Role of Career Oriented Perceived Organizational Support in Determining Subjective Career Success of Supervisory Level Managers in Manufacturing Firms

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the career oriented perceived organizational support (POS-Career) is positively related to the employee subjective career success. An online survey was distributed among a random sample of 150 supervisory level managers in 15 large scale manufacturing firms in Sri Lanka. With a response rate of 59%, 88 managers responded to the survey. The results of Multiple Hierarchical Regression analysis reported that the POS-Career is positively associated with the subjective career success of supervisory level managers. This finding implies that employees believe their career progress is consistent with their own goals, values and preferences when they have developed a perception about the organization’s caring of their career needs. The study made a methodological contribution by validating a questionnaire for POS-Career. Since, there is scant amount of literature that has examined this relationship, the current study made an empirical contribution by undertaking a study in a developing country context. Also, this study made implications to the existing theories such as, perceived organizational support, psychological contract, and social exchange as well as to the extended model of social cognitive career theory. In terms of policy implications, an organization should develop a career development culture by providing employees with a range of career development opportunities, senior management’s leadership for career development programs and developing a climate for employees to involve in career self-management by engaging with networking and visibility behaviors. In response, they develop a belief that their career progress is consistent with their own goals, values and preferences. The limitations of the study and directions for future research are also discussed