The impact of reputation capital on the career paths of departing employees
| Published date | 01 September 2003 |
| Date | 01 September 2003 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14691930310487770 |
| Pages | 304-315 |
| Author | Monika Hamori |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance,HR & organizational behaviour,Information & knowledge management |
The impact of reputation
capital on the career paths of
departing employees
Monika Hamori
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, USA
Keywords Human capital, Career development, Corporate image
Abstract This paper examines the impact of corporate reputation capital on employees’ career
progression in the case of inter-organizational transitions. A proprietary database that contains
career history data on professionals, managers and executives in the financial services industry is
used to test the hypotheses. The paper finds that reputation capital is most strongly determined by
organization size, not operational efficiency. Reputation capital is an important predictor of the size
of the promotions that employees receive as they change organizations, and may signal underlying
individual capabilities and performance. Further, employees are willing to forgo a promotion in
order to be able to join organizations with high reputation capital.
Introduction
In the intense “war for talent” of the late 1990s (Chambers et al., 1998),
recruiters customarily advised companies to poach talent from “academy
companies”. These included organizations like Federal Express, General
Electric, McKinsey & Co., PepsiCo. and Procter & Gamble, all known for their
excellence in talent development (Greco, 1997). As anecdotal evidence reveals,
the reputation of the organization with which individuals are affiliated is a
powerful determinant of career success: it serves as a tool for employers and
recruiters to make inferences about the person’s performance. Despite the
widely recognized impact of corporate affiliation on individuals’ career paths
among practitioners, however, there has not been significant academic research
on the ways in which organizational characteristics affect the career path of
individuals as they leave the organization (Hall, 2002). This study focuses on
the ways in which corporate reputation influences the career paths of
employees as they switch over to another organization.
Theoretical foundations
Organizational reputation capital
Reputation capital signifies the value created by the image of the firm’s key
characteristics (Oswald, 1996), based on stakeholders’ experience with the
company or on any other contact that provides information about the firm’s
actions compared with its rivals (Gotsi and Wilson, 2001). The current study
starts by exploring the dimensions of corporate reputation capital in the
financial services industry where the sample of the study is taken. Primarily, it
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister http://www.emeraldinsight.com/1469-1930.htm
JIC
4,3
304
Journal of Intellectual Capital
Vol. 4 No. 3, 2003
pp. 304-315
qMCB UP Limited
1469-1930
DOI 10.1108/14691930310487770
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