Conceptualising And Operationalising Work Versus Career Salience

Abstract

Career salience was defined and operationalised by Greenhaus in 1971. His scale and conceptualisation of this construct have attracted critical review. Numerous authors have tested various alternative conceptualisations of career salience. However, these approaches have tended to neglect some of the valuable ideas in Greenhaus’ original construct. The present authors suggest that career salience constructs and measures have also been contaminated with an associated but unrecognised construct, namely, work salience. In this study, new work and career salience scales were developed and validated on a sample of 1078 office workers. The data supported the independent definition and measurement of work salience. Opsomming Loopbaanmarkantheid is in 1971 deur Greenhaus gedefinieer en geoperationaliseer. Sy skaal en konseptualisering van hierdie konstruk het kritiese kommentaar ontlok. Menige skrywers het verskeie alternatiewe konseptualiserings van loopbaanmarkantheid getoets. Hierdie benaderings is egter geneig om sommige van die waardevolle idees van Greenhaus se oorspronklike konstruk te verwaarloos. Die teenswoordige outeurs suggereer dat loopbaanmarkantheidkonstrukte en -maatstawe deur ‘n geassosieerde en minder, bekende konstruk, naamlik werkmarkantheid gekontamineer word. In hierdie studie is nuwe werk- en loopbaanmarkantheidskale ontwikkel en gevalideer op ‘n steekproef van 1078 kantoorwerkers. Die data ondersteun die onafhanklike definisie en meting van werkmarkantheid.