Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Matthes
Keywords: job transitions, intraorganizational mobility, sales–marketing interface, career development, qualitative
areers represent long-term journeys of preparation and differently and be represented in a variety of forms across
SMJT Process
Motivation Encounter
Intrinsic Acquisition Preparation Loss of Gain of
Extrinsic
• Implicit • Strategic Foci Broad Targeted Benefits Challenges
expectation involvement • Read • Probe • Compensation • Pressure
• Sales
• Marketing • Organizational texts current • Freedom • Job ambiguity
achievement
power altruism • Take marketers • Customer • Exposure to
• Educational • Strategy interaction company
• Work–life courses • Data
application • Analytical • Excitement politics
balance diving
Individual-Level Facilitators
Traits Actions
• Marketing mind-set • Proactive feedback solicitation
• Team orientation • Information gathering Organizational Outcomes
• Inside sales • Outsourcing Benefits Drawbacks
experience • Superior marketing • Overreactive
strategies marketing
• Improved strategic • Suboptimal pricing
Organizational-Level Facilitators implementation • Loss of customer
• Reduced sales– relationships
Demographic Instructional Cultural
marketing tension • Misallocation of
• Organizational • Marketing • SMJT
• Aspirational goal for human resources
age academy openness
salespeople
• Product • Embedded • Role formality
differentiation cross-training • Customer
• Services vs. integration
goods
marketing role and a field sales role…. That seems to be the A big part of the marketing job benefit for me is sort of a little
perspective that you get from most folks, especially people that bit personal in the sense that I was getting my MBA at the same
are within high-level leadership positions. time, and I could stay home more, and I had a six-month-old
baby…. A lot of the sales jobs back then were really out in the
In addition, respondents noted that the level of marketing field.
power affected their motivation to make the transition. In some
organizations, sales holds the power, as it is directly responsible Intrinsic motivations. Intrinsic motivations for SMJT
for bringing revenue into the firm. In others, marketing is entail respondents making the change to marketing for self-
considered more strategic and important than sales and, thus, actualizing or altruistic reasons. Respondents were motivated to
more powerful. As a marketing director in the publishing in- make the SMJT for the strategic involvement it provided. Some
dustry reflected, marketing power can incentivize salespeople to respondents felt too tactical in their sales role and thus desired a
make the transition: more involved, strategic role in marketing. A senior vice
If you’re in a sales position where it’s seen as marketing has president in the telecom industry noted that he finds partici-
more of the power, it would seem like more of a progression pating in his organization’s strategic decisions exciting:
or a promotion, I would think, or just taking on more re- It’s personal for me with respect to being involved in strategic
sponsibility to move to the position where you have the power. direction of not only where the company is headed, but why
Another reason salespeople made the move to marketing it’s heading there and then how we’re going to get there…. It’s
was for work–life balance. While sales roles can provide job that ability to participate in vision, strategy, what the orga-
nization’s doing … that excite[s] me.
flexibility, they also may require significant travel and time
away from family. Marketing, however, is generally more of a Furthermore, some respondents were motivated to make the
headquarters-based position. A senior business manager in the SMJT out of organizational altruism. These respondents clas-
transportation industry was motivated to make the SMJT be- sified their marketing departments as underperforming and
cause of work–life balance considerations: unresponsive; however, rather than being deterred by this poor
Job transition process Conceptualized as a four-stage process of Advances two additional job transition process
preparation, encounter, adjustment, and categories that improve understanding of the job
stabilization (Nicholson and West 1989). transition process: transition motivation and
acquisition.
Motivation Understood broadly as a function of factors such Provides two macro categories through which
as career stage, control seeking, organizational transition motivation manifests: intrinsic and
mandate, and personal growth/novelty needs extrinsic. The components of these categories are
(e.g., Anderson, Milkovich, and Tsui 1981; also novel to job transition research.
Campion, Cheraskin, and Stevens 1994; Cron
1984; Feldman and Ng 2007; Nicholson 1984;
Verbruggen, Cooman, and Vansteenkiste 2015).
Acquisition Enabled through factors such as past position Reveals the importance of three foci potential
quantity and type, functional background, and transitioners employ to successfully obtain the
early-career stage (e.g., Brüderl, Diekmann, and transition position in the SMJT context: sales
Preisendörfer 1991; Forbes 1987). achievement, strategy, and analytical.
Preparation Conceived as general socialization into a new Provides two active forms of learning transitioners
organization or as a passive process in which the engage in to prepare themselves for their
transitioner sets internal expectancies for the upcoming move: broad and targeted.
impending transition (e.g., Batistič and Kaše
2015; Morrison 1993; Nicholson 1987).
Encounter Conceptualized as initial coping and sense Delineates two primary categories of difficulty for
making by the transitioner to transition-related initial transitioners with which the transitioner
stressors, demands, and uncertainty (e.g., Latack must contend: loss of benefits from the former role
1984; Louis 1980; Moyle and Parkes 1999). and gain of challenges from the new role.
Provides specific insight into SMJTs.
Facilitators Focused largely on organizational facilitators Specifies many individual-level facilitators
such as training, mentoring, and social support comprised of transitioner traits and actions. Also
(e.g., Kraimer et al. 2011; Moyle and Parkes 1999; provides myriad organizational-level facilitators
Verbruggen, Cooman, and Vansteenkiste 2015). along demographic, instructional, and cultural
lines. Some facilitators apply to job transitions
overall, while others are specific to the SMJT
context.
Outcomes Focused largely on the positives of job transitions Advances a balanced perspective of both novel
such as satisfaction, commitment, collaboration, benefits to SMJTs and potential dark sides of
and development (e.g., Anderson, Milkovich, and SMJTs. Some outcomes are specific to the SMJT
Tsui 1981; Baruch and Peiperl 2000; Campion, context, while others can be extrapolated to other
Cheraskin, and Stevens 1994; Guenzi and Troilo job transition contexts.
2006; Kalleberg and Mastekaasa 2001;
Matthyssens and Johnston 2006; Ortega 2001),
with less emphasis on negatives such as
increased cost, stress, and perceptions of
inequity (e.g., Burke and Moore 2000; Rouziès
et al. 2005; Rudisill and Edwards 2002).
REFERENCES
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