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Personnel economics tends be based on single-firm case studies. Here, we examine several internal labor market dimensions of nearly 5,000 firms, over a period of 20 years, using detailed matched employer–employee data from Portugal. In the spirit of Baker, Gibbs, and Holmstrom (1994a, 1994b), we consider worker turnover, the role of job levels and human capital as wage determinants, wage dispersion within job levels, the importance of tenure in promotions and exits, and the scope for careers. We find a large degree of diversity in most of these personnel dimensions across firms. Moreover, some dimensions are shown to be robust predictors of firm performance, even after controlling for time-invariant firm heterogeneity and other variables. These dimensions include low worker churning, the importance of careers, low wage dispersion at low and intermediate job levels, and a tight relationship between human capital variables and wages.

This chapter studies the negative signals associated with nonpromotion. I first show theoretically that, when workers' productivity rises little with additional years on the same job level, the negative signal associated with nonpromotion leads to wage decreases. On the other hand, when additional job-level tenure leads to a sizable increase in productivity, workers' wages increase. I then test my model's predictions using the personnel records from a large US firm from 1970–1988. I find a clear hump-shaped wage-job-tenure profile for workers who stay at the same job level, which supports my model's prediction.

Although the proliferation of research in emotional intelligence (EI) in the last 25 years has largely focused on the individual level, some researchers have proposed theories and measurement models for EI at the organizational level. Drawing from earlier work which conceptualizes organizational emotional intelligence (OEI) as a climate-level construct involving shared norms and practices this chapter sets out to investigate the relationship between perceptions of organizational emotional intelligence (OEI) and turnover intentions amongst employees. Since turnover intentions are a reliable indicator of actual turnover they are deemed to be a critical indicator for organizational performance. This chapter also builds on previous research which found that the relationship between OEI as a climate-level construct and intention to leave was mediated by organizational emotional appeal (i.e., overall reputation) and trust in senior management to explore the mediating role of other employee attitudes which have been traditionally linked to climate and individual-level outcomes in organizations, namely job satisfaction and affective commitment. By surveying employees in a UK-based charity organization (n = 173), the study finds that both job satisfaction and affective commitment mediate the impact of OEI on intention to leave and explain a moderate amount of variance in the focal construct. However, the majority of the mediation occurs through job satisfaction with a reduced mediation effect for affective commitment. Potential reasons for these results in the charity context are discussed. The chapter contributes to a wider understanding of the way in which perceptions of OEI impact on employee attitudes toward the organization and the job; and, in turn, how these attitudes impact on turnover intentions.

Business leaders can face unique challenges in attracting, retaining, and developing an engaged workforce in today's global organizations. However, insights can be provided by examining a firm's Employee Value Proposition (EVP) as seen by employees, as well as carefully exploring drivers of employee engagement to equip executives and managers to overcome these challenges. This chapter uses results from Valtera's Annual Global Employee Survey to highlight the potential for leveraging survey data, analyzed at the country level, to best align and tune their human capital strategy and programs to operations and labor markets around the world. Examples of unique EVP profiles and key drivers of engagement from six countries in Asia, Europe, and Latin America are provided to illustrate important differences organizations need to consider in optimizing their approach to global human capital management.

Purpose – This paper investigates the effects of founding, growth, decline, and merger on gender differences in managerial career mobility. These common events create and destroy many jobs, and so have big impacts on managers’ careers. We build on previous research to predict gender differences in job mobility after such events, and show that these gender differences are moderated by the positions managers occupy: level, firm size, and sex composition.

Methodology – We test our predictions using archival data on all 3,883 managerial employees in all 333 firms in the California savings and loan industry between 1975 and 1988. We conduct logistic-regression and event-history analyses.

Findings – Female managers are less likely than male managers to be hired when the set of jobs expands because of founding and growth, and more likely to exit when the set of jobs contracts because of decline and merger. These gender differences exist because relative to men, women occupy lower-level jobs, work in smaller firms, and work in firms with more women at all managerial ranks. The effects of all but one event (the growth of one's own employer) are moderated by managers’ positions.

Value of the paper – Our paper is the first to offer a large-scale test of gender differences in career trajectories in the wake of common organizational events. By showing that these market-shaping events affect male and female managers’ careers differently, and that these effects depend on the positions of male and female managers, we demonstrate economic sociology's potential for studying inequality.

Although several research studies have focused on women and gender bias in the accounting profession and some have examined African-American CPAs and race bias, little has specifically addressed African-American women accountants who may be subject to both race and gender biases. While an increase in the African-American female presence in the accounting profession has been noted, little research has been undertaken to investigate factors that may affect their upward mobility in the profession. The objective of this exploratory survey-based study was to collect descriptive data on African-American female accountants, across a wide variety of organizations, and provide insights regarding their perceptions of discrimination and career advancement curtailment.The majority of respondents in this study are certified, hold middle-level positions, have limited supervisory duties and mentoring support, have less than six years tenure with their current employer and would leave their current employer for better career advancement opportunities. When compared to other job-levels, a larger proportion of the top job-level respondents are married and perceive greater levels of discrimination. Moreover, the majority of top-level respondents are employed in private industry and a little less than half of all respondents are employed in private industry. The statistical results and written comments of the respondents suggest that some of the African-American females in this study perceive both gender and race discrimination and career advancement curtailment. Some results of the study, however, are mildly encouraging since a comparison of current and previous employer indicates that the respondents perceive less race discrimination and career curtailment with their current employer than they did with their previous employer.

Little research is devoted to how salary allocation processes interfere with gender inequality in talent development in universities. Administrative data from a university indicated a substantial salary gap between men and women academics, which partially could be explained by the unequal distribution of men and women in the academic job levels after acquiring a PhD, from lecturer to full professor, with men being overrepresented in the higher job levels, as well as in the more senior positions within each job level. We demonstrated how a lack of transparency, consistency and accountability can disqualify apparent fair, merit-based salary decisions and result in biased gender differences in job and salary levels. This chapter reflects on how salary decisions matter for the recognition of talent and should be an integral part of talent management.

The burgeoning sociological literature on African American/White men’s downward mobility has failed to examine dynamics at the working-class level and has not conducted analyses at the refined job level. Within the context of the minority vulnerability thesis, we address these shortcomings, and specifically utilizing data from the 2011–2015 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we examine racial difference in the incidence, determinants, and timing of downward mobility from two working-class job types, elite blue collar and rank-and-file jobs. Findings our expectation of ongoing, contemporary vulnerability: from both working-class origins, African Americans relative to Whites experience higher rates of downward mobility, experience it on a broad basis that is not explained by traditional stratification-based causal factors (e.g., human capital and job/labor market characteristics) and experience downward mobility more quickly. Further, these racial inequalities are pronounced at the elite blue-collar level, probably because of heightened practices of social closure when supervisory responsibility is at stake. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for understanding both the ongoing and future socioeconomic well-being of African Americans in the US.

Many developing and transition countries, and even some in the industrialized West, experience periods in which a substantial proportion of the workforce suffer wage arrears. We examine the implications for estimates of wage gaps and inequality using the Russian labor market as a test case. Wage inequality grew rapidly as did the incidence of wage arrears in Russia in the 1990s. Given data on wages and the incidence of wage arrears we construct counterfactual wage distributions, which give the distribution of pay were arrears not present. The results suggest that wage inequality could be some 30 percent lower in the absence of arrears. If individuals in arrears are distributed across the underlying wage distribution, as appears to be the case in Russia, we show that it may be feasible to use the wage distribution for the subset of those not in arrears to estimate the underlying population wage distribution parameters.