Job Assignments under Moral Hazard: The Peter Principle Revisited

We show that inefficient job assignments arise in organizations even if there is full information about employees’ types and complete contracts are possible. Our model also provides a new perspective on the Peter Principle: the output of an employee who is promoted into a job for which he is not well suited need not decline postpromotion, because he is pushed to exert more effort. Although promotions are desirable for most employees, they make the least able in a hierarchy level worse off: for them earnings increase only because they work harder to compensate for their “incompetence.”     

Designing a system for career development and advancement in the U.S. Navy

The Navy is undergoing fundamental changes that will likely alter the nature of work and worker requirements. At the heart of their human resource management strategy are five distinct competency areas: professional development, personal development, leadership, certifications and qualifications, and job performance. These five areas, called “vectors” by the Navy, form the foundation around which the Navy identifies the knowledge, skills, and abilities which Sailors need to succeed. As part of this HR transformation, the current research describes the design of a career development and advancement system. The primary component of the system is a weighting algorithm that links performance across all five areas to advancement to the next paygrade. The system is designed to compute an advancement score based on achievement of defined milestones across all five competency areas of concentration. It does so by defining the career paths associated with a member's development across these five areas; and identifying the advancement potential for recruit, apprentice, journeyman, and master-level personnel across every occupation in the U.S. Navy. In addition, this scoring system will be transparent such that personnel can view their own record at any time and assess what they might do in their career to improve their relative standing for future advancement. These results will also be used by future promotion boards to guide their selections.     

The recruitment interview process: Persuasion and organization reputation promotion in competitive labor markets

With very low unemployment levels, competition for the best employees is extremely keen. Firms that strive to maximize job candidates' job offer acceptance should realize increased competitive advantage through more effective recruitment programs. It is clear that applicants are interested in job attributes and pay schemes, but in the current “seller's market,” pay and job enrichment levels may be considerably depreciated. This paper proposes a model of the recruitment interview process, which emphasizes organizations' strategic efforts to maximize the acquisition of top talent in competitive markets through interviewer persuasion and active promotion of organization reputation. Implications of this conceptualization for research and practice are discussed.     

Does Domestic Intimate Partner Aggression Affect Career Outcomes? The Role of Perceived Organizational Support

Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory, we developed and tested a moderated mediation model linking domestic intimate partner aggression (IPA) to job performance and career advancement. Our model posits that the indirect relationship between IPA and career advancement via in‐role performance and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) is moderated by perceived organizational support (POS). Overall, multisource and multiwave data obtained from two independent samples of employed women from the Philippines supported our predictions. Specifically, results suggest that: (1) IPA was negatively associated with supervisor‐rated in‐role performance and OCBs; (2) there was a stronger negative relationship between IPA and in‐role performance and OCBs for employees with low as opposed to those with high levels of POS; and (3) the conditional indirect effects of IPA in predicting supervisor‐rated promotability and actual promotion via in‐role performance and OCBs were stronger under conditions of low as opposed to high POS. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The role of job assignment and human capital endowments in explaining gender differences in job performance and promotion

We test a job ladders theory of career progression within internal labor markets as developed by Lazear and Rosen (1990). The theory argues that gender promotion gaps are due to sorting of men and women into career tracks with different promotion opportunities based on ex ante quit probabilities. Analyzing US federal government employees using a dynamic unobserved panel data model, we find that job assignment is one of the strongest predictors of gender differences in promotion. We also find that women have to jump higher performance hurdles to promote across grades, but, within grades, their promotion probabilities are comparable to those of men. In this organization, women can be found in both fast- and slow-track jobs, based on their promotion history, suggesting that unobserved heterogeneity is revealed to the firm over the worker's career.     

