The basic argument of the article is that actual promotion, which is an essential part of the variety of rewards distributed by organizations, affects the quitting behavior of individual employees. This effect is contingent on the type of occupational group to which the employee belongs. To test the basic argument, the authors looked at the longitudinal records of a single organization, examining data on actual promotion and turnover. The findings reveal that, regardless of occupational affiliation, past promotions reduced the likelihood of leaving the organization. However, they also showed that professionals (accountants, engineers, lawyers, and computer scientists) were promoted at higher rates than managers and administrators were but had similar quitting rates. These combined findings do not lend direct support for a moderating role of occupational group affiliation. However, they suggest that by differentially affecting promotion opportunities, occupational group affiliation does affect the promotion-quit relationship.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abbott, A. (1988). The system of professions: An essay on the division of expert labor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2.
Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange, In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental psychology (pp. 267-300). New York: Academic Press.
3.
Becker, G. (1975). Human capital. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
4.
Bernhardt, D., & Scoones, D. (1993). Promotion, turnover, and preemptive wage offers. American Economic Review, 83, 771-791.
5.
Blau, P., & Scott, R. (1962). Formal organizations. San Francisco: Chandler.
6.
Bridges, W. P., & Villemez, W. J. (1991). Employee relations and the labor market: Integrating institutional and market perspectives. American Sociological Review, 56, 748-764.
7.
Carson, P. P., Carson, K. D., Griffeth, R. W., & Steel, R. P. (1994). Promotion and employee turnover: Critique, meta-analysis, and implications. Journal of Business and Psychology, 8(4), 455-466.
8.
Cohen, A. (1999). Turnover among professionals: A longitudinal study of American lawyers. Human Resource Management, 38(1), 61-75.
9.
Dickter, D. N., Roznowski, M., & Harrison, D. A. (1996). Temporal tempering: An event history analysis of the process of voluntary turnover. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(6), 705-716.
10.
Doeringer, P., & Piore, M. (1971). Internal labor markets and manpower analysis. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
11.
Dreher, G. F. (1982). The role of performance in the turnover process. Academy of Management Journal, 25, 137-147.
12.
Elvira, M. M. (2001). Pay me now or pay me later. Work and Occupations, 28(3), 346-370.
13.
Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7, 117-140.
14.
Griffeth, R. W., & Hom, P. W. (1995). The employee turnover process. Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, 13, 245-293.
15.
Griffeth, R. W., Hom, P. W., & Gaertner, S. (2000). A meta-analysis of antecedents and correlates of employee turnover: Update, moderator tests, and research implications for the next millennium. Journal of Management, 26(3), 463-488.
16.
Halaby, C. (1986). Worker attachment and workplace authority. American Sociological Review, 51(5), 634-649.
17.
Johnston, M. W., Griffeth, R. W., Burton, S., & Carson, P. P. (1993). An exploratory investigation into the relationship between promotion and turnover: A quasi-experimental longitudinal study. Journal of Management, 9(1), 33-49.
18.
Kalleberg, A., & Berg, I. (1987). Work and industry: Structures, markets, and processes. New York: Plenum.
19.
Kalleberg, L. K., & Mastekaasa, A. (2001). Satisfied movers, committed stayers: The impact of job mobility on work attitudes in Norway. Work and Occupations, 28(2), 183-209.
20.
Konda, S., & Stewman S. (1980). An opportunity demand model and Markovian labor supply models: A comparative tests in organizations. American Sociological Review, 45(2), 276-301.
21.
Kornhauser, W. (1966). The interdependence of professions and organizations. In H. Vollmer & D. Mills (Eds.), Professionalism. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
22.
Kulik, C. T., & Ambrose, M. L. (1992). Personal and situational determinants of referent choice. Academy of Management Review, 17(2), 212-237.
23.
Lee, T. W., & Mitchell, T. R. (1994). An alternative approach: The unfolding model of employee turnover. Academy of Management Review, 19, 51-89.
24.
March, J. G., & Olson, J. P. (1989). Rediscovering institutions: The organizational basis of politics. New York: Free Press.
