Vol. 17, n. 3, novembre 2024
STRUMENTI
Career Satisfaction Scale: Proprietà psicometriche nei lavoratori migranti
Tariku Ayana Abdi1 e Alessandro Lo Presti2
Sommario
C’è un crescente interesse nello studio del successo di carriera dei migranti, che viene in parte valutato utilizzando la Career Satisfaction Scale. Tuttavia, a causa della scarsa teorizzazione delle carriere dei migranti, a nostra conoscenza, nessuna ricerca ha adottato la Career Satisfaction Scale ampiamente utilizzata di Greenhaus et al. (1990). Questa ricerca cerca di adottare e valutare le proprietà psicometriche della Career Satisfaction Scale di Greenhaus e colleghi per la sua precisione e ampia applicabilità nella misurazione dell’aspetto della soddisfazione di carriera del successo di carriera. Abbiamo somministrato la Career Satisfaction Scale e la Perceived Employability Scale a 137 dipendenti migranti africani in Italia. Abbiamo analizzato l’affidabilità della Career Satisfaction Scale utilizzando l’alfa di Cronbach, eseguito un’analisi fattoriale confermativa e la correlazione di Pearson per indagare la sua relazione con la Perceived Employability Scale. I risultati hanno mostrato che la Career Satisfaction Scale è affidabile e mostra validità concorrente con la Perceived Employability. Nel complesso, la Career Satisfaction di Greenhaus et al. (1990) ha buone proprietà psicometriche ed è appropriata per la ricerca e l’intervento di carriera sui lavoratori migranti.
Parole chiave
Carriere dei migranti, Successo di carriera, Soddisfazione di carriera, Career Satisfaction Scale, Lavoratori migranti africani.
INSTRUMENTS
The Career Satisfaction Scale: Psychometric Properties in Migrant Employees
Tariku Ayana Abdi3 and Alessandro Lo Presti4
Abstract
There is a growing interest in studying migrant career success, which is partly assessed using the Career Satisfaction Scale. However, because of the under-theorization of migrant careers, to our best knowledge, no research has adopted the widely used Career Satisfaction Scale by Greenhaus et al. (1990). This research seeks to adopt and assess the psychometric properties of Greenhaus and colleagues’ Career Satisfaction Scale for its precision and broad applicability in measuring the career satisfaction aspect of career success. We administered the Career Satisfaction Scale and the Perceived Employability Scale to 137 African migrant employees in Italy. We analysed the reliability of the Career Satisfaction Scale using Cronbach’s alpha and performed a confirmatory factor analysis and Pearson’s correlation to investigate its relationship with the Perceived Employability Scale. The results showed that the Career Satisfaction Scale is reliable and has concurrent validity with the Perceived Employability Scale. Overall, Greenhaus et al.’s (1990) Career Satisfaction Scale has good psychometric properties and is appropriate for research and career intervention among migrant workers.
Keywords
Migrant careers, Career success, Career satisfaction, Career Satisfaction Scale, African migrant workers.
Introduction
Despite the proliferation of research interest in migrant careers, researchers argue that migrants’ careers have been under-theorized (Abdi et al., 2021; Al Ariss et al., 2012), contributing to the lack of standardized instruments for assessing their career success (e.g., Cao et al., 2012). The term career is conceptualized as the sequential set of an individual’s work experience over time (Arthur et al., 2005; Kumpikaite-Valiuniene et al., 2022). On the other hand, career success refers to both objective (including salary/earnings, occupational status, and number of promotions) and subjective career success (job satisfaction and career satisfaction) aspects (Hirschi et al., 2018; Spurk et al., 2019; Yap et al., 2014). Notably, career satisfaction, which is the focus of the current study, commonly refers to an individual’s subjective/internal evaluation of their career (Cao et al., 2012; Greenhaus et al., 1990; Kumpikaite-Valiuniene et al., 2022).
Although migrant careers have become an integral part of the global and host countries’ workforce (e.g., Carr et al., 2005), much of the available research has focused on migrant integration in the host countries’ workforce, while few have focused on their career success, particularly, career satisfaction (e.g., Cao et al., 2012; Farashah et al., 2024; Yap et al., 2014). The few available studies assessing the career satisfaction of migrants have also utilized diverse instruments, which makes it challenging to make comparisons and design migrant career interventions. For instance, Farashah et al. (2024) implemented a three-item scale of Shockley et al. (2016) to assess the career satisfaction of migrants in Sweden, while Kumpikaite-Valiuniene et al. (2022) used a single item of Judge et al.’s (1999) to measure the career satisfaction of migrants from Lithuania.
On the other hand, among the few available studies assessing the career satisfaction of migrants, Yap et al. (2014) reported using the Career Satisfaction Scale of Greenhaus et al. (1990) to assess and compare the career satisfaction of immigrant and native workers in Canada. However, to the best of our knowledge, there was no study adapting or adopting the Career Satisfaction Scale of Greenhaus et al. (1990) to assess the career satisfaction of African migrant workers in Italy despite the scale being widely used among the general worker population and migrants elsewhere, as aforementioned in the case of migrant careers in Canada. To fill this gap and contribute to the scarce literature on assessing migrant careers in Italy, we aimed to adopt the Career Satisfaction Scale of Greenhaus et al. (1990) among African migrant employees in Italy. To provide evidence for the validity and reliability of the scale, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), a reliability test (using Cronbach’s alpha), and concurrent validity with the Perceived Employability Scale (a scale that assesses the perception of how easy it is to find a job, maintain one’s job, or change it if needed); (Berntson & Marklund, 2007). Previous studies have shown that perceived employability positively correlates with career satisfaction (e.g., De Vos et al., 2011; Guilbert et al., 2016; Nauta et al., 2009).
