The Influence of Career Development on Organizational Performance: The Mediating Role of Job-Related Attitudes among University Library Professionals of Sri Lanka

The Influence of Career Development on Organizational Performance: The Mediating Role of Job-Related Attitudes among University Library Professionals of Sri Lanka

Dr. S. Shanmugathasan

Actg. Librarian, University of Vavuniya

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.909000570

Received: 20 September 2025; Accepted: 27 September 2025; Published: 18 October 2025

ABSTRACT

Career development is a critical human resource practice that ensures the professional growth and retention of employees while supporting organizational success. In the context of university libraries, career development opportunities play a pivotal role in shaping the job-related attitudes of library professionals, which in turn influence institutional performance. This study aims to examine the impact of career development on organizational performance, with job-related attitudes acting as a mediating factor. Literature has been reviewed to cover all the variables depicted in the conceptual model, with theories, quotations and research findings in the appropriate places supporting the arguments. A quantitative approach and structured questionnaire were administered to 146 library professionals across seventeen state university libraries in Sri Lanka, with 132 valid responses (90%) collected.

Findings reveal that career development initiatives significantly influenced job-related attitudes (β=0.423, p < 0.000, R2= 0.179), and organizational performance (β=0.220, p =0.005). Job-related attitudes significantly influenced organizational performance (β=0.494, p < 0.000) with integrated describing for 38.4% of the variation R2 0.384. The findings reveal that Career development has a significant positive impact on library professionals’ organizational performance, both directly and indirectly through job-related attitudes about their work. Overall the study explores that providing career development programs and encourages job related attitudes are two major strategies for enhancing organizational performance in University Libraries.

Keywords: Career Development, Job-Related Attitudes, Organizational Performance, Library Professionals, Sri Lanka      

INTRODUCTION

One of the most important aspects of human resource management (HRM) that has a direct impact on worker engagement, job satisfaction, and organisational success is career development. It includes organised chances for career advancement, skill development, and professional growth all crucial for maintaining a motivated and competitive workforce (Dessler , 2011). By increasing productivity, creativity, and talent retention, well-managed career development not only improves individual skills but also makes a substantial contribution to organisational performance (Danish & Usman, 2010).

In knowledge-intensive institutions like universities, library professionals play an important role in supporting teaching, research, and knowledge dissemination. Their efficacy is determined not only by their technical skills but also by their motivation, dedication, and work attitudes. Organisational commitment, job satisfaction, and motivation are generally recognised as mediators that transform HRM strategies into actual organisational outcomes (Lew, 2009). Thus, understanding how career development practices influence these attitudes is critical for strengthening institutional performance.

Despite the significant growth of Sri Lankan universities and libraries, there is still a dearth of empirical study on the relationship between organisational performance, job-related attitudes, and career development (Tilakaratna, 1997). To fill this vacuum, the current study analyses the impact of career development on organisational performance among library professionals in Sri Lankan institutions, with a special emphasis on the mediating effect of job-related attitudes. By doing so, the study adds to both theory and practice in HRM and higher education, providing insights into how libraries might use human capital to improve institutional results.

Objectives

1. To evaluate how career development influences library professionals’ organizational performance.
2. To assess the relationship between career development and job-related attitudes of library professionals.
3. To investigate the effects of job-related attitudes on organizational performance
4. To find out the mediating role of job-related attitudes in the relationship between career development and organizational performance.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Career Development

According to (Lent et al., 2017)discovered that a route model that incorporates the source factors is well-supported in predicting the degree of career decidedness and career exploration objectives. Mastery and good affect both created large direct routes to a level of decidedness, even if the sources were often indirectly tied to objectives. (McDonald & Hite, 2016) predicted that organisational-level career development techniques and programmes such as job rotation, succession planning, mentorship, coaching, training/workshops, special assignments, networking, and performance reviews will help employees achieve their career goals. These interventions are particularly helpful in developing skilled people who can satisfy an organisation’s future demands. As a result, persons who have access to these treatments are more likely to advance their careers within an organisation. Furthermore, they contended that job rotation is an important organisational career development approach. Organisations give work rotation chances for employees to broaden their experience and talents. Job rotation encourages employees to learn and provides a pool of supervisors. According to (Tatham, 2013) career development is the set of actions or the continuous, lifetime process of advancing one’s career. It often describes career management in an intra- or inter-organisational setting. It includes learning new skills, taking on more responsibility at work, changing careers within the same company, or switching to a different one.

According to (Kanstrén, 2021) “Partners require self-management abilities, personal initiative, and personal agency in order to re-establish a career in a new setting.” This process may benefit from a variety of activities, including paid employment, volunteer work, education, and/or hobbies.

According to a (Khan et al., 2015),  most organization use career development programs to help their employees plan their careers since it is thought that employees generally respond favourably to possibilities for professional growth and development.

