Using the career orientations inventory (COI) for measuring internal career orientations in the South African organisational context

Abstract

This study investigated the use of the Career Orientations Inventory as a measure to determine the career orientations of a random sample of 2 978 participants at predominantly managerial and supervisory level in the service industry. Whereas an exploratory factor analysis yielded a nine-factor structure, a confirmatory factor analysis confirmed five constructs as measures of the career orientations domain. A similar factorial pattern was observed across the African and white groups and a weaker factorial pattern across the Indian and coloured groups. The findings of this study contribute valuable new knowledge to both the practice and the field of Career Psychology.