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Universidade de Brasília
Instituto de Psicologia
Departamento de Psicologia Social e do Trabalho
Programa de pós-graduação em Psicologia Social, do Trabalho e das Organizações – PSTO
The importance of achieving what you value: A career goal framework of
professional fulfillment
Lígia Carolina Oliveira Silva
Brasília, DF
December 2015
i
Universidade de Brasília
Instituto de Psicologia
Departamento de Psicologia Social e do Trabalho
Programa de pós-graduação em Psicologia Social, do Trabalho e das Organizações – PSTO
The importance of achieving what you value: A career goal framework of
professional fulfillment
Lígia Carolina Oliveira Silva
Tese de doutorado apresentada no
Programa de Pós-Graduação em
Psicologia Social, do Trabalho e das
Organizações, como requisito parcial à
obtenção do título de doutor em
Psicologia Social, do Trabalho e das
Organizações.
Orientadora: Profa. Dra. Juliana Barreiros Porto
Brasília-DF
December 2015
ii
The importance of achieving what you value: A career goal framework of professional
fulfillment
TESE DE DOUTORADO AVALIADA PELOS SEGUINTES EXAMINADORES:
___________________________________________________________________
Profa Dra. Juliana Barreiros Porto (Presidente)
Universidade de Brasília – UnB
___________________________________________________________________
Profa Dra. Katia Elizabeth Puente-Palacios (Membro interno)
Universidade de Brasília – UnB
__________________________________________________________________
Prof. Dr. Cláudio Vaz Torres (Membro interno)
Universidade de Brasília – UnB
__________________________________________________________________
Profa Dra. Luciana Mourão (Membro externo)
Universo – RJ
__________________________________________________________________
Prof. Dr. Sônia Guedes Gondim (Membro externo)
Universidade Federal da Bahia – UFBA
__________________________________________________________________
Prof. Dr. Jairo Eduardo Borges-Andrade (Membro suplente)
Universidade de Brasília – UnB
iii
Our greatest fear should not be of failure,
but of succeeding at something that doesn´t really matter!
D. L. Moody
iv
AGRADECIMENTOS
Tendo escrito uma tese de doutorado sobre metas de carreira, posso dizer que uma das
metas mais importantes da minha carreira se concretiza neste trabalho. Quando me lembro de
há quanto tempo venho perseguindo esta meta e de tudo que enfrentei para chegar neste
ponto, penso em todas as pessoas que contribuíram e me ajudaram a realizar este feito.
Gostaria, primeiramente, de agradecer meus pais, Braulio e Mariza, pelo incentivo e
pela confiança. Quando eu falava para as pessoas que eu iria ser doutora antes do 30 anos,
muitos me olhavam com descrédito, mas meus pais nunca duvidaram. Apoiaram todas as
decisões difíceis que envolveram a concretização desta meta, que incluíram ir morar longe,
sozinha, viver com pouco dinheiro, trabalhar muito, ir estudar na Inglaterra em pleno inverno,
trabalhar durante as visitas que fiz a eles, não poder visitá-los com frequência, entre outras.
Meus pais sempre acreditaram que, apesar de todas as dificuldades, eu nunca me permitiria
nem pensar em desistir enquanto não conseguisse alcançar esta meta. Todas as vezes que
fraquejei, que chorei e me descabelei, prontamente disseram: “tenha força, o fim já esteve
mais longe”, e eu continuei seguindo.
Aos meus irmãos, Laís e Rafael, que apesar da distância, sempre demonstraram o
orgulho que sentiam por eu estar aqui, fazendo o que fiz. Obrigada por terem compreendido o
quanto isto era importante para mim, e terem perdoado a minha ausência constante.
À João, meu amado e copiloto nesta viagem. Você esteve presente todo o tempo,
aguentando todos os surtos e o cansaço, comemorando comigo as vitórias e me consolando
pelos fracassos. Muito obrigada pelo carinho e dedicação, por me ver tarde da noite no
computador e me levar um lanche, por me ver insone devido às preocupações e ficar acordado
até eu dormir, por me ajudar com as tarefas do dia-a-dia, por tentar fazer a minha vida mais
fácil e, principalmente, mais feliz. Eu não teria conseguido sem a sua ajuda. Queria aproveitar
e agradecer também o Barney, que tem exatamente a idade deste doutorado! Ele nasceu junto
com ele e também foi um companheiro inseparável durante todo o tempo que trabalhei nesta
tese.
Aos meus colegas de trabalho do IESB Oeste, principalmente meus coordenadores e
superiores, que sempre me apoiaram e foram compreensivos com as minhas questões em
função do doutorado. Ter sido professora no IESB ao longo destes 3 anos e meio, na minha
opinião, é o que ajuda a legitimar o título que agora obtenho. Aos meus colegas professores,
que também sempre ajudaram no que puderam, fosse aplicando questionários, corrigindo
minhas provas quando eu estava no sanduíche ou simplesmente dando apoio moral!
v
Um MEGA obrigada aos meus alunos, principalmente aos membros do meu grupo de
pesquisa do IESB, a Heurística. Vocês não imaginam o quanto foram indispensáveis, pois eu
não teria conseguido metade disso tudo se não fosse vocês me ajudando a imprimir
questionários, coletar e tabular dados. Minha tese tem um pedaço de cada um de vocês.
Às minhas companheiras de doutorado, principalmente Elzi, Manu e Pricila.
Dividimos as dificuldades, fúrias e revoltas, assim como também as vitórias e felicidades.
Agradeço muito à UnB por ter nos juntado, mas o papel de vocês na minha vida vai muito
além da academia, vocês são minhas amigas do coração.
Aos meus amigos de Aracaju, principalmente minhas “irmãs” Taira, Nathy e Mari,
que sempre se preocuparam comigo, me deram força e acreditaram em mim. Vocês nunca
deixaram a minha distância afetar nada, paravam a vida pra me ver quando eu estava em
Aracaju, e até vir pra cá todas juntas vocês vieram! Isso me fortaleceu mais do que vocês
imaginam, pois eu sei que não importa onde eu esteja, nossa ligação vai continuar para
sempre.
A special thanks to my English supervisor John Arnold, from Loughborough
University. You helped to make my big dream of studying and living in the UK come true,
and I will always be grateful for that. Beyond that, you read my stuff, got interested in my
work, accepted me and helped me in everything you could, and that’s the greatest thing a
professor can do for a student. You believed in me and in my work, and many times when I
was feeling down about it, I remembered your kind words of support and compliment, so I
kept going. This PhD definitely wouldn’t have been the same without you.
Finalmente, eu gostaria de agradecer imensamente a minha orientadora, Juliana. Eu
poderia escrever um agradecimento inteiro só para ela, mas vou tentar ser sucinta, que é como
ela gosta (haha). Eu “nasci” junto com a filhinha dela, que tem praticamente a idade do meu
doutorado, ou seja, ela tinha duas “filhas” recém-nascidas para criar. Sei que não fui uma filha
fácil, pois muitas vezes fui teimosa, rebelde, surtada e até um pouco imatura. Mas a Juliana
sempre soube me educar e me colocar na linha, ora sendo exigente e assertiva, ora sendo
apoiadora e consoladora, como uma mãe faz com seu filho. Com o tempo e o bom-senso
fomos ajustando-nos uma à outra, e hoje, no fim dessa jornada, posso dizer que boa parte do
que sei e do que me torna competente eu aprendi com ela. Ela foi mais que uma orientadora,
foi uma mentora, que lapida com cuidado sua primeira obra. Sendo assim, meu maior
agradecimento é a ela.
Gostaria de agradecer também todos os meus professores do PSTO/UnB. Há 6 anos
atrás, quando entrei neste programa de pós-graduação, eu sabia que tinha muito a aprender
vi
com vocês, mas foi muito além das minhas expectativas! Vocês mais do que merecem a fama
de excelência que tem na área, e o fato de ter sido aluna de cada um de vocês é algo que me
enche de orgulho.
Meus agradecimentos também ao Grupo Tamayo de Valores e Cultura, que durante
todos esses anos me deu suporte e sempre avaliou e criticou meus milhões de projetos de tese
com muito carinho. Vocês acompanharam a evolução do meu trabalho e contribuíram muito
com ele.
Minha sincera gratidão a CAPES pelo apoio financeiro recebido, tanto mensalmente
quanto durante o período sanduíche no Reino Unido.
vii
Table of Contents
List of figures ................................................................................................................ ix
List of tables ....................................................................................................................x
Abstract ......................................................................................................................... xi
Resumo ......................................................................................................................... xii
Introduction ....................................................................................................................1
1. What is professional fulfillment? The proposition of a model ...............................6
1.1 Overview .................................................................................................................6
1.2 What is professional fulfillment? ..............................................................................6
1.3 Professional Fulfillment Framework: Theoretical origins e foundations ....................7
1.4 Professional Fulfillment and positive human aspects at work .................................. 14
2. Objectives ................................................................................................................ 16
2.1 General .................................................................................................................. 16
2.2 Specific ................................................................................................................. 16
3. Studies overview ...................................................................................................... 16
4. Study 1 – Proposition of professional fulfillment framework ............................... 18
4.1 Study 1a – Scale Development .............................................................................. 18
4.1.1 Method .......................................................................................................... 18
4.1.1.1 Scale development and procedures .............................................................. 19
4.1.1.2 Measures for divergent analyses .................................................................. 22
4.1.1.3 Participants .................................................................................................. 23
4.1.1.4 Data analysis ............................................................................................... 23
4.1.2 Results and discussion ................................................................................... 24
4.2 Study 1b – Model test............................................................................................ 29
4.2.1 Method .......................................................................................................... 29
4.2.1.1 Participants .................................................................................................. 29
4.2.1.2 Instruments .................................................................................................. 30
4.2.1.3 Procedures and data analysis........................................................................ 30
4.2.2 Results and discussion ................................................................................... 31
4.3 Study 1c – Test-retest reliability ........................................................................... 37
4.3.1 Method .......................................................................................................... 37
4.3.1.1 Participants .................................................................................................. 37
4.3.1.2 Instruments .................................................................................................. 38
4.3.1.3 Procedures and data analysis........................................................................ 39
4.3.2 Results and discussion ................................................................................... 40
4.4 General Discussion ................................................................................................. 43
5. Study 2 – Motivation for professional fulfillment .................................................. 46
5.1 Achievement Goal Orientation ................................................................................ 48
5.2 Self-esteem ............................................................................................................. 54
5.3 Method .................................................................................................................. 56
5.3.1 Participants ................................................................................................... 56
5.3.2 Instruments ................................................................................................... 57
5.3.3 Procedures and data analysis ......................................................................... 58
5.4 Results and discussion ............................................................................................ 59
viii
5.5 General discussion .................................................................................................. 70
6. Study 3 – Effects of professional fulfillment on positive outcomes ....................... 76
6.1 Subjective well-being and professional fulfillment .................................................. 77
6.2 Flourishing at work and professional fulfillment ..................................................... 79
6.3 Method ................................................................................................................... 81
6.3.1 Instruments .................................................................................................... 81
6.3.2 Participants .................................................................................................... 82
6.3.3 Procedures and data analysis .......................................................................... 83
6.4 Results and discussion ............................................................................................ 84
6.5 General discussion .................................................................................................... 89
7. Final Considerations ............................................................................................... 97
References ............................................................................................................. 104
Appendix 1: Standard research presentation ............................................................ 127
Appendix 2: Professional Fulfillment Scale – First version ..................................... 128
Appendix 3: Professional Fulfillment Scale – Second version ................................. 131
Appendix 4: Professional Fulfillment Scale – Final version ..................................... 133
Appendix 5: Scales used for divergent validity – Study 1a ...................................... 135
Appendix 6: Scales used in Study 2 ......................................................................... 139
Appendix 7: Scales used in Study 3 ......................................................................... 141
Appendix 8: Standard sociodemographic questionnaire ........................................... 143
ix
List of figures
Figure 1: SEM for the relationship between goal content and goal progress parts of PFS.. .... 34
Figure 2: SEM of professional fulfillment as a third-order factor .......................................... 36
Figure 3: SEM of professional fulfillment as a second-order factor ....................................... 36
Figure 4: The 2 X 2 achievement goal framework ................................................................. 49
Figure 5: Interaction plot for H3b ......................................................................................... 66
Figure 6: Results of mediation conditions for H4b ................................................................ 68
Figure 7: Resultant model from Study 2................................................................................ 74
Figure 8: Resultant model from Study 3................................................................................ 95
Figure 9: Final model ........................................................................................................... 98
x
List of tables
Table 1: Comparison of positive concepts at work.. .............................................................. 15
Table 2: Product of Importance and Achievement ................................................................. 20
Table 3: Factor solution for PFS goal content part ................................................................ 25
Table 4: Factor solution for PFS goal progress part ............................................................... 26
Table 5: Correlations Between Professional Fulfillment and Positive Aspects at Work ......... 27
Table 6: PFS model fit after CFA ......................................................................................... 32
Table 7: Results of CFA for model testing considering the product ...................................... 32
Table 8: Cronbach alphas of PFS after CFA ......................................................................... 33
Table 9: Model tests with SEM for PFS ................................................................................ 34
Table 10: Participants’ professions and jobs ......................................................................... 38
Table 11: Results of paired T-Test for PFS goal content part test-retest ................................ 41
Table 12: Results of paired T-Test for PFS goal progress part test-retest ............................... 41
Table 13: Correlations of PFS goal content part test-retest .................................................... 42
Table 14: Correlations of PFS goal progress part test-retest .................................................. 42
Table 15: Intercorrelations among Study 2 variables ............................................................. 59
Table 16: Regression coefficients for H1 and H2 .................................................................. 60
Table 17: Intercorrelations among H1a and H1b variables .................................................... 62
Table 18: Regression coefficients for hypotheses H1a and H1b (Study 2) ............................. 63
Table 19: Hierarchical regression results of moderation analysis for PFS goal content part ... 66
Table 20: Hierarchical regression results of mediation analysis for PFS goal progress part ... 69
Table 21: Intercorrelations among SWB and PFS ................................................................. 85
Table 22: Intercorrelations among Flourishing and PFS ........................................................ 85
Table 23: Regression coefficients for hypotheses H1a and H1b (Study 3) ............................. 86
Table 24: Regression coefficients for hypotheses H2a and H2b ........................................... 87
Table 25: Regression coefficients for hypotheses H3a and H3b ............................................ 88
xi
Abstract
This dissertation aimed to propose a career-goal framework of professional fulfillment,
besides investigating professional fulfillment motivations and consequences. Professional
fulfillment is defined as the perception of having attained, or being on the right track for
attaining, one's most important career goals. The concept is composed of two dimensions: 1)
Importance and achievement of career goals (goal content); 2) Evaluation of goal progress.
