From Internal to Network Labor Markets? Insights on New Promotion Processes from the Call Center Industry

Research on network forms of organization suggests that “business units” may be a more useful analytical unit than “firms” in understanding restructuring of internal labor markets. We find evidence for this proposition by analyzing promotion opportunities in 1760 call centers in sixteen countries. We find substantial differences in promotion opportunities internal to the unit versus elsewhere, related to the use of explicit versus tacit knowledge in performance evaluation, distinctions between unit-specific and general-firm knowledge, and network-bridging organizational characteristics.