Competitive Position and Promotion Rates: Commercial Television Station Top Management, 1953-1988
- 1 March 2003
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Social Forces
- Vol. 81 (3), 819-841
- https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.2003.0041
Abstract
While the scholarship on internal labor markets and promotion chances has contributed substantially to the sociology of organizations and labor markets, it has not developed a rich understanding of how career trajectories are influenced by the firm's competitive position in its product market. Our central claim is that a firm's implicit bargaining power over its employees depends on its product market position and its sensitivity to environmental change. The greater the firms bargaining power, the less the firm will be compelled to use promotions as a device to induce productivity. Firms occupying robust competitive positions should have greater bargaining power in the labor market and be less likely to fill vacancies through internal promotions. Analyses of promotion rates among top managers in a longitudinal sample of television stations support our thesis.This publication has 7 references indexed in Scilit:
- Avenues of Attainment: Occupational Demography and Organizational Careers in the California Civil ServiceAmerican Journal of Sociology, 2000
- Ghosts of Managers Past: Managerial Succession and Organizational MortalityThe Academy of Management Journal, 1993
- Industrial Restructuring and the Mobility Response of American Workers in the 1980sAmerican Sociological Review, 1993
- Performance of Commercial Television Stations as an Outcome of Interorganizational Linkages and Environmental ConditionsThe Academy of Management Journal, 1987
- Job Power and EarningsAmerican Sociological Review, 1985
- Determinants of Internal Labor Markets in OrganizationsAdministrative Science Quarterly, 1984
- Book Reviews : Samuel B. Bacharach and Edward J. Lawler: Bargaining: Power, Tactics, and Outcomes 1981, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 234 pagesOrganization Studies, 1983