This Thesis Has Been Written As Final Step to Complete the Master Economics of Management

Career paths: An experience to encounter openly?Master thesis Erasmus School of Economics Department of EconomicsSupervisor: prof. S. NeckermannAuthor: Pim de Groot Studentnumber: 314728 E-mail address: [email protected]2 PREFACEThis thesis has been written as final step to complete the Master Economics of Management & Organization and to get the title Master of Science. I am glad that it did not feel like a compulsory course most of the time, thanks to the interesting and actual topic of career choices.During the writing process, many people have helped and supported me. This is the place to thank them for that. First of all, I would like to thank my thesis supervisor, Susanne Neckermann, for her enthusiasm from the beginning, good ideas and useful feedback. A special word of acknowledgement also from the employment agency, that provided me feedback and offered me a sample group. Last but not least, I want to show my gratitude to all the people close to me that have supported me in every possible way.3 TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………… 46INTRODUCTIONThe Dutch economy recently counted the highest number of unemployed people (NOS.nl, 2013). However, the ICT and Engineering industry are short on people even though payment is good. This tendency has been going on for decades, but even high wages cannot bridge this gap. In spite of the many people looking for a job and the high wages paid in those industries, supply and demand of specific workers remain unequal. These facts point out that people do not choose or like their work because of the money they get, but for other reasons. This raises the question why people choose the careers they are in.Herzberg (1959) developed the influential two-factor theory, which is still often quoted by economists and textbooks. In this theory, he claims that there are factors that can make a worker unhappy when absent. Examples of these so-called hygiene factors include salary and work conditions. On the other hand, job characteristics such as responsibility, recognition and a good work relation with colleagues can really motivate an employee. The striking of this research is that it broke the traditional view that payment was the most important benefit to people. Apparently, choosing a job is not as straightforward as economic theory suggested. It seems that more factors than just monetary ones are behind this. People with comparable abilities and interests end up in different careers. This makes occupational choice a very interesting research topic. The reason why people choose a certain career path has been the subject of many articles, with many different outcomes. For example, Rohtstein and Rouse (2011) found4 that debt causes graduates to choose for higher-paid jobs. Bentolila, Michelacci and Suarez (2010) conclude that social contacts are important in finding jobs, even though people using those contacts do not end up in the careers they would be most productive in. Buser, Niederle and Oosterbeek (2010) claim that gender has a big impact on the career choice of people. In this thesis, I clustered the most plausible reasons behind career choices and asked the people about the motivation behind their occupational choice.A possible answer that came up during my literature research was that workers simply chose the same occupation as their friends or family did (Bentolila, Michelacci and Suarez, 2010; Constant and Zimmerman, 2003). This was not only true for family businesses, but also for many low-skilled workers. Does the comfort of doing the same as your family or friends outweigh the potential benefits of doing something else? Or are these people ignorant of other possibilities and just not open enough for different experiences?Much research in the personnel economics field has been put into the possible link between someone’s personality and job productivity. For example, leadership has been shown to be positively correlated to extraversion and negatively to agreeableness. High emotional stability and conscientiousness are thought to be good for productivity in general. The influence of openness to experience on job performance depends on the specific job type of the worker. However, literature about personality affecting occupational choice is rather scarce. A lot of interesting, relevant work could be done here. It is a relatively unknown domain. Governments spend much time, effort and money in projects to help the labour market find its balance. Perhaps institutions would have to change the way they try to make certain industries attractive for potential employees.One of the Big Five personality traits is openness to experience. From the little work done on the relationship between personality and motivation behind career choices, most of this was about openness to experience. It was for example found that openness to experience is positively related to career flexibility. This also makes sense, because it would be logical if people more open to experience are more eager to try out something new. Perhaps people more open to experience depend less on their environment when making their career choices? Although the absence of evident literature on the link between personality and occupational choice does not mean at all that there is none, it was an important reason for me to focus this 5 research on openness to experience. Personally, I could imagine that emotional stability is also related to choices people make in their professional lives. However, both time and resources on this project are limited, so the question of interest is: To what degree does openness to experience influence the way people make career choices?This research question will be answered with the help of three sub-questions. First, an overview is provided of the most important reasons for the respondents to make their occupational choice. Possible reasons are being ranked according to the mean value given by the respondents. Hereafter, possible relationships between openness to experience and other characteristics are being discovered. Finally, results on reasons for career choices are being compared to the scores on openness to experience and potential links are being detected. 1: METHODOLOGYThis part describes the way the research was done. The sample of people where the data come from is being described. Besides, this section will discuss what instrument I used to collect the data. Special attention is paid to the way personality is being measured. Possible methodological issues regarding of this method are being discussed. 1.1 Sample A sample of 107 people has been questioned in order to collect data for my research (N=107). This group of respondents contains 2 subgroups. The first group contains people registered at an employment agency. I took an internship at this employment agency and made a deal to send out questionnaires to their external employees. Those people can be classified as Dutch, relatively young, low-skilled workers, living in or nearby the province South-Holland. They were chosen to participate because of their availability. The second group of participants are people close to me, like family and friends. Most of them are highly-educated. I asked them to participate to enlarge the sample size and thus to make the results more powerful. Besides, this made it possible to compare low-skilled to high-skilled people.1.2 Instrument I used self-administered questionnaires as instrument to measure the way people make their career choices. According to Babbie (2010), self-administered questionnaires have the advantage that large populations can be sampled easily and that data can be collected easily 6 and in a standardized way. Besides, the participant can complete the survey anonymous. These are also the reasons why this type of research has been chosen. However, there are also potential drawbacks involved. The danger of using questionnaires is that respondents may not understand the questions, do not complete the total survey or do not respond at all. The last issue was tackled by the way I got my sample group. This ensured me the response rate was relatively high. Babbie (2010) concludes that in general, survey research is comparatively weak on validity but strong on reliability.1.3 The questionnaire In the questionnaire, participants have been asked a number of characteristics, such as gender, age, educational level and current work status. Next, they answered six questions used to measure the variable ‘openness to experience’. The questions were taken from the official big five inventory. The subjects have reported the motivation behind their choice for a certain career path. They also mentioned their most important reasons to start or stop working for an organization. They have ranked several possible reasons for this on a scale from 1 to 5. The results on the motivation to choose a specific organization and to leave