Using personal orientation and career anchors to predict commitment and performance in life insurance salespeople

The present study investigated the feasibility of using a specific set of personality dimensions, as measured by the Personal Orientation Profile (POP), and certain career anchors, to predict organizational commitment, job performance and tenure in life insurance salespersons. The Career Orientation Inventory (COI) and the Organizational Commitment Scale (OCS) were used to identify the respective career anchors and the commitment dimensions. A series of factor analyses confirmed the original OCS scale constructs, but not those of the POP and the cor. The factorial scales of the POP and COI were subsequently used in the remainder of the research. Intercorrelations and canonical correlation analysis revealed significant associations between the respective POP and COI subscales, but the relationship between POP and COI covariates was too weak for either scale to have any moderating effect on the other. These findings suggested that career anchors would have very little, if any, influence on personal orientation dimensions, and vice versa, in the prediction of criterion variables. A second canonical correlation indicated a significant relationship between the achievement-striving dimension of the POP and number of policies sold, but this association was too weak to be predictive any of the job performance criteria. Further investigation yielded no significant relations between career anchors and job performance. Likewise, no significant relationship was found between the any of the measuring scales and organizational tenure. The results of this study suggested that personal orientation and career anchors, as measured by the POP and COI respectively, are not stable predictors of job performance in life insurance salespeople. Both the POP and the COI were found to be lacking in construct validity and, as a result to confirm the existence of predictive qualities. Further research is required, using larger and different samples, before any conclusions can be drawn regarding the predictability of these instruments. Two major conclusions can be drawn from this study. Firstly, life insurance salespersons tend to be committed to the organization that provide them with both the opportunity to express their sense of service or dedication to life insurance sales, and the autonomy to do their job in an independent fashion. Secondly, of all the personality dimensions, achievement-striving or competitiveness appears to be the most stable and only valid predictor of job performance in life insurance salespeople. If the salesperson has the knowledge, skill and the opportunity to do the job, then it is purely effort or work ethic that distinguishes the achiever from the poor performer.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Psychology

Year dc:date.issued

1992

Author dc:creator

• Smit, Clive Walter

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Kellerman, A M

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13450

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/13450