According to (Weer, 2006) career growth possibilities are “the possibility that an employee will receive a promotion and gain experience in career development through more responsibility and difficult assignments.” In the context of career growth potential, “opportunities” include training, professional advancement, and advancement toward one’s objectives. But when it comes to chances for job advancement, the word “opportunities” highlights transformational experiences like more responsibility or difficult tasks.

Job-Related Attitude

An attitude is a consistent inclination to feel and act a certain way towards something. Attitudes are a sophisticated cognitive function (Luthans, 1989). (Kodikal & Pakkeerappa, 2015)  said that technical skills contribute more to managerial competence overall, followed by human skills and conceptual skills. Additionally, they discovered that nurses had a high level of job satisfaction and that managerial expertise affected nursing professionals’ work. Additionally, their research showed that the job satisfaction and management abilities of nursing professionals are not significantly impacted by demographic factors, including age, marital status, professional training, and experience.

(Trivellas et al., 2013) investigated how hospital nursing staff members’ job satisfaction was affected by stress at work. According to their study, job happiness has been regarded as a critical component in the delivery of excellent performance and high-quality services at hospitals, and job stress is one of the biggest occupational health hazards for workers. The findings of their study demonstrated that while a lack of information access and feedback is favourably correlated with employees’ happiness with incentives and job security, conflict, a high workload, and a lack of job autonomy are adversely correlated with all aspects of job satisfaction.

Promotion, compensation, equity, and working conditions were identified by (Saeed et al., 2014) as the primary determinants of employee job satisfaction. 200 workers in Pakistan’s telecom industry participated in the study. It was determined that financial remuneration and benefits had a significant impact on Pakistani telecom workers’ job happiness.

According to (Abdullah & Ramay, 2012)work environment had the second-most important relationship after job security and organisational commitment. Organisational commitment was not significantly correlated with pay satisfaction or decision-making involvement. While gender did not significantly alter employees’ levels of commitment, age and tenure appeared to have an impact, with stronger commitment being demonstrated for individuals with greater age and tenure. The impacts of the three components of commitment and their relationship were not able to be included in the current study.

Organizational performance

(Gujarai, 2017)discovered that work performance is impacted by organisational learning. A sample of 56 IT professionals in Hyderabad are the subjects of the research. The article examined the relationship between IT personnel’s performance and the three organisational learning factors. The research includes quality, timeliness, quantity, and knowledge as performance indicators. Regression analysis, means, percentages, and standard deviation were used to examine the data. The results demonstrated that organisational learning factors significantly impact OP.

As intermediary factors on OP, a dependent variable (Leithy, 2017)  discussed the rise of OC in connection to work-related attitudes and work behaviour. 384 workers from Cairo, Egypt’s local and international businesses served as samples. Structural equation modelling was utilised for this valid. The findings showed that both of the intervening factors, which are connected with organisational performance, are correlated with organisational culture. Ultimately, he concluded that there is no direct or indirect relationship between OC and OP, rather, it simply arises as a result of intervening circumstances.

Employee perceptions on the establishment of a connection between HRM practices and organizational success were examined by (Haque, 2021). Using SEM, the data collected from 200 employees in Bangladesh was analyzed. Strategic HRM and the perception of organizational performance were shown to be positively correlated. The investigation also demonstrated a partial mediating role for turnover intentions, as the indirect impact of strategic HRM on performance is less than the direct link in the absence of a mediator.

Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses

METHODOLOGY

The present study is to examine how Career Development and Its Influence on Organizational Performance of university Library professionals in Sri Lanka. This research study is limited to Sri Lankan university library personnel. Sri Lanka has seventeen recognised universities that were founded in accordance with the Universities Act No. 16 of 1978. University librarians, deputy librarians, senior assistant librarians, and assistant librarians are classified as professionals; library information assistants, library technicians, and computer programmers are classified as paraprofessionals; and library attendants, bookbinders, cloakroom employees, office machine operators, cleaners, and others are classified as non-professionals in accordance with the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) approved staffing pattern. According to the University Grants Commission, all university library professionals were considered for this study, including librarians, deputy librarians, senior assistant librarians, and assistant librarians.

As the proposed research is limited to the Professionals of the University Libraries in Sri Lanka, data are collected mainly through a questionnaire. All the Professionals of the University Libraries are considered as the sample from the total population of the university library staff and they all are selected to administer the questionnaire. A total of 146 Library Professionals had been chosen with the help of the Librarians of the University Libraries. A questionnaire had been designed to collect information from the University Library professionals. 146 questionnaires had been administered among the Library Professionals and a total of 132 questionnaires had been retrieved. As the University Library Professionals are well educated and dedicated to filling the questionnaires, there were no rejected questionnaires due to the reckless marking, the incompleteness or any others. The response rate was 90%.

