Career Mobility and Organzational Commitment

Author(s): Oscar Grusky

Source: Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Mar., 1966), pp. 488-503
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the Johnson Graduate School of Management,
Cornell University
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OscarGrusky

Career Mobility and

Organizational Commitment

The strength of a person's commitment to an organization is influ-

enced by the rewards he has received from the system and the kinds
of experiences he has had to undergo in order to receive the rewards.
It is hypothesized that: (1) the greater the rewards received the greater
the degree of the person's commitment, and (2) the greater the obsta-
cles the person has overcome in order to obtain the organization's re-
wards the greater his commitment.
Approximately 75 per cent (1,649) of the managers of a large business
company returned usable questionnaires and thereby constituted the
subjects of the study. A comparison of this sample with the company's
total population of managers on selected demographic characteristics
revealed a close correspondence. Career mobility, determined by com-
paring first position with present position in the company, was the
measure of reward received. Four interrelated indexes of commitment
were employed: seniority, identification with the company, attitude
toward the company's administrators, and general satisfaction with
the company.
The first hypothesis did not receive adequate support. Although
highly mobile managers were generally the most committed, managers
experiencing moderate or minimum mobility did not reveal the pat-
tern predicted. The second hypothesis, tested by comparing managers
as to sex and amount of formal education for each level of upward
mobility, was consistently supported.
Oscar Grusky is associate professor of sociology at the University of
California, Los Angeles.

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 CAREER MOBILITY 489
ORGANIZATIONAL commitment refers to the nature of the
relationship of the member to the system as a whole. Two gen-
eral factors which influence the strength of a person's attachment
to an organization are the rewards he has received from the organi-
zation and the experiences he has had to undergo to receive them.
People become members of formal organizations because they
can attain objectives that they desire through their membership.
If the person discovers that he cannot obtain the rewards he origi-
nally desired, he either leaves the organization and joins another;
or if this is not feasible, he accepts those rewards which he can
obtain and, we suspect, at the same time feels less committed to
that organization. On the other hand, obtaining the rewards
sought, operates to further his felt obligation to the organization,
and his commitment is strengthened. The expectation of reward
operates in a like manner. Strength of commitment to an organiza-
tion should be positively related to the strength of conviction that
one will be rewarded by the organization. The nature of one's
commitment to an organization may undergo radical change de-
pending on the relationship between belief and reality.1 Con-
vergence of belief and reality would tend to strengthen commit-
ment, while divergence should cause a decrease in commitment.
Whether one must overcome hurdles in order to obtain the
rewards of the organization may be another important factor in
determining one's commitment to the organization. If the re-
wards are readily obtained, one's obligation to the organization
is likely to be weak; one becomes convinced that it was his at-
tributes rather than those of the organization which provided the
rewards. On the other hand, if one obtains great rewards despite
apparent obstacles (such as starting out with a low status in the
organization), commitment should be strong. This study ex-
amines evidence for the following two general hypotheses.
1 Goffman has stated a related hypothesis: "Persons at the bottom of large
organizations typically operate in drab backgrounds, against which higher-placed
members realize their internal incentives, enjoying the satisfaction of receiving
visible indulgences that others do not. Low-placed members tend to have less
commitment and emotional attachment to the organization than higher-placed
members." (Italics added.) Asylums (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1961),
p. 201.

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 490 ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY

Hypothesis 1. All else equal, the greater the rewards an indi-

vidual has received or expects to receive from an organization, the
greater will be the degree of his commitment to the system.
Hypothesis 2. All else equal, the greater the obstacles the in-
dividual has overcome in order to obtain the organization's re-
wards, the greater will be the degree of his commitment to the
system.
The theory suggests simply that if a person receives high re-
wards from the organization he will respond by demonstrating
positive feelings toward the organization. The simplicity of the
formulation may be deceptive, however; the concept of reward
is useful to organization theory because of its generality, and yet,
this same quality can impair its usefulness in empirical research.
It is assumed that all human behavior patterns do not recur un-
less rewarded in some way. A fundamental problem lies in the
relation between objective reward value and subjective reward
value. Members evaluate the rewards they have received from
an organization in terms of various standards or perspectives.
The size of the reward received is frequently a function of the
size of rewards received relative to those received by others who
occupy a similar status. Numerous theorists in social psychology
have recognized this problem, as indicated by Homans' use of the
concept of distributive justice and Thibaut and Kelley's notion
of comparison level and comparison level of alternatives.2 Hy-
pothesis 2 may be superior to Hypothesis 1 because it implicitly
takes into consideration a comparative frame of reference. The
person who overcomes obstacles compares himself with persons of
equal status who did not do so.
Homans has described social approval as a general reinforcer.3
Likewise upward career mobility in a corporation may be con-
sidered a general reinforcer in that it provides rewards of many
kinds for the upward-mobile person; therefore the major mea-
2 This formulation follows that of Homans who notes: "The rule of distributive

