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The purpose of this paper is to determine the relationships between promotion, development, and recognition opportunities at work and organizational commitment, and whether these relationships are moderated by the job opportunities employees have in other organizations.

An opportunity model of organizational commitment is developed based on social exchange theory and several streams of opportunity research. Factor analyses and hierarchical multiple regression analyses are carried out to test the hypotheses using data from 550 white-collar employees.

The results of the analyses show that opportunities for development and recognition are predictors of organizational commitment, that job opportunities employees have in other organizations negatively moderate the relationship between recognition opportunity at work and organizational commitment, and that promotion opportunity does not predict organizational commitment.

Future researchers could study the issue in the context of other cultures using data from multiple sources.

Employers who seek to increase their employees’ organizational commitment are advised to divert their energies from struggling to create promotion opportunities for their employees to creating opportunities for development and recognition.

The study explores the under-researched concept of opportunity at work and connects several streams of opportunity research by drawing on social exchange theory as a theoretical framework. The model is the first to address the effects of opportunity and alternative opportunities on organizational commitment.

This paper aims to examine the issue of promoting women managers at an enterprise level in China by tackling key research questions related to the level of participation of women among total managerial positions and the opportunities of promoting women into managerial position.

By conducting a questionnaire survey and analysing the results from 296 women managers who were taking MBA and EMBA programmes in China, the authors were able to obtain the sufficient sample size, as well as sufficient responses, given that these people who were taking MBA and EMBA studies required three to eight years of managerial work experience. Key questions are related to the level of participation of women among total managerial positions, and the criteria for women to be promoted into managerial positions. In addition, other issues such as the satisfaction of women managers towards promotion opportunities and career development and enterprise policies on women leadership are also important and need to be explored in this article. It is also useful to ask their views on the difference between men and women regarding individual efforts leading to promotion opportunities, and to check for any influence of pregnancy and other factors on women managers’ leadership roles.

The overall results achieved by analysing the results from 296 women managers who were taking MBA and EMBA programmes in China indicate that there has been positive improvement, with the majority of women managers being satisfied with the proportion of women as managers, and with their own promotion situations, in their current organizations.

The research project has some limitations. This paper focuses on key issues related to the promotion of women into management positions at an enterprise level through the interview and survey among those women managers who were taking MBA and EMBA programs. This research project did not include many issues that can be found among other women managers or issues at the society level, such as traditional culture and the influence of religion, or overall legislation regarding equal opportunity for women in the society, as the focus was on the experiences and expectations of individual women managers in the workplace.

Most people believed that social relationship, guanxi, is the most important factor in the promotion of women, but the findings in this paper show that the capabilities and achievements of women are more important than just having a good guanxi. This also inspires women to believe in themselves and believe that they can achieve their goals through their own effort. Other empirical implications, such as the negative influence of pregnancy on the current managerial positions and promotion opportunities for women, are evident, and the lack of policy initiative to address this issue causes a great degree of uncertainty among women managers.

The majority of the surveyed targeted women managers felt confident about their capability to be leaders, while most of them felt satisfied regarding the proportion of women managers in their organization, as well as their own current promotion situation. However, the “glass ceiling” phenomenon still exists, given most highly educated women managers believed it would be difficult to be promoted even further.

Through this article, the readers are firstly informed about the perceptions held by women managers in China nowadays regarding their promotion opportunities and career satisfaction. Secondly, the paper provides some understanding in the context of China’s reform from traditional planning system to the current market-oriented one, the associated change of business culture and the transformation of human resource management system and gender equality at the firm level.

