Getting the most from MBA internships: Promoting intern learning and job acceptance

MBA internships are commonly used for training and recruiting management talent. Yet, research overlooks what makes them effective. A longitudinal study investigates the relationships that goal clarity, autonomy, and prior experience have with MBA intern learning and job acceptance intentions. Results show learning partially mediates the relationship of goal clarity to job acceptance intentions, and that less experienced MBA interns learn more under conditions of high goal clarity and low autonomy (i.e., when their roles are more structured). We discuss how role structures and learning can inform effective training and recruiting of interns, and management of short‐term workers in general. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Security in a sea of insecurity: job security and intention to stay among service sector employees in Turkey

This article examines the association between job security and intention to stay for those who are employed in Turkey. There is a high level of unemployment in the country and many workers there are concerned about their job security. Job security refers to the objective dimensions of continuous contract, working full-time hours and paid and unpaid overtime. Job security also refers to the subjective dimension of perceived job security. We surveyed 407 employees in banking and related sectors' call centres, five-star hotel front-line staff and airline cabin crews. Results show that objective dimensions of job security are not associated with intention to stay. However, perceived job security is significantly and positively associated with intention to stay. We recommend that human resource managers focus on the perceived job security aspect of employment to keep valuable employees with the company.     

Do I Really Want to Work Here? Testing a Model of Job Pursuit for MBA Interns

Job pursuit refers to the intentions, decisions, or behaviors indicative of a candidate's interest in a particular employer. This study develops and tests a process model of job pursuit for MBA interns with data collected before, during, and after their internships. Our model integrates theory from the person‐environment fit and organizational socialization literature. Results show pre‐entry person‐organization (P‐O) fit and social aspects tactics jointly motivate proactive information seeking about the employer (from those inside and outside the assigned department) during the internship, and interactively motivate information seeking outside the assigned department. Yet, only information seeking inside the assigned department is related to learning about the employer. Learning about the employer also predicts job‐acceptance intentions, which in turn predicts job‐acceptance decisions. The model developed in this study should serve as a guide to help human resource managers understand job pursuit and acceptance in internships and other similar employment relationships. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The cyclicality of effective wages within employer-employee matches in a rigid labor market

This study analyzes real wage cyclicality for male full-time workers within employer-employee matches in Germany over the period 1984-2004. Five different wage measures are compared: the standard hourly wage rate; hourly wage earnings including overtime and bonus pay; the effective wage, which takes into account unpaid overtime; and monthly earnings, with and without additional pay. None of the hourly wage measures exhibits cyclicality except for the group of salaried workers with unpaid overtime. Their effective wages show a strongly procyclical reaction to changes in unemployment. Despite acyclical wage rates, salaried workers without unpaid overtime experienced procyclical earnings movements if they had income from extra pay. Monthly earnings were also procyclical for hourly paid workers with overtime pay. These findings suggest that cyclical earnings movements are generated by variable pay components, such as bonuses and overtime pay, and by flexible working hours. The degree of earnings procyclicality revealed for the German labor market is comparable to the United States.     

An Examination of Behavioral Families of Organizational Withdrawal in Volunteer Workers and Paid Employees

The general behavioral families of job withdrawal and work withdrawal were examined in volunteer workers and paid employees working within the same organization. Volunteer workers exhibited lower levels of both job withdrawal and work withdrawal than paid employees, and only slightly higher levels of organizational commitment than paid employees. Hierarchical regression results indicated that although the same variables predicted job withdrawal and work withdrawal for both types of workers, different variables predicted each withdrawal construct. Implications for the study of volunteer workers and paid employees in organizations are discussed.     

Low Pay,Higher Pay and Job Satisfaction in Wales

Abstract

Using the first six waves of the Welsh boosts to the British Household Panel Survey this paper attempts to explain the determinants of overall job satisfaction and four facets of job satisfaction in Wales, distinguishing between female and male workers and low-paid and higher paid workers. The motivation of the paper is the claim made widely in the EU that low-paid jobs are jobs of inherently low quality, in which case we should expect that job satisfaction would be lower in low-paid jobs. Since there are proportionately more low-paid workers in Wales than in either England or Scotland we would also expect to find that job satisfaction would be lower in Wales than in the other two countries.     

Wage Differentials and Workers’ Effort: Experimental Evidence from Uganda

We organize a real-effort field experiment with varying piece rates to assess the impact of wages and social comparisons on productivity. In addition to analyzing how piece rates and social comparisons affect productivity during the ‘paid stage’ of the experiment, we also consider how they affect effort supply during a voluntary and unpaid follow-up task. Our main results are that effort supply is relatively unresponsive to variation in own earnings, but responds strongly to pay inequality. While we obtain weak support for the hypothesis that positive social comparisons invite extra effort during paid stages of the experiment, our most important finding is that social comparisons matter for voluntary tasks when shirking is cheap. Specifically, positive social comparisons positively affect productivity during unpaid tasks, and negative comparisons have the opposite impact.     

