When Being Stuck in Your Career Has Implications Beyond Your Career: Spillover and Crossover Effects of Career Plateaus
基于7年追踪数据，研究发现内容型职业高原会降低员工幸福感，并通过减少对伴侣的社会支持，间接降低伴侣的幸福感，揭示了职业停滞对家庭生活的长期影响。
ABSTRACT Many employees experience a career plateau (CP) with potentially negative consequences. Previous research has established the effects of CPs on well‐being, whereas the potential boundary conditions of these effects and the resulting crossover effects for life partners have been largely neglected. Based on the conservation of resources and social exchange theories, this study examined the negative effects of hierarchical and content CPs on well‐being and whether these effects are moderated by the importance attributed to success at work. Based on the spillover–crossover model, we also tested whether CPs are indirectly linked to a lower well‐being of the partner sequentially through the reduced well‐being of the focal employee and reduced social support provided to the partner by the focal employee. We tested our hypotheses based on data spanning 7 years, with a large representative sample of 2489 employees in Switzerland and their partners (480 dyads). Controlling for baseline levels of the outcome variables, the results indicated that a content, though not a hierarchical, CP was associated with lower employee well‐being, irrespective of work success importance. Furthermore, a content CP was indirectly associated with lower well‐being of the partner 1 year later, also accounting for the effects of the partner's baseline level of well‐being. Our results underline the importance of considering the broader effects of CPs on the well‐being of employees and their partners.