Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to draw on the employment situation of postdoctoral researchers (postdocs) in the Netherlands, concerning their career prospects and embeddedness within their organisation, in order to discuss theoretical perspectives on academic careers....

This chapter focuses on what the key decision makers in organizations decide after having received information on the current state of the organizational performance. Because of strong attributions to success and failure, it is impossible to predict in advance which concrete actions will occur....