your employer can be found in Appendices D and E respectively, because they do not directly contribute t answering the research question.1.4 NEO PI-R The Revised Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R) was developed by Costa and McCrae (1992) to measure the Big Five personality traits of adults. This instrument is used to measure the respondents’ openness to experience. The validity and reliability of this measurement tool have been widely tested and approved, although criticisms remain (Costa and McCrae, 1987; Mervielde et al., 1995). Because Dutch, low-skilled workers represent the sample, the inventory has been translated into Dutch. Its replicability in the Dutch language has been tested by De Raad (1992). A short version of the NEO PI-R is called the Short Big Five Inventory (BFI-S). This inventory was made to increase the response rate of the test. By measuring personality with fewer questions, the questionnaire was easier to use and more accessible to potential respondents. I used the items of the BFI-S scale for my research for this reason.7 1.5 Methodological issues The use of the big five personality test involves some methodological issues. This section discusses the issues most relevant for my research. It provides a short literature overview on these matters and concludes on the potential harm the issues can do to the value of the results.1.6 The self-response bias When questionnaires are used for research, a possible problem is the true value of the answers. Questionnaires are often being criticized for putting subjects in as-if situations instead of real life circumstances. The danger of this is that subjects act differently or make other decisions than they would do in reality. This does not necessarily mean the subjects do this on purpose. It could be that a respondent simply cannot know how he/she would act or unintentionally tries to act socially desirable (Becker, 1976). The latter becomes a problem when the questions asked become personal, such as in the big five personality test. People get confronted with their own qualities and shortcomings and may not always want to make those public. Scientists try to solve this problem by offering subjects the option to be anonymous. There is no clear evidence that this removes the noise. For example, Goh et al (2010) found that the effect of anonymity is absent for Asian teachers rating their own teaching skills. Also, mixed evidence on the existence of a self-rating bias can be found in the literature. Furnham (1986) concluded that various attempts to determine which factors make people more prone to response bias than others have led to equivocal results. The first factor was found by Edwards (1955), who stated that the response bias of subjects was positively correlated with the item’s social desirability. Pedregon et al (2012) concluded that participants rated their family and friends better on social desirable measures than others on general. This may explain why McCrae (1982) wrote that spouses’ ratings are highly correlated to subjects’ self-ratings. People who are related tend to overestimate both themselves and each other. However, various studies have pointed out that socially desirable responses have little or no impact on the validity of personality tests (Bing et al., 2011 and McGrath et al., 2010). Therefore, I conclude that, although the meaning of the real values should be interpret with care, the self- response bias is no real threat to my results.1.7 Personality: a stable factor? People change over time. This could be a potential problem to my research, because if the timing of the survey would influence the answers, the data are not reliable. Besides, it would raise the question when it would be the ‘right’ time to question the participants. However, literature is considerably unanimous on this topic. Gottschling, Hahn and Spinath (2012) 8 found that short measurement scales provide stable results over a period of 18 months. Also, Cobb-Clark and Schurer (2011) claim there is no reason for personality to be unstable. They conclude that like other non-cognitive traits, personality can be modelled as a stable input into many economic decisions.This does not necessarily mean that people cannot change. It does mean that this is not an objection to use personality as an economic factor. In my research, I compare different degrees of openness to experience to different motivators behind career paths. The use of a personality trait as a stable variable is not a problem for this goal.1.8 The use of a small measurement scale When I was considering the methodology of this thesis, I faced a certain trade-off which is common when questionnaires are being used to collect data. It is the trade-off between getting as much relevant information as possible and achieving the highest possible response rate. You don’t want the questionnaire the be too long, because people got bored and quit or don’t even get started. Thus, it is the art to gather as much relevant as possible by taking the least possible time of the respondent. But can data still be reliable when only a few questions are being asked to measure a personality trait? Eigenhuis, Saucier and Thalmayer (2011) conclude that a brief version of the BFI performs surprisingly well and that across inventory platforms, increasing test length had little effect on predictive validity. Also, Gottschling (2012) notes that in research settings with a pronounced need for parsimony, a short measurement of personality in the form of the BFI-S offers a sufficient level of utility. After considering this, the short BFI-S was the best measurement tool in this research setting.9 2: OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCEOpenness to experience is an important variable in my research. It is one of the five personality traits, together representing the ‘Big Five’. This part of the thesis elaborates on the existing literature on both openness to experience and occupational choice. More information regarding the ‘Big Five’ can be found in Appendix B.Openness to experience gives an indication on how open minded that person is. High openness to experience points to a curious and creative person, who enjoys trying new things. People with a low level of openness to experience are often routine oriented and avoid trying new things. Preferences regarding this quality also depend on the job at hand. Openness to experience is the most important trait for this research.2.1: Literature Economists have focused more on the relation between characteristics and job performance than the link between personality and career choices. It is generally accepted among scientists that emotional stability and conscientiousness are positively related to productivity (Helms, 2006). For openness to experience, extraversion and agreeableness, this depends on the type of work an employee has. Judge et al. (1999) say that conscientiousness and neuroticism are 10 respectively positive and negative for career success across one’s life span. Openness to experience had no significant role in this process. Also, being generally mental able helps succeeding in your career. Seibert and Kramer (2001) did research on this topic as well in their ‘The five-factor model of personality and career success’. They showed that extraversion was positively related to salary, promotions and career satisfaction. They also proved that scoring high on neuroticism as well as agreeableness is bad for your career satisfaction. Finally, openness to experience was found to be negatively correlated to salary level. It is concluded that personality traits contribute importantly to earnings and social status (Gelissen and De Graaf, 2006). Openness to experience is negatively related to earnings, but only for men according to them. This is true despite the fact that elderly adults who are more open to experience have a better functioning memory and everyday functioning skills in general (Gregory, Nettelbeck and Wilson, 2010).A possible reason for this is that people who are open to experiences are more eager to switch to a career in which they are not experienced nor trained for. This is a mechanism similar to the one described by Bentolila, Michelacci and Suarez (2010). The idea that openness to experience leads to higher career flexibility was confirmed by Coate et al. (1998). Their results indicated that personality dimensions and more self-directed career strategies are associated. Jansen, De Jong and Van der Velde (2001) showed that the nature of the link between skill variety and job satisfaction is moderated by openness to experience. The workers that are more open to the outer world, generally are more satisfied with their jobs that ask for a large variety of skills. Self-efficacy is a term to describe the degree in which someone trusts in his or her own capabilities to succeed in something (Bandura, 1977). Translated to professionals, career self- efficacy is an assessment of the chances somebody has to succeed in a certain career field, made by this person self. Openness to experience was found to be significant positively correlated to career self-efficacy in creative and intellectual areas (Hartman, 2007). This is not very surprising given the fact that openness to experience is significantly related to team creativity (Schilpzand, 2011).This section has told us that openness to experience is negatively correlated to salary in general. A possible reason is that open people tend to change their career more often. In fact, openness to experience is positively related to career flexibility. The link between openness to11 experience and career self-efficacy depends on the type of industry the employee is in. For jobs with many creative tasks, this relationship is positive. 