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3 - The up and out in organizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2009

By
Margaret Yap
Edited by
Peter Cappelli
Margaret Yap
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, School of Business Management, Ryerson University, Toronto
Peter Cappelli
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Summary

Introduction

Social scientists have conducted numerous wage studies in the past few decades, yet promotions and employment separations in organizations remain relatively unexplored areas. In the past decade, as organizations flatten their organizational hierarchies, restructure, merge, and divest to ensure agility, efficiency, and effectiveness, promotions have become less common, whereas separations have become more commonplace. Understanding who gets promoted and exploring the nature of separation have important implications for both the efficiency of organizations and the compensation levels of workers. Using administrative data from between 1996 and 2000 from a large North American high-tech organization with annual employment ranging from 19,000 to 26,000 employees, this chapter explores the trends, the correlates, and the consequences of these two phenomena: promotions, the “up” side of the story, and separations, the “out” side of the story. In particular, the role of race and gender, as well as other factors, in promotions and separations will be explored.

The “up” side of the story

Promotions have a significant positive impact on wage levels: the rate of wage gain is often higher for those who have been promoted than it is for those who have not (Baker, Gibbs, and Holmstrom, 1994a, 1994b; McCue, 1996; Bognanno, 2001). An employee's rank in an organizational hierarchy not only determines the level of financial rewards but also confers other non-pecuniary benefits, such as more autonomy and more opportunities for personal development. It has also been shown that promotions lead to higher levels of job satisfaction (Francesconi, 2001).

Type
Chapter
Information
Employment Relationships
New Models of White-Collar Work
 , pp. 65 - 111
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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  • The up and out in organizations
    • By Margaret Yap, Assistant Professor, School of Business Management, Ryerson University, Toronto
  • Edited by Peter Cappelli, University of Pennsylvania
  • Book: Employment Relationships
  • Online publication: 02 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611544.004
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  • The up and out in organizations
    • By Margaret Yap, Assistant Professor, School of Business Management, Ryerson University, Toronto
  • Edited by Peter Cappelli, University of Pennsylvania
  • Book: Employment Relationships
  • Online publication: 02 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611544.004
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The up and out in organizations
    • By Margaret Yap, Assistant Professor, School of Business Management, Ryerson University, Toronto
  • Edited by Peter Cappelli, University of Pennsylvania
  • Book: Employment Relationships
  • Online publication: 02 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611544.004
Available formats
×