Managerial defections, promotion criteria and firm growth

Abstract

Junior managers' learning decisions and career expectations, promotion criteria, and parent firms' growth strategies are interdependent. We study this interdependence in a two-stage game where a junior manager invests in unobservable industry-specific learning in response to the firm's growth strategy. In the absence of a credible promotion criterion the firm is unable to insure itself fully against defections, growth is low and ex-post regrettable managerial promotions may occur. Higher growth relaxes promotion decisions and erodes managers' learning incentives, whereas lower growth generates the opposite effect but increases the likelihood of defections.