We formulate static and dynamic empirical models of promotion where the current promotion probability depends on the hierarchical level in the firm, individual human capital, unobserved individual specific attributes, time-varying firm-specific variables, as well as endogenous past promotion histories (in the dynamic version). Within the static versions, we investigate the relative influence of the key determinants of promotions and how these influences vary by hierarchical levels. In the dynamic version of the model, we examine the causal effect of past speed of promotion on promotion outcomes. The model is fit on an eight-year panel of 30,000 American executives employed in more than 300 different firms. The stochastic process generating promotions may be viewed as a series of promotion probabilities which become smaller as an individual moves up in the hierarchy and which are primarily explained by unobserved heterogeneity and promotion opportunities. Firm variables and observed human capital variables (age, tenure, and education) play a surprisingly small role. We also find that, conditional on unobservables, the promotion probability is only enhanced by the speed of promotion achieved in the past (a structural fast track effect) for a subset of the population and is negative for the majority. In general, the magnitude of the individual-specific effect of past speed of promotion is inversely related to schooling, tenure, and hierarchical level.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the hypothesis of effort‐based career opportunities as a situation in which profit maximising firms create incentives for employees to work longer hours than the bargained ones, by making career prospects depend on working hours. The paper aims to test some implications of this hypothesis using UK data.

The empirical analysis uses the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and panel data estimators to investigate the existence of a robust correlation between working hours and workers' expected probability of promotion in the current job.

The analysis shows the existence of a robust positive correlation between working time and workers' expected likelihood of promotion in the BHPS data even when controlling for several individual characteristics and for workers' unobserved heterogeneity.

Although the paper uses panel data, the BHPS does not allow for the identification of the firms in which individuals work, and therefore to control for firm fixed effects. Employer‐employee datasets would have allowed a better assessment of the hypothesis.

The paper provides a theoretical explanation for the empirically observed positive association between working time and expected promotion probability and, unlike previous papers that used pooled OLS estimates, it exploits the panel structure of BHPS data to control for individual unobserved heterogeneity.

The aim of the current article is to clarify whether the staff of Estonian university libraries has enough possibilities for self-realization and variety in their everyday work; whether employees see any relationship between their personal performance improvement and their intra-organizational career and, whether they see any possibility and/or necessity for promotion within their library.

The data used in this paper are based on reviewing of relevant literature to provide an overview of the concept of intra-organizational career as well as on the results of the original online survey, created by the paper's authors, held in 2011/2012 in Estonian university libraries governed by public law in Estonia. The analysis of the results is interpreted on the basis of the literature, authors' opinions, based on long-term working experience in Estonian academic libraries and on the legislation of Estonia.

Estonian university librarians are relatively pessimistic about career opportunities within their libraries, and, unfortunately do not see any relation between performance improvement and their career. The biggest problem is that the younger librarians do not see any opportunities for promotion. In Estonian university libraries, there does not exist an adequate grading system for promotion.

Based on the current study, it can be said that the biggest challenge for university libraries in Estonia is to keep young professionals in libraries and in this way prevent the continuing growth of the average age of employees in the organization. This challenge would require from managements of the university libraries: to take bolder action in analyzing personnel and staff developments and promotion plans; to build up an adequate and clear career system; and pay more attention to the organizations' internal reserves.

The majority of the literature in library science in Estonia has focused – and rightfully so – on the user: what do users and patrons want and/or need, how do they use it, how can librarians best provide it to them, do the users feel themselves comfortable in library building, etc. No research has been previously carried out in the Estonian library context to determine employees' attitudes towards librarians intra-organizational career development opportunities. The issues that emerge from this survey could be helpful for library managers, but also for employees.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the quality of jobs in call centres by focusing on the opportunities for promotion in this sector. More specifically, the research questions focus on discovering whether promotion is common practise in the call centre sector and on identifying the factors that affect this.

A survey questionnaire was administered to call centre directors or their human resource managers. A least square regression analysis was carried out to examine how training, job security and knowledge about employees' abilities, affect the use of promotion in call centres, as well as three structural variables of the organisations: size, being part of a larger organisation and whether the call centre was in‐house or outsourced.

The results suggest a limited use of promotion and the absence of consolidated internal labour markets in this sector. Nevertheless, a diverse range of call centres exists in terms of the use of promotion. The analysis identifies structural and managerial variables that identify where promotion is likely to be employed more intensively in call centres.

