Career orientations of software developers in a sample of high tech companies

The career orientations of software developers in 11 high technology companies of different sizes were studied. It was found that the proportion wanting a managerial career was higher than might be expected (34%) and increased with organisational size. Approximately 25% wanted advancement in a technical career, and this remained the same in organisations of different sizes. The same proportion wanted to start up their own company, but this decreased substantially with organisational size. The group wanting a project-based career was the smallest, at 15%, and this varied slightly with organisational size. The four groups showed differences in their ideal job characteristics, organisational versus technical orientation and expected tenure. The extent to which they actually expected to satisfy their career preference varied dramatically, with the great majority of managerially-oriented expecting to actually be managers, but the majority wanting to start their own company not expecting to actually do so. The small high technology company has become an important, almost mythical, component of popular and academic folklore. As Beyer says, the “prevailing wisdom from both lay people and researchers who have been around them says that these firms are somehow different” (Beyer, 1985, p. 483). Within such organisations, the software developer or computer hack has similarly developed a particular aura. As one commentator puts it, “the stereotyped image of the community of programmers is … of a collection of single-minded nerds possessing no interest in life outside the digital realm” (Sandberg-Diment, 1986, p.C3). In spite of the interest in both the nature of such companies and such employees, there has been very little empirical data collected (Turbin and Rosse, 1988, p.17) to substantiate the folklore. In particular there has been an almost complete absence of rigorous academic enquiry into what the individuals choosing to work in this type of company are really like, or what their work needs actually are. The present paper is aimed at filling some of this gap, by addressing the issue of what type of career path software developers in high tech companies want.     

War for talents—How perceived organizational innovativeness affects employer attractiveness

Recruiting high potentials is the foundation for creating knowledge, innovation and competitive advantages. Unfortunately, many companies face the problem of having a hard time recruiting high potentials in a tightening labor market. To secure future innovation, growth and competitiveness companies must be attractive for potential employees. Within this respect, past research suggests that innovative companies might be at an advantage as they appear more attractive to employees in general and to those with an innovative personality in specific. Hence, HR communication might use an organization's innovativeness within employer branding to attract high potentials. However, current literature falls short to provide empirical evidence on whether and how the communication of organizational innovativeness affects employer attractiveness and especially attracts innovative employees. The results of our scenario-based experiment (n = 322) show that organizations with an innovative product portfolio and a strong innovation culture appear more attractive to potential employees. These effects turned out to be even stronger for employees which are highly innovative as they care a great deal about the organizational innovativeness of the company they work for. Thus, our findings suggest that communicating organizational innovativeness within employer branding is an effective measure not only to improve employer perceptions in general, but also to attract innovative employees.     

Impact of funding sources on innovation: evidence from Brazilian software companies

This paper aims to investigate the impacts of different sources of innovation funding on company performances in the context of an emerging economy. Brazilian software companies are selected as a case for this investigation. Data – related to the types of funding support received and eight types of company performances measured in binary scales – was collected through an online survey from 188 companies located across Brazil. A multivariate probit model was estimated to assess the impacts of different funding schemes on company performances – controlling for other confounding effects. The findings confirmed the critical importance of public innovation funding, and revealed that companies that: (1) Used public funds were more likely to become nationally competitive; (2) Used loans from commercial banks were less likely to become nationally and internationally competitive; (3) Reinvested revenues were more likely to gain market share, and help in increasing the number of employees; (4) Not aware of public funding schemes were less likely to invest on research, development, and innovation. The overall findings suggest the positive impacts of innovation funds on company performance. They can serve as a policy guide to develop targeted performance strategy to determine which funding scheme would be effective to foster what outcomes.     

Mergers,acquisitions, and the pruning of managerial deadwood

This research investigates the role that mergers and acquisitions may play in the disciplining of entrenched and inefficient managers. The relationship between a company's performance history and its subsequent top management turnover is assessed for a sample of target companies, their parents, and a control group of companies not involved in merger and acquisition activity. The results reveal that target company top management turnover is higher than ‘normal’ in the 2 years immediately following a merger or acquisition, but there is no relationship between previous target company performance and its subsequent top management turnover. Further analyses indicate that first-year target company turnover rates are associated with a history of relatively poor parent company performance, while second-year turnover rates are associated with a history of relatively good parent company performance.     

