The gender diversity–performance relationship in services and manufacturing organizations

Empirical findings on the link between gender diversity and performance have been inconsistent. This paper presents three competing predictions of the organizational gender diversity–performance relationship: a positive linear prediction derived from the resource-based view of the firm, a negative linear prediction derived from self-categorization and social identity theories, and an inverted U-shaped curvilinear prediction derived from the integration of the resource-based view of the firm with self-categorization and social identity theories. This paper also proposes a moderating effect of industry type (services vs. manufacturing) on the gender diversity–performance relationship. The predictions were tested in publicly listed Australian organizations using archival quantitative data with a longitudinal research design. The results show partial support for the positive linear and inverted U-shaped curvilinear predictions as well as for the proposed moderating effect of industry type. The curvilinear relationship indicates that different proportions of organizational gender diversity have different effects on organizational performance, which may be attributed to different dynamics as suggested by the resource-based view and self-categorization and social identity theories. The results help reconcile the inconsistent findings of past research that focused on the linear gender diversity–performance relationship. The findings also show that industry context can strengthen or weaken the effects of organizational gender diversity on performance.     

The impact of diversity and equality management on firm performance: Beyond high performance work systems

This article demonstrates that a diversity and equality management system (DEMS) contributes to firm performance beyond the effects of a traditional high‐performance work system (HPWS), which consists of bundles of work practices and policies used extensively in high‐performing firms. A DEMS typically includes diversity training and monitoring recruitment, pay, and promotion across minority or other disadvantaged groups. Our analysis of quantitative data from service and manufacturing organizations in Ireland confirms that HPWS practices are associated with positive business performance and finds specifically that DEMS practices are positively associated with higher labor productivity and workforce innovation and lower voluntary employee turnover. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Organizational work–family support as universal remedy? A cross-cultural comparison of China,India and the USA

In both industrialized and emerging countries, organizations increasingly seek to support employees’ efforts to maintain a healthy work–family balance. Research has identified two types of organizational support in this context: formal work–family programs and informal work–family cultures. This study examines the relative effects of work–family programs versus work–family culture on employees’ job satisfaction and performance in various cultural environments. Drawing on the individualism–collectivism cultural dimension introduced by Hofstede, it is argued that employees’ cultural background may affect family models, which in turn determine employees’ need for formal organizational work–family support, but are not related to employees’ need for informal support. In line with this notion, the results from comparisons of an industrialized country (the USA) with two emerging countries (China and India) show that work–family culture has positive effects in all three contexts. However, formal work–family programs positively affect job satisfaction and job performance only in India and the USA, whereas they exhibit no significant effect in the more collectivist setting of China.     

Retaining a diverse workforce: the impact of gender‐focused human resource management

Demography theory suggests that high gender diversity leads to high turnover. As turnover is costly, we tested the following: a main effect prediction derived from demography theory, and a moderating effect prediction derived from the relational framework. Data on 198 publicly listed organisations were collected through a human resources decision‐maker survey and archival databases. The results indicate that higher gender diversity leads to lower turnover in organisations with many gender‐focused policies and practices. Findings suggest that organisations can lower their turnover rates by increasing their gender diversity and by implementing gender‐focused policies and practices.     

Workforce diversity and firm performance: Relational coordination as a mediator and structural empowerment and multisource feedback as moderators

Workforce composition in organizations has become increasingly diverse. As an important step in determining how workforce diversity leads to firm performance, we proposed relational coordination as a mediator through which diversity in age and education indirectly affects firm performance. We also highlighted two human resource management practices (structural empowerment and multisource feedback) as critical contingencies that moderate the effects of workforce diversity on relational coordination and firm performance. We conducted hierarchical multiple regression on multisource data (including responses from senior directors, department directors, managers, and employees, as well as financial performance) from 189 Korean firms in the manufacturing sector, which yielded support for our hypotheses. These findings offer novel theoretical and practical insights into the effective management of workforce diversity.     