The first study aimed to propose professional fulfillment construct both theoretically and
empirically. Professional Fulfillment Scale (PFS) was developed in order to operationalize
and capture the construct, being tested across three sub-studies, which comprised (1a)
development of PFS, (1b) test of the model proposed, and (1c) analysis of test-retest
reliability of the scale. Results from exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis have
presented adequate validity evidence. Further analysis indicated that the scale presents
evidence of construct and divergent validity, as well as test-retest reliability. The second study
aimed to analyze how achievement goal orientations could motivate professional fulfillment,
considering that the former represents distinct motives people may have to achieve goals.
Therefore, it was investigated whether achievement goal orientation predicted professional
fulfillment dimensions, being this relationship moderated/mediated by self-esteem. Results
indicated that only mastery goal orientation predicts professional fulfillment, being this
relationship moderated by self-esteem when mastery avoidance orientation and goal content
part of PFS were considered, and mediated when mastery approach orientation and goal
progress part of PFS were considered. Study 3 aimed to investigate the impact of professional
fulfillment on positive psychology aspects, such as subjective well-being (SWB) and
flourishing at work. Results of multiple regressions indicated that both dimensions of
professional fulfillment predicted the affective component of SWB, but only the goal progress
dimension of professional fulfillment predicted the satisfaction with life component of SWB.
Additionally, results evidenced that both dimensions of professional fulfillment predicted
flourishing at work. It concludes that the initial effort to propose and investigate professional
fulfillment as a career-goal concept was a successful endeavor for initiating a challenging line
of research.
Keywords: professional fulfillment; career; goals; achievement goal orientation; self-esteem;
subjective well-being; flourishing at work.
xii
Resumo
Esta tese teve como objetivo propor um modelo de realização profissional baseado em metas
de carreira, além de investigar suas motivações e consequências. Realização profissional é
definida como a percepção do indivíduo de atingimento de suas metas de carreira mais
importantes de carreira e/ou a avaliação positiva sobre estar na direção certa para atingir essas
metas. O conceito é composto de duas dimensões: 1) importância e alcance de metas de
carreira (conteúdo); 2) avaliação do progresso em direção às metas. O primeiro estudo propôs
o construto de realização tanto de forma teórica quanto empírica. A Escala de Realização
Profissional (ERP) foi desenvolvida de forma a operacionalizar e capturar o construto
proposto, sendo testada em três sub-estudos que compreenderam (1a) o desenvolvimento da
ERP, (1b) o teste do modelo proposto e (1c) a análise da confiabilidade teste-reteste da escala.
Os resultados das análises fatoriais exploratória e confirmatória evidenciaram que a ERP
apresenta evidências adequadas de validade. As demais análises indicaram que a escala
apresenta evidências de validade de construto e divergente, assim como confiabilidade teste-
reteste. O segundo estudo visou analisar como a orientação para metas de alcance poderia
motivar a realização profissional, considerando que tal orientação representa os motivos
distintos que as pessoas podem ter para alcançar metas. Portanto, foi investigado como a
orientação para alcance de metas poderia predizer as dimensões da orientação profissional,
sendo esta relação moderada/mediada pela autoestima. Os resultados indicaram que apenas a
orientação de maestria prediz a realização profissional, sendo essa relação moderada pela
autoestima quando a evitação de maestria e o conteúdo das metas de carreira são
considerados, e mediada quando a aproximação de maestria e o progresso em relação às
metas é considerado. O terceiro estudo teve como objetivo investigar o impacto da realização
profissional em aspectos da psicologia positiva, tais como bem-estar subjetivo (BES) e
florescimento no trabalho. Resultados das análises de regressão múltipla indicaram que ambas
as dimensões da realização profissional predizem o componente afetivo do BES, mas apenas a
dimensão de avaliação de progresso em direção às metas predisse o componente de satisfação
com a vida do BES. Adicionalmente, os resultados evidenciaram que ambas as dimensões de
realização profissional predizem o florescimento no trabalho. Conclui-se que o esforço inicial
para propor e investigar a realização profissional como um conceito de metas de carreira foi
bem-sucedido no sentido de iniciar uma linha de pesquisa desafiadora.
Palavras-chave: realização profissional; carreira; metas; orientação para metas de alcance;
autoestima, bem-estar subjetivo; florescimento no trabalho.
1
Introduction
How to achieve professional fulfillment? That’s a question several workers ask, but
often cannot obtain enough or even simple answers. To perceive oneself as professionally
fulfilled it certainly involves effective career development and management, but achieving
professional fulfillment is essentially related to fulfilling people’s core needs regarding their
career. As posited by Hoekstra (2011), nowadays educated individuals became entrepreneurs
of their own career and choose jobs fitting their personal goals. The current reality is that
people have become responsible for managing their own career success, whether negotiating
employment conditions and opportunities for further development, or with no attachments to
a single company (Bastos, 1997; Duarte et al., 2010).
The importance of career issues is increasing as the career choices people make are
more complex and varied than simply the type of work they wish to do (Arnold, 2001).
People are very different from each other regarding their background, abilities and interests,
and someone’s career should be congruent with his/her makeup. Careers also involve many
decisions and choices, and wrong choices engender negative consequences people do not
anticipate. However, if people plan themselves and are very clear about what they want, it is
easier to anticipate and change some circumstances, adapting to them. Beyond people’s work
at a present moment, a career follows individuals throughout their whole lives. It determines
people’s financial position, status in society, contributions to society, general happiness,
feelings of self-fulfillment and the judgements other make about oneself. Finally, people’s
home, family and leisure affect and are affected by their careers. Imbalance among these
aspects may harm all sides, so monitoring priorities and actions is important to have a
fulfilling life. It is because of all these issues that careers are important to people’s lives and
should be taken seriously (Inkson, Dries & Arnold, 2015).
2
Notwithstanding, career studies do not seem to be deeply developed and largely
investigated regarding the Brazilian context. Besides, people do not appear to be very worried
about the lack of thought they dedicate to plan and decide what they want to achieve in career.
This might be troubling, because careers are not just events that happens to us, but events that
we actively create and manage by making good, evidence-based decisions (Inkson et al.,
2015). Sometimes people want to earn more money and to be satisfied with what they are
doing, and in order to achieve that some effort towards their career is required. It has been
shown, for example, that when professionals have career goals and plans which to act on, it
really does enhance both career satisfaction and earnings (Abele & Wiese, 2008),
Therefore, it is urgent to call attention to the importance of career self-management
(CSM). Considering that now individuals tend to be held responsible for their own careers,
CSM plays an important role because it represents a set of skills and practices which can
potentially assist people to find and develop more satisfying and successful careers (Inkson et
al., 2015). The basic elements of CSM involve establishment of career goals, development
and implementation of career plans and strategies, and feedback regarding one’s progress
toward career goals (Seibert, Kraimer, Holtom & Pierotti, 2013). As professional fulfillment
involves pursuit and achievement of career goals, it can be related to CSM as people should
pay more attention in their careers and develop CSM strategies.
An important issue concerns how people manage to attain their career goals. Career
management involves identifying one or more career goals and engaging in strategies that
increase the probability to achieve them (Noe, 2013). In this dissertation, the proposition is
that professional fulfillment is related to how people pursue career goals and how they
evaluate their goal progress. To better understand how professional fulfillment works and
how people attain their goals, it was built a two-dimension framework, involving importance
and achievement of specific types of goals, in one dimension, and people’s evaluation of goal
3
progress, in the other dimension. Theories and constructs underpinning professional
fulfillment definition are also discussed, as well as aspects of human behavior at related to it.
To operationalize the concept, a professional fulfillment measure was developed and its
possible motivators and consequences were investigated.
To address those issues, three studies were proposed and accomplished in this
dissertation. The first study aimed to propose professional fulfillment construct both
theoretically and empirically. It was divided in three sub-studies, such that first sub-study
aimed to propose the first version of Professional Fulfillment Scale (PFS) and to carry out a
divergent analysis; second sub-study confirmed the proposed framework for the scale; and
finally, the third sub-study analyzed the test-retest reliability for the scale.
In Study 2, it was analyzed whether achievement goal orientation, mastery orientation
specifically, predicted professional fulfillment dimensions, being this relationship
moderated/mediated by self-esteem. The main goal of this study was to analyze what could
motivate professional fulfillment, considering that achievement goal orientation represent
distinct motives people may have to achieve goals. Predictions about the distinct impact of
mastery avoidance and approach orientations on professional fulfillment were made,
considering the differences between the constitutive dimensions of professional fulfillment.
Additionally, it was hypothesized that self-esteem would moderate or mediate the relationship
between approach and avoidance mastery orientations and the two dimensions of professional
fulfillment.
Finally, in Study 3 the main purpose was to investigate the impact professional
fulfillment has on positive psychology aspects, such as subjective well-being and flourishing
at work. The idea of this last study was to analyze if professional fulfillment represented an
end in itself or if it could influence other positive outcomes. Moreover, the intention was also
to check whether professional fulfillment influenced only work factors or if its experience
4
could contribute to happiness in life as a whole, which is represented by subjective well-
being.
Together, the planning and accomplishment of these three studies aimed to propose an
initial effort on professional fulfillment as a meaningful variable for the career field. An initial
effort was understood as (1) proposition of a tenacious concept, whose premises considered
firmly based theories in work and social Psychology; (2) development of a complex,
integrative and reliable measure, that could be able to operationalize the theoretical premises
and details proposed in the concept; (3) demonstration that the concept is different from other
related variables in the field; (4) understanding how achievement goal orientation impacts
professional fulfillment; and, (5) analyzing how professional fulfillment engenders
flourishing at work and subjective well-being.
