Discussion Paper 02-2011

Measurement of Objective and
Subjective Career Success

Beate Cesinger

Stiftungslehrstuhl für Unternehmensgründungen und Unternehmertum
(Entrepreneurship) an der Universität Hohenheim

1

Introduction .....................................................................................................................3

2

Career Success and measurement therof .......................................................................3
2.1

Objective career success ........................................................................................3

2.2

Subjective career success.......................................................................................4

2.2.1
2.2.2
3

Self-referent subjective success ..........................................................................4
Other-referent subjective success .......................................................................6

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................7

2

1

Introduction
While traditionally a career was confined to advancing in organizational hierarchies

the focus nowadays lays on objective and subjective aspects. Moreover, within boundaryless careers individuals not only strive for climbing up the ladder but rather for a life career including satisfaction within their professional and private sphere. Despite the fact that the literature on careers has not found a common ground to define and operationalize career success (Abele-Brehm

and

Stief,

2004;

Dette,

Abele

and

Renner,

2004),

the

objective/subjective dichotomy is widely accepted in the career literature (Abele-Brehm and
Stief, 2004; Abele and Spurk, 2009b). While objective career measures are neutral and measurement does not highly