Organizational Behavior, Career Orientations, and the Propensity to Move among Professionals

Organizational environment and career motivations are examined in order to understand a professional's propensity to move. Four major groups of variabieU are examined: situational, professional-bureaucratic, occupational values, and career cycle/mobility orientations. The results of a step-wise regression suggest two major orientations associated with the propensity to move: the "career mobile cosmopolitan "and the "career mobile local. "A noted exception is when a lack of congruence between rewards and organizational commitment for the 7areer mobile local leads to an increased propensity to move. Similarly, the data suggest the existence of the "misfit" in which conflicting personal and occupational values rather than career orientations positively influence the propensity to move. We conclude that a positive and negative propensity to move among professionals reflects the dual nature of professional values and career orientations which in turn have consequences for professional and organizational frameworks.