justice says that a man's rewards in exchange with others should be proportional
to his investments." Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms (New York: Harcourt,
Brace & World, 1961), p. 235; J. Thibaut and H. H. Kelley, The Social Psychology
of Groups (New York: J. Wiley & Sons, 1959), pp. 21-23.
3 Op. cit., pp. 34-35.

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 CAREER MOBILITY 491

sure of reward used in this study was the degree of upward career
mobility experienced by the manager.

METHODS
This study is concerned with the relationship between man-
agerial career mobility and organizational commitment in a large
corporate enterprise.4 A questionnaire was distributed to all
2,198 managers (as defined by the firm) of the United Utility
Corporation (a fictitious name), the largest single enterprise of
a major public utility holding company in the United States.
Approximately 75 percent, or 1,649 usable, signed schedules were
returned. A comparison by salary, sex, and position of the dis-
tributions of the sample with that of the total population of
managers in the firm revealed a very close correspondence be-
tween the two groups.
On the basis of observation, a six-level corporate hierarchy was
distinguished, as follows: (1) top management, (2) upper-middle
management, (3) middle management, (4) lower-middle manage-
ment, (5) first-level management, (6) clerical supervisors. The last
group consisted almost entirely of females. Two managers in the
firm (one at level 3, and the other at level 4) independently placed
each of the 318 management positions in the corporation on one
of the six levels, applying the criterion of amount of official au-
thority associated with the position. Interrater reliability was
0.904 (p < 0.0001). When the raters were brought together to ex-
amine disagreement, none of which deviated by more than one
level, complete agreement was reached when the criterion was
restated, and the duties of the rated position discussed. Corporate

4I am grateful to John Vincent and Judith Ellis for research assistance; to the
Graduate School of Business Administration, University of California, Los Angeles,
for financial support for the larger study of which this is part; and to Charles Y.
Glock, Director, and members of the staff of the Survey Research Center, University
of California, Berkeley, for coding the data. Most of the data were gathered while
the author held a Ford Foundation Faculty Research Fellowship in Social Science
and Business. This is a revised version of a paper presented at the annual meeting
of the American Sociological Association, August 1963, Los Angeles, California. I
am indebted to Professor Peter Blau, session organizer for the field of formal
organizations, for his many helpful comments on the manuscript.

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 492 ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY

level was related both to salary (Cramer's V = 0.58, p < 0.0001)5

and perceived authority (V = 0.21, p < 0.0001).
Amount of career mobility for each manager was determined
by comparing the level of his present position in the corporate
hierarchy with the level of his first position in the firm; there-
fore, mobility referred to movement across levels, not merely
movement from position to position. As in many public utilities,
most of the managers (84.7 percent) started in nonmanagement
positions (designated level 7); those starting in management posi-
tions were excluded from this study. Three mobility groups were
isolated: (1) minimum mobility, those who had moved up only
one or two levels; (2) moderate mobility, those who had moved
up three levels, and (3) maximum mobility, those who had moved
up four levels or more.
Levels in the corporate hierarchy and career mobility, though
obviously highly correlated, were not identical. The mobility
measure, because it necessarily excluded those who started in
management positions, did not consider more than half (53 per-
cent) of the top executives; that is, level 1. Similarly, almost one
in five of the managers in levels 2, 3, and 4 were excluded.
One behavioral and three attitudinal indexes of commitment
were used: (1) seniority, (2) identification with the company as a
whole, (3) attitude toward the company's administrators, and (4)
general satisfaction with the company.6