Table 1  Participants of the Sample

(Source : https://www.ulasl.lk/media/attachments/2020/12/14/ula_directory-2020p.pdf)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Demographic Profile

Age Group

Ages were divided into four groups. Ages 46 to 55 make up the majority of the sample (39%) in terms of age. The age range of 36 to 45 years old is represented by 12% of the respondents.

Figure 1 Age group

Gender

In this area, 64% of responders are female professionals, who appear to be prominent in this field of work. Male professionals are represented at 36%.

Figure 2 Gender

Educational Qualifications

The majority of professionals (75%) have obtained a master’s degree. Another 1.5% of professionals hold a bachelor’s degree. Only 1.5% of responders have obtained a postgraduate diploma. 4% of respondents have completed an M.Phil., and 18% of respondents have earned a PhD.

Figure 3 Educational Qualifications

Number of Years of Service in Library Field

Four percent of all respondents had less than two years of library-related employment experience. A further 19% of those surveyed had been employed in the library industry for two to four years. 1.5% of employees have four to six years of job experience, while another 8% have six to eight years of library-related work experience. Sixty-four percent of the respondents had over ten years of experience working in the library area.

Figure 4 Number of years of service in library field

Table 2 Result of Construct Validity and Reliability

All variables demonstrate acceptable reliability, as their Cronbach’s alpha values are above the commonly accepted threshold of 0.70. This indicates that the questionnaire items consistently measure the intended constructs.

Table 3 Result on hypothesis testing (Model 1)

The results presented in Table 3 highlight the significant impact of career development on job related attitudes. The regression coefficient for the career development variable is 0.410, indicating the positive and statistically significant relationship (p ≤ 0.05). This suggests that as career development increases, job related attitudes also tend to improve. Additionally, the R² value of 0.179 indicates that career development accounts for 17.9% of the variance in job related attitude. However, the remaining 82.1% of the variation in job related attitudes are attributed to the other factors not captured in the current model, indicating the presence of additional influences that affect staff job related attitude.

 Table 4  Result on hypothesis testing (Model 2)

The results presented in Table 4 shows that the regression coefficient for the career development variable is 0.229, indicating a positive relationship with organizational performance and a significance level of < 0.05. similarly, regression coefficient for the job-related attitudes variable 0.531, showing a positive influence with a significance value of the t- test <0.05. these findings suggest that both career development and job-related attitudes significantly impact organizational performance when considered individually. Furthermore, R² value 0.384 indicates that changes in career development and job-related attitude can explain 38.4% of the variation in organization performance, while the remaining 61.6%is attributed to other factors not included in the model.

Table 5  Result on hypothesis testing (Model 3- Mediating effect)

The finding presented in table 5 provide valuable insights into the relationship between career development, job related attitude and organization performance. In addition to this direct effect, the analysis reveals that   career development influences job related attitude, subsequently affecting organization performance. Notably, including job related attitudes as a mediating variable amplifies the total effect of career development on organization performance, increasing the regression coefficient from 0.229 to 0.447. This suggests that job satisfaction plays a critical role in enhancing the impact of career development on organization performance, acting as a mediator in this dynamic relationship.

CONCLUSION

The purpose of the current study was to determine the relationship among library professionals’ organizational performance, job-related attitudes, and career development. The impact of career development on organizational performance in Sri Lankan university libraries has been the subject of relatively few studies. Therefore, the current study tried to determine a connection between the aforementioned characteristics.

The results of this study demonstrate that career development significantly influences organizational performance, both directly and indirectly.  The regression analysis validated that career development positively forecasts organizational performance, suggesting that when employees are afforded growth opportunities, they are likely to enhance their contributions to organizational success.  Moreover, career development was identified as a significant factor affecting job-related attitudes, which subsequently served as a strong predictor of organizational performance. The results of the path analysis further show that job-related attitude is a mediator, since career development not only directly improves performance but also indirectly through its effect on employees’ attitudes. Career development had a big effect on how well organizations did overall, which means that organizations can get better results by investing in both employee development and positive work attitudes at the same time.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The results of this study suggest that in order to improve employees’ skills and competencies, university libraries in Sri Lanka should improve structured career development programs, such as professional development courses, training workshops, and mentoring. The relationship between career development and organizational performance is mediated by positive job-related attitudes, such as engagement, commitment, and job satisfaction, which should be fostered through supportive work environments and regular feedback. Additionally, libraries should adopt specific development plans based on the career goals of their staff, promote ongoing learning and knowledge sharing, and establish transparent performance evaluation and reward systems. Support from the leadership and mentoring are essential for encouraging staff and coordinating individual development with organizational goals. Additionally, professional skills and operational efficiency can be further improved by integrating technology and AI-based solutions. Comparative studies between various institutions may offer more comprehensive insights into successful career development strategies for library professionals, and future research may examine other mediating factors like organizational culture or work-life balance.

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