How human resource practices can help plateaued managers succeed

As organizations downsize to increase their competitiveness, flatter hierarchies result in fewer promotional opportunities and more plateaued employees. The definition of career success needs to move away from “up is good,” yet plateauing is still shameful for many employees due to traditional assumptions about the causes and effects of plateauing. A study of 373 middle managers suggests how “successful plateauing” (effective job performance, satisfaction with the job and life in general) can be fostered. The article provides specific examples of how best practices and new approaches in several human resource areas can help plateaued employees succeed. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

External labor market strategy and career success: CEO careers in Europe and the United States

In this paper, we examine the career histories of the chief executive officers (CEOs) affiliated with the 500 largest organizations in Europe and the 500 largest in the United States. Our purpose is to determine whether frequent career moves across employers, a phenomenon we label an “external labor market strategy,” brings greater career rewards than moves inside the same organization. The results reveal that an external labor market strategy is negatively related to career success. On both continents, CEOs who have spent a smaller fraction of their career in their current organization or have changed employers more often have taken a longer time from the start of their career to be promoted to the most influential corporate positions. The labor market institutions in the 22 countries sampled do not influence the relationship between an external labor market strategy and career success, while the specific geographic region in which the employers are located has a limited impact on this relationship. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Project work as an antidote to career plateauing in a declining engineering organization

This is a study of the effects of becoming plateaued on the careers of professionals in a declining organization. An unusual “triple ladder” was studied, one with paths in administration and technical specialization (the two typical components of a dual ladder system), as well as project management (a general practice, technical generalist role). In contrast to earlier studies of plateauing, it was found that occupational characteristics mitigate the effects of plateauing. The plateaued technical specialists experienced the expected declines in job attitudes; however, in project management, and to a lesser extent in administration, it was the plateaued group whose career outlook was most positive. Interview data suggested that the critical factor operating here was not plateauing per se, but the extent to which learning is required and experience and acquired skills are utilized and recognized in the work role. Structural career opportunities, intrinsic job rewards, and recognition were all critical factors in mitigating the effects of the career plateau.     

Differences in Promotion Stress across Career Stage and Orientation

Promotion stress is the experienced feelings of anxiety, concern, or tension with one's career reality in terms of the level one has reached in the organization. This study considers how promotion stress may differ depending on an individual's internal career orientation (balance, high, free, ahead, secure) as well as an individual's external, professional career stage (apprentice, colleague, mentor, sponsor). The results suggest no clear pattern of differences based on internal career orientation; however, there is a clear pattern with regard to external career stage such that as an individual progresses in his/her professional career, promotion stress decreases. Implications for research and practice are discussed. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Misperceptions By Managers and Their Bosses of Each Other's Preferences Regarding the Managers’ Careers: A Case of the Blind Leading the Blind?

Peter Herriot, Carole Pemberton and Robert Pinder report on and consider the policy implications of a study of the career attitudes of managers. Managers and their bosses believed that their attitudes about the managers’ careers were similar. In fact, there was little relationship between them, and furthermore, their perceptions of each other's preferences were largely unrelated to the preferences themselves. Three factors, ‘reputation’, ‘promotion’ and ‘competences’, explained approximately half the variance. Length of service with the organisation was the main predictor of the managers’ career attitudes. Managers believed themselves to be more likely to be promoted than did their bosses, and considered promotion more probable the more frequently they had moved jobs. Peter Herriot is Director of Research and Carole Pemberton is Research Consultant at Sundridge Park Management Centre. Robert Pinder is Director of Integra Associates.     

From the invisible hand to the gladhand: Understanding a careerist orientation to work

This article explores the concept of a careerist orientation to work, which is defined as the propensity to pursue career advancement through non-performance-based means. A scale is developed to measure this concept using a sample of 227 business school alumni. Exploratory empirical data suggest that careerism is associated with consistently more negative job attitudes, a greater desire to advance and to change jobs, and more frequent promotions. Implications of a careerist orientation to work for both individual career management and organizational career development are discussed.     

Strategic determinants of managerial labor markets: A career systems view

This paper proposes a four-cell typology of career systems, which describes the way different corporate strategies reflect the nature of executive labor markets. The two critical dimensions of the model, “supply flow” and “assignment flow,” reflect the external and internal movement of executives. We use recent examples from industry to demonstrate the way in which business and career system strategies align. We then examine individual background and personality variables, drawn from a ten-year study tracking 125 MBA graduates, to show how executives sort themselves into the career system best suited to their needs. The broader purpose of this research is to begin to tie together a general theory of career systems that focuses on the level of the firm in its changing strategic and industry context.     

