshipwas stronger at higher than at lower levels of emotion perception. Therefore, emotionperception moderated the effects of career commitment on salary level.

DiscussionDiscussion of findingsThe study showed that career commitment predicted objective career success in theform of salary level and subjective career success in the form of career satisfaction.

More importantly, the study findings point to the moderating role that emotionperception played in facilitating the effects of career commitment on objective careersuccess. The results indicted that the relationship between career commitment andsalary level was contingent on the level of emotion perception. Specifically, careercommitment was positively related to salary level only among individuals with at leastmoderate levels of emotion perception; among those low on this ability, careercommitment mattered little in determining salary level. This finding suggests that,perhaps, one should not expect people to achieve objective career success simply

F i g u re 1 .Graphical representation

of the moderating effect ofemotion perception on the

relationship betweencareer commitment and

salary level

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because they are committed to their career. Other moderating factors need to beconsidered also.

Contrary to expectations, emotion perception did not moderate the relationshipbetween career commitment and career satisfaction. It appears that people who are

committed to their career will experience satisfaction regardless of their levels ofemotion perception. This finding suggests that the mechanisms that operate toinfluence objective and subjective career success are not necessarily the same, thussupporting the arguments of other researchers of the importance of assessing bothobjective and subjective components of career success (cf. Nabi, 1999).

A managerial implication of the findings of this study is that if organizations wanttheir employees to achieve objective career success, attention must be given todeveloping them emotionally in addition to increasing their career commitment.Therefore, practitioners need to know how peoples ability to perceive, appraise, andexpress emotions can be developed (e.g. through introspection, training, and so forth).In addition, practitioners need to gain a better understanding of what determines

career commitment. Researchers can contribute to this effort by identifying bothindividual differences (e.g. self-efficacy, learning goal orientation) and organizationalfactors (e.g. mentoring programs, career counseling services) that affect careercommitment and incorporating these variables into models of career commitment andsuccess. Given that career commitment extends beyond the boundaries oforganizations, environmental factors (e.g. societal influences) also should not beoverlooked.

As organizations continue to downsize and restructure in the face of increasedglobal competition and technological advances, resulting in changes in the

employment relationship or psychological contract (Sullivan, 1999), careercommitment is likely to take on added relevance for practitioners. Under the alteredpsychological employment contract, employees are expected to increasingly adoptprotean careers in which the focus is on personal development and employabilityrather than on job security and progression in a single organization (Hall, 1996).Therefore, organizations can expect employees to shift their focus from commitment tothe organization to commitment to their career. In view of this, organizations mustensure that employees see the achievement of organizational goals as instrumental forthe development of their personal career. Career commitment is also likely to take onadded importance as a management concept and research construct relative to otherworkplace commitment concepts such as organizational commitment (see Baruch,1998, for a discussion of the declining importance of organizational commitment as aconcept in management in the new business environment). Therefore, managementscholars need to pay more attention to this construct in related theoretical and

empirical work.Another research implication of the findings of this study is that instead of solely

viewing emotion perception (or other components of emotional intelligence) as avariable that directly affects career success, researchers should also consider emotionperception as a variable that indirectly affects career success by moderating therelationship between antecedents of career success and career success. Future research

will need to reconsider how emotion perception and other components of emotionalintelligence should be positioned theoretically and studied empirically.

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Study limitations and future researchThis study has a number of limitations. First, although the emotion perceptionmeasure used has acceptable reliability and predictive validity, it needs to be tested inother settings. As is true with the development of any new measure, there is a need for

ongoing construct validation of this measure.Second, the theoretical perspective adopted in this study implies that career

commitment and emotion perception precedes career success. It is possible, however,that the relationship is reciprocal or the reverse of what has been postulated. Given thecross-sectional nature of the study, this alternative line of reasoning cannot bedismissed categorically, and this study should be replicated with longitudinal data.

Third, common method variance could have inflated relationships among variables.However, given the complexity of the moderated relationships in this study, it seemsunlikely that common method bias could account completely for the pattern of results.In the case of the findings for objective career success, the factual nature of the salaryvariable further ameliorates concerns about common method variance effects.Furthermore, the results of various studies suggest that common method effects areless prevalent than previously thought. For example, Spector (1987) found littleevidence for method variance using data from multitrait-multimethod analyses,studies of social desirability and acquiescence, and relation of self-report andabsenteeism. Crampton and Wagner (1994) concluded from their meta-analysis of morethan 500 studies that percept-percept inflation may be more the exception than the ruleand that several areas of research including career advancement appear to be relativelyfree of effect-size inflation. More recently, Chan (2001), using a latent variableapproach, showed that the impact of method effects (e.g. affective disposition andsocial desirability) on estimation of substantive relations among self-reports of workattitudes (including organizational commitment and job satisfaction) was trivial.

In this study, I did not examine variables that might mediate the relationship

between career commitment and career success. In future research, it would beinteresting to examine motivational and performance mechanisms for explainingcareer commitment effects on career success. In the future, researchers may also wantto expand the career success variables examined for a more complete understanding ofthe joint effects of career commitment and emotion perception. In addition, because Ifocused only on emotion perception as a moderator in this study, other variables thathave the potential to enhance the positive impact of career commitment on careersuccess (such as political savvy as well as other components of emotional intelligence)should be explored. The role of other emotional intelligence components in moderatingthe effects of other predictors of career success also warrants further investigation. Anintegration of career variables and emotional intelligence in future works holdspromise for developing a more comprehensive model of career success.

Finally, future research that investigates why emotion perception has a moderatinginfluence in the prediction of career success would provide a useful extension of thepresent study. Could it be that people with high emotion perception are more able thanthose with low emotion perception to seek job environments that fit with their needs,values, and dispositions? A fit between the person and environment should lead tohigher satisfaction and job performance (cf. Kristof, 1996). Or, perhaps people who areemotionally perceptive take a more active role in managing their careers by engagingin career strategies that facilitate career success (e.g. consulting with mentors,

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networking, self-promotion of ability). Empirical insights on the interveningmechanisms that help trigger the moderating influence of emotion perception in theprediction of career success will help scholars to refine future models of career success.

Despite its limitations, this study adds to the limited empirical literature relating

career commitment and objective career success. In addition, it contributes to theliterature on careers by demonstrating that emotion perception moderates therelationship between career commitment and objective career success. It represents astep toward combining a motivational construct and an emotional ability construct andshowing that they work interactively to predict objective career success. I know of noprevious attempt to examine the moderating role of emotion perception within thecontext of the careers literature and hope more scholars will pursue research along thisline of inquiry.

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Appendix

Factor

Item I II III h2

1. Often put things aside for a while to get perspective 0.78 0.612. Can see the funny side of things 0.76 0.593. Usually aware of how I feel 0.74 0.634. Know when I am getting upset 0.69 0.545. Let people know when uncomfortable feelings get in the way 0.53 0.356. Aware of how people feel even if they do not say it 0.88 0.807. Can usually tell how people feel about me 0.88 0.798. Can sense mood of a group when I walk into a room 0.75 0.589. Can read between the lines when someone is talking 0.56 0.40

10. Can tell how people feel by looking at their body language 0.33 0.44 0.3411. Can talk myself out of bad moods 20.80 0.7812. Let others know what I want and need 0.34 0.74 0.70

Eigenvalue 2.90 2.83 1.39Percent of variance explained 24.15 23.59 11.59

Notes: n 97; values shown in italics indicate items retained for each factor. Only factor loadingsexceeding ^ 0.10 are presented

T a b l e A I .Results of factor analysisof the emotion perceptionmeasure

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