Chefsrörlighet

Sammanfattning: Executive mobility, specifically the movement of executives between different positions and how an organization's management and the executives themselves handle such transitions, can have a great impact on both organizations and individuals. It is therefore important to pay attention to the use of executive mobility as an instrument for organizational control. As far as top executives are concerned, the control function is central to management of a large company. Studying mobility in the long term makes it possible to determine whethermobility follows distinct patterns; what influence management has on the mobility of top executives and how this influence varies over time; and whether management exercises organizational control of transitions to new executive positions.Empirical data was collected from twenty-six executives of a large Swedish company ranked immediately below the chief executive officer (CEO). Individual executives were interviewed first, and two years later the CEO and five others with responsibility for executive mobility were interviewed. A simple block diagram was developed to model executive mobility. The model shows two dimensions, mobility and external experience, and by combining these, four categories are obtained. Executives with low mobility and low external experience are categorized as Locals, while those with high mobility and low external experience are Generalists. Low mobility with high external experience gives the category Experts, and high mobility with high external experience the categoryCosmopolitans. Executives with low mobility, can be expected to use a hard-work strategy and mount few initiatives to change their positions. Mobile executives, on the other hand, frequently take the initiative to change positions. The differences between the categories seem to diminish as the executives reach higher executive levels. By that stage, mobility is based more on the CEO's career planning than on the category in which the executive falls.Management has considerable ability to control senior executives work-role transitions. These control possibilities are extensively used in regard to role demands, but to a lesser extent in regard to organizational socialization. Executive mobility is a useful instrument for all three of the control functions studied: vacancy-filling, executive development and organizational development. The general conclusion reached is that executive mobility seems to be an extremely important instrument for organizational control.