The perception of teaching methods and the retraining of mature managers

The comfortable progression from the childhood perception of career through college or university to a job for life, is being shattered for many managers. Mid-life they are now being forced to change career and retrain. This paper looks at their perceptions of learning methods, often related to the choice of career and confirmed by both experience and actual training. The paper discusses how preferred individual styles can be classified according to their response to the Kolb Learning Style Inventory (LSI) and by their Egograms and offers advice on how the methods used for retraining can be tailored to individual perceptions.During the research study upon which this article is based, it was noted that the Kolb classification most often associated with senior managers (Assimilator), did not fall into what could be termed definable “personality type”.     

Repugnance for “menial jobs”

A man's sense of well-being and meaningfulness in work is not so much a matter of external circumstances—the kind of job he has—as it is of his deepdown belief that he is a worthy human being. If he lacks that, any job can seem dissatisfying and “menial.” Executives may suffer from this (or related behaviors) as much as assembly-line workers.     

Last in,first out?: Estimating the effect of seniority rules in Sweden

In this paper we investigate whether a relaxation in seniority rules (the “last-in-first-out” principle) had any effect on firms' employment behaviour. Seniority rules exist in several countries, but consequences of seniority rules on firms' employment behaviour have not been examined previously. The “last-in-first-out” principle in Sweden was reformed in January 2001 such that employers with ten or fewer employees were allowed to exempt two workers from the seniority rule. Using an employer–employee unbalanced panel data for the period 1996–2005, we find that both hires and separations increased in small firms relative to large firms by 5%. This also implies that there were no effects on firms' net employment. Our results show that firms reacted to changes in the seniority rules, but we argue that the effects are not overwhelmingly large.     

The early inception of labor market gender differences

This paper analyzes gender differences in jobs while in school using school-class-based samples, a setting in which education differences, “glass ceilings”, and career interruptions due to parenthood are irrelevant. I find that in this early stage of life boys already earn substantially more than girls. The earnings gap cannot be explained by differences in participation rates and hours of work, nor by gender wage gaps within job types. It is entirely due to the fact that girls work more in job types with relatively low wages, in particular babysitting. During the period considered, 1984–2001, the gender patterns of jobs while in school largely remained unchanged.     

Corporate restructuring and career advancement in Hong Kong

This paper examines the factors that contribute to career advancement in a sample of forty-four Hong Kong managers working in three local companies that had undergone restructuring. The findings indicate that they were acutely aware of shifts in the nature of their career paths but generally were reactive to changes rather than proactive. Their concerns about changes were mostly instrumental and pragmatic judgements about how things might affect their job security and career prospects. To increase their chances of getting promoted, they focused on human-capital investment by upgrading and widening their work skills. While they felt obligated to work overtime and enhance their performance by taking on extra duties and responsibilities, they sought to develop a harmonious relationship with the environment rather than dominate it. They disliked challenging their superiors, preferring instead to imitate their superiors' behavioural patterns. In their efforts to increase opportunities for career advancement, they employed business networking and visibility as ‘wooing’ strategies. Furthermore, the desire to avoid losing face and humiliation were effective motivators.     

试论企业员工的职业生涯管理

文章从加强对员工职业生涯的规划工作、加强对员工的培训和跟踪辅导工作以及为员工提供晋升、转换平台等方面进行论述,对企业如何在管理制度和培养考核方面对员工进行管理提出了合理的建议。     

Recruitment,Training, and Career Concerns

We examine training and recruitment policies in a two‐period model that nests two forms of production, “routine” work where ability and effort are substitutes and “creative” work where they are complements. Alternative ways of improving average ability have opposite implications for agents' career concerns. Although teaching to the top (training complementary to ability) or identifying star performers increases agents' career concerns, teaching to the bottom has the opposite effect. The paper also makes more general comments relating to models of reputation.     

Learning times: A key factor in managerial personnel decisions

How often should a man be inducted, socialized, trained, developed, and then promoted or transferred from one department to another? The answer should depend to some extent on the average learning time for the manager's new job, and the company's feeling about a “break-even” or “pay-back” period when the employee works to “pay back” the organization for providing him with the job learning opportunity.