Board gender diversity and corporate environmental performance: The moderating role of family and dual‐class majority ownership structures

While prior work has investigated the impact of (a) ownership structure and (b) board gender diversity separately on corporate environmental performance, researchers have not studied the potentially important relationship between ownership control and female board diversity in influencing corporate environmental performance jointly. We do so in the context of majority ownership in family‐controlled and dual‐class firms whose motives and influence are theoretically different from that of the firm's minority shareholders. Drawing on resource dependency, socioemotional wealth theory, and secondary agency theory, we hypothesize that majority family owners and dual‐class owners likely choose women directors to help advance their personal preferences for environmental corporate social responsibility. Our empirical tests utilizing 2,755 U.S. firm years over the 2010–2015 show that, as hypothesized, these two majority ownership types interact with board gender diversity to positively influence corporate environmental performance.     

The Business Case for Gender Diversity: Examining the Role of Human Resource Management Investments

Integrating opposing theoretical perspectives from the past literature, the authors hypothesize and test a U‐shaped curvilinear relationship between gender diversity and workforce productivity. They further propose that the curvilinear effects vary depending on the levels of an organization's human resource management (HRM) investments in pay, benefit, training, and communication; that is, the patterns are more salient when HRM investments are high rather than low. To enhance understanding of how HRM investments have impact on diverse employees, the authors also examine the moderating influence of organizational identification of diverse members that can exert proximal influence on the diversity‐productivity relationship. As predicted, results reveal that high levels of HRM investments influence the gender diversity–workforce productivity association to form a U‐shaped curvilinear relationship. Organizational identification also yields the same moderating patterns. Research and practical implications are discussed. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Inclusion climate: A multilevel investigation of its antecedents and consequences

This study investigates the antecedents and consequences of organization‐level inclusion climate. A national sample of human resource decision‐makers from 100 organizations described their firms' formal diversity management programs; 3,229 employees reported their perceptions of, and reactions to, their employers' diversity management. Multilevel analyses demonstrate that identity‐conscious programs (programs that target specific identity groups) generate an inclusion climate. Moreover, the analyses provide evidence of multilevel mediation: In organizations with an inclusion climate, individual employees perceive the organization as fulfilling its diversity management obligations and respond with higher levels of affective commitment. This study represents an important step toward understanding how a shared perception of organizational inclusiveness develops and how inclusion climate facilitates the achievement of diversity management objectives. The findings also shed light on the important role of identity‐conscious programs in promoting organizational commitment within a diverse workforce.     

Unravelling the HRM–Performance Link: Value‐Creating and Cost‐Increasing Effects of Small Business HRM*

abstract The majority of empirical studies on the HRM–performance link report a positive story. The costs associated with the productivity rise due to high performance work practices (HPWP) have been largely neglected. The purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual framework that maps both the value‐enhancing and cost‐raising impact of HPWP. In addition, we want to pronounce upon their overall effect on financial performance. To test our model, we rely on a sample of small businesses. Understanding both performance and cost‐related effects of the implementation of HPWP is particularly valuable for small businesses since they often lack financial resources to implement HPWP and benefit less from economies of scale compared to their larger counterparts. Study results indicate that although greater use of HPWP is associated with increased productivity, this effect is offset by increased labour costs. However, we find an overall positive effect of HPWP on firm profitability.     

Organizational diversity programs across cultures: effects on absenteeism,turnover, performance and innovation

This study examined data from over 5000 organizations in 22 countries to address three complementary issues: (1) the influence of national culture on the adoption of diversity programs aimed at recruiting, training and promoting individuals from specific target groups; (2) the moderating effect of national cultural practices on the relationship between these diversity programs and the organizational outcomes of absenteeism and turnover; and (3) the mediating effect of absenteeism and turnover on the relationship between diversity programs and organizational performance and innovation. National cultural values and practices were taken from the GLOBE study and assigned respectively to the organizations in our sample. A multilevel path analysis supported the hypothesized effects of national cultural values on organizational diversity programs. Moreover, cultural practices were found to moderate the relationship between diversity programs and absenteeism and turnover. Our hypotheses on the role of absenteeism and turnover as mediators of the relationship between diversity programs and organizational performance and innovation were also supported. Our findings may help guide managers' decisions on the adoption of diversity programs in units operating in different national cultures. We discuss the implications of our findings for scholars and practitioners concerned with diversity management issues in a global context.     