Methods
Participants and Procedures
Due to the invisibility of and the difficulties in sampling migrants (Tourangeau, 2014), the sampling procedure was carried out by means of Facebook, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn to maximize participation. A total of 137 African migrants filled out our questionnaire. Participants came from 24 African countries, in particular from Senegal (20.44%) and Cameroon (20.44%). Among them, 90 (65.69%) were men and 45 (32.85%) were women (2 missing values). Mean age was 35.72 years (SD = 10.32), while, on average, they have been in Italy for the last 16.28 years (SD = 9.32). Seventy-four (54.01%) participants had a high school diploma or a lower qualification, 63 (45.99%) had a university degree, while one participant had no formal schooling. Among them, 66 participants (48.18%) were single, 55 were married or cohabitating (40.15%), and 7 (5.11%) held another marital status. In terms of employment arrangements, 106 participants (77.37%) held a formal employment contract (either open-ended or fixed term), while 29 (21.17%) held an informal, temporary, or seasonal employment contract (2 missing values).
Measures
The Career Satisfaction Scale by Greenhaus et al. (1990). The Career Satisfaction Scale of Greenhaus et al. (1990) has five items. The scale was translated into Italian and then translated back into English to maintain the equivalence of conceptual meanings by bilingual professionals (Brislin, 1980). Participants responded to the items on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). A sample item is: «I am satisfied with the progress I have made toward meeting my overall career goals.» The original scale had adequate reliability with a Cronbach’s alpha (α) of .88. Previously, researchers implementing Greenhaus et al.’s scale (1990) among immigrant workers reported that the scale had adequate reliability with a Cronbach’s alpha (α) value of .85 (Yap et al., 2014).
The Perceived Employability Scale (Berntson & Marklund, 2007; Italian version by Caricati et al., 2016). The scale has five items designed to measure the perception of how easy it is to find a job, maintain one’s job, or change it if needed (Berntson & Marklund, 2007). Participants responded to the items on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from do not agree at all (1) to entirely agree (5). A sample item is: «I know of other organizations/companies where I could get new work.» Berntson and Marklund (2007) reported that the Perceived Employability Scale had a reliability value of α = .88. In the current study, the scale demonstrated good reliability (α = .84).
Data analysis
Confirmatory factor analysis (hereafter, CFA) was carried out using Lisrel 9.30 software (estimation method: robust maximum likelihood). Model fit was evaluated with comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and standardized mean square residual (SRMR). Generally, values ³ .90 of CFI and TLI indices are considered indicators of a good fit model (e.g., Vandenberg & Lance, 2000). For the RMSEA index, values ≤ .08 are considered an acceptable fit model, values between .08 and .10 are mediocre, and values > .10 are not acceptable, while for SRMR, the cutoff value close to .08 indicates a better model fit (Gunzler & Morris, 2015; Hu & Bentler, 1999; Vandenberg & Lance, 2000).
Results
The model (χ2 = 16.87, df = 5) obtained by means of the CFA results showed that CFI = .97, TLI = .95, RMSEA = .17, and SMR = .03, indicating an acceptable fit for the data, except for the RMSEA value. However, several scholars (e.g., Kenny et al., 2015) showed that, for simpler models, RMSEA is sensitive to sample size and may be inflated in case of a bigger sample. We also provided a path diagram of the CFA results of the scale in Figure 1.
Figure 1
Career Satisfaction Scale: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) — Path diagram (N = 137)
CareerSat = Career Satisfaction Scale; Crst1 = Item 1; Crst2 = Item 2; Crst 3 = Item3; Crst4 = Item, Crst5 = Item 5.
Moreover, the scale demonstrated adequate reliability with a Cronbach’s alpha (a) value of .91 and a significant positive correlation with the Perceived Employability Scale (r = .52, p < .01), providing evidence for concurrent validity for the Career Satisfaction Scale.
Discussion
To the best of our knowledge, no research has examined the Career Satisfaction Scale of Greenhaus et al. (1990) in the context of African migrant careers in Italy, despite this scale being valid and having good psychometric properties both in general workers and in the context of migrants elsewhere (e.g., Yap et al., 2014). Therefore, this study’s objective was to adopt the Career Satisfaction Scale of Greenhaus et al. (1990) and examine its validity and psychometric properties in the migrant career context. The results showed that the Career Satisfaction Scale can validly and reliably assess the career success aspects of migrant employees. The findings also show that Career Satisfaction has a positive and robust statistically significant relationship with Perceived Employability, consistent with previous findings (De Vos et al., 2011; Guilbert et al., 2016; Nauta et al., 2009). Thus, the good psychometric properties of the scale suggest its suitability for both career intervention and future research on migrant careers.
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1 Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Management, Bologna, Italia.
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2 Università della Campania «Luigi Vanvitelli», Dipartimento di Psicologia, Caserta, Italia.
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3 Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Department of Management, Bologna, Italy.
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4 University of Campania «Luigi Vanvitelli», Department of Psychology, Caserta, Italy.
Vol. 17, Issue 3, November 2024