The dark side of office designs: towards de‐humanization

Recent research on flexible office designs have shown that open‐plan and/or flex offices may not have the expected effects in terms of employees’ productivity, well‐being, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and retention. In this article, we propose to consider that the feeling of de‐humanization may explain such dark side of office designs. Adopting a mixed methods approach, we administrated a quantitative survey to 534 employees working in a variety of office designs, and conducted 12 semi‐structured interviews among the respondents to the survey in order to investigate how they experienced their office designs, notably in terms of de‐humanization. Results showed that the three specific office designs under study (i.e. cell, open‐plan, and flex offices) are associated with different levels of de‐humanization and that this feeling of de‐humanization mediates their impact on employees’ job satisfaction, affective organizational commitment, extra‐role performance, psychological strains, and turnover intentions. Interviews’ analysis reveals three main mechanisms in the development of the feeling of de‐humanization in such office designs: a triple feeling of dispossession (of space, voice and professional mastery), a feeling of abandon and an injunction to adopt a modern behaviour.     

The Spirituality of Innovation: Learning from Stories

Sooner or later, most established companies face a mid-life crisis. Just like many people, these companies somehow lose the drive, the excitement, and the enthusiasm of their youth. Rather than continue to push the envelope, these companies focus on their core competencies and try to maintain order through a proliferation of policies and procedures. On the other hand, some companies (and some people) manage to sustain their innovative, entrepreneurial spirit. A handful of mature companies somehow maintain an environment in which employees continually generate added value for customers and the company alike. How do they do it? How do these mature companies continue to foster invention and innovation? Recognizing that stagnation and decline are not faits accomplis for all companies, Karen Anne Zien and a cross-functional team conducted in-depth interviews at several highly innovative firms. The interviewees provided insight into the culture, the characteristics, and the principles that set these companies apart from the competition. Perhaps the greatest insight comes from the stories these people tell. These war stories—the corporate myths and legends—provide a simple means for communicating and reinforcing the shared values that distinguish these companies. For example, a manager's recollection of Hewlett-Packard's effort to develop a pen plotter (and in particular, Bill Hewlett's role in this development) demonstrates that innovation is a companywide activity that requires the active, ongoing involvement of leaders at the highest levels of the organization. Senior people in these innovative companies foster a sense of community and common purpose and thus create an environment that encourages employees to explore new ideas and, if necessary, break the old rules. Through both formal and informal means, these companies also encourage frequent interaction between technical and marketing people. Corporate leaders energize these mature, but still innovative, companies, by providing context and communicating a dynamic vision. Storytelling offers a particularly evocative medium for articulating this vision. Rather than bore newcomers with hoary tales of the good old days, however, the most effective leaders continually reshape these stories to offer fresh insights, uncover new challenges, and reinforce the notion that every employee can and should contribute their full potential.     

Unveiling the role of risk-taking in innovation: antecedents and effects

This study addresses innovation development with a focus on risk-taking, widely considered a relevant driver for the exploration and exploitation of new ideas. The study empirically examines the effects of risk-taking propensity on innovation performance and its antecedents. We consider the role of several key antecedents related to the organizational structure and the activities of firms aimed at encouraging employees to take risks in innovation. We performed an empirical survey within a global and innovation-oriented Swedish company to test our hypotheses. Correlation and linear regression analyses were used to analyze the collected data. The results highlight the significant effect of risk-taking on innovation performance and show that the availability of organizational resources, innovation support activities, clear innovation goals, and collaboration have a significant positive effect on risk-taking. However, contrary to the hypothesis, well-established innovation processes have a significant but negative effect on risk-taking and innovation performance. This study contributes to existing knowledge on the role of risk-taking for innovation, providing insights into designing organizational contexts that encourage an appropriate risk appetite in employees.     

Red,blue, and purple firms: Organizational political ideology and corporate social responsibility

Research summary : Why do firms vary so much in their stances toward corporate social responsibility (CSR )? Prior research has emphasized the role of external pressures, as well as CEO preferences, while little attention has been paid to the possibility that CSR may also stem from prevailing beliefs among the body politic of the firm. We introduce the concept of organizational political ideology to explain how political beliefs of organizational members shape corporate advances in CSR . Using a novel measure based on the political contributions by employees of Fortune 500 firms, we find that ideology predicts advances in CSR . This effect appears stronger when CSR is rare in the firm's industry, when firms are high in human capital intensity, and when the CEO has had long organizational tenure . Managerial summary : Why do firms vary in their stances toward corporate social responsibility (CSR )? Prior research suggests that companies engage in CSR when under pressure to do so, or when their CEOs have liberal values. We introduce the concept of organizational political ideology, and argue that CSR may also result from the values of the larger employee population. Introducing a novel measure of organizational political ideology, based on employees' donations to the two major political parties in the United States, we find that liberal‐leaning companies engage in more CSR than conservative‐leaning companies, and even more so when other firms in the industry have weaker CSR records, when the company relies heavily on human resources and when the company's CEO has a long organizational tenure . Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Incentive Redesign and Collaboration in Organizations: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Research summary : Separating the individual from the social effects of incentives has been challenging because of the possibility of synergies in team production. We observe a unique natural experiment in a South Korean e‐commerce company in which a switch from pay‐for‐performance to fixed (but different) salaries took place in a staggered and effectively random manner across employees. In this case, social and individual effects perspectives make opposing predictions, enabling a critical test. We find evidence consistent with social effects of incentives, particularly as predicted by goal framing theory. The results have implications for the design of incentives to foster collaboration, organizational learning, and organizational performance. Managerial summary : Managers often neglect the deeper hypothesis behind pay‐for‐performance schemes—that people primarily care about how much they are individually paid. An opposing school of thought contends that incentives have social effects too—that individuals care about not only what they receive but also what their peers receive. It is difficult to say whether individual or social effects would be more salient in a context, without a proper experiment with randomization. We exploit a rare opportunity provided by a company that changed its incentive system in a random order, thus unintentionally creating a natural experiment. The results strongly validate the existence of social effects of incentives, but also make the general case for the opportunity to learn from experimenting with organization design in a systematic manner. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do Broad‐based Employee Ownership,Profit Sharing and Stock Options Help the Best Firms Do Even Better?