The Effects of Incentive Mechanism on Knowledge Management Performance in China: The Moderating Role of Knowledge Attributes

Knowledge management of a new product development project team is critical for a firm's competitive advantage, and incentive mechanism is one of the most effective knowledge management drives. In this paper, we examined the effects of non‐financial incentive and team‐based financial incentive on knowledge management performance in China and identified the moderating effects of knowledge attributes (codifiability and teachability). Our findings indicate that non‐financial incentive and team‐based financial incentive have positive effects on knowledge management performance. Codifiability and teachability enhance the team‐based financial incentive–knowledge management performance relationship. Finally, implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Searching for a balance: work–family practices,work–team design,and organizational performance

The crucial impact of work–family issues on employee's well-being has been recognized and responded with a variety of research in field of organizational behavior. However, few studies examine the impact of how work–family practices affect productivity at firm-level. Following the research stream of strategic human resource management, we proposed that work–family may form the norm of reciprocity, which is a more sophisticated and more critical, internal social-structure component to enable organizational performance. We also examine the contingent effect, work–team structure – on the extent to which the work–family practices are appreciated by employees – and then create complementarities. We conduct a longitudinal study and utilize a data set of 204 Taiwanese public-traded firms to test our hypotheses. The results show that, contrary to our prediction, utilizing work–family practices does not have a significant positive impact on organizational productivity. However, the most important finding of this study is that there are synergies between work–family practices and work–team design on organizational productivity. Work–team design is an important situation in which the returns of work–family practices can be enhanced.     

The Influence of Ownership Structure on Risk Management: Evidence from New Zealand State Owned Enterprises

This paper examines how recent theories on risk management apply to government owned organizations. We argue that, compared to publicly listed firms, government owned organizations have a lower need for risk management since stakeholders are likely to rely on implicit guarantees arising from government ownership. We test this proposition empirically and find that government owned organizations make less use of financial derivatives to reduce the costs of financial distress and agency conflicts. In general our findings provide strong support for the modern theories of risk management.     

A multilevel examination of skills‐oriented human resource management and perceived skill utilization during recession: Implications for the well‐being of all workers

This article examines whether organizations can enhance employee well‐being by adopting human resource management (HRM) practices strategically targeted to improve skill development and deployment in a recessionary context. Employee skill utilization is proposed as the mediating mechanism between HRM practice and well‐being. The role of workplace skill composition is also examined as a boundary condition within which HRM differentially impacts employee outcomes. Using a nationally representative survey of UK workplaces (Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2011) and matched management and employee data, the analysis focused on organizations that had implemented some recessionary action following the 2008–2009 global financial and economic crisis. The findings show that human capital enhancing HRM and enriched job design positively influenced both job satisfaction and work‐related affective well‐being through increased employee skill utilization. Organizations with predominantly high‐skilled workforces were more likely to adopt these skills‐oriented HRM practices. Nevertheless, the effects of HRM on employee outcomes via skill utilization applied across organizations, regardless of workforce skill composition. The findings demonstrate employee skill utilization as a driver of HRM outcomes and the sustainability of “best practice” HRM arguments across all skill levels, even in the face of recession.     

The role of leadership in successful international mergers and acquisitions: Why Renault‐Nissan succeeded and DaimlerChrysler‐Mitsubishi failed

This article compares and contrasts the Renault‐Nissan and DaimlerChrysler‐Mitsubishi mergers to consider the relative and combined effects of national and organizational culture on the performance of Nissan and Mitsubishi. It also examines the reasons why the Renault‐Nissan merger was successful and the DaimlerChrysler‐Mitsubishi merger failed. It finds that Japanese national culture influenced organizational culture and HRM practices, which created organizations that had no sense of urgency, profit orientation, or accountability and led to poor market and financial performance. It also finds that leadership was a major factor impacting on the success of the turnaround efforts of these two organizations. These findings have implications for leaders and human resource management practitioners engaged in international business and are of particular relevance to Western organizations working with organizations in high‐context countries with a collectivist rather than individualist orientation. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Employee share ownership,training, and early promotion policy as a bundle in enhancing labor productivity: A test of the three‐way interaction effect

