Prevalence of Different Types of Career Plateau among the Administrative Officers in Sri Lankan Universities

Abstract

Career plateau, a common situation faced by many employees, has a range of negative consequences both on individual employee performances and organizational outcomes. Career plateau studies about the administrative officers in Sri Lankan Universities are lacking. Objectives of this study was to understand the prevelance of three types (content, hierarchical and personal) of career plateau among the administrative officers of Sri Lankan Universities. Data were collected from 108 administrative officers in 13 Universities and University Grant Commission. Subjective career plateau scales were determined based on the responses (either strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree or strongly disagree) given to a set of statements. In the computation of plateau scales, responses were arranged into five point Likert scale ranging from -2 for ‘ strongly disagree’" to +2 for strongly agree. Higher the scales higher the severity of plateau. Mean plateau scales <-0.5 were considered non plateaued while scales >0.5 were considered plateaued. According to the subjective scales, the university administrative officers could best be classified as personally plateaued (scale=0.83) but of having no idea (no plateaued nor un plateaued) in terms of content (scale = -0.25) and hierarchical (scale=0.37) plateau. The content plateau scale of male administrative officers was significantly higher than that of female counterparts. Though junior(-0.09) and middle (0 41) level officer could be classified as having no idea about their content plateau siaius. senior officers (-0.77) were not plateaued with respect to job content. Hierarchical plateau scale was not affected by the gender and the level of administrative position. Above 40 years old respondents were hierarchically plateaued (0.54) and those below 40 could be classified having no idea (0.20). Personal plateau scale was not affected eitehr by the gender, the level of administrative position and the age. It was concluded that the career plateauing is highly prevelent among the administrative officers of the Sri Lankan University system. Personal followed by hierarchical were the most dominant types of plateau. Further research are needed to determine to extent career plateau affect the job performance and satisfaction.