HR differentiation between professional and managerial employees: Broadening and integrating theoretical perspectives

Recent HR differentiation research has been concerned with HRM differences within job groups (such as between more and less talented managerial employees) and HRM differences between job groups of different strategic value (such as knowledge and manual workers). Less attention has been paid to HR differentiation among strategically valuable job groups. This paper reviews literature relevant to the question whether (and how) firms should differentiate their HRM systems between professional and managerial job groups. Four broad theoretical perspectives are adopted, including firm-level economic (“macro”), psychological (“micro”), institutional, and technical-feasibility perspectives. Psychological, institutional, and technical-feasibility perspectives are argued to favor a two-pronged approach, whereby professional HRM systems are nested within firm-level managerial HRM systems (while being subject to influence by field-level institutions). The economic (resource-based) perspective, by contrast, implies HR homogenization across the two job groups. Integrating the four perspectives, the paper points to potential longer-term negative effects of trends toward HR homogenization on professional skill standards and dedication to higher-order professional goals.     

基于网络的实习生关怀系统的设计

职业学校传统的实习生管理模式虽然引入了现代化的管理手段,但基本上是管理人员追着学生的被动管理状态,管理效果差,管理过程难以形成连续性的记录。基于以上原因,职业学校采用传统模式加网络化的实习生主动注册系统将有效改善管理效果。基于网络的实习生关怀系统,通过学生定期注册、系统自动记录分析、管理人员及时跟踪反馈的管理流程,做到将所有实习生的实习动态记录在案,对实习生所遇到的问题及时发现并解决,提高管理水平。     

The impact of minimum wages on wages,work and poverty in Nicaragua

In this paper we use an individual- and household-level panel data set to study the impact of changes in legal minimum wages on a host of labor market outcomes including: a) wages and employment, b) transitions of workers across jobs (in the covered and uncovered sectors) and employment status (unemployment and out of the labor force), and c) transitions into and out of poverty. We find that changes in the legal minimum wage affect only those workers whose initial wage (before the change in minimum wages) is close to the minimum. For example, increases in the legal minimum wage lead to significant increases in the wages and decreases in employment of private covered sector workers who have wages within 20% of the minimum wage before the change, but have no significant impact on wages in other parts of the distribution. The estimates from the employment transition equations suggest that the decrease in covered private sector employment is due to a combination of layoffs and reductions in hiring. Most workers who lose their jobs in the covered private sector as a result of higher legal minimum wages leave the labor force or go into unpaid family work; a smaller proportion find work in the public sector. We find no evidence that these workers become unemployed.Our analysis of the relationship between the minimum wage and household income finds: a) increases in legal minimum wages increase the probability that a poor worker's family will move out of poverty, and b) increases in legal minimum wages are more likely to reduce the incidence of poverty and improve the transition from poor to non-poor if they impact the head of the household rather than the non-head; this is because the head of the household is less likely than a non-head to lose his/her covered sector employment due to a minimum wage increase and because those heads that do lose covered sector employment are more likely to go to another paying job than are non-heads (who are more likely to go into unpaid family work or leave the labor force).     

Women's and Men's Contributions to Satisfying Consumers' Needs: A Combined Time Use and Input–Output Analysis

The traditional input–output table (IOT) identifies the intermediate flows between industries, the branches' contributions to satisfy final demand and the primary inputs needed for production. While industries play a key role in the field of input–output analysis, the structure of employees remains more or less unconsidered. The present study aims to combine particular information regarding employees' working time with traditional instruments of input–output analysis. In so doing, employees (and the corresponding paid working hours) are separated by industries, educational achievements and gender. This, in turn, allows for the identification of women's and men's contributions to satisfying different categories of final demand. In total, men's paid working hours significantly exceed women's labour input. However, societies rely likewise on paid and unpaid work. Therefore, the study finally accounts for the field of unpaid work, which – in Germany – is still dominated by women.     

The Role of Participative Leadership and Trust‐Based Mechanisms in Eliciting Intern Performance: Evidence from China

In this article, we investigate the relationship between participative leadership and job performance within the internship setting. Based on two‐waves of survey data obtained from 309 intern‐supervisor dyads, we find that participative leadership has a positive relationship with job performance, and that affective trust mediates that relationship. We also find that although cognitive trust is not significantly related to intern job performance, it mediates the relationship between participative leadership and affective trust. Our findings contradict those of previous research which question the effectiveness of participative leadership in short‐term employment situations such as internships. They also highlight the importance of designing internships to be reflective of typical performance situations, characterized by participative leadership practices, rather than more directive leadership practices. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The duality of algorithmic management: Toward a research agenda on HRM algorithms,autonomy and value creation

