Modeling the managerial promotion process

<div class="line" id="line-31"> Purpose</div><div class="line" id="line-33"> The purpose of this paper is to introduce and test a model of the managerial promotion process.</div><div class="line" id="line-35"> Design/methodology/approach</div><div class="line" id="line-37"> Utilizing longitudinal data from multiple sources (i.e. employees, their immediate supervisors, their personnel files, and task forces charged with succession planning), the study reported examined a model of the promotion process involving district managers being considered for advancement to the position of regional manager in a large organization.</div><div class="line" id="line-39"> Findings</div><div class="line" id="line-41"> Results support a model in which a district manager's past performance, current job tenure, and prior job tenure predict the manager's promotability rating which, in turn, predicts whether or not the manager is promoted.</div><div class="line" id="line-43"> Research limitations/implications</div><div class="line" id="line-45"> Given that data were used for actual employment decisions by an organization, reliance on single&hyphen;item measures was necessary.</div><div class="line" id="line-47"> Practical implications</div><div class="line" id="line-49"> Several issues that employers should be evaluating (e.g. adverse impact, whether promotability ratings are valid predictors of performance in the next higher level job) are discussed.</div><div class="line" id="line-51"> Social implications</div><div class="line" id="line-53"> Given that women and older employees face hurdles in advancing in organizations, a better understanding of the promotion process may shed light on how to remove impediments.</div><div class="line" id="line-55"> Originality/value</div><div class="line" id="line-57"> Although the process by which organizations make employee promotion decisions is an important one, it has received relatively little attention from researchers.</div>