Work

Ascription into Achievement: Models of Career Systems at Lloyds Bank, 1890-1970

Year: 1996

Type: article

Abstract: Optimal matching algorithms are used to model the transformation of career systems in a large British bank (Lloyds) from 1890 to 1970. The authors first model the breakdown of the traditional ascriptive, status-based system, and then identify a more dynamic, achievement-based system, and then identify a more dynamic, achievement-based system as its replacement. By relating the structure of careers to organizational growth and social change, the authors explore how the modern achievement career came about. More broadly, they argue that optimal matching enables one to see clearly the multiple time frames that are necessarily intercalated into career systems and hence provides new insights into the discontinuous and contingent nature of organizational change.

Source: American Journal of Sociology

DOI: 10.1086/230950

Authors: Katherine Stovel, Michael Savage, Peter Bearman

Institutions: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Manchester

Language: English

Topic: Management and Organizational Studies

Subfield: Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Decent work and economic growth

Open Access status: green

OpenAlex ID: W2100274378

FWCI: 3.999

Cites: 48

Cited by: 251

Related to: 10