A Study of the Relationships between Career Orientations and Career Anchors of Software Programmers

Career Orientations or career choices, can be affected by internal and external factors. External factors are the environmental conditions the reward and the final achievements of selecting a career choice are dependent on. Internal factors refer to the needs, beliefs and competencies of an individual that can be related to his/her job. The result of exploratory factor analysis of Schein's career anchor inventory supported the 8 factor structure of career anchors with one change. Then, the internal antecedents of managerial and technical orientations of 200 Iranian programmers were identified using multiple regression analysis. In addition, perception of people about the compensation system as an external factor has been found to affect the above relationships, as a moderating factor. The results revealed significant relationships between technical anchor and technical orientation, challenge, general management, entrepreneurship and job security anchors and managerial orientation.