My Manager Moved! Manager Mobility and Subordinates’ Career Outcomes

Minseo Baek (), Matthew Bidwell () and Keller Jr ()
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Minseo Baek: Department of Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
Matthew Bidwell: Department of Management, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
Keller Jr: Department of Human Resource Studies, Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Ithaca, New York 14853

Organization Science, 2022, vol. 33, issue 5, 1861-1888

Abstract: How do managers’ moves across jobs affect the subordinates they leave behind? Manager mobility disrupts established manager-subordinate relationships, as subordinates must now learn to work with a replacement. We explore how this relational disruption affects subordinates’ objective career success—specifically, their financial rewards and subsequent promotion chances. We argue that manager mobility may have both positive and negative implications for subordinate outcomes. The loss of an established relationship may reduce subordinates’ performance and managers’ propensity to reward them; on the other hand, relational disruption may make subordinates more willing and able to seek out valuable opportunities elsewhere in the organization. We also argue that these effects are likely to be greatest for those subordinates who had worked with the previous manager for longer. Using eight years of personnel data from the U.S. offices of a Fortune 500 healthcare company, we show how managers’ mobility is associated with a decrease in subordinates’ financial rewards but an increase in their promotion prospects.

Keywords: Careers; employee mobility; promotions; relational embeddedness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:33:y:2022:i:5:p:1861-1888

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