An important highlight is that the term “professional fulfillment” does not intend to
limit career as a “profession”. A profession is typically distinguished from an “ordinary”
occupation, as it represents a more desirable career choice and involves high economic status
work, allows for a high degree of autonomy and can provide a high level of compensation
(Kulick, 2006). Traditional emphasis on career as a profession appears to be rather limiting,
since it suggests that one must achieve a certain occupational or social status to constitute a
career (Greenhaus, Callanan & Godshalk, 2010). Proposition for professional fulfillment goes
in another direction, as it could be experienced through any activity, job or occupation, as
long as people perceive to be achieving their most important goals or to be progressing
towards them. Therefore, the idea here is that professional fulfillment is closer related to a
“calling”, whereby one primarily works for the fulfillment brought by a job or profession
(Wrzesniewski & Tosti, 2006).
One question that may arise as someone reads this dissertation is: “Why so much
curiosity about professional fulfillment?”. There are many possible answers for such question,
5
but probably the best one is: because it is the author’s highest goal in life. Nonetheless, to
understand the experience of professional fulfillment seemed extremely difficult and
struggling. A lot of questions were risen such as “is it a state, a feeling, a perception?”, “how
to know we got there?”, “what accounts for people to be professionally fulfilled?” and so on.
It took a lot of reading, discussing, throwing away and redoing things. However, in the end,
considering how many questions were answered during this process, it is possible to say that
developing this dissertation was, somehow, professional fulfillment itself.
6
1. What is professional fulfillment? The proposition of a model
1.1. Overview
The main goal of this dissertation is to propose a framework for understanding
professional fulfillment, which includes its definition, measurement and possible antecedents
and consequents. Here, professional fulfillment is presented as a goal-framed concept.
According to Fryer, Ginns and Walker (2014), the role of goals has never been more
intensively researched. Within contexts as diverse as the workplace (e.g., Locke & Latham,
2002), sports (e.g., Smith, Ntoumanis, Duda, & Vansteenkiste, 2011), eating disorders (e.g.,
Verstuyf, Patrick, Vansteenkiste, & Teixeira, 2012), and education (e.g., Huang, Zhang, &
Broniarczyk, 2012; Lens & Vansteenkiste, 2008), the importance of goals is clear.
Additionally, Heslin (2005) proposes that future research on career should use relevant theory
and research to guide the exploration of what matters most for people, as well as ask people
how they know (or anticipate) the extent to which their career is successful. In this
dissertation, the focus is on career goals, which are defined as desired career-related outcomes
that a person intends to attain (Greenhaus et al., 2010). Further details will be discussed next.
1.2. What is Professional Fulfillment?
The definition proposed is that professional fulfillment basically concerns people’s
beliefs about their career and the goals established for it. Professional fulfillment is the
perception of having attained one's most important career goals or the positive evaluation of
being on the right track for attaining these goals. This definition leads to two important issues:
1) What entails people’s career goals? 2) How can people evaluate whether they are on the
“right track”? To respond these questions, we propose a theoretical model and a measure for
professional fulfillment. In such, career goals consist on people’s core values, and the “right
track” concerns people’s subjective evaluation of their goal progress. The proposed
7
theoretical model of professional fulfillment was designed to present two constitutive
dimensions: 1) Importance and achievement of specific types of career goals (which
encompasses content of career goals); 2) Evaluation of goal progress.
Additionally, there are two issues about professional fulfillment that should be
addressed. First, we propose that it cannot be considered a static state, or something that once
achieved, is no longer modified. Professional fulfillment is supposed to represent a dynamic
process, derived from one’s subjective evaluation of career status, which can be altered
depending on life events. Second, it is considered that some career goals may not be amenable
to complete attainment during one’s lifetime (e.g., save the world from poverty), or even need
some time of experience and maturing to be achieved (e.g., be a respected and experienced
professional). Thus, people could experience professional fulfillment not only by fully
achieving their goals, but also by evaluating they are in the right track to it, or perceiving to
have contributed somehow to their goals’ cause. The point is that even if people have not
fully attained their career goals yet, whether there is satisfaction with the degree of progress
towards those goals, there is some evidence of professional fulfillment. Therefore, it should
be emphasized it is not only about the ends – it is also about the means.
In order to understand which ideas and concepts influenced professional fulfillment
definition, next section exposes theoretical basis that underlie professional fulfillment
framework, discussing its main contributions and controversies.
1.3 Professional Fulfillment Framework: Theoretical origins e foundations
As a career field topic, professional fulfillment draws attention to the necessity to go
beyond organizational setting and formal jobs when discussing career, as the boundaryless
and protean career concepts posit. For instance, to have a boundaryless career means that
people are responsible for their own career development, through a bond with multiple
8
organizations (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996). The protean career idea, in its turn, enforces that
career must be driven by a person (and not by an organization) and should focus on the
subjective perspective of the career actor (Hall, 1996). Protean career concept is based upon
individually defined goals that encompass the whole life space, as well as being driven by
psychological success and self-fulfillment rather than objective success and extrinsic rewards
such as pay, rank, or power (Hall, 2002; Briscoe & Hall, 2006). However, in a divergent
direction, professional fulfillment definition considers that career goals involve not only self-
fulfillment and psychological success, but also objective factors as pay, rank or power, if that
is what matters for an individual. In this sense, professional fulfillment concept covers both
objective and subjective career success perspectives, placing this dichotomy aside.
Professional fulfillment conceptualization is related to the perception of having
attained one's most important career goals. This is somehow similar to the idea of career
actualization, which is defined as the realization of personal goals and values in one’s career,
vis-à-vis the facilitation and constraining conditions of the work situation (Kuijpers, Schyns
& Scheerens, 2006). Therefore, both concepts address goal attainment. In order to empirically
observe further differences between career actualization and professional fulfillment, career
actualization measure should be compared to the professional fulfillment appraisal. However,
by the time of this study, career actualization concept did not hold strong empirical evidences
yet, as the number of studies using it as a critical variable or even considering it was still
small (Lent, 2005; Kuijpers et al., 2006). Moreover, career actualization seems to be more
associated to career competencies (Kuijpers & Scheeren, 2006; Beheshtifar, 2011) than to
actualization of goals, what enlarges the distinctions between this concept and professional
fulfillment.
Professional fulfillment framework was designed to present two dimensions. The first
dimension involves the following aspects: a) importance versus achievement of career goals;
9
b) content of career goals. The aspect of importance and achievement of career goals was
addressed before by Nurmi, Salmela-Aro and Koivisto (2002). They investigated the extent to
which the appraisal of work-related goals in terms of their importance and level of
achievement would predict young adults’ subsequent success in finding a job after graduation.
To access this, they asked people to rate goals regarding their importance and how much
progress towards achieving them was made.
Another similarity between Nurmi’s et al. (2002) study and the present is that they
also consider the content of goals. According to goal theories, personal goals are categorized
into content and process perspectives (Gollwitzer & Moskowitz, 1996; Austin & Vancouver,
1996; Elliot & Fryer, 2008). Content theories describe orientations people have about their
future, revealing their wishes, concerns, and intentions. Studies like Little and Gee’s (2007),
Wiese and Salmela-Aro’s (2008) and Hyvönen, Feldt, Salmela-Aro, Kinnunen and
Mäkikangas (2009) described a set of personal work goals contents. However, a unified set of
possible goal contents could not be reached, as each of these studies presented a different set
of goals, hindering further studies to replicate or use the same set.
In order to fill this gap, professional fulfillment first dimension considers that content
of career goals is composed by personal values, which are described by Schwartz (1992) as
criteria or goals that transcend specific situations, are ordered by their importance and serve
as principles that guide an individual’s life. Schwartz’s model of human values has been
accepted worldwide and was replicated by several studies (for a review, see Elster & Sagiv,
2015). According to Schwartz and Bilsky (1987), value contents refer to the different
motivational domains in which universal human requirements or primary needs are expressed.
Values are posited as essentially motivational, representing broad goals that apply across
contexts and time (Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987). Following this rationale, in the present study
goals are understood in terms of values, as posited by Schwartz et al. (2012). This places
10
career goals as broader and more abstract than what is commonly considered every time the
“goal” term is used, besides addressing the motivational aspect of values.
Schwartz et al. (2012) proposes two second-order bipolar dimensions to explain the
underlying motives that hold people’s most important values: Self-transcendence versus Self-
enhancement, and Openness to Change versus Conservation. Self-transcendence emphasizes
equality and concern with others' well-being. Oppositely, Self-enhancement concerns the
quest for success and dominance over people. Openness to change encompasses pursuit of
thought and action independence, favoring change. Finally, Conservation involves stability
and status quo maintenance. In the present study, these two bipolar dimensions are proposed
to organize career goal contents.
This proposition is aligned with Greenhaus et al. (2010), who also suggest Schwartz’s
theory to understand what one wants from work and non-work roles, developing an accurate
identity and set of meaningful career goals. They defend that understanding one’s value
structure – and mention Schwartz’s theory as an example – can provide considerable insight
into career aspirations. For example, a person with strong material and political values is
unlikely to be happy in an occupation that pays poorly and provides little opportunity to
exercise leadership. Occupations and jobs vary in the extent they satisfy people’s values, such
that people tend to be more satisfied with jobs they have an opportunity to attain significant
work values (Greenhaus et al., 2010).
Therefore, people benefit most from goal attainment when the goals they pursue are
consistent with inherent psychological needs (Sheldon & Kasser, 1998). In the Self-
Concordance Model (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999), the motivational sequence of goal inception,
pursuit, and attainment is proposed. In essence, it is conceived that people who pursue self-
concordant goals (consistent with their interests and values) put more sustained effort into
their achievement, and hence are more likely to attain them. Growing literature on the Self-
11
Concordance Model suggests that individuals who pursue goals in accordance with their
ideals, values, and interests are likely to achieve higher goal success (Gaudreau, Carraro &
Miranda, 2012). This is consistent with the present proposition, as it suggests that people will
more probably experience professionally fulfilled when they achieve more important career
goals.
The first dimension of professional fulfillment addresses people’s conceptual goals,
which are based in values. This means that career goals are seen as more abstract,
representing a summary of work experiences nature or outcomes one intends to attain, without
specifying a particular job or position. Therefore, a conceptual goal is an individual’s
significant values manifestation (Greenhaus et al., 2010). In sum, career goals are understood
here as abstract, conceptual and grounded on basic motives regarding people’s aspirations in
career.
The second dimension of professional fulfillment, evaluation of goal progress, refers
to how satisfied one is with their achievement of career goals. It represents a cognition related
to the results of goal attainment and pursuit of a previously defined goal (Fishbach & Dhar,
2005). Goal progress has been frequently discussed in goal theory, as researchers have been
exploring the role of autonomous versus controlled motivations in understanding the pursuit
of personal goals (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999; Sheldon & Kasser, 1998; Sheldon & Houser-
Marko, 2001). These studies asked participants to report their goal progress, or their
subjective judgments about the degree of goal attainment. They discovered that autonomous
motivation was associated with greater goal progress.
Previous research has linked goal pursuit and progress with a range of well-being
outcomes (e.g. Sheldon & Elliot, 1999; Sheldon & Houser-Marko, 2001). It has been
observed that self-reported progress in pursuit of personal goals was associated to affective
well-being, work satisfaction, and subjective developmental success in work domain (Wiese
12
& Freund, 2005). While personal goal setting is extremely common, goal attainment is not
(Koestner, 2008). This is mainly due to lack of goal specificity, failure to monitor progress
and limited self-regulatory strength (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996). Positive goal progress,
on the other hand, has been related to goal autonomy (Koestner, 2008; Sheldon & Elliot,
1999), invested effort (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999), self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997), and
implementation intentions setting (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).
However, it is not simply goal progress or attainment that leads to well-being but,
rather, the types of goals pursued and the motivation for pursuit (Linley, Nielsen, Wood,
Gillett & Biswas-Diener, 2010). Self-concordant goals attainment, for example, leads to
greater well-being than does attainment of goals that are not self-concordant, being the goal
attainment effects on well-being moderated by self-concordant goals (Sheldon & Kasser,
1998). When individuals pursue goals that are supported by strong implicit motives, high
rates of goal progress predicts elevated well-being, whereas low rates of goal progress
predicts decreased well-being (Brunstein, Schultheiss & Grassmann, 1998). This body of
evidence emphasizes the importance of considering both goal progress and assessment of
goals content when considering what fosters positive outcomes.
