The Career Patterns and Work Attitudes of Plateaued and Non‐Plateaued Managers

Abstract

Although we all like to believe that there are opportunities for everyone to “make it” in organisations, the nature of hierarchies makes this impossible. Because of the pyramid‐like structure of all work organisations, the majority of middle managers will not be able to reach the highest levels in their organisations. During the 1950s and 1960s, when most organisations were expanding, the extent of the problem was not apparent. However, during the more recessionary times that have prevailed since the 1970s, the proportion of managers who have become “stalled” at the middle levels in the hierarchy has increased dramatically? According to Connor and Fielden and Levinson, it is between the ages of 40–45 that managers typically experience this kind of cessation in their movement upward in the organisation. According to Hunt, “Most middle managers will remain where they are, in the middle, oiling the machinery of our work organizations in what are, essentially, repetitive tasks. And for some this vision will have a time span of 20–30 years” (p. 10).

Citation

Orpen, C. (1983), "The Career Patterns and Work Attitudes of Plateaued and Non‐Plateaued Managers", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 4 No. 4, pp. 32-36. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb044942