This article analyses the linkages among group incentive methods of compensation (broad‐based employee ownership, profit sharing and stock options), labour practices, worker assessments of workplace culture, turnover and firm performance in firms that applied to the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For in America’ competition from 2005 to 2007. Although employers with good labour practices self‐select into the 100 Best Companies firms sample, which should bias the analysis against finding strong associations among modes of compensation, labour policies and outcomes, we find that employees in the firms that use group incentive pay more extensively participate more in decisions, have greater information sharing, trust supervisors more and report a more positive workplace culture than in other companies. The combination of group incentive pay with policies that empower employees and create a positive workplace culture reduces voluntary turnover and increases employee intent to stay and raises return on equity.     

Insiders maintain voice: A psychological safety model of organizational politics

We present a psychological safety model of organizational politics to account for the effects that exposure to organizational politics has on voice behavior. In particular, we hypothesize that psychological safety mediates the negative relation between organizational politics, as perceived by employees, and their voice behavior. Moreover, we examine the extent to which perceived insider status alleviates the main effect of organizational politics and the indirect effect of psychological safety. Using a sample of 283 supervisor–subordinate dyads in six electronic companies at two time points in China, our results fully support the hypotheses and provide new directions for politics and voice research.     

What happened with the grandiose plans? Strategic plans and network realities in B2B interaction

Research concerned with business relationships and organizational levels, respectively, has addressed companies' difficulties in realizing their strategies. Studies of business relationships explain this through actions and reactions among business partners. Organizational studies note gaps between strategic and operational organizational levels in perceptions and goals. This paper combines these perspectives to obtain new insights into why company strategies may not materialize. The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss how actor bonds on various organizational levels in business relationships affect strategy realization. The paper shows that actors on similar organizational levels representing different companies may actually share more understandings and activities than actors within the same company. The paper contributes to research on dyadic business relationships by highlighting differences in perspectives on various organizational levels, adds insights into research studying organizations by including a business-relationship aspect, and increases understanding of why strategic plans sometimes fail to succeed.     

Antecedents and Outcomes of Employees' Trust in Chinese Joint Ventures

In this study we investigate the antecedents and outcomes of employees' trust in their supervisors and organizations in Chinese joint ventures. We develop a model that links trust, job security, and subordinate-supervisor guanxi. The model considers job security as an antecedent of trust in the organization and subordinate-supervisor guanxi as an antecedent of trust in supervisors. It further suggests that the turnover intention of employees is affected by their trust in their organization, and that their organizational citizenship behavior is affected by their trust in their supervisors. We use a data set consisting of 295 employees collected in four joint ventures in Southern China to test the hypotheses. The results of our LISREL and OLS regression analyses support the proposed model. Job security and subordinate-supervisor guanxi are found to affect employees' trust. In addition, trust in the organization has a stronger effect on turnover intention than does trust in one's supervisor. Trust in supervisors significantly affects the organizational citizenship behavior of employees. These findings have practical implications for the management of workers in Chinese joint ventures.     

Business partnering—a driving force for innovation

Win-Win situations are used and also created by companies which cooperate with each other, complement each other on a synergy basis and work together fairly and competently. Today, business partnering has therefore become a key qualification for companies. This should not depend alone on the commitment of individual persons.This article describes how Siemens has organized its company, services and products using partnering solutions and how it has installed this concept as an intrinsically dynamic process. Thanks to institutionalized partnering, B2B interfaces have been established to form a rational alliance, offering benefits to all involved, and can be used regardless of the size of the company. These offerings generate Win-Win situations themselves—and provide individual employees in large companies with a structural framework for a personal partnering initiative.     