Overall, professional fulfillment framework follows the rationale that people fulfill
themselves by pursuit of motive-supported career goals, which in turn provides opportunities
to satisfy one’s implicit needs. Striving for motive-supported goals can be considered an
affectively ‘‘hot” mode of goal pursuit, because successes and failures lead to goal impinge
on the person’s implicit motivational needs (Schultheiss, Jones, Davis & Kley, 2008). These
authors evidence that pursuit of hot goals – personal goals that are backed up by strong
implicit motives – allows individuals to experience intense motivational gratification through
successful goal enactment.
13
The proposal of a two-dimension goal framework for professional fulfillment is also
aligned with the abovementioned Self-concordance Model, as it posits that goal pursuit
divides into two phenomenologically distinct and successive phases: (1) goal setting –
associated to the first dimension of professional fulfillment, content of goals – and (2) goal
striving, linked to the second dimension of professional fulfillment – evaluation of goal
progress (Diefendorff & Lord, 2008). Furthermore, there is evidence that individuals are more
likely to be committed to a specific goal when they evaluate the goal as particularly important
(Monzani et al., 2015). Given this high commitment, individuals are subsequently more likely
to report higher progress.
Another relevant theory that supports the proposed model for professional fulfillment
is Control Theory (Carver & Scheier, 1982; Powers, 1973), which aims to explain what
people actually do between setting and getting a goal. Control theory proposes that goal
setting reflects adoption of a reference value or standard for performance. In other words,
monitoring goal progress involves periodically noticing qualities of the target behavior (e.g.,
how much one has eaten) and/or outcome (e.g., how much weight one has lost) and
comparing these perceptions with the desired standard (e.g., lose 2kg) (Baumeister & Vohs,
2007; Carver & Scheier, 1982; Webb, Chang, & Benn, 2013). Progress monitoring should
promote goal attainment because it serves to identify discrepancies between current state and
desired state, and thus enables people to recognize the gap and adjust their behavior towards
additional effort or self-control (Fishbach, Touré-Tillery, Carter, & Sheldon, 2012; Myrseth &
Fishbach, 2009). This mechanism could be also associated to the first dimension of
professional fulfillment, which proposes the analysis of the “gap” between what people value
and what they actually achieve. Additionally, Carver and Scheier (1998) suggest a second
feedback process, which is called meta-monitoring loop. This meta loop monitors how rapidly
the action loop reduces the discrepancy and compares it to the desired rate of progress, which
14
in turn could be associated to evaluation of goal progress, the second dimension of
professional fulfillment. Facing this, we hypothesize that, in Study 1, the two dimensions of
professional fulfillment, namely content of career goals and evaluation of career progress, will
be significantly associated, interfering in one another. Furthermore, in next section it will be
discussed how professional fulfillment may be related to other positive human aspects at
work.
1.4 Professional Fulfillment and positive human aspects at work
Once this dissertation proposes professional fulfillment as a career aspect related to
individual self-fulfillment and positive functioning, similar positive human aspects at work
could be indicated. Concepts such as satisfaction, well-being at work, professional
development and career success seem to be, in preliminary analyses, somehow analogous to
professional fulfillment. However, as shown in Table 1, key conceptual distinctions can be
stressed.
The categories presented in Table 1 to distinguish concepts consider professional
fulfillment definition, as it represents 1) a cognitive and affective concept, 2) involves both
evaluation and perception, and 3) represents a state as well as a process. This is distinct from
satisfaction and well-being at work, for example, which consider affect a constitutive element.
Besides, no other concept involves both perception and evaluation – professional fulfillment
is represented by one’s perception of having attained important career goals, and also by
one’s positive evaluation of being on the right track for attaining career goals. Furthermore,
professional fulfillment means a state – when people feel they are attaining career goals in the
present time – and also a process – when people feel they are on the right track for attaining
these goals –, while other concepts show to be one or the other. Therefore, we hypothesize
that, in Study 1a, satisfaction with work, employee well-being, career success and
15
professional development present significant but low correlations with professional
fulfillment.
Table 1
Comparison of positive concepts at work
Concept
Affect
Cognition
Perception
Evaluation
State
Process
Satisfaction
Positive or pleasant emotional
state, resultant of work experiences
(Locke, 1976)
X
X
X
Employee Well-being
Positive evaluation of affective,
motivational, behavioral, cognitive
and psychosomatic work aspects
(Van Horn, Taris, Schaufeli &
Scheurs, 2004).
X
X
X
X
Career success
Accumulated positive work and
psychological outcomes resulting
from one’s work experiences
(Seibert & Kraimer, 2001)
X
X
X
Professional development
Growth and maturing of
knowledge, abilities, and attitudes,
which are acquired over a worker's
life, as a result of formal and
informal learning actions at work
(Mourão, Porto & Puente-
Palacios, 2014)
X
X
X
Professional Fulfillment
X
X
X
X
X
X
Subjective career success, in turn, represents a concept that can be closer associated to
professional fulfillment. Subjective career success posits that people have different career
aspirations and place different values on factors such as income, employment security, status,
access to learning, work-family balance, and so on (Arthur, Khapova & Wilderom, 2005). In
a similar manner, professional fulfillment concept considers self-referent success criteria,
which reflect personal standards and preferences. Professional fulfillment framework also
includes how people feel their career is on, ahead or behind schedule, which is related to goal
progress evaluation. In this sense, we hypothesize that, in Study 1a, subjective career success,
due to its subjective component, will be more associated to professional fulfillment than the
16
constructs above. However, the magnitude of correlation will not be high (below .80), since
professional fulfillment holds additional components of career evaluation (e.g. goal progress)
in comparison to subjective career success.
2. Objectives
2.1. General
The main purpose of this dissertation is to propose a definition and measure of
professional fulfillment, outlining it as a career-based concept and developing it in a goal-
shaped operationalization, as well as investigating correlate concepts, motivations and
positive outcomes, aiming to reach a comprehensive professional fulfillment framework.
2.2. Specific
To develop the Professional Fulfillment Scale (PFS);
To identify evidence of construct and divergent validity and test-retest reliability for PFS;
To test a model with achievement goal orientation and self-esteem as motivators of
professional fulfillment;
To analyze how professional fulfillment fosters flourishing at work and subjective well-
being.
3. Studies overview
In order to accomplish the defined goals for this dissertation, three major studies were
conducted. The first study, which comprises three continuous sub-studies – 1a, 1b and 1c –
aims basically to develop Professional Fulfillment Scale (PFS) and find validity evidences for
it. In Study 1a, the first version of PFS is proposed and tested through exploratory factor
analysis. Additionally, in Study 1a, four positive work concepts – satisfaction, well-being,
17
career success and professional development – were analyzed as correlates of professional
fulfillment, observing divergent validity regarding PFS. The factor structure obtained for PFS
in Study 1a is reanalyzed in Study 1b, in which new data allowed retesting the structure
found in Study 1a for PFS through a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Finally, in Study
1c, a test-retest reliability analysis was carried out, intending to observe PFS replicability and
stability across two months.
Regarding Study 2, the purpose was to investigate how goal orientation and self-
referent construals motivate professional fulfillment. Firstly, it was analyzed how the two
different kinds of achievement goal orientations – mastery and performance – differently
affect professional fulfillment. Next, it was observed how mastery orientation, specifically,
predicted certain types of career goals and the evaluation people make about their goal
progress. At last, it was investigated how self-esteem affected the relationship between
mastery orientation and professional fulfillment, working as a moderator of mastery and
achievement of specific goals and as mediator of mastery and evaluation of goals progress.
Concerning Study 3, it aimed to analyze how professional fulfillment is related to
overall individual positive outcomes, one considering life overall – subjective well-being –
and other regarding the work setting – flourishing at work. As Study 2 should evidence
specific motivators of professional fulfillment, Study 3 aims to explore its positive outcomes,
thinking through the premise that professional fulfillment affects not only labor aspects but
also life in general. Moreover, this study explored the possible ways through which both
dimensions of professional fulfillment may influence aspects of subjective well-being and
flourishing at work.
18
4. Study 1 – Proposition of professional fulfillment framework
Study 1 is composed by three continuous sub-studies, which intended to propose PFS
and to find validity evidences for it. The subjacent aim of this study was to present a reliable
operationalization of professional fulfillment, following the theoretical model discussed in
first chapter.
4.1. Study 1a – Scale Development
In the present study, the first empirical test of PFS was carried out, besides exploring
the relationship of professional fulfillment with other positive aspects at work. In the
following section the premises to develop PFS are presented, as well as the procedure to
identify evidences of construct and discriminant validity.
4.1.1. Method
4.1.1.1. Scale development and procedures
For capturing professional fulfillment construct in all aspects, Professional Fulfillment
Scale (PFS) was developed to measure goal content and goal progress, which are the two
theoretical dimensions proposed as indicators of professional fulfillment. With regard to goal
content, people were asked how important specific goals were to them, as well as how much
they achieved those goals. If a goal is very important and is also being achieved, that would
be an indicative of professional fulfillment. Regarding evaluation of goals, it was inquired
whether there was or not a positive evaluation of goal progress. Questions were about aspects
of people’s current career status. The aim of this dimension was to verify if people evaluate to
be on the right path towards their career goals, what should also be an indicator of
professional fulfillment. To imply professional fulfillment, results from both dimensions –
content and evaluation of career goals – should be associated. In other words, the achievement
19
of goals people consider important should come along with a good evaluation of goal
progress.
To cover both dimensions of professional fulfillment concept, the scale was divided in
two parts. The first part, entitled goal content, measures the content of career goals,
evaluating how important a goal is for someone and how much this goal has been achieved so
far. Schwartz’s et al. (2012) two second-order bipolar dimensions were considered as a
theoretical umbrella for developing the items. To create this first version, Schwartz et al.
(2012) nineteen first-order dimensions were considered and we suggested at least three career
goal items to each dimension. Thus, the first version of goal content part presented, originally,
69 items that covered all 19 values proposed by Schwartz et al. (2012) refined theory.
Although the scale here is described in English, the original scale was written in Portuguese
(see Appendixes). For each item, two answers were required from the respondent: the
subjective importance of the statement and the degree of achievement in his/her current
career. Regarding the importance scale, the introductory question was “As something I pursue
in my career, this goal is…”, being response options from “1 = not important at all” to “5 =
extremely important”. For the achievement scale, the introductory question was
“Achievement of this goal in the current moment of my career is…”, with response options
from “0 = not at all” to “4 = complete” (see Appendix 2).
The difference of scaling between importance and achievement of goals is explained
by the formula that relates both aspects. One of the most relevant aspect in this part of the
scale is the possibility to observe which goals people perceive as important and also the
degree of achievement, in order to analyze whether the goals people achieve are the ones they
value the most. However, one important situation must be considered – for most people, it is
better to achieve something they do not value so much – at least they are achieving something
– than to achieve nothing at all, especially if they are not achieving something they value. In
20
that sense, the numbering of importance and achievement scales is different in order to
generate a product of them. This very product represents one of the indicators of professional
fulfillment, evidencing different scores for each kind of situation – how much people achieve
what they value, considering that is better to achieve something than nothing at all. Table 2
shows examples of how the product is calculated and what kinds of situation it reflects.
Table 2
Product of Importance and Achievement
Item
Importance
(possible answer)
Achievement
(possible answer)
Product
(Imp. X Ach. Scores)
Meaning
Item 1
1
0
0
The goal content is
of little impor-
tance, and there is
no achievement, so
the final score is
zero.
Item 2
5
0
0
The goal content is
very important, but
there is no achie-
vement, so the
final score is zero.
Item 3
1
4
4
The goal content is
of little impor-
tance, but there is
high achievement,
so the score is
four.
Item 4
5
4
20
The goal content is
very important,
and there is high
achievement, so
the score is
twenty, the maxi-
mum.
According to Table 2, it is possible to observe that, the minimum product score
someone can present is 0, whilst the maximum is 20. The higher the product, more people
achieve what they value. However, even when people mark something as very important
(importance = 5), but are not achieving this at all (achievement = 0), the score is still zero, due
to the multiplication of the answers. On the other hand, if someone perceives something as
not so important (importance = 1), but is fully achieving it (achievement = 4), the final score
is 4, because it is somehow better when people achieve something they do not value, then
21
when they achieve nothing at all. Therefore, with this rationale we can have relevant
information to analyze whether people achieve what they value, which is the first indicator of
professional fulfillment.
The second part of PFS, entitled goal progress, measures respondents’ evaluations
about their progress toward career goals, requesting people to think about their career when
answering items (see Appendixes). The first question is non-structured, requiring respondents
to write, in five words at most, the main goal they have established for themselves in career.
