ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the general magnitude of job mobility, together with the directions in which people move from one occupation to another. An occupational career is the sucession of related jobs filled by an individual. Careers in work organizations function to the advantage of the organization in a number of different ways. Individual career lines in the organization establish the range of limited ambitions that people may pursue. Promotions represent a change in status within the organization. The simplest kind of promotion, and the most common in work organizations, is promotion from work into a career. The net effect of transfer is to increase the probability that the individual will end higher in the organization by virtue of the higher ceiling that the new career pattern affords. One of the perennial problems of organizations is the obsolescence of careers. The unfolding work career is often intimately associated with the organization in which it is pursued.
