“The impact of HRM practices and employee behavior on career success”

Objective and subjective criteria are essential measures of organizational success. However, prior studies ignored these criteria when assessing employees’ career success. This study aims to examine the impact of HRM practices and employee behavior on career success for employees in the Greater Amman Municipality. This study adopted a survey for data collection, as 375 questionnaires were distributed to employees working at Greater Amman Municipality in Jordan. Four weeks were given to respondents to complete the survey. After the allotted time had passed, 246 questionnaires had been gathered, with a response rate of 65.6%. Of these, 246 questionnaires were deemed suitable for further analysis. Convenience sampling has been used as a key technique for collecting data. For data analysis, SPSS (version 25) and SmartPLS (version 3.3.9) statistical software were used. The findings indicated that objective and subjective criteria significantly affect career success. The results also showed that HRM practices and employee behavior significantly and positively influenced career success. Furthermore, employee behavior mediated the relationship between HRM practices and career success. Since each facet reflects a significant and distinctive component of career success, academics and researchers should focus on both the objective and subjective dimensions of career success.


INTRODUCTION
Individuals naturally want to succeed in their careers; the type of success they experience relies on their expectations (Chauhan et al., 2022).From the perspectives of both employees and employers, career success is crucial (Spurk et al., 2019).As a result, everyone who wants to succeed in their career is interested in this topic (Zhao et al., 2021).Employees and management will find developing more powerful career success strategies simple by learning the elements contributing to career success (Wu et al., 2022).To achieve career success, individuals need to set clear and realistic goals, develop the necessary skills and knowledge, and take actions that align with their goals.It is also important to be aware of industry trends and be prepared to adapt to changes in the job market.Moreover, networking and building strong relationships with colleagues and mentors can also be beneficial in advancing an employee's career.
The Greater Amman Municipality seeks to achieve career success for employees in order to maintain them and improve their outputs.The reason for this seeks is that a successful career can lead to financial stability, allowing individuals to meet their basic needs, save for the future, and enjoy a comfortable lifestyle.A successful career can also provide a sense of purpose and personal fulfillment, as individuals feel valued for their contributions.On the other hand, Effective and acceptable HRM practices aim to enhance an individual's talents, skills, behaviors, and motivations and strike a balance between employees' personal and professional life, which contributes to achieving their career success (Aburumman et al., 2020).Moreover, HRM practices represent the duties and choices linked to hiring, developing, inspiring, and motivating employees while arranging the functional relationships necessary to maximize productivity and meet corporate goals (Malik & Lenka, 2020).Therefore, this study aims to examine the impact of HRM practices and employee behavior on career success for employees in the Greater Amman Municipality.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES
Academic researchers have extensively examined the career success of employees.For example, Hughes (1937)  Individuals expect to succeed in their careers, and their expectations determine the degree of that achievement (Golden & Eddleston, 2020).The potential of employers to establish successful careers needs to be addressed (Spurk et al., 2019 Employee behavior is essential because it directly affects the workgroup's productivity, employee success, and organizational development (Pellegrini et al., 2018).It also improves organizational performance and efficiency by fostering resource sharing, creativity, and adaptation (Ababneh, 2021).Employees pass through their careers in exploration, establishment, maintenance, and decline career stages (Hu et al., 2014).
Making the best career decision is a concern for workers in the exploration period (Lumpkin, 2014).Employees who are just starting out are eager to build a career with their companies and place a strong emphasis on achievement at work (Coombs et al., 2018).Employees in the maintenance stage continue to contribute to their companies but are also preoccupied with matters outside of work (Lumpkin, 2014).In the decline stage, they spend time and effort planning for their lives after leaving their current jobs because they will soon quit their firms (Coombs et al., 2018).According to social exchange theory, there is an exchange between people, and employees reciprocate in terms of how they perceive and behave in response to treatment from their employers (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005).Employee returns can be realized through their positive attitudes and extracurricular actions, which contribute to their success when they believe that their organization cares about their well-being and socially responsible activities (Liaquat & Mehmood, 2017).
This study targets employees at the Greater Amman Municipality in Jordan.The paper proposes that employee behavior mediates the relationship between HRM practices and career success.This notion may be regarded as one of the social cognitive career theory's premises (Lent et al., 2002).Lent and Brown (2008) and Schoenfeld et al. (2017) showed numerous implications of the social cognitive career theory to support career success.This framework (Figure 1) highlights social cognitive factors that enable employees to exercise their own control over the success of their careers, where they set goals for themselves and modify their behavior in accordance with those goals, such as career opportunities, compensation, performance, training, and growth.
This study uses social cognitive career theory to assess the effect of the relationship between HRM practices and employee behavior on objective and subjective aspects of career success.Following the literature review, this study suggests the following hypotheses: H1: HRM practices positively affect career success.
H3: Employee behavior positively affects career success.
H4: Employee behavior mediates the relationship between HRM practices and career success.

METHODS
This study adopted a survey for data collection.The paper targeted 11,229 employees working at Greater Amman Municipality in Jordan.
Convenience sampling was an essential technique for collecting the data.375 questionnaires were distributed to employees working at Greater Amman Municipality in Jordan.Four weeks were given to respondents to complete the survey.After the allotted time had passed, 246 questionnaires had been gathered, with a response rate of 65.6%.As a result, 246 questionnaires were deemed suitable for further analysis.This rate is consistent with Kline (2015) that a sample size of 200 or more is appropriate for further analysis.
The data analysis was started using the statistical software SPSS (version 25) in order to demographic information analysis and descriptive analysis.Then, SmartPLS (version 3.3.9)has been employed to assessment of measurement model and structural model (hypotheses test).Hair et al. (2019, p. 5) pointed out that there are many reasons to use SmartPLS are: "When the structural model is complex and includes many constructs, indicators and/ or model relationships; when the research objective is to better understand increasing complexity by exploring theoretical extensions of established theories (exploratory research for theory development); when the path model includes one or more formatively measured constructs; when the research consists of financial ratios or similar types of data artifacts".

