Work role transitions are among the most significant yet least understood forms of social change, and how they affect individuals' careers, self-concepts and organizational adjustment is of great practical and theoretical importance. This book provides the first comprehensive, large-scale study of the causes, form and outcomes of job change. Focussing on one of the most influential segments of society - middle to senior managers - the book offers a new theoretical approach to the analysis and understanding of job change. The authors ask how much job change is taking place, assess who is most affected, and evaluate the psychological consequences for the individual manager. They discuss organizations' handling of job transitions, and provide a unique focus on women in management, evaluating how their experience of careers and job change differs from men's. This book presents important new findings to specialists in life-span development, careers, managerial performance and organizational behaviour. It also offers the non-specialist insights into wider questions, such as the relationship between social change and organizational life, and the individual's experience of changes in industrial society's structures, practices and values.