9 Percent of Executives Surveyed Admit They Showed Favoritism in Their Last Promotion Decision
Favoritism continues to play a role in corporate promotions, according to a survey of more than 300 senior business executives.
Eighty-four percent of the executives said favoritism takes place at their own organizations, the Wall Street Journal reports. Twenty-three percent admitted they had engaged in favoritism themselves, and 9 percent said it was a factor in their most recent promotion decision.
The study was conducted by research firm Penn Schoen Berland and commissioned by one of its executives, Jonathan Gardner, as part of his studies at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, according to a press release. The survey was based on online interviews with 303 business executives at U.S. companies with more than 1,000 employees.
Often, managers know whom they want to promote in advance of their decision, according to the survey. Fifty-six percent said they knew which employee they wanted to promote before evaluating a group of candidates, and 96 percent went on to promote that person.
Survey respondents were asked how they defined favoritism. Eighty-three percent agreed that it included preferential treatment based on factors not directly related to job performance.
