Gravity's pull: The identity-related motives and outcomes of hiring stars

Strategic human capital scholarship, alongside a wealth of evidence from the popular press, suggests that star employees can influence an organization's socially constructed identity. However, an overarching conceptual framework that explains these shifts has yet to emerge. In this paper, we draw upon Hatch and Schultz's (2002) theory of identity change to discuss how organizational identity-change related motives – defined as decision makers' interest in spurring changes to socially constructed, internal perceptions of their organization's central and distinctive features – act in concert with considerations of value creation and capture to influence the hiring of different identity-aspirant stars (i.e., stars that embody a desired future organizational identity). Given that stars represent catalysts for identity change that have agency and become part of the social fabric of an organization, we then explain how the mechanisms by which stars' attempts to gain or retain status – coupled with organization members' willingness to emulate their behaviors – can affect internal-oriented organizational identity change. This paper advances consideration of social-psychological factors alongside economic views of stars and offers implications for the literatures on strategic human capital and organizational identity.     

Exploring the link between organizational values and human resource certification

We contribute to the discussion of human resource (HR) certification by identifying organizational values as a key antecedent to (1) an organization's use of HR certification and (2) whether organizational members choose to pursue HR certification. Building on research which has looked at the influence of organizational values on the behavior and attitudes of the organization and its employees, we propose that key organizational values will influence the extent to which an organization and its members value HR certification. Specifically, we explore the relationship between the organizational values of innovation, people orientation, and stability and the extent to which an organization uses HR certification for selection purposes. In addition, we propose that these key organizational values will also influence whether the organization's members pursue HR certification. Exploring the link between key organizational values and HR certification is critical to our understanding of an organization's HR practices and the behavior of its employees. By taking a more organization focused perspective, we highlight the top-down effects of organizational values on the value of HR certification and call for additional research on the antecedents of the value of HR certification.     

Subcultures and sustainability practices: the impact on understanding corporate sustainability

In this paper we present findings of how employees from a single organization understand corporate sustainability. Responses from 255 survey participants indicate (1) that differences exist in how employees understand corporate sustainability and (2) that these differences can be partially explained by the presence of organizational subcultures and by differences in employee awareness of the organization's sustainability practices. In particular, findings reveal that employees from a subculture with a stronger emphasis on hierarchical and bureaucratic values emphasize an economic understanding of corporate sustainability. Implications for research and practice are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Toward an organizational understanding of the transformation needed for sustainable supply chain management: The concepts of force-field and differential efforts

This paper facilitates an in-depth view of the transformation needed for the transition from traditional to sustainable supply chain management (SSCM)—by delineating its elemental aspects. Taking an organizational unit of analysis perspective, this conceptual review seeks to characterize the fundamental nature of complexities inherent in the transformation, and thereby seeks to explicate the elemental nature of organizational efforts responsible for shaping sustainable supply chains. The findings outline intriguing mechanisms for explaining the complex and endless nature of the transformation for organizations. This discourse also involves the proposition of two novel concepts applied in this context: the SSCM Force-field and Differential Efforts in SSCM. While the former represents the intricate interplay between organizational efforts and organizational complexities in absorbing SSCM practices in the supply chain routines of an organization, the latter reflects the value of additional efforts above and beyond what is required in existing supply chain routines, to facilitate the integration of a desired SSCM practice into routines. The findings show how the force-field impedes an organization's progress in SSCM and how differential effort allows an organization to overcome the force-field to extend theoretical frameworks and offering valuable guidance for practicing managers. Overall, the research strengthens the conceptual foundation of SSCM theory by explicating the under-explored aspects involved in an organization's progressive journey toward SSCM. Further, it is a first attempt to outline the organizational implications of the SSCM journey.     

Fostering green product innovation through green entrepreneurial orientation: The roles of employee green creativity,green role identity,and organizational transactive memory system

Developing new green products is critical to an organization's achievement of sustainable goals as well as competitive advantage. This study aims to unravel the mechanisms through which organizations with green entrepreneurial orientation (green EO) can foster green product innovation. The dataset for testing these mechanisms was garnered from employees and managers who worked in manufacturing firms based in an Asia-Pacific market. Through a multilevel analysis of the data, the study revealed the positive nexus between organizational green EO and green product innovation. The results of the study further lent credence to employee green creativity as a mediation path for such a relationship. Furthermore, employee green role identity and organizational transactive memory system were found to fortify the linkage between green EO and employee green creativity. These results suggest to organizations how to optimally translate their green entrepreneurial strategy into new green products that met customer preferences and societal expectations.     

