Teachers and promotion: Research evidence on the role of gender, career intentions, promotion criteria and teacher satisfaction

Many occupations and all professions offer their recruits the opportunity of pursuing a career, in the sense that individuals can be promoted through a clearly delineated promotions hierarchy. This aspect of a career is referred as its vertical mobility dimension (Ladinsky, 1963; Maclean, 1992). Promotion can therefore be regarded as the passage to a higher rank. In management, promotion is one of the reinforcers of the rewards system to help motivating employees. Other rewards include pay, recognition, desirable work assignments, autonomy and participation (Robbins & Coulter, 2002). From a motivation perspective, if rewards are allocated only on non-performance factors, such as seniority, job title, or across-the-board pay raises, employees are likely to reduce their efforts. As stated by the Peter Principle (Peter Hull, 1969), in a hierarchy using promotion solely as a reward for good performance, people tend to rise to their level of competence because good performance in one job is no guarantee of good performance in another. That is why the pay-for-performance programmes or compensation plans are gaining in popularity. Copyright © 2009 Springer Science + Business Media, LLC.