Promotion in the Israeli High-Tech Industry: Managers´ and Workers´ Perceptions

The study focuses on the promotion process in the Israeli high-tech industry from the point of view of workers and managers. A questionnaire containing series of factors related to promotion (education, tenure in the organization, professional experience, success in projects/ missions, politics, multi-disciplinary professional knowledge, pressure on the supervisor, age, gender and luck), was conducted to 131employees in an international high-tech corporation´s subsidiary located in Israel. Some of our findings were to be expected in the high-tech company examined, but others were surprising. The findings reveal significant differences between workers and managers in seven of the ten factors influencing promotion. Workers and managers agreed that the most important factor influencing promotion was success in projects. While workers and managers gave similar rankings for the most and least important factors influencing promotions, there were substantial differences in the ranking of the other factors. Among managers, education and multi-disciplinary knowledge were ranked second and third, whereas among workers, politics and pressure on the supervisor were ranked second and third. The meaning of the findings and their implications for human resources management (HRM) and organizational performance are discussed in this paper.