The main limitation of the paper is related to the variables used to examine training. An important implication of the results for managers is the suggestion to employ promotion policies with other human resource management practices.

The main contribution of this paper is the finding that the use of promotion has been determined by structural factors and other management practices. Therefore, call centre managers are encouraged to establish these practices in order to subsequently facilitate the use of promotion.

This paper investigates gender differences in reported job satisfaction and career choices revealed by a postal survey of accountants from the Queensland Division of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia. Of particular interest are levels of satisfaction with remuneration and promotion. Two moderating factors of career age and firm size are also considered. Consistent with prior research, female accountants reported dissatisfaction with their opportunities for promotion. However, unlike prior research there was no evidence of a gender effect in remuneration levels, and in reported satisfaction with remuneration. Nor were there differences in satisfaction across age bands, and public accounting firms of different size. The link between satisfaction levels of female accountants and their career choices of leaving their current employer, moving to parttime employment, or leaving the accounting profession was also investigated. Consistent with a large body of organisational and accounting research, low levels of job satisfaction were associated with higher turnover intentions for female accountants.

The central aim of this study is to advance understanding of the influence of university practices and structures on shaping female academics’ paths to reach the position of professor in Pakistan.

About 30 qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with female professors to examine key enablers and barriers to their promotion trajectories towards reaching the position of professor in public universities in Punjab, Pakistan.

This study presents an analysis of promotion biographies and has identified a combination of personal, interpersonal and structural factors as enablers and barriers to the promotion trajectory from junior academic positions to the level of professorship among female professors in public universities in Pakistan. Three main kinds of promotion trajectories were identified, which represent three different configurations of elements relating to (1) personal credentials and strategies to manage delays, (2) workplace relations and (3) university promotion systems.

The findings of this research may be helpful in terms of (1) offering ideas regarding support for women who are making career decisions and achieving inspiring successful careers; (2) informing university governance to address the barriers that curtail women’s accomplishment of their career goals and (3) devising/improving strategic plans to address the entrenched gender disparity in academic leadership and broader society.

One of the most perplexing problems in human resource management is how to satisfy and motivate employees who originally joined an organisation with hopes of becoming “stars”, but who discover with time that their aspirations are unlikely to be matched by opportunities. The conventional pyramidal organisational structure guarantees that these opportunities will diminish as employees ascend the hierarchy and that therefore “stuckness” is a problem increasingly to be found the longer is employees' tenure or the higher their level. Faulkner's case studies of an ice hockey team and a symphony orchestra provide vivid examples of this process and its problematic consequences. They also serve as a useful analogue of what may be found in many business organisations.

This paper aims to examine some of the factors associated with the decision to participate in the promotion process for female police officers in a Midwestern police agency.

Face‐to‐face, structured interviews were conducted in the spring of 2006 with most (74 percent) of the female police officers employed by a Midwestern, municipal police agency.

The authors identified several organizational and personal factors that impact on female police officers' decision to participate in the promotion process. This study also uncovers a factor that has not been addressed in previous research: how being married to fellow police officers (or part of a “cop couple”) can restrict the upward mobility of female police officers.

Data for this study were collected from one municipal police agency in the Midwest; therefore, the research findings may not be generalizable to small or very large police agencies. In addition, the female officers in this police agency comprise a relatively high percentage of sworn positions (15 percent) compared to the national average of 12.6 percent; therefore, the experiences of the women in this department may not be representative of other female police officers working in agencies where women comprise either more or less than 15 percent of all sworn positions. Another limitation of this study is that the sample size is small. This is a limitation that most researchers will encounter when they choose to study female police officers, as there are so few women who work in American police agencies.

By identifying the barriers that female officers face when deciding to go through the promotion process, the authors were able to provide several administrative changes that could be made to encourage more female officers to participate in the promotion process.

There is very limited published research on the promotion of female police officers. This study uncovers a factor that has not been addressed in previous research: how being married to fellow police officers can restrict the upward mobility of female police officers, thus resulting in a “marriage tax” for female police officers.