2.2 Occupational choice Early economic theory suggested that people make their career choices based on (future) earnings. Most people are currently familiar with the fact that the reality is much more complex. Occupational choice has been the subject of scientific research for many decades. This has yielded us a long list of reasons why people chose a specific profession.One early influential article was written by Herzberg (1959), who developed the two-factor theory. He made the distinction between hygiene factors and motivating factors. His claim is that hygiene factors, such as salary and good work conditions, are responsible for people leaving their jobs when absent, but do not motivate employees when present. Motivating factors including responsibility and recognition, on the other hand, can really motivate workers to be more productive on their current jobs. This is a bit contrary to the more general psychological research Maslow (1943) did for his ‘Theory of Human Motivation’. Maslow wrote that there is a hierarchical pyramid of needs for human beings. The pyramid of needs looks like this:People would first have to fulfil the need of the lowest step on the pyramid before the next comes up. Interpreting this pyramid to factors in career choice suggests that salary (to ensure physiological needs) and good work conditions (safety needs) are more important to a worker at first. When these conditions are met, the worker starts caring about relations with colleagues (belonging), responsibility (esteem) and the possibility to develop oneself (self- actualization).12 The number of articles about occupational choice is large. Because there are so many factors involved behind the mechanism of people choosing a profession, scientists took their research one step further and searched for factors influencing the factors affecting career choices. One of these factors was found by (Singaravelu et al, 2005), who compared factors influencing international students’ career choices. Their result was that family had more influence on Asian and non-Asian international students than on American students. Students from the Unites States also experienced less influence from their friends compared to Asian and non- Asian international students. It was previously found that Asian Americans are more pressured by their parents to choose a certain career path than African Americans, Chicano and Latino, and European Americans (Gim, 1992; Tang et al., 1999). Those results suggest that origin and culture affect the way people make career choices.Culture is not the only factor related to origin that shapes people in their occupational choices. Social status appears to be important as well. In this situation, social status is being defined as the total income of the parents of someone at the moment he or she chooses a career. Assuming that a lower social status would lead to more debt during college would put the research by Rohtstein and Rouse (2011) in an interesting perspective. According to them, debt makes graduates choose for significantly better-paid jobs. There seems to be some an economic pressure active on them, which is good for their future earnings. This would also imply that coming from a high-class family would make you less inclined to get a high-salary job, because you do not feel the financial need to do so. Of course, other factors and forms of pressure, such as social pressure and reputation are not considered here. Constant and Zimmerman (2003) found a difference in the influence of parents on the occupational choice of their kids between white- and blue-collar workers. They noted that Germans are more eager to choose a profession similar to their father’s when he is active in the white-collar or professional category. This result does not hold for blue-collar workers. Interestingly, German immigrants are more influenced by the education choice of their mother as opposed to German natives. Gender too plays a vital role in the perception of people on how to find the right profession. Boys and girls have been found to make their choices based on different grounds. Buser, Niederle and Oosterbeek (2012) concluded that both gender and competitiveness are important for the profile choice of young people. Part of the difference in competitiveness was due to gender differences. Boys score higher on competitiveness on average, which is a reason why they are more represented in high-paid positions. This result is confirmed by 13 Kamas and Preston (2012), who investigated winner-take-all tournaments and found the same gender differences in willingness to compete after correcting for confidence and risk aversion. Correll (2001) approached this topic from a different point of view and checked whether cultural beliefs about gender roles caused women to be underrepresented in mathematical fields. Her conclusion was as sharp as meaningful; girls choose less for mathematical careers because they have less confidence in their abilities, even when their mathematical skills are slightly better than those of the male subjects. The reason for this is they do not see themselves succeeding in an industry in which society expects men to work. Heiligers (2012) confirmed this finding in the medical world. Another difference between men and women is that the female gender tends to be more altruistic and therefore cares more about doing something good for society at their jobs. This could also be an explanation of why women are better represented at public industries such as education and health care.Apart from the factors mentioned above are personal interests and capabilities also important factors for someone’s career. It is not just skills and competencies that matter, but also the belief somebody has in his or her own capabilities. In literature this is often referred to as self- efficacy. Bandura (1977) found that it is a great motivator if a person finds out he or she has a good chance to succeed in a certain field of expertise.However, it can also occur that somebody ends up in an industry by coincidence. Bentolila, Michelacci and Suarez (2010) claim that social contacts help to find jobs, but not necessarily in the profession that the worker is most productive in. Contacts can be of great value for social institutions, because it is written in their article that contacts reduce the period of unemployment by 1 to 3 months on average. People that find a job this way do have account for the discount on their wage of at least 2,5% they get when finding a job this way. This phenomenon is explained by the authors by the difference in productivity.Other reasons for people to choose their professional area that came up regularly in literature are the chances on a future job and the possibility to develop oneself and grow in a specific field. The factors that are most important depend on the factors mentioned above. 