Going for the gold: The effect of competitive socialization on managerial attainment

This chapter proposes and tests a novel relationship between early participation in competitive activities, “competition socialization,” and the attainment of a managerial position in adulthood. Building on extensive qualitative research, I argue that an early emphasis on “winning” becomes internalized as a desire for the extrinsic rewards that in some ways characterize managerial positions.

I test this hypothesis on survey data collected from professionals (N = 334) employed in a probability sample of U.S. advertising agencies, using binomial logistic regression.

For individuals under forty, competition socialization increases the likelihood of working in a managerial position. However, this effect does not hold for older professionals, for whom graduate education is a better predictor of managerial attainment.

To my knowledge, this is the first chapter to test of the effect of youth participation in organized activities on adulthood outcomes. By drawing attention to the influence of competitive socialization on managerial attainment, I highlight the need to incorporate informal socialization into our models of occupational attainment.