5 See H. M. Blalock, Jr., Social Statistics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960), p. 230.
6The measures of commitment were as follows:
(1) Seniority. Number of years employed by the company provided a simple in-
dex.
(2) Identification with the company. We attempted to tap the degree of commit-
ment by this question: "Suppose you were offered a job exactly like your present
position with another company located nearby, but with a 20 percent increase in
salary. Would you accept it?" The alternatives offered were (1) Yes, definitely,
(2) Yes, probably, (3) No, probably, and (4) No, definitely. Approximately half of
the managers selected one of the two affirmative alternatives and half claimed they
would not change jobs. Although one does not know whether the respondents
would behave in a manner consistent with their signed questionnaire responses;
nevertheless, the item did give a rough idea of the importance of economic incen-
tives. It was assumed that those who claimed they would not take another posi-
tion, despite the instrumental inducement of an increased salary, were guided in
part by loyalty to the corporation. But this item attempted to measure loyalty

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 CAREER MOBILITY 493

RESULTS
Intercorrelations of the Indexes
Table 1 presents the intercorrelations of the four measures, re-
vealing that five of the six possible correlations were statistically
significant at or beyond the 0.001 level, and all were positive.
Seniority was most highly related to identification with the com-
pany as a whole, but also significantly related to attitude toward
company administrators. It was not associated significantly with
general satisfaction. Identification with the company as a whole
was positively correlated with general satisfaction as well as at-
titudes toward the company. Thus it would appear that the five
indexes tapped related but differentiable components of what
is here called "commitment."

by means of a technique which was essentially negative. A manager was defined

as loyal if he said he would reject such an offer. In order to deal directly with
the concept in a way seemingly consistent with its meaning, the managers were
asked to report their degree of agreement or disagreement with this rather extreme
statement: "The good of the company always comes before the good of the in-
dividual manager."
The alternatives permitted were: strongly agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree,
strongly disagree.
(3) Attitude toward the company administrators. A Guttman scale of attitude
toward the company administrators was devised consisting of the following three
items:
1. Do you feel that the men who run the Company recognize your ability and
what you are able to do?
2. How well do you feel that the men who run the Company understand your
problems and needs?.
3. In general, how well do you think the Company is run?
The coefficient of reproducibility of the scale was 0.96 and the coefficient of
scalability was 0.80. Both figures were well above the suggested desirable levels.
(See H. Menzel, A New Coefficient for Scalogram Analysis, Public Opinion Quar-
terly, 17 (1953), 268-280.)
(4) General satisfaction with company. Two open-ended questionnaire items asked
respondents' opinions as to the major problems of the company and the department.
Responses were evaluated for over-all satisfaction on a five-point scale ranging from
very satisfied to very dissatisfied. Slightly more than one out of four managers
(448) could be coded on the basis of their responses and the large majority of
these (77 percent) were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. Since the question
solicited problems rather than favorable comment, this was not surprising; however,
the measure served the important function of an independent check on the validity
of the Guttman scale measure.

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 494 ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY

Table 1. Intercorrelationsof indexesof organizationalcommitment.t

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Attitudes General
Identification toward satisfaction
with the company with the
Seniority company administrators company

(1) Seniority 0.19* 0.09* 0.09**

(2) Identification
with the company 0.15* 0.21*
(3) Attitudes toward
company administrators 0.23*
t Correlations are zero-order values of V (Cramer's Coefficient). See H. M. Blalock,
Jr., Social Statistics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1960) p. 230, for a description of
this measure.
# p<0.0o1.
* p< 0.10.

Mobility and Commitment

This section considers the hypothesis that the greater the re-
wards received as a result of upward career mobility, the stronger
the commitment to the organization. Following Homans, one can
assume that the interaction of the manager and the organization
continues only up to the point where the rewards the manager
receives or expects to receive from the organization exceed the
costs incurred. It is also assumed that it is rewarding to be more
upwardly mobile than one's peers.
The formal structure of the corporation is such that upward
career mobility automatically provides access to most of the major
rewards the organization can provide. As noted, the data revealed
that the higher one's position in the hierarchy, the greater one's
salary and perceived authority.7
Table 2 presents the over-all findings relating degree of career
mobility to the commitment indexes.8 The attitudinal data, with-

7 Also the greater one's political involvement and the greater one's chances of
being a Republican. See Grusky, Career Mobility and Managerial Political Be-
havior, Pacific Sociological Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Fall, 1965) 82-89.
8 Since the study was based on a nonrandom sample, the application of statistical
tests is questionable; therefore the interpretations of the findings are based primarily
on patterns of differences rather than on statistical tests. In every case the inter-
pretations should be viewed as tentative.