The purpose of this question is only to prime people’s career goals for answering the
following questions, thus it is not evaluated. Question two asks if the person has already
achieved the goal described in the former question, with answer options of “YES” or “NO”.
The third question asks how close the person thinks he/she is to attaining that goal, answer
options ranging from “1 = not close at all” to “5 = almost there”. The fourth question involves
how much the person thinks the current job contributes to attaining the specified goal; fifth
question concerns how much the person is satisfied with his/her progress toward the career
goal; question six addresses how professionally fulfilled the person considers to be. Response
options in these last three questions ranged from “1 = not at all” to “5 = totally”.
Goal progress part of PFS represents a second indicator of professional fulfillment,
because even if people have not fully achieved their most important career goals, when they
evaluate they are “on the way” to it, they can have an indicative of being professionally
fulfilled. Some career goals depend on time, experience/maturing or are too ambitious to be
achievable in a short period of time or even in a lifetime. Nevertheless, as professional
fulfillment is understood as a process and not an end in itself, it is possible to consider that
when people believe they are where they should or could be in their career, even if it is not
their final goal, some degree of professional fulfillment can already be experienced. Although
the development of objective and common measures of goal progress is challenged by
22
uniqueness of the constellation of goals pursued by each individual, in previous research, the
effectiveness of goal pursuit has already been operationalized as perceived progress, namely
people’s subjective evaluation of advancement toward their personal goals (Monzani, et al.,
2015). This is the proposition for goal progress part of PFS.
PFS design attends the two most used measures in goal approach, which are the goal
lists and the idiographic approach (Klug & Maier, 2015). In first case, a list of preset goals is
provided and people are asked to indicate which goals they are currently pursuing, which is
equivalent to goal content part of PFS. The idiographic approach asks people to generate
personal goals they are striving for, which is attended by the open question required in goal
progress part of PFS. While goal lists might be interpreted as normative expectations and
therefore individuals feel obliged to strive for these goals, the idiographic approach is not
apparently associated with expectations (Klug & Maier, 2015).
4.1.1.2. Measures for divergent analyses
Scales for measuring other positive constructs at work, such as satisfaction, well-
being, professional development, and career success were also used in order to carry out a
divergent validation. The instruments used were:
General satisfaction at work: Adapted by Silva, Azevedo and Dias (1995), it presents 5
items of overall satisfaction at work (single-factor), with response options ranging
from “1 = completely disagree” to “7 = completely agree”. Cronbach alpha of .76.
Well-being at work: Paschoal and Tamayo’s (2008) instrument was adopted. It
presents 30 items (with agreement scale ranging from 1 to 5) and three factors: 1)
positive affect, 9 items, Cronbach alpha .93; 2) negative affect, 12 items, Cronbach
alpha .91; 3) realization/expressivity, 9 items, Cronbach alpha .88.
23
Professional development: Escala de Percepção Atual do Desenvolvimento
Profissional – EPAD, proposed by Mourão et al. (2014). It is single-factor, presents 8
items and Cronbach alpha of .82. Agreement response scale ranging from 0 to 10.
Career success: Developed by Costa (2010). It presents 48 items, distributed along 11
factors. However, an overall factor was considered due to parsimony reasons
(Cronbach = .93). Responses are based on an agreement scale, ranging from 1 to 5.
4.1.1.3. Participants
A total of 406 Brazilian workers answered PFS. They were recruited in faculties and
post-graduation institutes, such that both undergraduate and post-graduate students were
invited to participate. All participants were informed about their rights as volunteers and were
given a document to read and sign, in case they agreed to participate. The questionnaire was
responded in their own classrooms, after class and with the consent of all responsible
authorities. Most participants were women (62.1%) and single (58.1%). Schooling ranged up
to post-graduate, but most participants were college undergraduates (62.6%). Most of them
were younger than 25 years old (45%), but there were participants of all ages (from 26 to 35 –
30.1%; from 36 to 55 – 22.4%; older than 55 – 1.2%).
4.1.1.4. Data analysis
After statistical assumptions were observed to be met, exploratory factor analysis was
conducted. First, principal component analysis was accomplished, which showed a factorable
matrix. Then, principal axis factoring was carried out, with Promax rotation. In first part of
the scale (goal content), the importance scale, the attainment scale and the product ranging
were analyzed separately. Items that attended exclusion criteria (described below) were kept.
Items of goal progress part were analyzed together, with exception of questions 1 and 2 that
were not scale-shaped. Correlation analyses were made in order to observe divergent validity.
24
To obtain the power achieved by the statistical tests accomplished in this study, G-Power 3
program (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang & Buchner, 2007) was used. Estimates were obtained
considering the protocol of power analysis section, X2 test family, goodness-of-fit statistical
test and the type of power analysis was post-hoc. For an effect of .30, alpha of .05, sample
size of 406 and Df of 5, a power of .99 was achieved.
4.1.2. Results and discussion
To run factor analysis, each part of PFS was analyzed separately. For goal content
part, results of exploratory factor analysis and parallel analysis led to a four-factor solution,
compatible with Schwartz’s et al (2012) two bipolar second-order dimensions. To exclude
items, we observed correlations in the anti-image matrix (correlations below .30 were
excluded), item factor loadings (loads below .40 were discarded), theoretical compatibility
with factor loadings, and stability across importance, achievement and product scales.
The final design for goal content part of PFS, in this study, presented 22 items. The
importance scale as a whole produced reliability of .84, while the achievement scale and the
product ranging rendered .91. Minimum item load was .44 and factor reliability indices
ranged from .74 to .86. Items grouped into four dimensions explained 51.4% of variance for
importance scale, 58.2% of variance for attainment scale and 58.5% of variance for product.
Correlations among factors ranged from .28 to .45 for importance scale (p<.001), from .40
and .60 (p<.001) for achievement scale and from .43 e .58 (p<.001) for the product. Table 3
presents factor solutions and item loadings for importance, achievement and product scales.
Considering Schwartz’s nomenclature of the bipolar dimensions, the four types of career
goals were defined as it follows:
Factor 1 – Self-enhancement career goals: Refers to the quest for success,
pleasure, respect, and recognition in career;
25
Factor 2 – Openness to change career goals: Refers to the pursuit of innovative
and challenging experiences in career;
Factor 3 – Self-transcendence career goals: Refers to the concern for nature and
others' well-being in career;
Factor 4 – Conservation career goals: Refers to the concern in meeting society's
demands, not letting people down and following rules and hierarchy in career.
Table 3
Factor solution for PFS goal content part
Factors Importance
Factors Achievement
Factors Product
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
Explained variance (%)
Reliability
25.89
.81
10.19
.79
6.97
.74
8.40
.74
36.66
.86
8.47
.80
7.03
.82
6.05
.76
36.98
.86
8.17
.82
7.17
.81
6.17
.78
41 Be treated with respect and dignity
60 Feel good about my work
47 Enjoy what I do
43 Be respected and recognized for my work
69 Feel pleasure at work
48 Succeed at work
42 Have a good personal image
19 Compete to win challenges
22 Perform challenging tasks
20 See new places
27 Have a job with constant novelty
11 Experience a variety of situations
1 Collaborate to develop society
5 Protect nature from threats
3 Improve people’s lives
8 Contribute to make the world a better place
51 Meet society's expectations
50 Have a job with routines
52 Avoid disappointing people
55 Perform a job compatible with society’s
values and beliefs
53 Work in a setting with a clear hierarchy
56 Conform to others' opinions.
.70
.66
.63
.58
.48
.48
.48
.73
.68
.68
.62
.57
.70
.61
.61
.59
.69
.67
.65
.56
.56
.44
.88
.72
.63
.62
.56
.49
.48
.79
.68
.61
.56
.56
.82
.72
.70
.62
.62
.52
.49
.47
.46
.44
.91
.73
.69
.50
.73
.47
.44
.65
.80
.62
.58
.56
.71
.89
.65
.69
.58
.46
.65
.51
.55
.55
Goal progress part of PFS investigates how positive/optimistic the person is with
his/her efforts and achievements towards career goals. Questions one and two were not
considered in factor analysis because they were not scale-shaped. Its final design was
composed by one open question, one dichotomous question and 4 scale items, evidencing a
26
KMO of .78, reliability of .78 and one dimension (49.5% of explained variance). The loadings
for each item are displayed in Table 4.
Table 4
Factor solution for PFS goal progress part
Factor
Explained variance (%)
Reliability
49.5
.78
3 How close are you to achieving your
career goal?
4 How much does your current job
contribute to the achievement of your
career goal?
5 How satisfied are you with you
advance towards your career goal?
6 How professionally fulfilled do you
consider to be now?
.73
.73
.72
.62
Results from exploratory factor analysis point out a four-factor solution for goal
content dimension of professional fulfillment. These four factors are consistent with bipolar
second-order dimensions of Schwartz et al. (2012) values theory. For goal progress
dimension, Study 1a evidenced the stability and reliability of proposed items, demonstrating
they are appropriate for measuring evaluation of goal progress.
Regarding possible correlates, further analyses were done to investigate their
relationship with professional fulfillment. About goal content part, only the product of
importance and achievement was correlated to the other constructs. Concerning goal progress
part, it was calculated an overall mean of scale items. Table 5 presents the results of bivariate
correlations among goal content and goal progress parts of PFS and other positive aspects at
work.
27
Table 5
Correlations Between Professional Fulfillment and Positive Aspects at Work
PF Content of goals (product)
PF Goal
progress
Self-
enhancement
Openness
to change
Self-
transcendence
Conservation
Satisfaction at work
.29**
.04
.09
.11
.12
Well-being (affect)
.40**
.38**
.16**
.22**
.29**
Well-being (cognition)
.52**
.38**
.31**
.25**
.34**
Professional development
.35**
.19**
.18**
.22**
.17**
Career success
.60**
.35**
.24**
.29**
.28**
Note: PF = Professional Fulfillment
** p<0.01
Results in Table 5 show that, in general, positive aspects at work present significant,
but moderated or low correlations with professional fulfillment, as hypothesized. Regarding
general satisfaction at work, there were no significant correlations with any factors of goal
content part of PFS. However, there was a significant but low correlation with goal progress
part. Since satisfaction at work usually involves affect and pleasant experiences related to the
current work, this might explain why correlations with professional fulfillment are not high.
Affect and pleasant experiences could be a consequence of a professionally fulfilled person,
but it does not necessarily mean that when people have pleasant experiences at work they are
professionally fulfilled.
About well-being at work, for the affective aspect, correlations showed that positive
affect is directly related to goal progress, in a similar manner to what was found for
satisfaction at work. According to Table 5, positive affect also relates to the product of
openness to change, self-enhancement, and conservation career goals, being the relationship
with self-enhancement the strongest one. Regarding the cognitive aspect of well-being, it is
positively related to all four factors of goal content, as well as to goal progress. However, the
affect component of well-being presented, overall, smaller correlations than the cognitive
component, which could be explained by the fact that professional fulfillment emphasizes
cognition. These results indicate that when people achieve what they value, or when they
28
perceive to be in the right track to achieve their career goals, their perception of well-being at
work, especially the cognitive component, is also higher.
Perception of professional development was also correlated to both parts of PFS.
According to Table 5, professional development showed significant correlations with goal
content, but they were all very low (under .22). The correlation with goal progress was
slightly higher (r = .35). Professional development is about growth and maturing of
knowledge, abilities, and attitudes, which are acquired over the course of a worker's life, as a
result of formal and informal learning actions at work. Thus, it refers to evaluations people
make about their current level of development as a professional, which would be expected to
present higher correlations with goal progress part of PFS.
Career success, in turn, also evidences significant correlations with both parts of PFS.
Nonetheless, we highlight its higher correlation with goal progress, which is .60. This result
supports the premise that career success represents the closest construct to goal progress part
of PFS. The correlations of career success with career goals content come in a smaller
proportion (correlations from .24 to .35).
Despite the moderate correlation between goal progress and career success,
professional fulfillment and career success must not be considered the same. The first reason
to this is that goal progress is only one of the two indicators of professional fulfillment, and
the other indicator of professional fulfillment (goal content part of PFS) is poorly correlated
to career success. Secondly, professional fulfillment goes further when it considers that
people may be fulfilled even when they have not yet attained their career goals, but are
satisfied with what they have done so far, what differs from career success premises.
