Abstract: Career success is determined by a number of factors, including some combination of specific competencies and a performance record, along with network development, organizational politics, and reputation building. The county government of Uasin Gishu has of late received negative publicity for its policy on career development. Although interpersonal skills have been argued by researchers to demonstrate influence on work and career outcomes, a few attempts have been made to show how interpersonal skills influences these outcomes. This study investigated the relationship between interpersonal skills and career success of employees of Uasin Gishu County. The specific objectives of the study were: To determine the relationship between networking and career success, to establish the relationship between personal promotion and career success, to determine the relationship between impression management and career success, to establish the relationship between use of influence tactics and career success, and to determine whether reputation has any mediating effect on the relationship between interpersonal skills and career success. A case research design was used. Target population was all the employees of Uasin Gishu County government. Stratified ransom sampling and then simple random sampling was used to obtain the respondents for this proposed study. Primary data was collected using standard questionnaires. Interpersonal skills were taken as the independent variable, career success the dependent variable, and reputation as the mediating variable. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha and the data was analyzed using SPSS. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The study findings showed a significant positive correlation between networking skills and career success (r = .933, p=0.000), impression management and career success (r = .775, p=0.000), self-promotion and career success (r =.933, p=0.000), use of influence tactics and career success (r=.896, p=0.000). Also there was a significant positive correlation between reputation and networking skills (r =.909, p=0.000), impression management (r =829, p=0.000), self-promotion (r=.933, p=0.000), and use of influence tactics(r=.896, p=0.000), (r=.909, p=0.000). The result of the study indicated that networking does not have a significant effect on career success, impression management was found to have a positive significant relationship with career success, and there was no significant effect of use of influence tactics on career success. Reputation was found to partially mediate the relationship between interpersonal skills and career success and hence on the other hand, results indicated that reputation fully mediate the relationship between impression management and career success and hence. It was also found that reputation fully mediated the relationship between self-promotion and career success.
Keywords: Career Success, Reputation, Networking Skills, Impression Management, Self-promotion, Interpersonal Skills.
Title: Mediating Effect of Reputation on the Relationship between Interpersonal Skills and Career Success in Uasin Gishu County Government
Author: Dorcas Jepkorir Kiplagat
ISSN 2349-7831
International Journal of Recent Research in Social Sciences and Humanities (IJRRSSH)
Paper Publications