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 CAREER MOBILITY 495

Table 2. Careermobility and four measuresof commitment.*

Career mobility
Measures of commitment
Minimum Moderate Maximum

Seniorityt
0-4 years 6% 9% 4%
5- 9 years 22 18 8
10- 14 years 57 57 54
15 + years 15 16 34
(415)t (405) (216)
Identification with company?
Strong 30 25 40
Medium 43 45 46
Weak 27 30 14
(411) (394) (211)
Attitude toward co. administratorsi
Guttman Scale Types
Favorable (I-II) 33 30 51
Less favorable (III-IV) 67 70 49
(414) (397) (204)
General satisfaction**
Satisfied 10 25 37
Dissatisfied 90 75 63
(112) (126) (48)
* Includes only male managers who started in management positions.
t x2 = 51.3, df = 6, p < 0.001; Cramer's V = 0.16.
$ Numbers in parentheses indicate numbers of cases.
? x'=24.2, df=4, p<0.001; Cramer's V=0.I1.
1l X8 = 27.8, df = 2, p < 0.001; Cramer's V = 0.16.
** x2= 17.8, df = 2, p < 0.001; Cramer's V-0.25.

out controls, did not support uniformly the hypothesized mono-

tonic relationship between mobility and commitment. Among
the three attitudinal indexes, only the general satisfaction mea-
sure clearly supported Hypothesis 1.
It was expected that seniority would be positively related to
amount of upward mobility. This assumes that maintaining one's
position with a company reflects commitment to it. As predicted,
degree of mobility was positively, although only slightly, correl-
ated with seniority. Of the managers experiencing little mobility
only 15 percent had been with the company at least fifteen years,
but 16 percent of the managers experiencing moderate mobility

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 496 ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY

Table 3. Identificationwith the company,and career

mobility,with senioritycontrolled.*
Identification with company
Career mobility N
Strong Moderate Weak
5-9 Years with company
Minimum 33% 40% 27% 90
Moderate 23 43 34 73

10-14 Years with company

Minimum 22 46 32 229
Moderate 22 46 32 223
Maximum 29 52 19 129

15 or More years with company

Minimum 50 34 16 62
Moderate 41 45 4 64
Maximum 64 32 4 72
* Includes only males who started in nonmanagement positions.

and more than 33 percent of the highly mobile group had been
with the company that length of time. These data contrast with
Dalton's report of no significant relationship between seniority
and career mobility at Milo.9 Small but positive correlations were
also found with the other three measures of commitment. The
highest correlation, only 0.25, was found on the general satisfac-
tion index.
The relationship between career mobility and attitudinal com-
mitment was examined separately for managers who had been
with the firm five to nine years, ten to fourteen years, and fifteen
years or more. Table 3 presents the findings with respect to iden-
tification with the company. Contrary to Hypothesis 1, the data
suggest that managers with moderate mobility were less committed
to the firm than were the managers who experienced minimum
mobility. On the other hand, consistent with the hypothesis, the
most committed managers were those who had been most mobile
during their careers.
Some support for Hypothesis 1 was found with respect to the
Guttman scale of attitude toward company administrators. Table

9 M. Dalton, Men Who Manage (New York: J. Wiley and Sons, 1959), pp. 159-161.

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 CAREER MOBILITY 497
Table 4. Attitude towardcompanyadministratorsand
careermobility,with senioritycontrolled.*
Attitude toward company administrators

Career mobility Favorable Unfavorable

(Guttman Scale (Guttman Scale N
Types 1-2) Types 34)
5-9 Years with company
Minimum 27% 63% 87
Moderate 25 75 72

10-14 Years with company

Minimum 32 68 234
Moderate 30 70 229
Maximum 47 53 127

15 or More years with company

Minimum 38 61 62
Moderate 39 61 63
Maximum 60 40 69
* Includes only males who started in nonmanagement positions.

4 indicates that for two of three seniority categories, contrary to

the hypothesis, commitment was weaker among the moderately
mobile managers than among those who had experienced mini-
mum mobility. However, among the group of managers who had
fifteen years seniority or more, amount of career mobility was
positively related to attitude toward company administrators.
The hypothesis fared best on the index of general satisfaction
with the company, which was based on responses to two open-
ended questions. In all three of the seniority categories, there
was a monotonic relationship between amount of upward career
mobility and degree of commitment on this index. The greater
the amount of upward career mobility experienced, the greater
the proportion of "satisfied" responses (Table 5). Also, seniority
and commitment were correlated in every instance except one.
Strength of commitment was strongest in the highest seniority
category and weakest in the lowest seniority category.
Considering the findings, one can draw the following conclu-
sions: (1) In general, strength of organizational commitment was
positively associated with seniority. (2) Managers who experienced