14 3: RESULTSThis chapter shows the results from the data collected with the self-administered questionnaires. First, a summary of the important descriptive statistics is given. Then, possible relationships between factors are explored. Finally, an answer is given to the sub-questions.3.1 Descriptive statistics The data consist of a total of 107 participants (N=107). Among these 107 people are 72 men and 35 women. Thus, men are overrepresented in this sample compared to the Dutch working population (CBS, 2014). An explanation for this could be that a part of the sample comes from an employment agency in which the engineering industry plays a big part. Of the respondents, 81,7% currently has a job, while 18,3% is unemployed. The unemployment rate of the sample group is a bit higher than the national average (CBS, 2014), which is probably due to the fact that part of the participants are subscribed to an unemployment agency. Crossing this variable against gender shows that the women (11,4%) are relatively less unemployed compared to the men (22,2%).The distribution of the age of the respondents is shown in the histogram below. The exact data can be found in Appendix C.15 The age of the people is normally distributed. There are slightly more young (<25 years old) than old (55> years old) people, although in the Dutch working population more elderly people are active. This is due to the fact that more young people subscribe into employment agencies.The sample group was asked to fill in their highest achieved educational degree. This was important to detect a potential link between education level and openness to experience. However, not all the participants from the employment agency answered this question. This problem was solved by looking their educational background up in the database. The data show that the educational level of the respondents was proportionally distributed between the three continuation schoolings. This was made possible by adding a group of WO/Post Master people to the sample in order to be able to compare groups based on their highest degree. The pie chart below shows the distribution of the sample on educational level.163.2 What are the most important motivators for people to choose their career path? In the self-administered questionnaires, subjects have reported the reasons behind their career choices. They have been asked to write down on a scale of 1 to 5 how important different factors are behind their occupational choices. Exact frequencies can be found in Appendix C. The table below presents the average scores given to potential motivators by the participants.Motivators for career choices Mean Median Std. deviation Interests & qualities 3.90 4 .846 Advice family 3.44 4 .973 Salary level 3.26 3 .925 Advice friends 3.01 3 .746 Exploring new areas 2.94 3 .763 Other 2.64 3 .87317 The table provides a few interesting insights. First of all, interests and qualities is on average the most important reason for the respondents to choose a career. It appears that people like to do something they are interested in and want to do something they are good at, which is pretty logical. Something else catching the eye is that advice from family is being valued more than advice from friends. Part of this difference can be explained by the fact that some of the subjects descend from countries with more collectivistic cultures, such as Surinam, Turkey and Morocco. People still value a decent salary, which is proven by the third place for salary level. This confirms the theory that salary is not the most important reason for people to choose a profession. However, salary still remains important. The ‘exploring new areas’ reason did not score very well. This suggests that the openness to experience of the sample group is not very high. The link between openness to experience and reasons will be explored later on.Other reasons for career choices scored the lowest, which means that the most important reasons were covered in the questionnaire. There was no specific reason mentioned often in this field. Some of the motivators suggested were ‘the chance to find a job’ and ‘because someone I knew did the same’.3.3 Is there a link between openness to experience and variables apart from career choices? Education broadens the world of students. It makes people more curious, inventive, and helps them to develop ideas and opinions about actual things happening. Therefore, it was being hypothesized that highest educational degree and openness to experience are positively correlated. To make the table neater, both education level and openness are categorized into groups. For education, the categories are as follows: low (Basisschool and MAVO), medium (HAVO, VWO and MBO) and high (HBO, WO and Post Master). The division of openness to experience into groups looks like this: low (<17), medium (17- 21) and high (>21). Following this, the table with Pearson correlations is shown.18 Correlations Openness to Education level Gender experienceOpenness to experience 1 .763** .002Education level .763** 1 -.044Gender .002 -.044 1The strength of the correlation is quite remarkable. With an r of .763 and a p-value of .000, there is a very significant, strongly positive correlation between openness and education. This means that in general, people who are highly educated are more open to experience and vice versa.The subjects have been asked to rate their own openness to experience with six questions containing all the domains of openness according to the BFI-S index. These aspects include ideas, fantasy, aesthetics, actions, feelings and values. The answers are scored in a total variable called ‘openness to experience’. The scores of this variable are compared to the number of parents that had the same educational programme and/or profession. The results are presented in the tables on the next page.Report Openness to experience How many of your parents Mean N Std. Deviation have the same educational background? 0 19.09 69 4.129 1 19.20 35 4.296 2 18.33 3 3.786 Total 19.10 107 4.141Report Openness to experience19 How many of your parents Mean N Std. Deviation have the same occupation? 0 19.71 69 4.191 1 18.03 37 3.912 2 17.00 1 . Total 19.10 107 4.141The first table, in which openness to experience is compared to the number of parents that had the same educational programme, does not indicate a clear relationship. When the number of parents with the same background increases from 0 to 1, the average openness to experience increases a little bit. However, taking the next step from 1 to 2 parents makes the mean score on openness to experience decrease again. The second table suggests a negative link between a person’s openness to experience and the number of parents that had the same occupation. This is in line with the hypothesis that parents have less influence on the career choices of their spouse when these are more open to experience. On the table below, Pearson’s correlation test is used to see if there exists a statistically significant correlation.CorrelationsOpenness to Same educational Same occupation experience background as parentsOpenness to experience 1 -.005 -.199*Same educational background -.005 1 .347**Same occupation as parents -.199* .347** 1*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).20 We know from this table that there is a weak positive (r = -0.199), significant (p = 0.039) correlation between openness to experience and the number of parents that have the same occupation. It is also shown that this correlation with educational background is both very weak and insignificant. However, there is a positive, significant relationship between the number of parents that had the same education programme and the ones that had the same profession.It was hypothesized that people who are open to experience are less influenced by their environment. Besides, they would have higher career flexibility and be more open to explore new industries and professional fields. To make the tables more accessible, the scores on openness to experience have been ranked in a low (<17), medium (17- 21) and high (>21) group. Hereunder is the table showing the motivators for people to choose their career path ranked according to openness level.21 The table seems to indicate that openness to experience does not have much influence on the motivation behind the career choices of the subjects. It was expected that people more open to experience would depend less on the advice of family and friends, but this is not confirmed by the data. The only link following from this table is between discovering new working areas and openness to experience, as was hypothesized. The results of the Pearson correlation test are shown beneath.Pearson’s correlation test confirms the picture that openness to experience is only statistically significant correlated to discovering new working areas. The substantial value of r = 0.432 can both mean that people more open to experience put more value to discovering new working areas and that people who like to discover other professional industries tend to be more open. Something else standing out is the negative link between the salary level and discovering new working areas variables. This means that people that put less weight on salary level are more inclined to discover a new working area and vice versa. These results are matching the research done by Bentolila (2010). They found that career flexibility is negatively related to the salary level. Apparently, flexible people do care less about their pay check.It is not surprising to see the positive correlation between advice of family and advice of friends. Evidently, some people value the opinion of their next of kin more than others. It is therefore not strange to notice that people who value the advice of their family tend to appreciate the advice of friends more as well. The opposite is true as well.CONCLUSION 22 The economic crisis has struck and changed the whole world. In many countries, the unemployment rate rose rapidly. Despite the fact that many people were looking for work, there were still industries short on people, like the ICT and Engineering. Apparently the labor market does not restore itself by adjustments of the wages, as assumed by early labor theory. Also, the policy measures taken by the