Many employees work in order to gain financial and social status for moving upward on the social ladder, but extant research provides limited insights regarding the interpersonal experience of how social class transition is perceived by others in the workplace. Drawing from the literature on inspiration, we suggest that coworkers will have a more positive impression of employees who have demonstrated an upward transition in life. We argue that perceived upward transition is positively related to observers’ inspiration, especially for the observers with a higher contextualism mindset. This will in turn predict observers’ knowledge solicitation and intention to promote employees who have moved upward. Our hypotheses were consistently supported using both lab (n = 268) and field (n = 285) data. Overall, this research illustrates how and why upward transition has an effect on observers. We discuss the implications and limitations and call for more research attention on interpersonal mechanisms related to upward transition in the workplace.