In sum, when it comes to career goals content, correlations between the four factors
and well-being, general satisfaction, career success, and professional development were no
higher than .38. Regarding goal progress, it shows better correlations with the
29
abovementioned constructs, but correlations were no higher than .52, except for career
success, whose correlation was .60.
A crucial difference between these concepts and professional fulfillment is the context
being considered. While satisfaction and well-being, for example, focus on work
environment, professional fulfillment evaluates career, which is wider. Career covers not only
the current job or work, but all professional experiences. In this sense, career success would
be considered the most similar construct to professional fulfillment, as empirically shown.
Conclusions are that these concepts relate to professional fulfillment, but they do not
overlap. They present some theoretical similarities, but overall, the core idea is distinct. These
differences were evidenced by Study 1a results, generating significant but low correlations.
4.2. Study 1b – Model test
This study aimed to test the factor structure found in Study 1a for PFS through
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). For such, new data collection was carried out.
Additionally, this study aimed to verify, by Structural Equations Modeling (SEM), how both
parts of PFS interact to form a major latent variable – professional fulfillment. Analyses
associating both parts of the scale (goal content and progress) were also conducted in order to
understand how they are mutually coherent and influential in yielding evidence of
professional fulfillment.
4.2.1. Method
4.2.1.1. Participants
Participants were 215 workers, most women (76.2%), under 30 years old (mean = 27.9
years), single (59.5%), college undergraduates (86%), working for less than two years
(29.7%) or between two and five years (29.3%).
30
4.2.1.2. Instrument
The final instrument obtained in Study 1a was used in Study 1b. It consists of two
parts, one for analyzing content of people’s career goals and the other for measuring people’s
goal progress evaluation. In goal content part, participants were asked to mark the importance
and achievement of 22 goals. Goal progress part was used as previously validated in Study 1a.
First part, with 22 items, is divided into four factors – 1) Self-enhancement (7 items);
2) Openness to change (5 items); 3) Self-transcendence (4 items) and 4) Conservation (6
items). Each factor is analyzed by its importance and attainment. Second part concerns
evaluations people make about attaining their career goals. It investigates how far people
think they are from attaining goals, how satisfied they are with their path through attainment,
how much their current job/work contributes to attainment and how professionally fulfilled
they perceive to be.
4.2.1.3. Procedures and data analysis
Participants were chosen by convenience and snowball sampling. People received an
invitation by e-mail to take part on an online survey. The same ethical procedures ensued in
Study 1a were adopted here, but in a different approach – before starting the research, people
read the consent term and agreed to participate by checking a box displayed in the screen.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted to test the structure found in
Study 1a. Thereafter, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test whether goal
content and goal progress parts of PFS correlated and, mainly, to observe their interaction to
generate the latent variable of professional fulfillment. Maximum likelihood estimation
method was used, as normality assumption was attended. Both CFA and SEM were executed
through AMOS, an additional package from SPSS Statistics 20.0.
31
4.2.2. Results and discussion
To conduct CFA for goal content part of PFS, the four factors found in exploratory
analyses in Study 1a were considered as latent variables. Respective indicators were
established according to the item-factor correspondence found in Study 1a. Results from CFA
showed that fit indexes for the theoretical model found in Study 1 could be improved.
Considering the product of importance and achievement, modification indices
suggested adding error covariance between the following items (pairs from the same factor):
22 - 21 (Self-enhancement factor); 13 - 14 (Conservation factor); 12 - 14 (Conservation
factor); 1 - 2 (Self-transcendence factor). Regarding the achievement scale, only errors from
items 16 - 17 (Self-enhancement factor) and 3 - 4 (Self-transcendence factor) were suggested
by modification indices as covariates. About the product ranging, covariates between items 16
– 18 (Self-enhancement factor) and 6 – 5 (Openness to change factor) were settled.
Next, goodness-of-fit, item loadings in each factor and modification indices were
observed, which resulted in exclusion of six items: 19, 41, 42, 43, 50, and 56 (Table 3). The
main criteria for exclusion of items were the lowest loadings in each factor and improvement
of goodness-of-fit. In other words, removal of these poorly fitting items was associated with
fit improvement of the measurement model. The comparison between models with 22 (before
items exclusion) and 16 items (after items exclusion) is displayed in Table 7. After exclusion,
all four factors had four items. Model fit indexes after these adjustments, for each scale, are
displayed in Table 6.
32
Table 6
PFS model fit after CFA
Model Fit Indexes
Importance
Achievement
Product
χ²
139.99
154.63
146.09
χ²/df
1.48
1.61
1.52
p
0.001
0.001
0.001
CFI
0.95
0.97
0.98
TLI
0.94
0.96
0.97
RMSEA
0.04
0.05
0.04
SRMR
0.05
0.04
0.03
Note: CFI = Comparative Fit Index; TLI = Tucker-Lewis Index; RMSEA = Root Mean Square Error of Approximation;
SRMR = Standardized Root Mean Square Residual.
Table 7
Results of CFA for model testing considering the product
Tested model
χ²
χ²/df
CFI
TLI
RMSEA
SRMR
Model 1 (22 items)
345.80
1.71
0.95
0.94
0.05
0.04
Model 2 (16 items)
146.09
1.52
0.98
0.97
0.04
0.03
Considering CFA indexes presented in Table 6, results for the product ranging were
superior in comparison to the importance and achievement scales isolated, what evidences the
reliability of the produced score. After items exclusion in goal content part due to CFA,
reliability analyses were executed again. Table 8 presents the Cronbach alphas obtained for
each dimension. When taking alphas into account, the achievement scale presented better
indexes. This can be explained by the fact that achievement of career goals would be more
concrete to evaluate.
Goal progress part of PFS was also analyzed through CFA, which indicated that the
item structure obtained in Study 1a was consistent, accounting to no changes in goal progress
part. Model fit for this part was represented by the following coefficients: χ² = 2.602, p =
.272, χ²/df = 1.30, RMSEA = 0.03, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.99, and SRMR = 0.01, which
33
evidence a great fit of the model. The reliability obtained in this sample for goal progress part
is displayed in Table 8.
Table 8
Cronbach alphas of PFS after CFA
Content of goals
Full Scale
Self-
enhancement
Openness
to change
Self-
transcendence
Conservation
GC Importance
.82
.78
.72
.73
.75
GC Achievement
.93
.91
.84
.84
.80
GC Product
.92
.88
.81
.85
.78
GP
.78
-
-
-
-
Note: GC = Goal content; GP = Goal progress.
Model fit values obtained through CFA evidence a trustworthy theoretical model, with
satisfactory psychometric indices, besides supporting the factor division proposed in Study
1a. Results show coherence in the scale structure, which presents two different kinds of
measures – content and evaluation of goals – in the same instrument.
Thereafter, analyses for verifying the relationship between goal content and goal
progress parts of PFS were carried out, addressing the premise that both are needed to indicate
professional fulfillment. To analyze whether both parts correlate, alternative models
assembled by SEM were considered. For goal content part, the resultant structure from CFA
with 16 items was used. For goal progress part, the four scale items were used.
Table 9 presents fit indexes for previous models of both PFS parts, which allow the
following assumptions: a) Considering goal content part, the model with the second-order
factor, generated by the four career goal factors, evidences the best fit; b) Considering goal
progress part, the single-factor, represented by goal progress itself, evidences the best fit.
Taking these results into account, Figure 1 represents the correlated model and its loadings,
such that indexes for this model were: χ² = 218.62, p = 0.001, χ²/df = 1.34, RMSEA = 0.03,
CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.97, and SRMR = 0.04, which evidence a good fit of the model.
34
Table 9
Model tests with SEM for PFS
Model
χ²
χ²/df
CFI
TLI
RMSEA
SRMR
Independent (GC)
2371.39
19.76
0.00
0.00
0.26
0.41
Single-factor (GC)
574.08
5.52
0.79
0.76
0.13
0.07
Four uncorrelated factors (GC)
623.87
5.99
0.77
0.73
0.13
0.33
Second-order factor (GC)
179.21
1.79
0.96
0.96
0.05
0.04
Independent (GP)
Single-factor (GP)
346.69
2.602
57.78
1.30
0.00
0.99
0.00
0.99
0.46
0.03
0.40
0.01
Figure 1. SEM for the relationship between goal content and goal progress parts of PFS.
Note: GP 1 = How far the person is from achieving the goal; GP 2 = How much the current job contributes to achieving the
goal; GP 3 = How satisfied one is with the degree of goal progress; GP 4 = How professionally fulfilled one perceives to be.
These results demonstrate that the extent to which people value and achieve certain
types of career goals is related to how well they think to be doing regarding goal progress.
35
However, considering that the correlation was low (r = .23), results show that although goal
content and progress parts combine, they measure different aspects of professional
fulfillment. Therefore, they must be understood as two distinct dimensions of the same
construct, which together provide a better comprehension of professional fulfillment's
complexity.
Next, it was analyzed whether goal content and goal progress parts of PFS, together,
could engender a third-order factor as a latent variable, which would be professional
fulfillment. Third-order factors in SEM are quite scarce in literature. However, there are
arguments that most SEM studies seem to focus on the falsity of a model as opposed to its
completeness; therefore, in part because of algorithmic constraints, few SEM models are very
complex and present a large number of latent variables (Chin, Peterson & Brown, 2008). A
study by Akter and Hani (2011), for example, elucidates the use of component based SEM in
estimating a complex higher order model, which addresses the third-order variable. Facing
this, Figure 2 presents the results of SEM with professional fulfillment as a third-order
variable. Indexes were: χ² = 218.62, p = 0.002, χ²/df = 1.34, RMSEA = 0.03, CFI = 0.98, TLI
= 0.97, and SRMR = 0.04, which evidence a good fit of the model. Comparing these results
with those obtained in the correlated model, the model with professional fulfillment as a third-
order variable was slightly better, what evidences an improved fit of this last model.
36
Figure 2. SEM of professional fulfillment as a third-order factor
To test a last alternative model, the means for the product of the four factors from goal
content part were calculated, so they could represent observed variables. Therefore,
professional fulfillment was also analyzed as a second-order variable. Figure 3 shows the
results for this test.
Figure 3. SEM of professional fulfillment as a second-order factor
PROFESSIONAL
FULFILLMENT
[
0.59
0.20
37
Model fit indexes for this model were: χ² = 23.59, p = 0.212, χ²/df = 1.24, RMSEA =
0.03, CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.99, and SRMR = 0.02, which evidence an excellent fit of the model
and even better indexes compared to those found in previous analysis. This indicates that goal
content part and goal progress part of PFS, together, also engender a second-order factor,
which is professional fulfillment. Therefore, results from models tested in Figure 2 and 3
represent strong evidence that goal content and goal progress, in the way they are measured in
PFS, represent operational and measurable indicators of the latent professional fulfillment
construct.
4.3. Study 1c – Test-retest reliability
As the last sub-study from Study 1, Study 1c intended to accomplish a test-retest
reliability analysis of PFS, observing its stability across a period of time. Therefore, two data
collections were made, with the same participants, within an interval of two months. The
main purpose of this study consisted on finding evidence of PFS reliability, demonstrating
that it is not vulnerable to major changes in a short period of time.
4.3.1. Method
4.3.1.1. Participants
Considering only those who took part in both data collections, a total of 138 workers
participated on this study. They were recruited in their own classrooms, in graduation and
post-graduation schools, and responded to the questionnaire after class, delivering it straight
to research assistants. Age of participants varied from 18 to 51 years old, with an average of
27,3 years old. Most of them were women (77%), single (59,6%) and undergraduate (98,5%).
The average work tenure was 6,7 years, and the average organization tenure was 3,8 years. As
displayed in Table 10, participants assumed a large variety of jobs and professions.