This study proposes the ‘duality of algorithmic management’ as a conceptual lens to unravel the complex relationship between human resource management (HRM) algorithms, job autonomy and the value to workers who are subject to algorithmic management. Against tendencies to present algorithmic management as having predetermined, undesired consequences (e.g. restriction of job autonomy, poor financial compensation and deteriorating working conditions), our ‘duality of algorithmic management’ perspective offers two amendments to the dominant thinking on HRM algorithms and their outcomes to workers. First, we showcase how algorithmic management simultaneously restrains and enables autonomy and value to workers – with the latter referring to both use (i.e. non-monetary benefits) and exchange value (i.e. monetary benefits) that workers derive from working (under algorithmic management). In doing so, we make the case that the desired consequences of HRM algorithms to workers co-exist alongside the undesired consequences that the literature has mostly reported on. Second, we argue that algorithmic management is shaped by, as much as it shaping, the autonomy and value to workers. We do so by highlighting the ‘recursivity’ of algorithmic management that occurs when software designers and/or self-learning algorithms reinforce or limit worker acts for (re)gaining job autonomy and/or creating value out of HRM algorithms. We conclude this paper with the presentation of avenues for future research into the duality of algorithmic management, which sets the stage for a future line of inquiry into the complex interrelationships among HRM algorithms, job autonomy and value.     

Temporary contracts and employee effort

Temporary contracts provide employers with a tool to screen potential new employees and have been shown to provide “stepping stones” into permanent employment for workers. For both reasons, workers on temporary contracts have an incentive to provide more effort than permanent employees. Using indicators for unpaid overtime work and absences taken from the Swiss Labor Force Survey (SLFS), we present evidence that temporary workers indeed provide higher effort than permanent employees: Their probability of working unpaid overtime exceeds that of permanently employed workers by 60%. We show the heterogeneity of this effect across different types of temporary contracts, investigate differences between men and women, and discuss the relevance of endogenous selection into temporary employment.     

The differential effects of job design on knowledge workers and manual workers: A quasi‐experimental field study in China

When Taylorism was discarded long ago, job enrichment emerged as a good alternative. Recent research, however, has pointed out the ineffectiveness of job enrichment. This study suggests that both approaches could be effective and looks at job nature as the moderator that can affect how the two approaches are applied. The authors' longitudinal quasi‐experimental field study in China found a significant interaction between worker type (knowledge workers [KWs] versus manual workers [MWs]) and job characteristics on employee outcomes. After enrichment, KWs experienced higher satisfaction and task performance, whereas for MWs, satisfaction and performance declined. This pattern of results suggests that both job enrichment and Taylorism are applicable depending on the job nature. In addition to contributing to job design theory, the present study also explored the unique attributes of KWs and provides practical suggestions as to how human resource managers can better motivate KWs. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Performance pay, risk attitudes and job satisfaction

We present a model in which workers with greater ability and greater risk tolerance move into performance pay jobs to capture rents and contrast it with the classic agency model. Estimates from the German Socio-Economic Panel confirm testable implications drawn from our model. First, before controlling for earnings, workers in performance pay jobs have higher job satisfaction, a proxy for on-the-job utility. Second, after controlling for earnings, workers in jobs with performance pay have the same job satisfaction as those not in such jobs. Third, those workers in performance pay jobs who have greater risk tolerance routinely report greater job satisfaction. While these findings support models in which workers capture rent, they would not be suggested by the classic agency model.     

Fits,misfits and interactions: learning at work,job satisfaction and job‐related well‐being

The resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm has focused attention on the importance of aligning employees' needs with the requirements of the jobs they do. This article focuses on how these needs and requirements interact in terms of learning. It does so in two ways. First, it develops new survey instruments to capture the learning demands of jobs and the learning dispositions of workers and uses them for the first time in a survey of 2,810 employees. Second, it examines how these person and job characteristics correlate with specific aspects of job satisfaction and job‐related well‐being. The results show that although learning alignment is associated with high levels of satisfaction and well‐being, not all learning misalignments are associated with the reverse.     

Matching,human capital,and the covariance structure of earnings

This paper tests the theory of job matching and the theory of human capital by examining the covariance structure of residuals from a typical Mincer log earnings equation using methods of moments techniques. Job matching theory predicts that we should observe an eventual decrease in the contribution of the job-match component in the residual variance as workers acquire tenure on the job. This prediction is mildly supported by the data. On the other hand, human capital theory predicts a trade-off between job-specific intercept and slope parameters. This prediction, which is not shared by the theory of matching, is strongly supported by the data. This is especially true for men with at least a high school degree.     

Returning to the workforce after retiring: a job demands,job control,social support perspective on job satisfaction

Despite growing interest in the aging of the workforce, few investigations have explored a key aspect of diversity among older workers: whether or not they consider themselves retired. Using a sample of workers ages 50 and older from the National Study of the Changing Workforce (2008), we apply career development theory and the job demand–control(–support) framework to investigate potential differences between working retirees (i.e. employed older adults 50+ who consider themselves retired) and working non-retirees (i.e. employed older adults 50+ who do not consider themselves retired) in terms of their job characteristics (i.e. demands, control, support) and how these job characteristics are related to job satisfaction. We find that working retirees report lower job demands and higher social support, and that there is limited evidence for the buffering hypothesis. Implications for researchers and employers are discussed.