ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the ways in which organizations make demotion socially acceptable. The materials are drawn from a case study of the management of a large, rapidly growing industrial organization with facilities throughout the country in manufacturing, research, and sales. The opposing pressures—one favoring a competitive system based on the norm of excellence and the other favoring criteria of adequate performance—the organization must cope with failure and the task of maintaining efficiency. Acceptance of demotion is due largely to mobility patterns throughout the organization, and these patterns, in turn, arise from a number of organizational and personal conditions. The various mechanisms that obscure demotions, and so cushion their shock, also contribute to the vagueness of criteria for promotion. The key to a demoted individual's ability to maintain his personal effectiveness lies in the process of self-redefinition—an adaptation that may occur in anticipating demotion as well as after the event.