38
Table 10
Participants’ professions and jobs
Profession/Job
Frequency
Administrative assistant/technician
5
Autonomous
4
Bank clerk
1
Bus collector
1
Cleaning auxiliary
1
Collection attendant
1
Craftswoman
2
Credit analyst
1
Financial auxiliary
1
Government employee
3
Hairdresser
1
HR analyst
1
HR assistant
2
Instructor
1
Kitchen-maid
1
Maintenance technician
1
Manager
4
Market cashier
4
Nursing technician
2
Operations auxiliary
2
Operations manager
1
Personnel department auxiliary
5
Psychologist
1
Purchasing manager
1
Receptionist
1
Replenisher
1
Restaurant attendant
1
Sales attendant
1
Salesman/woman
10
Secretary
1
Social Worker
1
Student
10
Technical attendant
1
Telemarketing operator
4
Intern
33
Veterinarian auxiliary
1
Vice-governor assessor
1
Work safety technician
1
4.3.1.2. Instruments
The version of PFS obtained from Study 1b was used, which is composed by two
parts. Goal content part explores what types of career goals people perceive as more
important for them (goal content) and how much they achieve them at their career moment,
being observed the relationship (product) between importance and achievement, in order to
create a score. This part presents 16 items and 4 four factors – self-transcendence, self-
enhancement, conservation and openness to change. Goal progress part of PFS presents the
39
same structure proposed in Study 1a, with one open question (to prime people’s main career
goal), a dichotomous question about whether the person has achieved the stated career goal or
not and four scale-shaped questions, which inquire about: 1) How far the person is from
achieving the goal; 2) How much the current job contributes to achieving the goal; 3) How
satisfied one is with the degree of goal progress; 4) How professionally fulfilled one perceives
to be.
A socio-demographic questionnaire was annexed, enquiring people about their sex,
age, schooling, profession/job and time of work. In time two, participants were inquired about
changes in career in the last two months, marking what kind of change it was – promotion,
demission, job changing, retirement, completion of college/course or opening own business.
The purpose of these additional questions was to verify the interference of such aspects on
possible changes of professional fulfillment over time.
4.3.1.3. Procedures and data analysis
To make test-retest reliability analysis possible, two data collections were carried out,
within a two-month interval. Considering that time interval may influence this kind of
reliability, this specific interval was chosen because it is not so short as one week or two –
when the probability of major changes in career is low and memory issues may affect
participants responses – and not so long as six months or a year, when modifications in
achievement of career goals and perception of goal progress are more likely to happen.
Considering that the present study comprises time 1 and 2, participants were
previously informed that they would take part in two data collection, so only the ones who
agreed with this condition should volunteer. To control participants’ responses to both data
collection but still preserve anonymity, in the first collection it was asked them to choose fake
initials, and make note of them for the next time. An intern strategy was adopted in case the
exact match between questionnaire one and two was not achieved – socio-demographic data
40
like sex, age, profession/job and time of work was checked. This strategy was used in case the
participant did not write, in time two, the exact same initials of time one.
To analyze test-retest reliability of PFS, paired samples T-Test was executed, which
compares two population means in case of two samples that are correlated. In Study 1c, the
samples are the matched pairs, as the same participant completed the questionnaire twice
within a period of two months. Bivariate Pearson correlations were also conducted, in order to
compare results from time 1 and 2.
To obtain the power achieved by T-Tests and bivariate correlations, G-Power 3 (Faul
et al., 2007) was used. For the paired samples T-test, estimates were obtained considering the
protocol of power analysis section, T-test family, test of difference between two dependent
means and the type of power analysis was post-hoc. For an effect of .30, alpha of .05, sample
size of 138 and Df of 5, a power of .99 was achieved. For bivariate correlation analyses, a
power of .97 was achieved.
4.3.2. Results and discussion
Results of Study 1c demonstrated that there were no relevant changes on PFS scores
within two months. As displayed in Tables 11 and 12, results of paired samples T-Test
indicated that there are no significant differences between time 1 and 2, which indicates the
stability of the scale.
Results from paired T-Test are partially supported by correlation indices, which were
positive and significant. However, “r” values were only from low to moderate, indicating the
absence of stronger correlations between paired data (Tables 13 and 14). Considering overall
scores from both parts, it is possible to observe that correlations between time 1 and 2 for goal
progress part were much lower than for goal content part, what may evidence that goal
progress evaluations are less stable than the perceived relationship between importance and
achievement of goals. Regarding the fourth question of goal progress, which is about self-
41
perceived professional fulfillment, correlations between time 1 and 2 were not even
significant, what may indicate a higher oscillation across time.
Table 11
Results of paired T-Test for PFS goal content part test-retest
Pairs
Mean
Std.
Deviation
Std. Error
Mean
95%
Confidence
Interval
t
df
Sig (2-
tailed)
Lower
Uppe
r
Self-transcendence_T1
Self-transcendence_T2
-0.23
4.07
0.36
-0.94
0.49
-0.63
127.00
0.53
Openness to change_T1
Openness to change_T2
-0.90
5.17
0.46
-1.80
0.00
-1.97
127.00
0.06
Self-enhancement_T1
Self-enhancement_T2
0.07
6.43
0.57
-1.05
1.20
0.13
127.00
0.90
Conservation_T1
Conservation_T2
-0.36
4.29
0.38
-1.11
0.39
-0.95
127.00
0.35
Overall scale_T1
Overall scale_T2
-0.32
3.64
0.32
-0.95
0.32
-0.99
128.00
0.33
Table 12
Results of paired T-Test for PFS goal progress part test-retest
Pairs
Mean
Std.
Deviation
Std. Error
Mean
95%
Confidence
Interval
t
df
Sig (2-
tailed)
Lower
Uppe
r
Goal progress 1_T1
Goal progress 1_T2
0.02
0.34
0.03
-0.04
0.08
0.77
131.00
0.44
Goal progress 2_T1
Goal progress 2_T2
0.01
0.96
0.08
-0.16
0.19
0.19
119.00
0.85
Goal progress 3_T1
Goal progress 3_T2
0.008
0.91
0.08
-0.16
0.17
0.10
121.00
0.92
Goal progress 4_T1
Goal progress 4_T2
-0.43
3.10
0.28
-1.00
0.12
-1.55
120.00
0.12
Overall goal progress_T1
Overall goal progress_T2
0.004
0.88
0.07
-0.14
0.15
0.04
134.00
0.96
* Goal progress 1 = How far the person is from achieving the goal; Goal progress 2 = How much the current job contributes
to achieving the goal; Goal progress 3 = How satisfied one is with the degree of goal progress; Goal progress 4 = How
professionally fulfilled one perceives to be.
42
Table 13
Correlations of PFS goal content part test-retest
Pairs
r
Sig (2-tailed)
Self-transcendence_T1
Self-transcendence_T2
.51
>.00
Openness to change_T1
Openness to change_T2
.45
>.00
Self-enhancement_T1
Self-enhancement_T2
.35
>.00
Conservation_T1
Conservation_T2
.47
>.00
Overall scale_T1
Overall scale_T2
.51
>.00
Table 14
Correlations of PFS goal progress part test-retest
Pairs
r
Sig (2-tailed)
Goal progress 1_T1
Goal progress 1_T2
.40
>.00
Goal progress 2_T1
Goal progress 2_T2
.59
>.00
Goal progress 3_T1
Goal progress 3_T2
.31
>.00
Goal progress 4_T1
Goal progress 4_T2
.05
.59
Overall goal progress_T1
Overall goal progress_T2
.20
.02
Regarding recent career changes, results from an independent T-Test indicated that
those with recent changes in career did not present significant mean differences in PFS scores
from those that did not experience changes. Maybe this was due to the low frequency of
reported changes (only around five people reported some recent change), identified through
descriptive analyses.
Overall, results from Study 1c evidenced some stability of PFS across a period of two
months. Although correlations between time 1 and 2 could be higher, results from paired T-
Test evidence that there were no significant changes in PFS scores across a short period of
time. Once professional fulfillment is composed by goal content and goal progress, the
43
stability of these scores is understandable as they are based on individual’s core values and
aspirations, which are not easily altered. Moreover, results from Study 1c permits the
statement that PFS accurately encompass these core values and aspirations, as they seem not
to suffer major changes thru a period of time.
4.4. General discussion
The goal of Study 1 was to propose a professional fulfillment framework, in addition
to present validity evidences for its measurement instrument. Regarding the definition of
professional fulfillment, it is in tune with the current-day concept of career, which posits that
people are responsible for their professional choices and success (Costa, 2010). It also fills
some gaps in career field, as PFS involves goal importance and achievement, as well as
satisfaction with goal progress, bringing forth a better comprehension of how people pursue
career goals. Additionally, the relationship between importance and achievement of career
goals was analyzed, exploring how they could generate a new score that evidences the
different situations people may be regarding their career goals.
The career goal content proposed is based on a solid values theory (Schwartz et al.,
2012), which gives robustness to the model and the measure. In this context, professional
fulfillment concept and measurement address the research agenda proposed by Heslin (2005),
that future studies on career should use relevant theory and research to guide the exploration
of what matters most for people, as well as ask people how they know (or anticipate) the
extent to which their career is successful.
Professional fulfillment is a relevant construct for career as it takes into account
individual parameters of excellence. Different people have different aspirations, so they can
fulfill themselves through achievement of different career goals. Nevertheless, these
aspirations may be related to success and recognition (self-enhancement), as well as to avoid
disappointing others and following rules (conservation). In this sense, professional fulfillment
44
is not only related to objective parameters of success (e.g. money and power) or the so called
“higher” goals (e.g. recognition and sense of importance). The proposition is that professional
fulfillment can be related to achievement of any kind of goal, as long as it is important to the
individual. In sum, professional fulfillment is related to what types of career goals people
most value, which is linked to their prior needs and core values.
Likewise, professional fulfillment may not only be experienced when people entirely
achieve their career goals. As previously stated, some people may have career goals that are
not totally attainable in a lifetime or that require a longer period of experience and maturing.
However, if people perceive they are doing something in this direction – progressing toward
their goals – there may be an indicative of professional fulfillment. Some career goals depend
on gaining experience, ascending step-by-step or surpassing barriers of time. Facing these
conditions, sometimes the current stage of someone’s career is the maximum he/she can reach
at the moment, yet it is not the final career goal. If people conclude they have done their best
so far, they may feel professionally fulfilled. Hence, this partial achievement of career goals is
captured by the evaluation of goal progress. These are the major contributions of the
professional fulfillment construct.
Regarding operationalization of professional fulfillment construct, which is PFS,
Study 1 has presented feasible evidence of its adequacy, as construct and divergent validity
were examined, as well as test-retest reliability. To present a trustworthy scale is as important
as presenting an innovative construct, as the innovative construct would be hardly believed or
studied if it does not portray a verisimilar measure. In case of PFS, empirical evidence
produced good model fit indexes regarding correlation between its parts and integration in
forming the latent factor of professional fulfillment. These results demonstrate robustness of
such operationalization of professional fulfillment concept and dimensions.
45
Therefore, it is possible to conclude that goals proposed in Study 1 were fairly
reached. A conceptual framework of professional fulfillment and a psychometrically
satisfactory measurement instrument were introduced and both definition and scale present
solid theoretical and empirical basis, which strengthens the model. Future research should
evaluate how well this construct predicts behaviors, emotions and cognition, especially in
longitudinal analysis. It is also interesting to investigate how professional fulfillment changes
in career course, including how career goals may change over time. The differences and
correlations between most important goals in goal content part and the written goal in goal
progress part would also be an interesting issue to address. Finally, other samples might be
used to compare professional fulfillment in different types of jobs, career levels and family
conjectures.
Since PFS focus on people’s career goals, it could be useful for career orientation and
development, work motivation and personnel selection, considering that access to people’s
career goals represents an important tool for decision making in career. Additionally, the
more people focus on their career goals, more likely is the engagement in behaviors that could
help to reach these goals (Noe, 2013). Without defined goals, people lack motivation to keep
up with decisions related to their career. Once a measurement is available for mapping
people’s career goals, its importance, achievement, and progress evaluation, we have a
comprehensive diagnostic tool for career management and development.
One limitation concerns the self-reported measure. Although most studies involving
goal pursuit use subjective and self-report measures, this may partially limit the validity of
results. At least considering goal content part of PFS, the score used to analyze results is
objectively calculated, which means that, people only report their most important goals and
how much they achieve them. The relationship between those two measures is calculated by
the researcher. However, goal progress part is based only on subjective evaluation, which may
46
be influenced by social desirability and acquiescence. The low correlations obtained in Study
1c are also a limitation, as it may indicate that the stability of the scale could be improved.
Despite these issues, it is noteworthy that the best informant for personal goals is
oneself, therefore personal goals measurement that is not directly by asking people may be
somehow impractical. Besides, the simple act of signing which are one’s most important
goals may be an effective strategy for bringing these goals into a conscious level. This is
important because maybe only then people feel compelled to really pursue those goals.
