A SURVEY OF PROMOTION DECISION PROCESSES IN ACTUAL WORK ENVIRONMENTS FOR FIRST-LEVEL MANAGEMENT PROMOTION DECISIONS (UPWARD MOBILITY, MANAGERIAL TALENT SEARCH, MANPOWER PLANNING)

Promotions from within organizations offer advantages to both the individual and the organization. However, much needs to be learned about how managers make promotion decisions. The current study focuses on the strategies that managers use to make promotion decisions in light of prescribed methods in the psychological literature. Forty managers from five different companies were asked to describe how they made their most recent promotion decision. Findings indicate that managers do not restrict themselves to the use of one strategy. They use strategies that are effective depending on the reason or impetus for making the promotion. In addition, the strategies that managers report using are not as complex or as well defined as those prescribed in the psychological literature. Brief descriptions of the promotion decisions and anecdotal information about the promotion environments are presented. Future research directions are discussed.