Leadership behaviors and human agency in the valley of despair: A meta-framework for organizational change implementation

For organizational leaders, implementing change in a workplace means influencing employees to do something new or behave differently. For employees, implementing a change at work requires detaching from familiar routines and social systems, learning and practicing the change, and imagining a future in which the change is valued by the organization. As they apply their agency to implement change, employees may experience loss, uncertainty, and frustration that manifests as despair, which can jeopardize the change process and its outcomes. We assemble a meta-theoretical framework using human agency theory, the Valley of Despair model of organizational change, and Full-Range Leadership Theory to explore ways that leaders' behaviors relate to employees' agentic orientations and behaviors during the implementation phase of the organizational change process. Taking both organizational change leaders' and employees' perspectives into account, the theory derived from our meta-framework argues that leaders' behaviors can shape employees' agency and their behaviors during the implementation stage of change in two important ways: 1) certain leader behaviors are likely to prime agentic orientations that facilitate changing, and 2) certain leader behaviors may help to mitigate employees' despair, enabling the firm to derive value from employees' change implementation behaviors.     

Improving the Sustainable Development of Firms: The Role of Employees

Stakeholders have been found to be an important driver of organizations' sustainable development. In particular, customers, governments and non‐governmental organizations push firms towards sustainability. But to what extent is sustainability really and deeply embedded within an organization's structures and processes? And what is the role of an important, but frequently neglected, stakeholder group for successful sustainability implementation: employees? The objective of this research is to better understand the impact that organizational change for sustainability has on firm performance. Also, this study seeks to understand how the consideration of employees into the process of organizational change for sustainability moderates the organizational change and performance relationship. Using data from 92 German companies from the manufacturing and services sector, the study finds that the structural implementation of sustainability is positively related to firm performance and that employee integration moderates this relationship to some extent. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Stubborn traditionalism in HRM: Causes and consequences

We examine the widely-held view that “stubborn traditionalism” exists in HR, meaning that while the HR profession has progressed, its progress remains slow, and may not be sufficient to maintain effectiveness and relevance. The data on which the present study is based also showed little change in HR activities, skill satisfaction, strategic role and other features of HR over two decades (Lawler & Boudreau, 2012). This article examines two questions using cross-sectional analysis of our most recent survey of HR leaders. First we find that slow progress matters, because progress on HR functional features is related to important outcomes, including HR's role in strategy, effectiveness as a function, and organizational performance. Second, we explore one explanation for HR's stubborn traditionalism, in the organization's management approach. Our results suggest that the organization's management approach may indeed partially explain a lack of HR progress. The more organizations pursue a bureaucratic and low-cost-operator approach to management, the less their HR organization engages in advanced strategic activities, is satisfied with its HR skills, plays a strong strategic role, implements an HR decision science, and adds value to the organization. In contrast, the more organizations pursue high-involvement and sustainable approaches to management, the greater are these HR features.     

Perceived human resource system strength and employee reactions toward change: Revisiting human resource's remit as change agent

Although scholars have highlighted human resource's (HR's) important role as a change agent, we know little about the extent to which HR influences the change context to foster positive employee responses and support organizational changes. This study positions perceived HR system strength as an important internal context factor that influences employees' reactions toward change. Drawing on emotion theory and social exchange theory, we analyze the mechanisms through which employees' perceptions of HR system strength lead to positive employee responses to organizational change. Data from 704 employees in a UK police force showed that employees' perceptions of HR system strength were positively related to their ability to cope with organizational change and that this relationship was simultaneously mediated by state positive affect and perceived organizational support. Moreover, our findings demonstrated that coping with organizational change was positively related to employees' change‐supportive behavior. This study is important because it broadens the remit of HR's role as change agent and provides valuable insight into how HR positively influences employee outcomes during organizational change.     

Empowering leadership: leading people to be present through affective organizational commitment?*

Abstract

This study tested a mediation model in which empowering leadership was negatively related to three withdrawal behaviors: lateness, absenteeism, and turnover intention, with affective organizational commitment as a mediator. With 294 full‐time US employees, results from structural equation modeling indicated that empowering leader behaviors at one time were positively related to estimates of affective organizational commitment at a second time, which in turn was negatively related to absenteeism and turnover intention at a final time. Additionally, no significant direct effect was found between empowering leadership and withdrawal behaviors, further supporting the mediation model. However, neither empowering leadership nor affective commitment influenced followers' lateness. Empowering leadership, which provides employees with autonomy and developmental support, may have a favorable effect on employees' decisions to attend and stay in the organization, as well as their affective reaction to the organization in the form of psychological commitment. This study extended prior research models by examining a full range of withdrawal behaviors in relation to empowering leadership and showed that commitment may explain why empowering leader behaviors can affect employees' retention decisions.     