government still do not make the demand of labor fit to its supply. This raises the question of how people make career choices.In order to answer this question, self-administered questionnaires have been completed by respondents. A total of 107 people participated, who can be split up into two sample subgroups. Part of the group were people subscribed into an employment agency. These people can be described as young, low-skilled workers active in the engineering, logistics, office or administration industry of South-Holland. The other group consists of elder, higher educated people known by the author. The subjects have been asked to report the degree to which potential factors have influenced their career choices. Questions regarding their openness to experience were asked as well. Potential relations are examined with Pearson’s correlation test.Openness to experience is one of the big five personality traits. The big five framework is used by the majority of both scientists and recruiters the measure the personality of their subjects. Openness to experience gives an indication on how open minded that person is. High openness to experience points to a curious and creative person, who enjoys trying new things. Using a small scale to score openness of experience was found to deliver valid and reliable results. Making people answer questions about their own personality may alter the results a little bit, but is not a problem when the scores of groups are compared.Occupational choice has been a research topic for many years. Potential motivators to choose a specific career path include the advice of family and friends, personal interests and competences, discovering something new and salary level. The most important reasons often depend on circumstantial factors, such as culture, social status and gender. In literature, openness the experience is positively related to career flexibility, but negatively to salary level. The relation between openness to experience and job performance depends on the type of job the worker has. However, career self-efficacy is positively correlated to openness to experience for jobs with many creative tasks.The most important reason to choose for a career is personal interest and capabilities according to the sample. Advice of family scored second and was considered more important 23 than advice from friends. Salary level came on third place and discovering new areas scored the worst. The strong positive (r = .763) and statistically significant (p = .000) correlation between openness to experience and education level is remarkable. This means that high educated are more open to experience and the other way around. Openness to experience was also found to be negatively correlated to the number of parents that had the same profession as the respondent. There is no significant link between the number of parents that attended the same educational program and the openness of the participant. However, people more open to experience also value the advice from family and friends. No difference was found in the valuation of advice from people who score high or low on openness. A significant positive relationship was found between openness to experience and the motivation to explore new working fields. Although not significantly related to openness to experience, salary level was negatively correlated to exploring new working areas. This confirms theories from previous literature that people more open to experience have more career flexibility, but this goes at the cost of a decrease in wages. LimitationsOne of the limitations of this research was the relatively small sample size. Due to practical limitations, the group of respondents was quite small. As a consequence, the power of the results is lower and one has to be careful when generalizing the conclusion. This is especially true if the sample group is quite specific and characteristics such as culture, social status and gender are known to have impact on the reasons for career choices. Now that the participants come from a specific group, conclusions can only be made about this particular population. In order to be able to say something about a larger group of people or different cultures, the sample group has to be larger.The use of correlations to indicate relationships between variables has two potential drawbacks. One of them is that the existence of a correlation does not mean there is a causal connection between the two factors. For example, a positive correlation between the number of storks and babies born does not mean that storks cause the birth of babies nor that newborn babies attract storks. The other setback of correlations is that the direction of the link is unknown. If the correlation between educational level and openness to experience is highly 24 positive, this can mean both that highly educated people are more open and that more open people get higher educated.Suggestions for Further ResearchAs in every research, my work does not only answer questions, but also raises some. This part provides suggestions for future research topics and questions closely related to this one.Sample sizeFor this thesis, I used a relatively small group of respondents that was primarily chosen based on their availability. Due to practical restrictions, among which limitations in time and money, it was hard to collect a large group of subjects. For the power of the results, it would be better to have a larger sample size. The data would be more reliable this way. A way to test the reliability of data is the test-retest method. By replicating this research with a larger group of respondents, the value of my conclusions can be tested.Different subjectsThe self-administered questionnaires were filled in by two subgroups. The first group consists of mainly young, low-educated workers that are in the database of an employment agency. This organization only operates in the department South-Holland and in the Engineering, Office and Administration industries. Thus, it is a very specific group. The second group are more highly-educated adults, mostly living in South-Holland as well. The literature part of this thesis describes how culture affects the influential factors when making career choices. This means that one has to be careful when generalizing conclusions, because in other cultures the results may not hold. It would therefore be interesting to see whether data with participants of other nations and cultures would result in the same or different conclusions.Personality traitsThe emphasis of this work was on the personality trait openness to experience. The reason for this is that the response rate had to be and more questions generally lead to less response. Because openness to experience seemed the most logical intervening factor when people choose their profession, this trait was focused upon. This does not necessarily mean there is no chance that other characteristics have their part as well. For example, one could imagine that neurotic or extravert people more often switch to a different career for which they were 25 not trained at first. To find out how other personality traits affect factors of career choice could be a good research topic for scientists.Other related research topicsMuch research has been put into the question how personality has an impact on job performances. From current literature, it is clear that the effect of openness to experience on productivity depends on the type of work. It seems that this characteristic is good for creative tasks. However, there is no overview with a classification of well- and ill-suited tasks for people who are open to experience. It became apparent from my results that on general, people who are higher educated also are more open to experience. A possible explanation for this correlation is that people who are more curious and interested in what happens around develop themselves more. The link could also be the other way around, that people who are highly-educated know better that there is much to explore in this world. Are curious people better school performers or do people in high-level classes get trained to be more open? This could be material for future investigation.This thesis should have shed a light on how people make their occupational choice. Many people do eventually not end on the career path they had in mind when they chose their educational program. Maybe there is some connection between the reason to choose a certain profession and the number of people that gets disappointed by this choice. Perhaps choosing for the money more often leads to a career switch than to choose for doing what you like. Of course, there are many more relevant, interesting questions concerning this topic. Humanity will never stop learning and curiosity cannot be banned out of human beings. Thus, the above suggestions are a selection of the questions I considered to be the most relevant and value-adding.26 BIBLIOGRAPHYBabbie, Earl. 2012. The Practice of Social Research. Wadsworth Publishing Company.Bandura, Albert. 