Career Locus of Control: A Comparative Analysis between Management and Arts Undergraduates of University of Ruhuna

Abstract

Believing that career outcomes are largely dependent on one's own actions rather than forces outside of one's control, is very important for all undergraduates as prospective employees. Management literature defines above phenomena as Career Locus of Control. The objective of this paper was to investigate whether the undergraduates are internally or externally locus of control oriented. Moreover the research was aimed at determining whether there was a significant difference of orientation among management and arts undergraduates. The research was conducted as a survey, where a structured questionnaire was administered among a sample of 340 Undergraduates. Sample was selected using random sampling while maintaining 50% balance among these two undergraduate groups. Questionnaire was developed based on Spector's (1988) “Measure of work locus of control” and carried 20 separate scale questions. Mean comparison and t-test were used to prove the hypotheses. Research accepted the two hypotheses which stated that, Management undergraduates are more internal locus of control oriented compared to their Arts counterparts and Arts undergraduates are more external locus of control oriented compared to their Management counterparts.