Looking Up and Looking Out: Career Mobility Effects of Demographic Similarity among Professionals

Kathleen L. McGinn; Katherine L. Milkman

Article | Organization Science | July–August 2013

Looking Up and Looking Out: Career Mobility Effects of Demographic Similarity among Professionals

by Kathleen L. McGinn and Katherine L. Milkman

Abstract

We investigate the role of workgroup sex and race composition on the career mobility of professionals in "up-or-out" organizations. We develop a nuanced perspective on the potential career mobility effects of workgroup demography by integrating the social identification processes of cohesion, competition, and comparison. Using five years of personnel data from a large law firm, we examine the influence of demographic match with workgroup superiors and workgroup peers on attorneys' likelihood of turnover and promotion. Survival analyses reveal that higher proportions of same-sex and same-race superiors enhance junior professionals' career mobility. On the flip side, we observe mobility costs accruing to professionals in workgroups with higher proportions of same-sex and same-race peers. Qualitative data offer insights into the social identification processes underlying demographic similarity effects on turnover and promotion in professional service organizations.

Keywords: professional service firms; gender; race and ethnicity; Ethnicity; Race; Personal Development and Career; Gender; Legal Services Industry;

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McGinn, Kathleen L., and Katherine L. Milkman. "Looking Up and Looking Out: Career Mobility Effects of Demographic Similarity among Professionals." Organization Science 24, no. 4 (July–August 2013): 1041–1060.

Teaching Plan serves as a supplement to the case for “Chief: Role for Carolyn Childers” (920-019), “Chief: Role for Lindsay Kaplan” (920-020), and “Scaling at Chief” (920-021).

Article | Quarterly Journal of Economics | May 2020

Negotiating a Better Future: How Interpersonal Skills Facilitate Inter-Generational Investment

Nava Ashraf, Natalie Bau, Corinne Low and Kathleen McGinn

Using a randomized control trial, we examine whether offering adolescent girls nonmaterial resources—specifically, negotiation skills—can improve educational outcomes in a low-income country. In so doing, we provide the first evidence on the effects of an intervention that increased noncognitive, interpersonal skills during adolescence. Long-run administrative data shows that negotiation training significantly improved educational outcomes over the next three years. The training had greater effects than two alternative treatments (offering girls a safe physical space with female mentors and offering girls information about the returns to education), suggesting that negotiation skills themselves drive the effect. Further evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment, which simulates parents’ educational investment decisions, and a midline survey suggests that negotiation skills improved girls’ outcomes by moving households’ human capital investments closer to the efficient frontier. This is consistent with an incomplete contracting model, where negotiation allows daughters to strategically cooperate with parents.

Keywords: Negotiation; Competency and Skills; Training; Age; Gender; Education; Investment; Outcome or Result; Developing Countries and Economies;

Citation:

Ashraf, Nava, Natalie Bau, Corinne Low, and Kathleen McGinn. "Negotiating a Better Future: How Interpersonal Skills Facilitate Inter-Generational Investment." Quarterly Journal of Economics 135, no. 2 (May 2020): 1095–1151. View Details

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Looking Up and Looking Out: Career Mobility Effects of Demographic Similarity among Professionals

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