Fostering strategic agility: How individual executives and human resource practices contribute

Strategic agility, as an observable organization performance outcome, results from the behaviors and skills of the organization's managers in taking and implementing strategic actions. So, the key to strategic agility is not just analytical strategy from superior minds or thoughtful and effective organizational design but the set of management practices, behaviors, skills, values and beliefs that animate the senior management of an organization in making and implementing strategic commitments. In particular, earlier research suggests that three vectors of forces enable strategic agility: strategic sensitivity, resource fluidity and collective commitment. Taking these as a basis, we identify specific individual behaviors, and analyze and review how skills, and practices driving these behaviors, and their supporting HR practices affect the strength of each vector, and of the forces that provide energy in fostering strategic agility. This provides a profile of skills and capabilities individuals need in order to best contribute to the strategic agility of their organization and of HR practices to put in place.     

How to turn workplace boredom into something positive. A theoretical framework of the ‘bright sides’ of boredom

The management literature describes workplace boredom and related behaviors mostly as counterproductive. However, within the psychological literature, boredom is studied as a functional emotion, stressing a positive aspect in this unpleasant state. This article introduces this positive approach toward boredom to the management literature. Specifically, we provide a comprehensive theoretical model and testable propositions regarding how to foster the positive effects of employees' boredom in the workplace. Based on Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory, we argue that boredom is the result of job demands. However, in combination with the right job resources, boredom can actually lead to productive coping behaviors (i.e., task-unrelated thought, changing task engagement, and other task engagement). We identify three traditional and three boredom-specific job resources presenting managerial measures that facilitate positive outcomes of boredom. These job resources are located at the level of tasks, work organization, interpersonal and social relations, as well as the organizational level.     

The Interactive Effects of Psychological Contract Breach and Organizational Politics on Perceived Organizational Support: Evidence from Two Longitudinal Studies

We explore the effects of the social context on the relationship between psychological contract breach (PCB) and perceived organizational support (POS) in two studies. We build on the premise that psychological contract breach (i.e. the organization's failure to fulfil the obligations employees believe they are owed) signals to employees that they are not cared for and valued by the organization (i.e. reduces POS). In support, a longitudinal study of 310 employees shows that PCB at Time 1 explains significant variance in POS at Time 2 (beyond that explained by POS at Time 1). Building on this result, we advance the argument that employees' perceptions of organizational politics serve as a heuristic for the overall benevolent or malevolent character of the organization and its agents. Accordingly, we expect that when employees perceive PCB and high levels of organizational politics, they will be more likely to hold the organization responsible for PCB and thus report lower levels of POS in response to breach. This line of reasoning received support in a second study of 146 employees which showed that perceptions of organizational politics moderate the PCB–POS relationship. Our results suggest that the social context in which psychological contract breaches occur matters and that managers should consider the organization's perceived political landscape when anticipating how employees will respond to broken promises.     

Discretionary and transactional human resource practices and employee outcomes: The role of perceived organizational support

Utilizing perceived organizational support (POS) as the mechanism linking HR practices to employee behaviors in the workplace, we examine a broad set of HR practices in order to understand the relative importance of each HR practice (i.e., those that explain incremental variance over other practices) in influencing employee behaviors. We differentiate between discretionary and transactional HR practices to test the discretionary investment requisite of POS theory. The results show that of the eight discretionary practices, only participation and decision making directly influenced the extra‐role behaviors that employees exhibit, and only training and development directly impacted the customer‐oriented behaviors. Furthermore, one of the transactional HR practices was found to have a direct effect on organizational citizenship behavior. Our findings indicate that the performance management process, promotional opportunities, participation, and involvement in decision making affect how employees behave toward the customer and the extra‐role behaviors they exhibit. Furthermore, this occurs through the view employees develop of the organization as a place to work. That is, these four HR practices demonstrate to employees that they are valued, and, in turn, this feeling of being appreciated impacts their commitment to delivering high‐quality service to the customer and going beyond their job responsibilities. Implications for research and practice are discussed. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How mass layoffs are related to lower job performance and OCB among surviving employees in Chile: an investigation of the essential role of psychological contract