RESULTS
Table 1 presents the demographic statistics.Out of respondents, 59.3% were male, and 40.7% were female.In terms of age, the largest group of respondents was between 41-50 (33.3%), followed by 31-40 years (31.7%),21-30 years (25.2%), more than 51 years (8.5%), and less than 20 years (1.2%).Regarding marital status, 60.2% were married, 35.4% were single, 3.3% were divorced, and 1.2% were widows/widowers.Next, 46.7% of respondents had 1-10 years of experience, 37.4% -11-20 years, 13% -more than 20 years, and 2.8% had less than one year.Concerning academic qualifications, most respondents were undergraduates (55.3%), with 28.5% having a postgraduate and 16.3% a diploma degree.descriptive analysis of constructs reflects the respondents' perspective of the research topic (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016).Table 2 shows the descriptive analysis, including MS, SD, and variance.Career opportunities showed 3.352 for MS, 1.156 for SD, and 1.337 for variance.Compensation got 3.898 for MS, 0.833 for SD, and 0.694 for variance.Performance appraisal obtained 3.989 for MS, 0.850 for SD, and 0.723 for variance.Training and development acquired 3.625 for MS, 0.979 for SD, and 0.960 for variance.Employee behavior showed 3.341 for MS, 1.127 for SD, and 1.271 for variance.Objective career success got 3.438 for MS, 1.046 for SD, and 1.095 for variance.Finally, subjective career success obtained 3.112 for MS, 1.162 for SD, and 1.352 for variance.Thus, all constructs have more than an acceptable level of implementation from the respondents' perspective (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016).
The study used SmartPLS (version 3.3.9)to check the measurement and structural models.The measurement model evaluated internal consistency reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity.According to Table 3, all items were valid because their loadings ranged from 0.729 to 0.932, following the recommendations of Aburumman et al. (2023a).Additionally, Cronbach's alpha values for all components were between 0.823 and 0.926, and values for composite reliability were between 0.884 and 0.944.Thus, these findings align with Hair et al. (2019), who claimed that acceptable Cronbach's alpha and composite reliabil-ity values should fall between 0.70 and 0.95.Next, Table 3 shows that the average variance extracted (AVE) for all constructs obtained values greater than the indicated threshold values of 0.50 and above (Aburumman et al., 2023a).
The paper used HTMT to assess discriminant validity.Henseler et al. (2015, p. 14) indicated that the new HTMT criteria, which are based on monotrait-heterotrait correlations, identify a lack of discriminant validity effectively, as evidenced by their high sensitivity rates.The main difference between the HTMT criteria lies in their specificity.Of the three approaches, HTMT 0.85 is the most conservative criterion, achieving the lowest specificity rates of all the simulation conditions.This means that HTMT of 0.85 can point to discriminant validity problems in research situations where HTMT of 0.90 and HTMT inference indicate that discriminant validity has been established.Table 4 shows that the HTMT results for each construct were less than 0.85 and fell between the ranges of 0.021 and 0.812 (Henseler et al., 2015).

DISCUSSION
The findings showed that HRM practices significantly improve both the objective and subjective measures of career success.Finally, the findings showed that from the perspective of employees working at Greater Amman Municipality in Jordan, employee behavior mediated the association between HRM practices and career success.This study offers several limitations that need to be acknowledged.First, a survey questionnaire based on a cross-sectional study was used as the primary method for gathering data.However, a longitudinal study may help get precise and thorough findings.As a result, this study advises looking at the study model while employing longitudinal study as the primary data

CONCLUSION
This study assessed the impact of HRM practices and employee behavior on career success using a social cognitive career theory.The findings showed that HRM practices significantly improve career success.HRM practices significantly and positively affect employee behavior.Employee behavior significantly and positively affects career success.Finally, from the perspective of employees working at Greater Amman Municipality in Jordan, employee behavior mediated the association between HRM practices and career success.
This study's outer and inner model tests, conducted using the PLS-SEM methodology, showed that objective and subjective factors significantly determine career success.While the achievement and level of satisfaction reflect the subjective aspects of job success, the number of promotions and increases in annual compensation reflect the objective element of career success.Because each reflects an essential and distinctive component of career success, future research should consider subjective and objective career aspects of job success.
analyzed objective and subjective career success.Abele and Spurk (2009), Arthur et al. (2005), Ng et al. (2005), and Spurk et al. (2019) were more concerned with the linked components of career success and their subjective components than their objective components.Ebner and Paul (2022) and Golden and Eddleston (2020) avoid discussing objective career success.Ng et al. (2005) determined both objective and subjective outcomes crucial.Additionally, motivational factors, basic values, and beliefs directly influence the ability to succeed in an employee's career (Haenggli & Hirschi, 2020).

Table 1 .
Demographic information

Table 3 .
Consistency reliability and convergent validity

Table 4 .
HTMT test Additionally, the interview approach can help identify the factors that relate correlations between the variables under study today.Second, because the Greater Amman Municipality in Jordan was the study's primary subject, it is challenging to extrapolate the findings to other industries.Therefore, future studies should look at the model of this study in other industries, including hospitals, hotels, and banks.Finally, future studies may use other HRM practices, such as participation, human resource planning, job description, promotion, recruitment and selection, and teamwork.