1977. Self-efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioural Change , Psychological Review, Vol. 84 (2), 191-215.Bentolila, Samuel, Michelacci, Claudio and Javier Suarez. 2010. Social contacts and occupational choices. Economica, Vol. 77 (305), 20-45. Borjas, George. 2012. Labor Economics. McGraw Hill Education. Bulloxk-Yowell, Emily, Andrews, Lindsay and Mary E. Buzzetta. 2011. Explaining career decision making self efficacy: personality, cognitions and cultural mistrust. The Career Development Quaterly, Vol. 59 (5), 400-411. Buser, Thomas, Niederle, Muriel and Hessel Oosterbeek. 2012. Gender, competitiveness and career choices. The National Bureau of Economic Research.Carless, Sally A. and Jessica L. Arnup. 2011. A longitudinal study of the determinants and outcomes of career change. Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 78 (1), 80-91. Cattell, R. B. 1943. The description of personality: basic traits resolved into clusters. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 84 (4), 476-506.Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. and Stefanie Schurer. 2012. The stability of big five personality traits. Economic Letters, Vol. 115 (1), 11-15. Constant, Amelie and Klaus F. Zimmermann. 2004. Occupational choices across generations. Journal of Population Economics. Costa, Paul and Robert McCrae. 1985. The Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Odessa, Psychol. Assess. Resources.Costa, P.T., Jr., & McCrae, R.R. 1992. Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and the Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI): Professional Manual, Odessa, Florida: Psychological Assessment Resources Inc.Correl, Shelley J. 2001. Gender and the career choice process: The role of biased self assessments. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 106 (6), 1691-1730.Digman, John M. 1990. Personality Structure: Emergence of the Five-Factor Model. Annual Review Psychology, Vol. 41, 417-40.EUobserver.com. 2014. Economische crisis. http://www.europa- nu.nl/id/vhrtcvh0wnip/economische_crisis (downloaded 28th May 2014).27 Fiske, Donald W. 1949. Consistency of the factorial structures of personality ratings from different sources. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. Vol. 44, 329-44.Gati, Itamar, Gadassi, Reuma, Saka, Noa, Hadadi, Yael, Ansenberg, Neta, Friedmann, Ronit and Lisa Asulin-Peretz. 2010. Emotional and Personality-Related Aspects of Career Decision-Making Difficulties: Facets of Career Indecisiveness. Journal of Career Assessment.Gelissen, John and Paul M. de Graaf. 2006. Personality, social background and occupational career success. Social Science Research, Vol. 35 (3), 702-726. Gim, R.H.C. 1992. Cross cultural comparison of actors that influence career choice. In F.T.L. Goldberg, L. R. 1981. Language and individual differences: the search for universals in personality lexicons. In Review of Personality and Social Psychology, ed. L. Wheeler, 2:141"'{)5. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Gregory, Tess, Nettelbeck, Ted and Carlene Wilson. 2010. Openness to experience, intelligence and successful ageing. Elsevier, Vol. 48 (8), 895-899. Grumm, Mandy and Collani von Gernot. 2007. Measuring Big Five personality dimensions with the implicit association test- Implicit personality traits or self-esteem? Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 43 (8), 2205-2217.Guthrie, James P., Coate, Charles J. and Catherine E. Schwoerer.1986. Career management strategies: The role of personality. Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 13 (5/6).Hahn, Elisabeth, Gottschling, Juliana and Frank M. Spinath. 2012. Short measurement of personality- Validity and reliability of the GSOEP Big Five inventory (BFI-S). Journal of Research in Personality, Vol. 46 (3), 355-359. Hartman, Robert O. and Nancy E. Betz. 2007. The five-factor model and career self-efficacy; General and domain specific relationships. Journal of Career Assessment, Vol. 15 (2), 145- 161. Hastings, Brad M. 2007. Roy G. BIV and the OCEAN, a heuristic metaphor for understanding the role of the five-factor model in personality research. Theory Psychology, Vol. 17 (1), 87- 99.Heiligers. 2012. BMC medical education, ISSN 1472-6920, 2012, Volume 12, Issue 1, p.82.Helms, Marilyn M. 2006. Encyclopedia of Management. Detroit: Gale.John, Oliver P., Angleitner, Alois and Fritz Ostendorf. 1988. The lexical approach to personality: a historical review of trait taxonomic re search. European Journal of Personality, Vol. 2 (3), 171-205.Jong, de Rendel D., Velde, van der Mandy E.G and Paul G.W. Jansen. 2001. Openness to experience and growth need strength as moderators between job characteristics and satisfaction. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, Vol. 9 (4), 350-356. 28 Judge, Timothy A., Higgens, Chad A., Thoresen, Carl J. and Murray R. Barrick. 1999. The big five personality traits, general mental ability and career success across the life span. Personnel Psychology, Vol. 52 (3), 621-652. Kamas and Preston. Journal of economic behavior & organization, ISSN 0167-2681, 2012, Volume 83, Issue 1, pp. 82 – 97.Kloor, Robin, van der. 2009. Werkloosheid Eurozone blijft stijgen. Elsevier.nl, April 30, http://www.elsevier.nl/Economie/nieuws/2009/4/Werkloosheid-eurozone-blijft-stijgen- ELSEVIER232393W/ (downloaded 28th May 2014).Koivisto, Petri, Vinokur, Amiram D. and Jukka Vuori. 2011. Effects of career choice intervention on components of career preparation. The Career Development Quarterly, Vol. 59 (4), 345-366. Leong, Frederick T. 1995. Career development and vocational behaviour of racial and ethnic minorities. Hove: Psychology Press. Lounsbury, John W., Hutchens, Teresa and James M. Loveland. 2005. An investigation of Big Five Personality Traits and Career decidedness among early and middle adolescents. Journal of Career Assessment, Vol. 13 (1), 25-39. McCrae, Robert R. 1996. Social consequences of experiential openness. Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 120 (3), 323-337. McCrae. Robert R. 1982. Consensual validation of personality traits: Evidence from self- reports and ratings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 43 (2), 293-303. McDougall, William. 1932. Of the words character and personality. Journal of Personality, Vol. 1(1), 3-16.Mervielde, I., Buyst, V., & De Fruyt, F. 1995. The validity of the Big Five as a model for teachers' ratings of individual differences in children aged 4 to 12. Personality and Individual Differences, 18, 525-534.Mount, Mikael K., Barrick, Murray R. and Perkins Strauss. 1994. Validity of observer rating of the Big Five personality factors. Journal of Applied Psychology. Vol. 79 (2), 272-280. Nauta, Margaret M. 2007. Career interests, self-efficacy and personality as antecedents of career exploration, Journal of Career Assessment, Vol. 15 (2), 162-180. NOS.nl. 2013. Spanje telt ruim 5 miljoen werklozen. March 4, http://nos.nl/artikel/480651- spanje-telt-ruim-5-miljoen-werklozen.html (downloaded 28th May 2014).NOS.nl. 2013. Hoogste aantal werklozen ooit. April 18, http://nos.nl/artikel/496992-hoogste- aantal-werklozen-ooit.html (downloaded 28th May 2014).NOS.nl. 2013. Van Rompuy: Crisis is voorbij. December 29, http://nos.nl/artikel/591776-van- rompuy-crisis-is-voorbij.html (downloaded 29th May 2014).29 Peterson, Shari. 2009. Career decision-making self-efficacy, integration and the likelihood of managerial retention in governmental agencies. Human Resource Development Quarterly, Vol. 20 (4), 451-475. Raad, de, B. 1992. The replicability of the Big Five dimensions in three wordclasses of the Dutch language. European Journal of Personality, 6, 15-30.Rothstein, Jesse and Cecilia E. Rouse. 2011. Constrained after college: Student loans and early-career occupational choices. Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 93 (1-2), 149-163. Schilpzand, Marieke C., Herold, David M. and Christiana E. Shalley. 2010. Members’ openness to experience and teams’ creative performance. Small Group Research. Schreurs, J. 2012. Waardoor is de economische crisis eigenlijk ontstaan? Infonu.nl, December 26, http://financieel.infonu.nl/geld/97560-waardoor-is-de-economische-crisis-eigenlijk- ontstaan.html (downloaded 28th May 2014).Seibert, Scott E. and Maria L. Kraimer. 2001. The five-factor model of personality and career success. Journal of Vocational Behaviour, Vol. 58 (1), 1-21. Singaravelu, Hemla D., White, Lyle J. and Tammy B. Bringaze. 2005. Factors influencing international students’ career choice; A comparative study. Journal of Career Development, Vol. 32 (1), 46-59. Smith, Gene M. 1967. Usefulness of peer ratings of personality in educational research. Educational Psychology Measures, Vol. 27, 967-84.Tang, Mei, Fouad, Nadya and Phillip Smith. 1999. Asian Americans’career choices: A path model to examine factors influencing their career choices. Journal of Vocational Behaviour, Vol. 54, 142- 157.Thalmayer, Amber G., Saucier, Gerard and Annemarie Eigenhuis. 