Mobility Effects in the Workplace

Previous research on the social and psychological effects of mobility is limited in two crucial respects: virtually all analyses have been couched at the level of societal stratification systems and based exclusively on a single statistical design-the so-called square-additive model. This paper joins questions of structural context and statistical design in an analysis of the effects of mobility in the stratification system of the workplace. The square-and diamond-additive models are used to test hypotheses about the effect of organizational mobility on the commitment and the beliefs about opportunity of male managers of a large company. As with its application in the societal context, the square model indicates that mobility has no systematic and special effect on managerial orientation. The diamond model detects significant nonlinear effects of extent of movement on both dimensions of orientation but is limited in ways that hinder interpretation. To deal with the problems of these models a third model is developed-the workplace triangle. This model fits better than the others, shows significant mobility effects, and is interpretable. Differences between movers and stayers conform to certain a priori hypotheses, while differences among movers fit the predictions of equity theory.