This study aimed to investigate how mass layoffs impact surviving employees in organizations. More specifically, this study ascertained the relationships between mass layoffs and employee work behaviors. It was theorized that mass layoffs will be negatively related to employee performance and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) through its relationships with job insecurity and psychological contract breach. Moreover, it was expected that perceived manager support would buffer against the negative relations of contract breach with employee performance and OCB. A study among 615 employees in multiple Chilean organizations showed support for the hypotheses: job insecurity and psychological contract breach mediated the relationships between mass layoffs and employee performance and OCB. We also found moderating relationships of manager support, but the relations of breach with performance and OCB were particularly negative when manager support was high, indicating feelings of betrayal among high-support employees in response to contract breach. Moreover, the relation of contract breach with performance was positive for low-support employees, and non-significant for high-support employees. Our study advances understanding of the processes underlying how mass layoffs influence employee behavior in the workplace, through introducing the psychological contract as a way of understanding the relationships.     

The role of assessment centers in job satisfaction and organizational commitment: a case of the Korean government

While many studies have shown how assessment centers affect employees’ career success or job performance, these studies do not demonstrate how employees’ attitudes are affected by their perception of assessment centers. This study aims to investigate the influence of employees’ perception of assessment centers on their job satisfaction and organizational commitment, which are the key elements in predicting working behaviors, such as job performance, job involvement, and turnover intentions. To analyze the nature of the influence, 306 employees who had been evaluated by an assessment center in the Korean Rural Development Administration (KRDA) were surveyed. Regression analysis revealed that although there is no influence on their organizational commitment, employees with a positive perception of assessment centers experience higher levels of job satisfaction (p < .01). These results suggest that the positive perception of assessment centers affects the general feeling of organizational members about their work even though it does not affect their emotional attachment to the organization or dedication to organizational values. Thus, assessment centers can be used as a tool not only to select capable candidates but also to yield positive effects on organizational members’ job attitudes.     

Shared values make a difference: An empirical test of corporate culture

Is the recent popular management literature on corporate culture and cultural values just a passing fad or is it highlighting some fundamental organizational realities? The results from a recent nationwide survey of American managers shows, we are convinced, that clearly articulated organizational values do make a significant difference in the lives of employees, as well as in their organization's performance. This article is an effort to integrate this broad-based data on individual managers' values with the reported experience of successful organizations that pay careful attention to their culture. It also offers ideas on how human resource managers can facilitate the alignment of personal and organizational values.     

Does the engaged public's evaluation of networking practices matter? The effects of polarized attitudes and the reputation of networking on individuals' word-of-mouth behaviors

The study examines the influence of individuals' attitudes and the perceived organization's ability to network with its stakeholders on their positive and negative word-of-mouth (WOM) behaviors. The study also examines how these relationships differ between the general and engaged public, taking the organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) as a case study. The results show that individuals' attitudes toward PETA predict positive and negative WOM behaviors regardless of their previous engagement in PETA. Yet the influence of the perceived reputation of PETA's networking with other stakeholders on positive or negative WOM behaviors displayed different patterns between the general and the engaged public. For the engaged public, the idea that PETA has a good relationship with its members is considered more important than outreach to nonsupporters. In addition, how individuals perceive characteristics of stakeholders or their influence on organizations influences the relationship between the perceived reputation of networking and the engaged public's negative WOM behaviors.     

Career success after stigmatizing organizational events

This article examines the effect of six types of stigmatizing organizational events on employees' career moves to another employer: criticism of the organization in the media; resignation of key individuals from the organization; downsizing; a drop in net income; lawsuits launched by the Securities and Exchange Commission, competitors, or customers; and lawsuits launched by employees. Stigmatizing events that signal the decline of corporate performance are the most devastating for professional career success. Outsiders, on the other hand, are less sensitive to an organization's involvement in lawsuits launched by public authorities or employees. Stigmatizing events affect the career success of every professional in the organization, irrespective of his or her hierarchical level. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Modeling the Impact of Advertisement‐Image Congruity on Applicant Attraction

This study examines the effects of the perceived congruity of recruitment advertisements and organizational image on organizational attractiveness. Based on Mandler's schema congruity theory (1982) and on recruitment research, we developed hypotheses and tested them on a sample of 1,091 individuals. The results show that recruitment advertisements that conform to the organization's image show a higher degree of attractiveness to applicants, particularly because these advertisements have higher resulting credibility than advertisements with low congruity. Furthermore, applicants’ level of familiarity with the organization moderates the relationship between congruity and organizational attractiveness, as congruent recruitment advertisements lead to more positive effects for well‐known organizations. This suggests that highly recognizable organizations should use congruent advertisements to unleash the full potential of their recruitment efforts. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.