2011. Comparative validity of brief to medium length Big Five and Big Six personality questionnaires. Psychological Assesment, Vol. 23 (4). 995-1009. Tupes, Ernst C. and Raymond E. Christal. 1992. Recurrent personality factors based on trait ratings. Journal of Personality, Vol. 60 (2), 61-97.Warr, Peter, Bartram, Dave and Anna Brown. 2005. Big Five validity: Aggregation method matters. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 78 (3), 377-386. Wiggins, Nancy, Blackburn, Margaret and Richard Hackman. 1969. The prediction of first- year graduate success in psychology: peer ratings. Journal of Educational Research. Vol. 63 (2), 63:81-85.Worrell, Frank C. and William E. Cross Jr. 2004. The reliability and validity of Big Five inventory scores with African American college students. Journal of Multicultural Counselling and Development, Vol.32 (1), 18-32. 30 APPENDIX A: The self-administered questionnaireIn vergelijking met anderen ben ik iemand die:1) Original is en met nieuwe ideeën komt:□ Zeer oneens□ Oneens□ Neutraal□ Eens□ Zeer eens2) Nieuwsgierig is over een breed scala aan onderwerpen:□ Zeer oneens□ Oneens□ Neutraal□ Eens□ Zeer eens3) Vindingrijk is en een denker::□ Zeer oneens□ Oneens□ Neutraal□ Eens□ Zeer eens4) Een levendige fantasie heeft:□ Zeer oneens□ Oneens□ Neutraal31 □ Eens□ Zeer eens5) Inventief is:□ Zeer oneens□ Oneens□ Neutraal□ Eens□ Zeer eens6) Routinematig werken prefereert:□ Zeer oneens□ Oneens□ Neutraal□ Eens□ Zeer eens1. Wat is uw geslacht?□ Man□ Vrouw2. Hoe oud bent u?□ 25-□ 25-34□ 35-44□ 45-54□ 55+3. Wat is uw hoogst afgeronde opleiding?32 □ Basis school □ MAVO□ HAVO□ VWO□ MBO□ HBO□ WO□ Post Master4. Bent u op dit moment werkzaam?□ Ja□ Nee5. Bent u uiteindelijk een beroep gaan uitoefenen waarvoor u ging studeren?□ Ja□ Nee6. Hoeveel van uw ouders hebben dezelfde (vervolg)opleiding als u gedaan?□ 0□ 1□ 27. Hoeveel van uw ouders hebben hetzelfde beroep (gehad) als u?□ 0□ 1□ 233 Wij willen u nu vragen om terug te denken aan de tijd waarin u een studierichting koos om voor te leren. Geef de onderstaande punten een waardering die ligt tussen de 1 en de 5, waarbij u een hoge waardering geeft aan de factoren die een belangrijke rol speelden in uw beroepskeuze. (1 = laagste waardering, 5 = hoogste waardering)...... Advies van familie...... Advies van vrienden...... Persoonlijke interesses en kwaliteiten…….. Een nieuw vakgebied ontdekken...... Hoogte van het salaris...... Overig, namelijk………………………………………………………………………...Geef opnieuw een waardering tussen de 1 en de 5 aan de factoren die een belangrijke rol hebben gespeeld bij uw keuze om bij uitgerekend die organisatie te gaan werken.……. Grootte en cultuur van de organisatie...... Reisafstand ten opzichte van de organisatie...... Mogelijkheid tot het volgen van extra opleidingen en doorgroeimogelijkheden……. Al bekend met de organisatie (bijv. via bekenden of een stage)……. Hoogte van het salaris……. Overig, namelijk………………………………………………………………………...Tenslotte zijn wij benieuwd naar uw motieven om uw baan op te zeggen. Geef punten (tussen de 1 en de 5) aan de verschillende redenen om met uw huidige baan te stoppen, waarbij u een hoge waarde geeft aan de reden die u het snelst zou doen besluiten om uw baan op te zeggen.……. Conflict met uw collega(‘s)……. Conflict met uw leidinggevende...... Onveilige werksituatie...... Gebrek aan waardering...... Beter aanbod elders34 Hartelijk dank voor uw medewerking!APPENDIX B: The Big Five Personality TestPersonality is a set of enduring traits and characteristics that relate to a person's emotions, motivations, interpersonal interactions and attitudes (Helms, 2006). Because personality is a trait, a person will act similar in a variety of situations. The power of personality is that knowing a person makes it possible to predict his or her behaviour under certain circumstances. This is what makes personality tests interesting for recruiters. Companies have learned to appreciate the fact that personality traits can affect job performance. However, the development of the Big Five did not start for its current purposes. Instead, it was being used to declare and detect mental illnesses (Helms, 2006). John et al. (1988) claim that systematic efforts to analyse and categorize the personality traits of human beings into measurable units started shortly after the appeal of William McDougall (1932) , stating that science could benefit from transforming the inside of people into measurable variables. The categorizing began with the work of Cattell (1943), modelling a system with a minimum of 16 primary and 8 secondary factors (Digman,1990). Fiske (1949) found there was no need for a system larger than five factors, using Cattell’s scaling. Tupes & Christal (1961), in an attempt by the American Air Force to use personality to predict officer effectiveness, agreed with the system of Fiske, which was further developed by Norman (1967). The usefulness of this work was demonstrated by Smith (1967) and Wiggins et al. (1969), who could make predictions on the educational achievements of students using personality measures. Goldberg (1981), who was the first one to use the expression ‘Big Five’ and (Costa & McCrae 1985) proved the robustness of the model and improved it towards the Big Five Model as we currently know it.Although no consensus between all scientists concerning this topic exists, the majority of the psychologists and recruiters use the Five Factor Model as framework to scale someone’s personality. The next page describes the four other factors that have been distinguished.Emotional stabilityEmotional stability refers to a person’s ability to remain stable and balanced. A person with high emotional stability is often collected, down to earth and capable of handling stress. Low emotional stability is often found in people who are frequently cranky, depressed and unable to deal with stressful situations. A person with high emotional stability is therefore preferred by most organizations. As the probability of distraction is higher amongst those with low 35 emotional stability. They are more perceptive to stress, deadlines or personal situations. Whereas employees with high emotional stability have the ability to control their emotions and stay focused within the work environment. ConscientiousnessConscientiousness implies a person’s ability to be dependable, structured, precise and persevere when faced with obstacles. Conscientiousness is often positively linked to job performance. A person who is high in conscientiousness will almost always be better suited for a job. People who are low in conscientiousness are likely to pay less attention to detail, have difficulty with time-management and are generally less efficient. They are also unlikely to overcome challenges or difficulties within their work. AgreeablenessPreferences regarding agreeableness depend on the kind of profession. High agreeableness points to a warm, kind and tactful individual. Whereas low agreeableness is common in cold and unfriendly personnel. Person with high agreeableness are generally easier to work with as they are easier to talk too and function better within a group. These qualities are however not preferred within every profession. ExtraversionExtraversion refers to the social skills of a person. An individual with a high level of extraversion will feel comfortable within crowd, social gatherings and will prefer to work in groups. Low extraversion indicates a tendency to work alone and limited social skills. The level of extraversion that is required in an employee depends on the particular job. A high level is preferred by organization when it concerns the emotional stability and conscientiousness of an (potential) employee. The preferred level of agreeableness, extraversion and openness to experience is dependent on the job at hand.36 Table B1. An overview of the characteristics involving the personality traits (Helms, 2006)37 APPENDIX C: TablesFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Male 72 67.3 67.3 67.3 Valid Female 35 32.7 32.7 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C1: Gender distribution respondentsFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent < 25 14 13.1 13.1 13.1 25-34 25 23.4 23.4 36.4 35-44 33 30.8 30.8 67.3 Valid 45-54 25 23.4 23.4 90.7 55 > 10 9.3 9.3 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C2: Age distribution respondentsFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Basisschool 2 1.9 1.9 1.9 MAVO 8 7.5 7.5 9.3 HAVO 9 8.4 8.4 17.8 VWO 3 2.8 2.8 20.6 MBO 37 34.6 34.6 55.1 HBO 27 25.2 25.2 80.4 WO 20 18.7 18.7 99.138 Post Master 1 .9 .9 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C3: Highest education level respondentsFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Yes 87 81.3 81.3 81.3 Valid No 20 18.7 18.7 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C4: Number of employed respondentsGender Total Male Female Yes 56 31 