Effective HR implementation: the impact of supervisor support for policy use on employee perceptions and attitudes

Abstract

Effective implementation of human resource (HR) policies appears to depend on supervisors’ active involvement in the intervention process. Following recommendations of a recent intervention evaluation framework, we examine how perceived supervisor support during the implementation of a work-life intervention helps to change participants’ perceptions of organizational family supportiveness, and how this ultimately changes participants’ engagement and turnover intentions. A three-wave longitudinal study in a professional services firm (N = 434) that has formally involved supervisors in the process of a work-life intervention showed support for our study hypotheses. Supervisor support for policy use influenced employees’ positive work–home culture perceptions, which in turn strengthened employees’ work engagement and diminished their turnover intentions over time. We discuss practical implications and give recommendations on the future design of HR interventions and related policies.     

Talent management and organisational justice: employee reactions to high potential identification

We examined how perceived distributive and procedural justice affected the relationship between an employee's identification as a high potential (drawn from archival data), job satisfaction and work effort. A questionnaire was distributed within one large company among employees who were and employees who were not identified as a high potential (n = 203). The results indicated that perceptions of distributive justice were significantly higher for employees identified as a high potential. Moreover, perceived distributive justice fully mediated the relationship between an employee's identification and his or her level of job satisfaction. The results also revealed that perceptions of procedural justice moderated the relationship between perceived distributive justice and work effort. Theoretical and practical consequences of these findings are discussed.     

Testing the impact of predefined and self-defined end anchors on the linearity of the category rating scale

In this research the impact of two types of end anchors on the linearity of the category rating scale is studied. Two functional measurement experiments were carried out, each requiring a different kind of judgement, i.e., job satisfaction ratings and attractiveness ratings. One group of participants rated the stimuli using a category rating scale with fixed anchors, while another group was presented with a self-anchoring category rating scale. The results indicate that researchers can be confident in the ability of both category rating scales to provide linear data. This implies that the different end anchors do not impact on the linearity of the category rating scale.     

The role of perceived organizational justice in shaping the outcomes of talent management: A research agenda

Talent management is in need of a theoretical foundation and empirical research at the level of the individual. To address these gaps, the current paper relies on the literature on workforce differentiation and provides a research agenda by introducing perceived organizational justice as a key mediator between talent management practices and differential employee reactions. We discuss employees' varying reactions to talent management on one hand and their underlying perceptions of organizational justice, on the other hand. In particular, we propose that, amongst others, an employee's high potential status serves as an antecedent for different distributive justice perceptions, while procedural interventions and relationship building can provide organizational latitude in shaping employee reactions to talent management. Research methods, challenges, and practical implications are discussed.     

How Sensitive is FDI to Differences in Corporate Income Taxation within the EU?

Differences between corporate taxation of EU member states drive a wedge between after-tax and pre-tax productivity. This implies that productivity could be increased by reallocating capital from low-tax to high-tax member states. Moreover, the integration of the EU capital market may trigger tax competition among member states. The responsiveness of investors to taxation is crucial for the importance of both the misallocation of capital and the extent of tax competition. In this paper we measure this responsiveness by examining the relation between FDI positions and effective corporate income tax rates. Our estimates show that investors from one EU member state increase their FDI position in another EU member state by approximately four percent if the latter decreases its effective corporate income tax rate by one percentage point relative to the European mean.     

Combining quality and quantity. A psychometric evaluation of the self-anchoring scale

In this study a psychometric comparison is made between a category rating scale with fixed anchors and a self-anchoring category rating scale where respondents themselves define the end anchors by referring to their personal experiences with the construct being measured. A student-satisfaction questionnaire was administered to 301 undergraduate students on two test moments separated by a 1-month period. Both types of category rating scales were crossed with both test moments according to a 2 ×  2 mixed factorial design. Our results show that respondents perceive the construct being measured in the same way with both rating scales. A comparison concerning different indicators of reliability, i.e. test–retest reliability, internal consistency and the error variances associated with each item, also failed to find a difference between both rating scales. In a last analysis it is demonstrated that using a self-anchoring rating scale or a rating scale with fixed anchors has a small but significant effect on the ratings of the respondents. In conclusion, a self anchoring scale may be the scale of choice if additional qualitative information from the anchors is warranted, but when quantitative comparisons between groups are required, rating scales with fixed anchors are preferable thanks to their ease of use.     

Is Belgium ready for EMU? A look at national, sectoral and regional developments

In EMU the question arises how countries will respond to adverse economic shocks. A statistical decomposition of output shocks in Belgium identifies the sectoral level as the main source of turbulence. This sectoral focus reduces the need for monetary, exchange rate and budgetary policies as macro-economic adjustment mechanisms but raises the issue of labour market flexibility. We show that wages fail to respond to sectoral and regional shocks. Similarly to the other EU countries, this absence of wage adjustments tends to amplify the regional divergence in production and employment performance, and can thus threaten political cohesion.     

Value Chain Envy: Explaining New Entry and Vertical Integration in Popular Music*

abstract The concepts of value creation, value capture, and value protection are employed to explain new entry and vertical integration. It is posited that if, at one stage of the value system, the share of value captured is disproportionally higher than the share of value created, value chain envy will ensue. This value chain envy will result in new entry and vertical integration towards that desirable stage provided that the means of value protection available to the incumbents can be overcome. Within the popular music industries, the value created at the stage of music publishing has diminished steadily over the course of the 20th century, but the value captured has remained high. This has triggered value chain envy both inside and outside of the value system. The data presented in this paper show high levels of vertical integration into that stage originating primarily from the stages upstream in the value system, while the level of new entry has been comparatively low. At the same time, the data indicate that the recent introduction of new information communication technologies (ICT) have not significantly affected the levels of new entry and vertical integration into music publishing.     

Towards unveiling individual differences in different stages of information processing: a clustering-based approach

Information Integration Theory (IIT) is a theory of judgment in daily life. Its principal aim is to study the cognitive rules that people use to integrate information when they make a judgment. Traditionally, the identification of individual differences in these qualitatively different integration rules requires individual designs. It also requires the grouping of individuals according to their integration rule, which can be a challenging task, particularly when the data are noisy or when the pattern involves many factors. This paper builds on the cluster analysis tradition for developing a series of clustering procedures that can be implemented for studying, not only individual differences in integration rules, but also individual differences in other stages of information processing. These procedures are intended to simplify the identification of differences in (a) the subjective valuation of information, (b) the integration of the subjective values, and (c) general attitudes before judging.     

In Search of the Harried Leisure Class in Contemporary Society: Time-Use Surveys and Patterns of Leisure Time Consumption

In trying to understand the contemporary work-leisure paradoxes, we go in search for today’s harried leisure class and its equanimous counterpart. We apply the relative new method of optimal matching on the continuous time-use data of the pooled Flemish time-use survey of 1999 and 2004, in order to identify different time-use patterns based on one’s leisure time consumption. We then analyse these time-use patterns by combining a multiple classification analysis with socio-demographic measures and (leisure) time-use characteristics, which allows us to identify today’s harried leisure class on the one hand the opposite “equanimous leisure class” on the other hand. It turns out that the members of today’s harried leisure class combine a great amount of cultural and material resources with the experience of time pressure and voracious and volatile leisure time consumption, whereas the members of the equanimous leisure class mainly consume their leisure time in front of the TV. Typifying these groups based on their consumption characteristics provides useful evidence for the integration of time use in the research field of consumer policy.