The three‐way interaction effect of (broad‐based) employee share ownership (ESO), training, and early promotion policy on labor productivity was examined in a longitudinal sample of 614 organizations (1,605 organization‐year data points) in Korea. The ESO–productivity relationship was positive only when the investment in training was high and the opportunity for early promotion was present. However, we found no evidence for the two‐way interaction effects of ESO and training and ESO and early promotion policy on labor productivity. The results are in alignment with the emergent view that the productivity benefits of ESO can be better realized when ESO coexists with a bundle of complementary human resource management (HRM) practices. Thus, this study meaningfully extends the contingency perspective and related studies in the ESO literature, which tend to examine the productivity effect of ESO in isolation or in conjunction with a single HRM practice.     

The interactive effects of leader–member exchange,gender and spouse's gender role orientation on work interference with family conflict

Based on social support and gender role theories, we examined the direct and interactive effects of leader–member exchange, gender and spouse's gender role orientation on work–family conflict. Survey data were collected from matched dyads from 185 dual-earner couples in Sri Lanka. The results show that leader–member exchange is negatively related to work interference with family. There is also support for crossover effects among couples such that individuals with spouses who have a traditional gender role orientation experience greater work interference with family conflict. Finally, there is a three-way interaction such that a spouse's gender role orientation moderates the relationship between leader–member exchange and work interference with family conflict differently for men and women.     

A meta‐analysis of the non‐monetary effects of employee health management programs

This study was undertaken to review the literature on employee health management programs (EHMPs). We explored the history and characteristics of systematic organizational efforts to improve workforce health and well‐being. We believe that a historical perspective provides some insight into the economic, political, and social factors that have influenced the trend toward organizationally sanctioned health‐promotion efforts. Further, we investigated the likely effects of these programs on valued‐behavioral organizational outcomes such as employee performance, employee satisfaction, absenteeism, and voluntary turnover. Our findings show that voluntary general‐focus programs are unrelated to job performance, and voluntary programs are negatively related to absenteeism, but effects on absenteeism wane when the program is not voluntary. Moreover, EHMPs are minimally related to job satisfaction and slightly related to turnover. These results, examining behavioral outcomes of EHMPs, question the ability of EHMPs to provide desired behavioral changes in employees, changes that organizations seek to maximize such as increased performance. Are EHMPs more than just socially acceptable programs that help individuals with health problems? © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Do external diversity practices boost focal firm performance? The case of supplier diversity

Based on the resource-based view, we propose that external diversity practices such as supplier diversity may affect firm performance. We find that the relationship between supplier diversity and short-term performance (i.e. productivity) is moderated by context such that firms in declining industries experience positive productivity effects while firms in munificent industries witness negative effects. For longer-term profitability (i.e. Tobin's q), we do not find support for a positive relationship between supplier diversity and long-term performance. However, positive supplier diversity effects emerge in munificent environments. Overall, in support of the strategic human resource management approach, we conclude that the effect of external supplier diversity on firm performance is contingent upon environmental munificence, which documented the necessity to include supplier diversity as a relevant component of a comprehensive diversity and equality management system.     

Lean management as a countermeasure for “Normal” disruptions

The academic and practitioner literature offer numerous examples of firms that have achieved significant performance improvement as a result of implementing lean management. Lean firms consistently apply well-defined tools and the relationship between implementation of these tools and improved performance is well-established in the literature. Many lean practices, such as standardized work and visual cues, reduce variability, increase productivity, and make problems more visible which can create a culture where disruptions occur less often. Although there is evidence that lean implementation leads to reduced disruptions, a question that remains unresolved is why these lean management tools lead to fewer disruptions and whether conditions such as the level of complexity and inventory in the system predict the successful application of these lean practices. Because many of the firms that adopt lean management can be characterized as complex work systems, we draw insights from literature on complex organizations operating in environments that are inherently perilous. Two constructs that are addressed in this literature are fundamental to the concept of lean management – interactive complexity and tight coupling or organizational slack. We argue that theory that applies to complex organizations provides a lens for viewing how lean management firms avoid disruptions and conclude that the theoretical basis for lean management lies in understanding how to overcome the complexity inherent in these systems to achieve disruption-free performance.