What Does the Feeling of Job Success Depend On? Influence of Personal and Organizational Factors

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to determine the influence that various personal and organizational factors have on the self-assessed performance of 1459 employees recruited through a convenience sampling technique. The self-assessed performance was used as indicator of the feelings of job success. A non-experimental correlational cross-sectional design was established. Measures of the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants (such as age, gender, marital status, and personality), structural features of the organization (such as national vs. international, number of employees, or professional sector), and psychosocial aspect of the jobs (such as workload or burnout) were collected via a Google Form Questionnaire. Data were explored using multiple stepwise regression. Results showed conscientiousness as the most important predictor of perceived job success, followed by performance demands and personal accomplishment. Age, extraversion, and having a permanent contract were also related to better perceived success. The main conclusion is that perceived success is greater in the conscientious, extroverted, older participants, with a stable employment contract who have a job with high responsibility, and that provides them with greater feelings of personal fulfillment. The practical implications as well as the strength and limitations of the study are described.

Keywords

• job success
• personality
• age
• gender
• psychosocial factors
• workload