The Philosophers' Cocoon

In the comments section of our newest "how can we help you?" post, Amanda writes:

It might be a good idea to have a post about moving jobs. Suppose one is a junior professor and wants to move jobs (the situation I know of is someone who wants to move for a spouse.) Does it make sense to do this before tenure or after? And what difference does it make in each of the following situations:

1. at a teaching school trying to move to another teaching school.
2. at a research school trying to move to another research school.
3.at a teaching school trying to move to a research school.
4..at a research school trying to move to a teaching school.

The situation I know of is actually 4. This person is not sure they can move "up", and thinks chances of getting the right location at a teaching school is better.

I think this is a great query, as I have the pretty clear sense that a lot of people are looking to move 'laterally' from one tenure-stream job to another. In fact, I've also encountered a surprising number of cases of people willing to move down in rank (e.g. from tenured Associate to tenure-track Assistant) for various reasons (e.g. better location, moving from a teaching program to an R1, etc.). My sense here comes from several sources, including just talking to people (where I've heard a lot of people say they have 'feelers' out on the market pretty much every year to see if they can move).

So, then, what are the answers to Amanda's questions? 

Personally, I don't have much of a clear sense about whether it makes more sense to try to move jobs before or after tenure. I have heard from at least one source that departments, deans, and other administrators may be resistant to hiring people willing to move down in rank (from tenured Associate to tenure-track Assistant). Why? Because, or so I was told, the person being hired may be unhappy in their lower-rank and then potentially put pressure on people to move back up in rank prematurely after being hired – in other words, making for difficult dynamics that hiring institutions may want to avoid. However, I have no idea how representative this person's testimony is, nor do I have any clear idea how hard it is to move laterally after tenure (i.e. from one tenured job into another tenured job with the same rank).

So, for those of you who have been involved in this sort of thing, how would you answer Amanda's first question: if someone wants to move, does it make more sense try before tenure or after? Also, does the answer depend on which of Amanda's four scenarios is at issue?:

1. at teaching school trying to move to another teaching school?
2. at a research school trying to move to another research school?
3. at a teaching school trying to move to a research school?
4. at a research school trying to move to a teaching school?

It would be really great to hear some answers to these questions from people "in the know"!