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Using the psychological contract literature as a framework, we examined upwardly mobile managers' reactions to lengthening job tenure brought about by slower organizational growth and greater competition among peers. We hypothesized that managers tend to view lengthening job tenure as a violation of the relational employment contract held with their corporate employers and, therefore, experience decreased organizational commitment, and an increased probability of turnover. We also examined three variables expected to exacerbate or to offset these relationships: manager's past career success, their current level of job responsibility, and the candidness of the career feedback they received from the organization. The sample consisted of 109 general managers working in Fortune 500 companies. Results showed that lengthening job tenure decreased managers' affective commitment and increased the likelihood of turnover during a three year follow-up period for managers who had previously experienced greater success in the organization and for those whose jobs included higher levels of responsibility. Contrary to hypotheses, candid career feedback did not offset the negative effects of lengthening job tenure on the dependent variables. Conceptual and practical implications are discussed.

In this introductory article for the Special Issue on Innovation At and Across Multiple Levels of Analysis, we review major streams of extant research on innovation to establish a clear role for multilevel theory and research within this domain. We then examine and illustrate two fundamental and complementary approaches for investigating multilevel linkages—bottom-up emergent processes and top-down processes. In a brief commentary on each paper in the special issue, we overview the conceptual questions addressed by the research, identify the particular model of multilevel effects that serves as its foundation, and suggest how the use of multilevel models provides insights that help us better understand how innovation phenomena at one level of analysis are linked to those at another, thus providing a richer and more complete perspective on innovation. We conclude by identifying major methodological and applied contributions of the special issue and suggesting future research directions for the study of innovation at and across multiple levels of analysis.

Career experts have long advocated the use of special assignment programs for spurring the career progress of talented individuals. While these programs have existed for many years in the private sector, within the past two decades they have also emerged in the public domain as well. Although special assignment programs generally receive enthusiastic endorsement from the organizations that employ them, there have been few empirical attempts to examine their effects. This article examines participants' reactions to a special assignment program that had operated in the executive branch of the federal government for twenty years. A survey was sent to all 275 individuals who had participated in the special assignment program during any point in its twenty year existence. A total of 131 participants (48%) completed the survey. Results indicated that participants generally react favorably to their experiences and suggested ways to further increase the favorability of such reactions. The article suggests that program administrators, applicants, and sponsoring agencies be aware of the factors that contribute to the success of special assignment programs.

Research has shown that employees' affective and normative commitment to change (ACC and NCC, respectively) positively influence their behaviors supporting change; however, organizations are frequently unsuccessful in motivating appropriate levels of employee commitment to change. Using longitudinal, multilevel data collected from a large federal government agency implementing radical organizational change, we extend extant research related to antecedents of commitment to change by examining how employees' hierarchical distance (the number of reporting levels between an employee and the top management team) and the transformational leadership of their direct (immediate) manager both relate to their ACC and NCC. We also shed light on important mechanisms that explain these two relationships by examining the mediating role of employees' perceived effectiveness of top management's change-related communications (TMCs), including the top-down and bottom-up components of TMC. Taking advantage of a longitudinal field design, we tested these antecedents of commitment to change at Time 1 and the longitudinal effects of the Time 1 predictors on commitment to change 12 months later (Time 2). At Time 1, findings supported both the predicted direct and mediated effects. Hierarchical distance and perceived TMC remained significant predictors of ACC and NCC over a one-year follow-up period; however, direct managers' transformational leadership behaviors did not. The study extends previous findings related to antecedents of employee commitment to change and also shows the interplay between different levels of leadership in shaping employee affective and normative commitment to radical organizational change.