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 498 ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY

Table 5. Generalsatisfactionwith the companyand career

mobility,with senioritycontrolled.*
General satisfaction
Career mobility N
Satisfied Neutral Dissatisfied
5-9 Years with company
Minimum 4% -% 96% 27
Moderate 10 14 76 11
10-14 Years with company
Minimum 7 3 90 61
Moderate 10 9 81 70
Maximum 21 2 77 34
15 or More years with company
Minimum 6 5 89 17
Moderate 23 13 64 22
Maximum 27 18 54 11
* Includes only males who started in nonmanagement positions.

maximum career mobility were generally more strongly com-

mitted to the organization than were less mobile managers. (3)
Managers who were moderately mobile did not show any uniform-
ity in their pattern of commitment that distinguished them from
the less mobile managers. This latter finding may be due to dif-
ferential mobility expectations. Managers receiving some promo-
tion may have felt a weaker commitment when their rewards
proved smaller than anticipated.
A note on causality is appropriate. The data do not permit
one to ascertain whether career mobility produced strong orga-
nizational commitment or vice versa. Nor does common sense
permit one to make a judgment on the causal relationship. Ex-
pressions interpreted as evidence of loyalty to the firm may very
well be a condition favoring movement upward in the hierarchy.
One could assume that these two variables exercise a reciprocal
influence upon each other.10

Overcoming Obstacles to Career Mobility

The second hypothesis proposed that the greater the obstacles
10The sample survey design has the weakness of providing data only for a par-
ticular period of time. Resurveys or a panel design are required to assess clearly
the effects of experience with the company on identification.

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 CAREER MOBILITY 499

Table 6. Formaleducationand careermobility,

with senioritycontrolled.*
Formal education
Career mobility H.S. graduate Some College
or less college graduate

5-9 Years with company

Minimum 66.7% 52.2% 34.5%
Moderate 33.3 47.8 65.5
(66)t (69) (29)
10-14 Years with company
Minimum 51.2 32.3 15.2
Moderate 36.1 41.4 32.6
Maximum 12.7 26.3 52.2
(252) (297) (46)
15 or More years with company
Minimum 44.8 21.4 4
Moderate 27.6 41.5 28
Maximum 27.6 37.1 68
(105) (70) (25)
* Males who started in nonmanagement positions only.

t Numbers in parentheses are number of cases.

the individual had to overcome in order to obtain the rewards

of upward career mobility, the stronger would be his commitment
to the organization.
Two barriers to upward mobility in the company are consid-
ered: (1) formal education, which is an achieved characteristic;
and (2) sex, which is ascriptive. Specifically, it is hypothesized that
within each career mobility level, managers who had overcome
a barrier would be more fully committed to the corporation than
those who had not. Therefore, less educated managers should
show greater commitment than managers possessing more formal
education, and female managers should be more strongly com-
mitted to the organization than male members.
First, however, it is necessary to establish the two attributes as
barriers to upward mobility in the firm. Dalton has shown that
formal education was not a critical factor in promotion at Milo.1"
Table 6 demonstrates a consistent positive correlation between

11 Op. cit., pp. 161-167.

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 500 ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY

Table 7. Attitudinal indexesof commitmentand formal

education,with careermobility controlled.*
Attitude toward
Formal Identification company General satisfaction
education with company administrators with company
High N Favorable N Satisfied N
Minimum
High schoolt 31% (172) 35% (174) 13% (41)
College 23 (115) 28 (118) 5 (38)
Moderate
High school 28 (116) 39 (119) 24 (34)
College 24 (168) 28 (173) 24 (56)
Maximum
High school 47 (59) 56 (54) 34 (15)
College 41 (125) 52 (125) 31 (26)
* Includes only males who started in nonmanagement positions and have been
with the firm ten years or more.
tIncludes those completing high school or less.

years of school completed and amount of upward mobility in

United Utility when seniority is controlled. The greater the
amount of formal education, the greater the degree of upward
career mobility in the firm.
It is well known that females tend to be discriminated against
with respect to promotion, both in civil service and also in in-
dustry. Of 352 female managers in United Utility from whom
mobility data were gathered, only one (less than one percent) had
attained maximum mobility. This contrasts with approximately
20 percent of the male managers who similarly had started in
nonmanagement positions and had moved up at least four levels
in the hierarchy. Where slightly over 10 percent of the female
managers were moderately mobile, more than three times as
many male managers (38.7 percent) experienced an equal amount
of mobility. When controls for seniority, age, and formal educa-
tion were applied, the differentials remained. These data sug-
gest that lack of a formal education and being a female were bar-
riers to advancement in the company studied.
Table 7 compares the degree of commitment on the three at-