Therefore, directly asking people which are their most important goals might serve as a self-
knowledge tool. Additionally, inquiring people how much they are achieving important goals
at the present moment may also serve as a sign that they are or not achieving what they value,
and then push themselves into action. The evaluation of goal progress, in turn, shall work as a
cue of what is being done right or wrong. After all, the self-report measure could turn out to
be better than expected.
5. Study 2 – Motivation for professional fulfillment
What motives people to pursuit and succeed in attaining the career goals they choose?
Achievement of career goals represents a current ambition for many workers nowadays, as it
would contribute to the on-going aim to perceive oneself as professionally fulfilled. As
previously discussed, professional fulfillment relates to the perception of having attained
one's most important career goals or the positive evaluation of being on the right track for
attaining these goals. Professional fulfillment concept is essentially related to personal values,
which are adapted to the career context. To conclude whether someone is professionally
fulfilled or not, it would be necessary to investigate which are one’s core values and goals to
analyze how much this person is achieving the most important ones. Additionally,
47
considering the current emphasis on protean and boundaryless careers, motivation to develop
and pursue career goals autonomously has been emphasized.
Following this rationale, this study proposes that motivation to achieve goals
foreshadow professional fulfillment. Currently, any meaningful model concerning goals must
begin by addressing achievement goal theory, which continues to dominate goal research
(Hulleman, Schrager, Bodmann, & Harackiewicz, 2010). Achievement goal orientation is
about what kinds of motives stir people to achieve goals. When people want to achieve a goal,
they present different orientations or ways of pursuing that goal, which will guide their
behavior, cognition and affect (Elliot, 2005). In the present study, the focus is to analyze what
happens to professional fulfillment when people prioritize developing competence for
themselves (mastery approach orientation) or avoiding mistakes (mastery avoidance
orientation). Thus, each orientation would be related to achievement of prioritized career
goals and to goal progress evaluation. This is in accordance with the premise that a full
understanding of achievement-related behavior and outcomes requires attention not only to
individual’s goals, but also to the underlying need that they serve (Thrash & Hurst, 2008).
Furthermore, self-referent concepts, specifically self-esteem, have been currently
related to the evaluations people make about themselves and their behavior (e.g. Lane &
Lane, 2001; Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger & Vohs, 2003). As professional fulfillment
refers to an intrinsic process of analyzing one’s career goals and evaluating whether these
goals are being achieved or not, it is hypothesized that self-esteem may influence the
strategies and approaches people use to pursue career goals. In sum, this study aimed to
analyze how achievement goal orientation function as a motivation for professional
fulfillment, being those relationships moderated and mediated by self-esteem.
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5.1. Achievement goal orientation
Achievement goal theory represents a very active area of research in motivation and
goal orientation field (Lee, McInerney, Liem & Ortiga, 2010; Senko, Hulleman &
Harackiewicz, 2011). It clarifies how different types of achievement goals can influence
certain outcomes such as performance and attainment of specific goals, especially in
educational/academic context.
Achievement goal orientation is conceptualized as an integrated pattern of beliefs that
lead people to approach, engage, and respond to achievement tasks and situations in specific
ways (Schunk, 2001). Achievement goals are the purpose of task engagement, and the
specific type of goal adopted by an individual creates a framework of how this individual
interprets and experiences achievement settings (Elliot, 1999).
Competence is recognized as being the conceptual core of the achievement goal
construct (Elliot & McGregor, 2001). According to Pintrich, Conley and Kempler (2003),
achievement goal orientation includes the purpose for achievement (mastery or performance)
and the standards or criteria that individuals may use to define their goals (self-reference or
comparative standards). Mastery goals reflect the belief that effort leads to success, focusing
on competencies development, learning, task/work understanding and self-referenced
improvement standards. People with a mastery orientation would prioritize broader rather
than specific target goals for achievement tasks. On the other hand, performance oriented
people focus on their abilities and sense of self-worth, as they worry about doing better than
others, surpassing norms and receiving personal recognition (Lee et al., 2010).
However, comprehension of achievement behavior and its consequences demands
attention not only to individuals’ goals, but also to goals’ underlying needs and motives
(Thrash & Hurst, 2008). Thus, achievement orientation may tend to acquisition of
competence or avoidance of incompetence (Elliot & Dweck, 2005), which are represented by
49
approach and avoidance dimensions. For each orientation, an approach/avoid dimension is
considered, which is recognized as the 2 X 2 model (Elliot & McGregor, 2001), displayed in
Figure 4. This is considered the most sophisticated and comprehensive contemporary
achievement goal orientation framework (Van Yperen & Renkema, 2008), as it presents
strong empirical evidence (e.g. Finney, Pieper & Barron, 2004; Elliot & Murayama, 2008;
Conroy, Elliot & Hofer, 2003; Pastor, Barron, Miller & Davis, 2007) and its four types of
achievement orientations relate to different antecedents and consequents (Elliot & McGregor,
2001).
Regarding mastery, it is defined in absolute/intrapersonal terms. For mastery approach
orientation, people behave as posited above – they focus competencies development, learning,
task/work understanding and prioritize self-referenced improvement standards. Mastery
avoidance orientation, in turn, make people avoid showing misunderstanding, failure to learn
and failure to master tasks. Performance goals are defined in normative terms, the approach
dimension being related to wishing to do better and being recognized for one’s competencies,
while avoidance relates primarily to the fear of appearing incompetent (Lee et al., 2010).
Source: Elliot & McGregor, 2001.
Figure 4. The 2 X 2 achievement goal framework
50
Mastery goals focus on competence development or task mastery – intrapersonal
orientation – whereas performance goals are associated with competence demonstration
regarding others – interpersonal orientation (Elliot, 1999). The present study proposes that
mastery orientation is stronger related to professional fulfillment. People high on this
achievement motivation are more likely to successfully reach their goals, in part because they
set more mastery-oriented goals in first place (Elliot & Church, 1997). Successful attainment
of a mastery goal requires meeting self-defined criteria (e.g., feeling that you have learned or
improved), which matches with professional fulfillment idea of subjective evaluation of goal
attainment. Additionally, professional fulfillment concept focuses on intrapersonal
perceptions and evaluations regarding one’s career, what is coherent with mastery’s
intrapersonal perspective. Furthermore, according to Senko et al. (2011), findings for mastery
goals have been more consistent and mostly favorable. In their review, they discuss studies
showing that students who pursue mastery goals, compared to those who do not, often find
their classes interesting, persist when facing difficulty, value cooperativeness, seek help when
confused, self-regulate effectively, use deep learning strategies (e.g., elaborating the material,
connecting it to other concepts), manage decisional conflict well, experience positive emotion
and perceive tasks as valuable. Other research has concentrated on examining mastery
orientations as a part of a broader fabric of student motivation (e.g., Martin, Yu, & Hau,
2014). Based on premises of social cognitive career theory (SCCT – Lent, Brown & Hackett,
1994), Klein and Lee (2006) found that mastery oriented individuals are inclined to have
higher levels of self-set goals and goal commitment. Finally, Blanco (2011) also found a
direct effect of mastery experiences on career goals. Based on these evidences, in this study
mastery orientation is considered to present a stronger relationship with professional
fulfillment, represented by career goals content and progress, as the following hypotheses
propose:
51
H1: Mastery orientation predicts professional fulfillment career goal content
dimension;
H2: Mastery orientation predicts professional fulfillment career goal progress
dimension;
Although achievement goal orientation theory is largely investigated in the education
field, is has also been studied in Organizational and Work Psychology scope. Baranik, Barron
and Finney (2007) developed a measurement instrument for the 2 x 2 Elliot and McGregor
(2001) framework, adapting it to the work domain. Furthermore, research often focused on
the career domain. Joo and Park (2009), for example, found evidence that goal orientations
are related to career satisfaction and organizational commitment. Godshalk and Sosik (2003)
investigated how mastery goal orientation related to career outcomes, such as managerial
career aspirations and career satisfaction. According to Heslin (2005), regardless of what
other people achieve, a person highly committed to mastery goals is more liable to experience
career success, potentially feeling that their career is not successful if this goal is not attained.
Tolentino et al. (2014), in turn, evidenced the relationship between achievement goal
orientation and career adaptability. Further research on the relationship between achievement
goal orientation and organizational behavior focused on training (eg. Kozlowski et al., 2001;
Rogers & Spitzmüller, 2009), leadership (Yee, Lee, Yeung & Cheng, 2013), motivation
(Dysvik & Kuvaas, 2013), aging of work force (Heidemeier & Staudinger, 2015) and
achievement goals in work teams (Gong, Kim, Lee & Zhu, 2013; Van Mierlo & Van Hooft,
2015).
In the present study, Baranik et al. (2007) perspective of achievement goal orientation
in the work domain is considered. Recently, two important studies reinforced the empirical
strength of the 2x2 framework of achievement goal orientation in workplace. The first one, by
Van Yperen and Orehek (2013), discusses the conceptualization of the 2x2 achievement goal
52
framework and present original data on prevalence of workers’ dominant achievement goals
and the achievement goal profiles associated with these dominant goals. The second one, by
Baranik, Lau, Stanley, Barron and Lance (2013), verifies the differences between young and
older workers, building a nomological network of evidence for mastery avoidance, the new
dimension proposed by Baranik et al. (2007) instrument.
We also propose that mastery orientation relate to both dimensions of professional
fulfillment (content of goals and evaluation of goal progress). Regarding the relationship
between achievement goal orientation and goal content, in early 2000’s, self-determination
theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) proposed that it is not only the number or quantity of goals that
matters but also their quality, arguing that people pursue qualitatively different types of goals
which lead to considerably different outcomes. The before mentioned self-concordance model
(Sheldon & Elliot, 1999) also supports the goal motivation influence in goal striving process,
as the model offers a conceptual framework that quantifies the extent to which a goal is
concordant with one's values, interests, and ideals (e.g., Sheldon & Elliot, 1999; Sheldon &
Kasser, 1998). Lee et al. (2010) investigated the relationship between specific content (career,
society, family, fame, and wealth) of students’ future goals and their immediate achievement
goal orientations. They showed that the strongest model is when achievement goal orientation
predicts future goals (not the opposite), and intrinsic future goals – career, society, and family
– were more strongly related to mastery-approach goal orientation.
In that sense, when it comes to professional fulfillment (goal content dimension),
openness to change, self-enhancement and self-transcendence career goals could be
understood as intrinsic, as they all involve attending self needs. Although some authors
consider that only openness to change represents an intrinsic motive, because it involves the
goals obtained by the work content (Ros, Schwartz & Surkiss, 1999), the self-concordance
model presents another approach. It analyzes whether a goal is pursued because of inherent
53
pleasure (i.e., intrinsic motivation) and importance for self-development (i.e., identified
motivation) versus self-imposed pressure (i.e., introjected motivation) and obtaining rewards
or avoiding punishments (i.e., external motivation) (Gaudreau et al., 2012). Therefore, we use
the premises by self-concordance model to understand that self-enhancement, self-
transcendence and openness to change career goals involve inherent pleasure and self-
development, thus being considered intrinsic and motivated by mastery approach orientation.
On the other hand, conservation career goals are about self-imposed pressure and averting
flaws and punishments, being motivated by mastery avoidance orientation.
Taking these premises into account, the present study proposes that both approach and
avoidance orientations can be related to specific types of career goals. This is also in
accordance with Tamir and Diener’s (2008) proposition, according to which individuals may
be able to experience meaning in life as they are either approach or avoidance oriented, as
long as the goals they pursue are meaningful to them. Following this rationale, both
avoidance and approach dimensions can predict professional fulfillment, in terms of goal
content and goal progress. In that sense, the following hypotheses specify H1:
H1a: Mastery-approach orientation predicts self-enhancement, openness to
change and self-transcendence career goal content;
H1b: Mastery-avoidance orientation predicts conservation career goal content.
Nonetheless, goal contents that people try to achieve has not yet been appraised by
many studies. One of the closest recent trials is from Mansfield (2012), who also claims that
few studies have taken account of what students are trying to achieve at school and why they
want to achieve it, referring to the importance of goal content. The author addresses goals
content by distinguishing them into social, future, achievement and well-being. In that sense,
H1a and H1b may represent an important contribution to the field, as they analyze how
54
mastery avoidance and approach orientations relate to the four proposed content of career
goals – self-enhancement, self-transcendence, openness to change and conservation.
5.2. Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is often considered in evaluations about one’s attitudes and