Cross-cultural Comparison of the Effects of the Discrepancy between the Prominence and the Fulfillment of Career-orientation on Organizational Effectiveness

As business environment becomes highly dynamic and global, the chance that an organization can survive gets diminished without developing a competitive pool of human resource. And, the development of a competitive pool of human resource may not be possible if people’s career-related values are not taken into account appropriately throughout managerial activities. The goal of this study is to extend the study of P-O fit by examining the effect of the discrepancy of the prominence of individuals’ career-orientation and organizational fulfillment of the orientation on organizational effectiveness. By employing the concept of career anchor, it was hypothesized that the effect of the discrepancy between the prominence and the fulfillment of career anchor would have negative effects on work attitudes, such as organization commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover intention, and that the effect would vary across different cultures. By analyzing cross-cultural data collected from 209 Korean managers and 221 American managers with polynomial regression analysis and response surface methodology, this study attempts to reveal the cross-cultural nature of career-orientation and draw some practical implications for managers.