This paper examines the effect of job rotation on employees’ career outcomes. I first develop a theoretical framework to explain how job rotation affects employees’ career outcomes, and then examine the effect of job rotation on employees’ upward and inter-functional career mobility with longitudinal data. Using a work history of 249 working human resource professionals, I found that participation in job rotational programs leads to high inter-functional mobility in the early career, which in turn, results in high internal functional mobility at a later career stage. I also found that participation in a job is positively associated with upward mobility within the organization via high inter-functional mobility within the organization. A pilot field study supplemented these findings by exploring underlying psychological mechanisms of job rotation. Job rotation was found to be positively related to employee perceptions of career plateau perceptions and general human capital accumulation.
