The relationship between HRM, social support and subjective career success among men and women

Abstract

Most previous research on career success has examined the differential importance of predictors of objective career success (e.g. salary) between men and women. The aim of the present paper is to investigate hypotheses pertaining to male‐female differences in subjective career success (SCS) prediction. Two measures of SCS, intrinsic job success (IJS) and perceived career success (PCS), were employed as criteria and a range of organisational policy perceptions and social support strategies as predictors. Questionnaire data was collected from 439 administrative full‐time employees in the UK. Results provided modest support for the differential predictive power of the above predictors of SCS for men and women. The main results suggested that peer support was a more powerful predictor of men’s SCS, whereas personal support was a more powerful predictor for women’s SCS. The implications of these findings are discussed, together with avenues for further research.