Matthew Bidwell

Shinjinee Chattopadhyay, Shinjae Won, Matthew Bidwell (2026), Dynamic Demands versus Durable Skills: Career Dilemmas in Pharmaceutical R&D, Academy of Management Journal (forthcoming).

Abstract: Skill demands evolve over the course of individuals’ careers, as new roles demand different kinds of skills from previous jobs. Yet skill portfolios can be slow to change. We posit that this tension between dynamic job demands and durable skills creates career dilemmas for building the right portfolio of skills for long-term success. Studying a group of scientists in the pharmaceuticals industry, we argue and find that while specialization helps scientists advance faster initially, it holds scientists back once they reach managerial ranks where coordination skills are required. Within managerial ranks, scientists with broader experience will advance faster since their broad experience will develop broader knowledge and more diverse social capital, which in turn will help them build coordination skills. While we find some evidence that employees try to adapt to these changing needs over their careers, such efforts to adapt are insufficient. Instead, we find that the level of specialization acquired while working as a scientist continues to influence promotion rates after people are promoted into management. We thus show that a skill portfolio built to help advancement at one stage of the career may hold employees back at subsequent career stages.

Shun Yiu, Matthew Bidwell, JR Keller (2026), Pipelines and Sprinkler Systems: Documenting the Speed-Flexibility Tradeoff in How Jobs Shape Promotion, Academy of Management Journal (forthcoming).

Abstract: We draw on theories of internal labor markets and human capital pipelines to examine promotion patterns within large organizations. We introduce the idea of pipeline orientation to describe the way different jobs shape advancement. Specifically, we compare “pipeline” jobs that foster advancement into a highly circumscribed set of jobs with “sprinkler” jobs from which people are promoted into many different higher-level jobs. We first explain the factors shaping a job’s pipeline orientation, then examine its implications for career advancement within internal labor markets. We argue that whether employees occupy pipeline or sprinkler jobs plays an important role in determining whether people make typical versus atypical moves as they are promoted. We further suggest that pipeline and sprinkler jobs engender a speed/flexibility tradeoff, as workers within pipeline jobs have less flexibility in where they could move next but are promoted more rapidly. We test these ideas with internal personnel data from a large corporation.

Federica De Stefano and Matthew Bidwell (2026), Building Careers in Project-Based Organizations: Breadth, Fit, and the Path to Advancement, Management Science (forthcoming).

Abstract: Project-based organizations allow employees in ostensibly similar roles to acquire very different experiences by working on different kinds of projects. We study how people build careers in these contexts, examining when employees choose to diversify their experience—both in terms of project content and collaborators—and how the resulting diversification affects their career advancement. Using longitudinal project data from a services organization, our results suggest that employees initially explore different kinds of work by moving across project types, but then go on to find their fit in a particular area. This process is quicker for high-performing employees and for those with longer tenure and more diverse collaborator networks. We also find that promotion rates and compensation are lower for employees who worked on a broader portfolio of content types and collaborators in the most recent year, but higher for employees who had worked on broader project portfolios in prior years.

Matthew Bidwell and JR Keller (2025), Stepping Sideways to Step Up: Stepping Sideways to Step up: Lateral Mobility and Career Advancement Inside Organizations, Management Science, 71 (1), pp. 240-261.

Abstract: Although internal labor market theory emphasizes promotions as the main form of mobility within organizations, many internal job moves take people sideways into jobs that are at the same hierarchical level as the one that was left. Despite the prevalence of these lateral moves, however, we have little evidence on what role they play in workers’ careers. We argue that lateral mobility can facilitate subsequent career advancement by allowing for the development and demonstration of new skills and can, therefore, help those who would struggle to be promoted from their current job to develop their careers further. We establish empirical evidence on the implications of lateral mobility using eight years of personnel data from a large U.S. healthcare company. Our analyses show that those employees who move laterally are more likely to be subsequently promoted and achieve substantially higher pay growth than a matched sample of employees. We also find that lateral moves are more likely to be undertaken by those who have spent longer in the job but have lower performance than those who are promoted. This pattern of results suggests that lateral mobility provides an important avenue for career growth as people who step sideways in organizations are more likely to subsequently step up.

Giovanna Capponi, Matthew Bidwell, Isabel Fernandez-Mateo, Martine Haas (2024), Global Careers and Compensation: From Initial Penalties to a Superglobal Premium, Academy of Management Discoveries, 10 (1), pp. 122-149.

Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between international mobility and financial compensation for knowledge workers pursuing business careers. While some theoretical arguments suggest that international mobility may lead to higher pay, others suggest that it may lead to performance problems and lack of recognition, which could reduce financial rewards. Empirical research on the topic is limited, with cross-sectional data providing little insight into the relationship between international mobility and compensation over time. Our study overcomes this challenge by using a panel dataset on the career histories of 1,322 MBA graduates. The results reveal a curvilinear relationship between international mobility and compensation over time. Making one or two international moves can have substantial negative effects on pay. However, further moves are associated with pay growth, and there is some evidence that those who move countries multiple times (“superglobals”) obtain substantially higher pay. We discuss the implications of our findings for research on international mobility and business careers.

Martine Haas, Isabel Fernandez-Mateo, Matthew Bidwell, Giovanna Capponi (2023), Is Moving Internationally for a Job a Smart Move?, Harvard Business Review (digital article).

Matthew Bidwell, Kira Choi, Isabel Fernandez-Mateo (2022), Brokered Careers: The Role of Search Firms in Managerial Career Mobility, Industrial and Labor Relations Review.

Abstract: We explore how career paths are shaped by the involvement of search firms in hiring. Drawing on theories of market intermediation, we argue that search firms constrain horizontal moves across functions and industries by favoring workers from within the same function and industry as the role being filled. Using survey data on 1,342 job moves undertaken by 816 MBA alumni, we find that individuals who move jobs through a search firm experience lower horizontal mobility than those who move through other means. Our findings also suggest that these results are not driven by firms’ decisions to use a search firm to fill the job. In supplementary analyses, we find no evidence that the job matches that are formed using search firms result in a better fit between workers and employers. Overall, the findings point to the significant institutional role that search firms play in managerial careers.

Minseo Baek, Matthew Bidwell, JR Keller (2021), My Manager Moved! The Effects of Supervisor Mobility on Subordinate Career Outcomes, Organization Science, forthcoming ().

Abstract: How do managers’ moves across jobs affect the subordinates they leave behind? Manager mobility disrupts established manager-subordinate relationships, as subordinates must now learn to work with a replacement. We explore how this relational disruption affects subordinates’ objective career success – specifically their financial rewards and subsequent promotion chances. We argue that manager mobility may have both positive and negative implications for subordinate outcomes. The loss of an established relationship may reduce subordinates’ performance and managers’ propensity to reward them; on the other hand, relational disruption may make subordinates more willing and able to seek out valuable opportunities elsewhere in the organization. We also argue that these effects are likely to be greatest for those subordinates who had worked with the previous manager for longer. Using eight years of personnel data from the US offices of a Fortune 500 healthcare company, we show how managers’ mobility is associated with a decrease in subordinates’ financial rewards, but an increase in their promotion prospects.

Virginia Doellgast, Matthew Bidwell, Alexander Colvin (2020), New Directions in Employment Relations Theory: Understanding Fragmentation, Identity and Legitimacy, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, forthcoming ().

Abstract: This article introduces the special issue “Toward new theories in employment relations.” The authors summarize the history of employment relations theory and reflect on the implications for new theory development of recent disruptive changes in the economy and society. Three sets of changes are identified: the growing complexity of actors in the employment relationship, an increased emphasis on identity as a basis for organizing and extending labor protections, and the growing importance of norms and legitimacy as both a constraint on employer action and a mobilizing tool. The articles in this special issue advance new frameworks to analyze these changes and their implications for the future of employment relations.

Matthew Bidwell (2020), No Vacancies? Building Theory on How Organizations Move People Across Jobs, Advances in Strategic Management , 41 (), pp. 153-174.

Abstract: Mobility processes, the routines that organizations use to move employees into and across jobs, are a critical determinant of the way that human capital is allocated within organizations and careers developed. Most existing work on these mobility processes has examined processes in which mobility is tightly coupled to the filling of vacancies. There is substantial evidence, though, that many organizations adopt very different processes for managing mobility. In this theory paper, I compare vacancy-based, “job-pull” systems with alternative, “person-push” systems in which mobility is keyed to employees’ attainment of performance and skill thresholds to explain how and why mobility processes vary. I identify two, inter-related dimensions along which mobility processes vary: whether their decisions processes emphasize the need to match employees to tasks versus providing predictable rewards; and whether the system of jobs that people move between prioritizes flexibility or control of agency costs. I use these dimensions to predict when organizations will adopt different mobility processes, and how those processes will affect employees’ mobility.