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 CAREER MOBILITY 501

Table 8. Attitudinalindexes of commitment

and sex with careermobility controlled.*
Attitude toward
Identification company General satisfaction
Sex with company administrators with company
High N Favorable N Satisfied N
Minimum
Males 30% (411) 33% (414) 10% (112)
Females 38 (295) 42 (306) 31 (78)

Moderate
Males 25 (394) 30 (397) 25 (126)
Females 53 (34) 47 (34) 33 (9)

Moderate and Maximum

Males 25 (603) 34 (601) 26 (173)
* Managers who started in nonmanagement positions only.

titudinal indexes for managers with a high school education and

those with college education for each of the three levels of upward
mobility. The hypothesis was supported in eight of the nine com-
parisons; in each of these cases, managers with a high school educa-
tion showed -a stronger commitment to the organization than did
managers with college experience. In one instance, level of educa-
tion did not differentiate: managers with a high school back-
ground and those who went to college who experienced moder-
ate mobility demonstrated a similar strength of commitment on
the index of general satisfaction with the company. Also, it should
be noted that with but one exception, if each educational group
is examined separately, there is a positive relationship between
level of upward mobility and strength of commitment.
Although the sample of female managers was adequate for those
experiencing minimum upward mobility, it was not adequate for
those experiencing moderate or maximum mobility. The original
37 female managers who were moderately upwardly mobile were
reduced to 34 on two of the -commitment indexes and to nine
cases on the third one, which was one based on open-ended ques-
tions.
As Table 8 demonstrates, female managers were more strongly
committed than male managers on each of the three indexes,

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 502 ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY

within the two mobile categories. In the minimum mobility

category the average percentage difference was 13 percent, while
in the moderate mobility group it- was almost 18 percent. More-
over, in the minimum mobility category, the seniority variable
operated against the hypothesis. Although only 45 percent of
the female managers had been with the company ten years or
more, 72 percent of the male managers in this group had equiva-
lent seniority. In the moderate mobility category, the distribu-
tions were similar, 74 percent of the males compared to 75 per-
cent of the females had been with the firm at least ten years.
Seniority it appears was a more critical factor in upward mobility
for females than for males.
These findings can be interpreted in terms of reference group
theory. Managers compare their progress up the ladder with
others who presently occupy and who have occupied similar posi-
tions in the corporate hierarchy. They are aware that being male
and having a college background influences promotion opportu-
nities in the firm. Hence, the female manager and the manager
with only a high school education or less who find themselves
promoted rapidly or on a level with managers of higher status
(male, college-educated managers) feel strongly obligated to the
firm, because the rewards they have received have been greater
relative to the others. Strong commitment is also encouraged by
job opportunities. The male manager and the college-educated
manager have considerably more desirable job opportunities else-
-where than do female managers and those with only a high school
education or less. The lack of available opportunities at a similar
status level should function to promote strong commitment to
the company.12
12 Festinger has suggested that likelihood of persistence in learned behavior is

influenced by the amount of effort required when that behavior was acquired.
The dissonance created by the amount of effort in learning is decreased by an
extra preference for the learned response. (See The Psychological Effects of Insuf-
ficient Rewards, American Psychologist, 16 (1961), 1-11). A related type of phe-
nomenon may be applicable to the present situation. The strength of the man-
ager's attachment to the organization may be affected by the nature and extent
of obstacles he found it necessary to overcome in order to attain success. If he suc-
ceeded in attaining success, that is, career mobility, despite these hurdles, an extra
preference for the company may have developed.

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 CAREER MOBILITY 503

SUMMARY
To summarize briefly, this study has examined the relationship
between career mobility and strength of commitment among
managers of a large corporation. Two hypotheses were formu-
lated. The first proposed a monotonic relationship between re-
wards received (as measured by degree of career mobility) and the
degree of commitment on four indexes. The second hypothesis
suggested that the greater the obstacles the individual had to over-
,come in order to obtain the organization's rewards, the stronger
would be his commitment. Although the first hypothesis received
only slight and scattered support, the second was uniformly sus-
tained.

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