مدیریت شغلی اجرایی : سوئیچینگ سازمان ها و حرفه بدون مرز

There has been little research examining executives who change jobs by specifically following these individuals both before and after their employer changes. By incorporating research on the boundaryless career [Arthur, M. B., & Rousseau, D. M. (Eds.). (1996). The boundaryless career: A new employment principle for a new organizational era. New York: Oxford University Press; Sullivan, S. E., & Arthur, M. B. (2006). The evolution of the boundaryless career concept: Examining physical and psychological mobility. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 69, 19–29] and applying Frank’s theory of relative standing (1985), this study examined factors that may cause executives to change jobs in the context of managing their careers. Our findings revealed that factors, such as age and compensation, were related to the likelihood of job movements as well as declining organizational health. Post-hoc analyses also indicated that executive job-changers received significantly greater increases in total compensation and were more likely to receive increases in organizational status.

Similar to research in the turnover and selection literatures, studies of executives have examined movements across organizations from the organizations’ point of view (Boeker, 1997, Gunz and Jalland, 1996 and Sullivan, 1999). This approach, however, only reveals one perspective on executives. Executives are not simply organizational resources. As suggested in the boundaryless career model (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996 and Sullivan and Arthur, 2006), they are also individuals who seek to manage their own careers by taking advantage of opportunities to maximize their success (Eby et al., 2003, Judge et al., 1994 and Judge et al., 1995). The present research examined the job movements of executives across organizations (compared to a sample of non-moving executives) in the context of boundaryless careers. We sought to explicate the factors associated with the likelihood of executives making firm changes versus remaining with their organizations. The boundaryless career refers to the notion that today’s professionals manage their own career paths, as they seize new and often different job opportunities to obtain training, enhance their human capital, and remain marketable (Arthur et al., 2005, Arthur and Rousseau, 1996 and Sullivan and Arthur, 2006). Thus, rather than remain with one organization and line of work over the course of their careers, individuals self-manage their careers by autonomously capitalizing on new opportunities that they believe will provide them with valued returns in exchange for performance. In doing so, these professionals cross-over both physical and psychological boundaries, whereby they actually move between organizations (i.e., physical boundaries) and/or believe they have the capacity to move across boundaries (i.e., psychological boundaries). This is because individuals’ relationships with their organizations are transactional and exchange-based (Blau, 1964) and their obligations to their organizations are short-term, indefinite, and both performance and contractually oriented (McLean Parks, Kidder, & Gallagher, 1998). Professionals continuously evaluate how well their organizations are meeting their stated and implied contractual obligations, as well as the perceived availability of better opportunities in the marketplace (Rousseau & Wade-Benzoni, 1994). As a result, some individuals may have multiple careers and multiple job movements during their lifetime (Sullivan & Arthur, 2006). Research on boundaryless careers indicates that both intrinsic and extrinsic factors influence career choice decisions. However, much attention has been paid to describing the type and impact of intrinsic factors (e.g., Arthur, Inkson, & Pringle, 1999). There has been little examination of executive careers and the relationship that exists between extrinsic factors (e.g., pay and status) and executives’ organizational mobility. Research in executive compensation (e.g., Hambrick and Cannella, 1993, Judge et al., 1995 and Lubatkin et al., 1999) has implicitly assumed the importance of extrinsic factors in executive attraction and retention, but little research has focused on how extrinsic factors relate to executive career management. The present study examined if these more extrinsic factors do—and more specifically to what extent they do—influence executives as they change firms. We argue that some executives are continually determining if other job opportunities will enable them to differentially obtain or maintain valued extrinsic job factors. Although we anticipate finding similar results between the typical employee and the contemporary executive in their mobility patterns, previous research has not examined executive-mobility from this point of view. While there is research that examines the propensity of individuals to switch careers (i.e., Donohue, 2007 and Holland, 1996), as well as research focused on the determinants of extrinsic career success (see Ng, Eby, Sorensen, & Feldman, 2005, for a review), work has not considered executive’s job patterns, including possible reasons for them, and how these patterns reflect an executive’s career. Indeed, researchers examining mobility and the boundaryless career have called for more studies evaluating career patterns across organizational boundaries (Briscoe and Hall, 2006 and Sullivan and Arthur, 2006). By identifying factors that may influence the executive employer changes, the present study concentrates on executives as individuals with careers, rather than organizational resources. In doing so, we provide insight into today’s career management models, specifically the boundaryless career model, as well as address the call for a fuller understanding of today’s employment relationships, as executives strive to achieve career success (Sullivan, 1999).