87 Are you currently employed? No 16 4 20 Total 72 35 107 Table C5: Crosstab: employment and genderFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 1 1 .9 .9 .9 2 21 19.6 19.6 20.6 3 28 26.2 26.2 46.7 Valid 4 44 41.1 41.1 87.9 5 13 12.1 12.1 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C6: The role of advice from family in career choicesFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 1 1 .9 .9 .9 2 26 24.3 24.3 25.2 Valid 3 51 47.7 47.7 72.9 4 29 27.1 27.1 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C7: The role of advice from friends in career choices39 Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 2 6 5.6 5.6 5.6 3 26 24.3 24.3 29.9 Valid 4 48 44.9 44.9 74.8 5 27 25.2 25.2 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C8: The role of interests and qualities in career choicesFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 2 33 30.8 30.8 30.8 3 48 44.9 44.9 75.7 Valid 4 25 23.4 23.4 99.1 5 1 .9 .9 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C9: The role of discovering a new field in career choicesFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 1 2 1.9 1.9 1.9 2 22 20.6 20.6 22.4 3 36 33.6 33.6 56.1 Valid 4 40 37.4 37.4 93.5 5 7 6.5 6.5 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C10: The role of the salary level in career choicesFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 1 10 9.3 9.3 9.3 2 37 34.6 34.6 43.9 Valid 3 42 39.3 39.3 83.2 4 18 16.8 16.8 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C11: The role of other factors in career choices40 Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 2 31 29.0 29.0 29.0 3 47 43.9 43.9 72.9 Valid 4 27 25.2 25.2 98.1 5 2 1.9 1.9 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C12: The role of the culture and size of an organization in organizational choicesFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 2 29 27.1 27.1 27.1 3 35 32.7 32.7 59.8 Valid 4 42 39.3 39.3 99.1 5 1 .9 .9 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C13: The role of travelling distance in organizational choicesFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 2 8 7.5 7.5 7.5 3 45 42.1 42.1 49.5 Valid 4 45 42.1 42.1 91.6 5 9 8.4 8.4 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C13: The role of opportunities of growth in organizational choicesFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 1 12 11.2 11.2 11.2 2 45 42.1 42.1 53.3 Valid 3 40 37.4 37.4 90.7 4 10 9.3 9.3 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C14: The role of the reputation of an organization in organizational choices41 Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 2 2 1.9 1.9 1.9 3 28 26.2 26.2 28.0 Valid 4 54 50.5 50.5 78.5 5 23 21.5 21.5 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C14: The role of salary level in organizational choicesFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 1 9 8.4 8.4 8.4 2 38 35.5 35.5 43.9 Valid 3 46 43.0 43.0 86.9 4 14 13.1 13.1 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C15: The role of other factors in organizational choicesFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 1 8 7.5 7.5 7.5 2 39 36.4 36.4 43.9 Valid 3 43 40.2 40.2 84.1 4 17 15.9 15.9 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C16: The role of a conflict with a co-worker in choices regarding leaving an employerFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 1 7 6.5 6.5 6.5 2 40 37.4 37.4 43.9 Valid 3 41 38.3 38.3 82.2 4 19 17.8 17.8 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C17: The role of a conflict with a superior in choices regarding leaving an employer42 Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 1 14 13.1 13.1 13.1 2 51 47.7 47.7 60.7 Valid 3 35 32.7 32.7 93.5 4 7 6.5 6.5 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C18: The role of a dangerous work environment in choices regarding leaving an employerFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 2 11 10.3 10.3 10.3 3 72 67.3 67.3 77.6 Valid 4 24 22.4 22.4 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C19: The role of a lack in appreciation in choices regarding leaving an employerFrequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent 2 3 2.8 2.8 2.8 3 33 30.8 30.8 33.6 Valid 4 49 45.8 45.8 79.4 5 22 20.6 20.6 100.0 Total 107 100.0 100.0 Table C20: The role of a better offer in choices regarding leaving an employer43 APPENDIX D: Reasons for people to choose a specific organisationAfter people have chosen the industry they want to be active in, many choices follow. An important process for people’s career lives is finding a job. The respondents have been asked what they think is important when selecting jobs. What do they value about a specific job when applying at their potential employer? Again, frequencies are in Appendix B. The table below provides the descriptive of the answers from the respondents.Motivators for organizational choices Mean Median Std. deviation Salary level 3.92 4 .741 Opportunities fro growth 3.51 4 .757 Travelling distance 3.14 3 .829 Culture and size of the organization 3.00 3 .789 Other 2.61 3 .821 Reputation of the organization 2.45 2 .815Whereas payment comes only on the third place for people when choosing the industry they want to work in, it is the most important criterion for selecting an employer. Apparently, when someone has chosen to do what he or she likes and can do best, earning a high salary becomes the highest priority. 44 The respondents care a lot about their opportunities to grow in an organization according to these data. This corresponds to what was found in the first sub-question. People know their qualities quite well and want to develop and utilize them. They want to get the best out of themselves. The third place is for travelling distance. People appreciate a short travelling distance because it saves them time. This is especially true for low-skilled workers, because it does not pay off to travel a great distance for a low salary. One can imagine that a person will prefer a short travel after a long day’s work. Culture, size and reputation of the organization did not score high. This was expected because of the large share of low-educated participants. They simply want to do what they are trained for and get a decent paycheck. They do not really care about the rest. These aspects might get more important for specialized jobs. Also, people may not be aware of the role the reputation plays, similar to the unconscious automatic choice people make at a soft drink vending machine. Brand power can be very strong without us realizing it. Other factors were not very important. Appendix E: Reasons for people to leave their employerThere can be a difference between reasons to join an organization and reasons to leave it. Herzberg called the latter hygiene factors; they do not make you happy when present but make you dissatisfied when absent. The subjects have been asked to rate their possible reasons to leave an organization on a scale from 1 to 5. The scores are organized in the table below. Frequencies can be found in Appendix B.Motivators for leaving their employer Mean Median Std. deviation Better offer 3.84 4 .779 Lack of appreciation 3.12 3 .562 Conflict with your superior 2.67 3 .844 Conflict with a co-worker 2.64 3 .838 Unsafe work conditions 2.33 2 .78645 A better offer somewhere else is found to be the best reason for the respondents to leave their employer. An offer can be qualified as better for many reasons, among which a higher salary, more responsibility, an interesting industry, short travelling time, etc. However, what we do know from this is that the reason is more often a good external one than a bad internal one.Lack of appreciation was the second best reason to quit your current job for the participants. When workers do not feel appreciated, work becomes a burden and people go to their work reluctantly. It is not surprising that this is a good motivation to leave your employer.A conflict with a superior is a little bit more a reason to leave your employer than a conflict with a co-worker. The difference is very small tough. Possible reasons for this slight difference is that workers will get into a quarrel with their colleagues less soon than with their boss or that a conflict with their boss has more consequences and thus means leaving the organization.Dangerous work environment was the least important reason to leave your organization. This is probably because the most work places in The Netherlands are safe because of stringent requirements by the inspection. It is expected that most people giving this motivator a relatively high score are active in the engineering industry, in which most work accidents happen.46

This Thesis Has Been Written As Final Step to Complete the Master Economics of Management

Details

Download

Copyright

We respect the copyrights and intellectual property rights of all users. All uploaded documents are either original works of the uploader or authorized works of the rightful owners.

Support