25.
March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. New York: John Wiley.
26.
Maume, D. J. (1999). Glass ceilings and glass escalators. Work and Occupations, 26(4), 483-509.
27.
McDuff, E. M., & Mueller, C. W. (2000). The ministry as an occupational labor market: Intentions to leave an employer (church) versus intentions to leave a profession (ministry). Work and Occupations, 27(1), 89-116.
28.
Mclaughlin, K. (1991). A theory of quits and layoffs with efficient turnover. Journal of Political Economy, 99(1), 1-29.
29.
Mintzberg, H. (1998). Covert leadership: Notes on managing professionals. Harvard Business Review, 76(6), 140-147.
30.
Mobley, W. (1977). Intermediate linkages in the relationship between job satisfaction and employee turnover. Journal of Applied Psychology, 62, 237-240.
31.
Mobley, W. (1982). Employee turnover: Causes, consequences, and control. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
32.
Mobley, W., Griffeth W., Hand, H., & Mezilno, M. (1979). Review and conceptual analysis of the employee turnover process. Psychological Bulletin, 80, 493-522.
33.
Petersen, T., Spilerman S., & Dahl, S. (1989). The structure of employment termination among clerical employees in a large bureaucracy. Acta Sociologica, 32(4), 319-338.
34.
Robson, G. S., Wholey, D. G., & Barefield, R. M. (1996). Institutional determinants of individual mobility: Bringing the professions back in. Academy of Management Journal, 39(2), 397-420.
35.
Roomkin, M. (1989). United States. In M. Roomkin (Ed.), Managers as employees (pp. 57-96). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
36.
Rosenbaum, J. (1984). Career mobility in corporate hierarchy. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
37.
Scarbrough, H. (1999). Knowledge as work: Conflicts in the management of knowledge workers. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 11(1), 5-16.
38.
Shah, P. P. (1998). Who are employees' social referents? Using a network perspective to determine referent others. Academy of Management Journal, 41(3), 249-268.
39.
Shaw, J. D., Delery, J. E., Jenkins, G. D., Jr., & Gupta, N. (1998). An organization-level analysis of voluntary and involuntary turnover. Academy of Management Journal, 41(5), 511-525.
40.
Staw, B. (1984). Organization behavior: A reformulation of the field's outcome variables. Annual Review of Psychology, 35, 627-666.
41.
Stinchcombe, A. (1983). Economic sociology. New York: Academic Press.
42.
Stumpf, S. A., & Dawley, P. K. (1981). Predicting voluntary and involuntary turnover using absenteeism and performance indices. Academy of Management Journal, 24, 148-163.
43.
Trevor, C. O. (2001). Interactions among actual ease-of-movement determinants and job satisfaction in the prediction of voluntary turnover. Academy of Management Journal, 44(4), 621-638.
44.
Trevor, C. O., Gerhart, B., & Boudreau, J. W. (1997). Voluntary turnover and job performance: Curvilinearity and the moderating influences of salary growth and promotions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(1), 44-61.
45.
Tsui, A. S., Pearce, J. L., Porter, L. W., & Tripoli, A. M. (1997). Alternative approaches to the employee-organization relationship: Does investment in employees pay off? Academy of Management Journal, 40(5), 1089-1121.
46.
Waldman, M. (1990). Up-or-out contracts: A signaling perspective. Journal of Labor Economics, 8, 230-250.
47.
Wallace, J. E. (1995). Organizational and professional commitment in professional and nonprofessional organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40, 228-255.
48.
Wilensky, H. L. (1964). The professionalization of everyone? American Journal of Sociology, 70, 137-159.
49.
Williamson, O. (1975). Markets and hierarchies: Analysis and antitrust implications—a study in the economics of internal organization. New York: Free Press.
50.
Wilson, G., Sakura-Lemessy, I., & West, J. P. (1999). Reaching the top: Racial differences in mobility paths to upper-tier occupations. Work and Occupations, 26(2), 165-186.