While no study can conclusively determine causality, the results from our longitudinal analyses do provide strong support for the overarching concepts from both the traditional careers model and the boundaryless careers concept. Although executives are often seen as different from other employee populations, our results for this sample are consistent with predictions of traditional careers models (i.e., Schein, 1978, Super, 1957 and Veiga, 1983). That is, age is negatively related to employer movements, and one’s history of firm changes is positively related to employer movements (Cooper et al., 1993, Sheridan et al., 1990 and Veiga, 1983). Additionally, similar to other groups (e.g., Brett and Stroh, 1997 and Topel and Ward, 1992), job movements appear to be a highly effective means to increase compensation. Thus, executives may have mean levels of some qualities that are different from other groups of employees with regard to careers (i.e., more previous employers, higher mean salary, higher mean age), a perspective that merits future research, but our results suggest that their behaviors do not necessarily require different career models from other employees. What is interesting in our results, however, is that the executive movements also support boundaryless career concepts as a relevant overall framework. Results imply that in managing their careers, these individuals seek opportunities to maximize their extrinsic rewards, specifically their salary and bonus. If these executives experience a decline in the health of their organizations, they are also more apt to change employers. Indeed, some executives will move to get the salary/rank they desire, decreasing loyalty towards any one organization. Thus, our results provide a window into career patterns at the executive-level. In addition, our post-hoc analyses provide greater insight into the results of career movements. That is, it appears to be a useful strategy for executives to actively manage their careers by switching the organizations with whom they work. Doing so enables them to realize higher levels of salary, bonus, and status. Thus, our overall findings suggest that compensation is a very relevant factor associated with an executive’s propensity to switch organizations. This study also makes important contributions methodologically to the study of careers. While there are a number of career-based articles that present and discuss concepts of boundaryless careers (i.e., Arthur and Rousseau, 1996, Briscoe and Hall, 2006, Inkson, 2006 and Sullivan and Arthur, 2006), there are only a few studies that empirically examine career issues using this framework (e.g., Briscoe et al., 2005, Eby et al., 2003 and Singh and Greenhaus, 2004). These studies, which present provocative findings that provide insights as to the nature and implications of boundaryless careers, relied on survey-based data. In contrast, our study employed data that enabled us to examine similar concepts longitudinally. In doing so, we provide additional insights as to the degree to which individuals enact boundaryless careers, an issue recently emphasized by Briscoe and Hall (2006). In addition, our design allowed us to examine specific quantitative drivers and consequences of career-decisions versus the self-reported, attitudinal data used in prior studies. Thus, we view the methodological design employed in this study as a strength of our research, as it triangulates with the existing empirical work on boundaryless careers. The longitudinal data also allows us to differentiate between the drivers of organizational changes (such as number of previous jobs held, salary, and organizational health) and the consequences of organizational changes (which includes bonus and organizational status). The findings of this study, though, are tempered by a number of limitations. Most notably, we relied on archival data to assess factors influencing executive movement across organizations. Subjective measures for career success such as career satisfaction, social networks, job satisfaction, and psychological mobility were not considered within this study. These factors are certainly relevant and may indeed influence executives’ job movements in tandem with executives’ perceived pay and status levels. While our findings suggest that the extrinsic, empirical factors we examined are important, future studies that explore the impact of the composite package of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors on executive job movements would be an important way to extend the findings of this study. Nonetheless, we make an initial step in better understanding the relationship between crucial career factors and executive career patterns over time and in doing so, answer Arthur et al. (2005) call for work that sheds additional light on career mobility patterns, especially between organizations. In addition, this study focused on archival and biographical factors that may be associated with and explain executive movement. In practice, many forces may influence executive movements from one organization to another. If future research could expand upon this method by also collecting attitudinal data from job movers and non-movers, a more complete understanding on the causes of job movement could be developed. However, the difficulties associated with collecting longitudinal attitudinal data from executives, and being able to predict a priori a large enough sample of job movers, may make such research impractical. This study goes beyond many other studies on executives by using data from multiple sources. Rather than relying solely on the ExecuComp database, the news releases and other biographical sources provided a more detailed examination of executives than researchers have previously used. The study of careers is very important and while emerging research is making valuable contributions, the domain is full of new propositions (see Briscoe and Hall, 2006 and Sullivan and Arthur, 2006 for a discussion) and empirical studies focused on employee preferences (i.e., Briscoe et al., 2005, Eby et al., 2003 and Singh and Greenhaus, 2004). In our study, by considering the actual career changes made by executives, by examining compensation and rank changes over time, and by studying a set of individual, job, and organizational factors, we make an important contribution to the study of the impact of extrinsic rewards on executives’ mobility patterns. An understanding of mobility patterns, specifically inter-organizational career mobility, has often been overlooked in prior careers research (Arthur et al., 2005). Our findings suggest that in future studies that examine why and how executives cross-over organizational boundaries (or remain with their companies), extrinsic rewards, such as compensation, status, and organizational health are important factors that should not be overlooked.