Is Disability Disabling in All Workplaces? Workplace Disparities and Corporate Culture

Using nearly 30,000 employee surveys from fourteen companies, we find disability is linked to lower average pay, job security, training, and participation in decisions, and to more negative attitudes toward the job and company. Disability gaps in attitudes vary substantially, however, across companies and worksites, with no attitude gaps in worksites rated highly by all employees for fairness and responsiveness. The results indicate that corporate cultures that are responsive to the needs of all employees are especially beneficial for employees with disabilities.     

Transformational Leadership and Organizational Innovation: The Roles of Internal and External Support for Innovation*

Leadership has been suggested to be an important factor affecting innovation. A number of studies have shown that transformational leadership positively influences organizational innovation. However, there is a lack of studies examining the contextual conditions under which this effect occurs or is augmented. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the impact of transformational leadership on organizational innovation and to determine whether internal and external support for innovation as contextual conditions influence this effect. Organizational innovation was conceptualized as the tendency of the organization to develop new or improved products or services and its success in bringing those products or services to the market. Transformational leadership was hypothesized to have a positive influence on organizational innovation. Furthermore, this effect was proposed to be moderated by internal support for innovation, which refers to an innovation supporting climate and adequate resources allocated to innovation. Support received from external organizations for the purposes of knowledge and resource acquisition was also proposed to moderate the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation. To test these hypotheses, data were collected from 163 research and development (R&D) employees and managers of 43 micro‐ and small‐sized Turkish entrepreneurial software development companies. Two separate questionnaires were used to collect the data. Employees' questionnaires included measures of transformational leadership and internal support for innovation, whereas managers' questionnaires included questions about product innovations of their companies and the degree of support they received from external institutions. Organizational innovation was measured with a market‐oriented criterion developed specifically for developing countries and newly developing industries. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypothesized effects. The results of the analysis provided support for the positive influence of transformational leadership on organizational innovation. This finding is significant because this positive effect was identified in micro‐ and small‐sized companies, whereas previous research focused mainly on large companies. In addition, external support for innovation was found to significantly moderate this effect. Specifically, the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational innovation was stronger when external support was at high levels than when there was no external support. This study is the first to investigate and empirically show the importance of this contextual condition for organizational innovation. The moderating effect of internal support for innovation, however, was not significant. This study shows that transformational leadership is an important determinant of organizational innovation and encourages managers to engage in transformational leadership behaviors to promote organizational innovation. In line with this, transformational leadership, which is heavily suggested to be a subject of management training and development in developed countries, should also be incorporated into such programs in developing countries. Moreover, this study highlights the importance of external support in the organizational innovation process. The results suggest that technical and financial support received from outside the organization can be a more important contextual influence in boosting up innovation than an innovation‐supporting internal climate. Therefore, managers, particularly of micro‐ and small‐sized companies, should play external roles such as boundary spanning and should build relationships with external institutions that provide technical and financial support. The findings of this study are especially important for managers of companies that plan to or currently operate in countries with developing economies.     

Does an extrinsic reward for R&D employees enhance innovation outcomes? Evidence from a Japanese innovation survey

This paper examines the effects of extrinsic rewards for R&D employees on innovation outcomes based on evidence from a Japanese innovation survey. Theoretical and empirical studies present conflicting findings regarding the relationship between extrinsic rewards and innovation outcomes. This article seeks to shed light on the relationship between rewards and outcomes, as represented by the development of new products and services and their technological superiority and profitability. The analysis produced the following findings. First, companies that have introduced an evaluation system based on R&D performance are more likely to develop new products and services. The introduction of the evaluation system brings about success in product innovation with greater technological superiority. Second, monetary compensation has a negative impact on the development of new products and services and technological superiority. Third, these effects vary with the company size. Small- and medium-sized companies achieve higher technological superiority with performance-based evaluations. Large companies tend to adversely impact the development of new products and services and their technological superiority with monetary compensation.     

Models of the Company and the Employment Relationship

How the company is conceptualized has important implications for employees. Divergent theoretical approaches towards the company are synthesized below to form three models: the ownership, nexus of contracts, and social institution models. The first two endorse current UK corporate governance practice, in which companies are run for the ultimate benefit of their shareholders, who have the exclusive right to appoint the board. The third model questions this arrangement and, more generally, the characterization of the company as a wholly private association. The conclusion examines the implications of the third model for reform of company law and governance in the UK.     

Doing a deal: Merger and acquisition negotiations and their impact upon target company top management turnover

This research investigates the effects of merger and acquisition negotiations on subsequent target company top management turnover. Three attributes of the companies and seven attributes of the merger and acquisition transactions are examined. The results indicate that the primary impact of negotiations is evident in the fourth year after a settlement date. When a buyer approaches an unrelated company that has been subject to previous takeover interest with a merger proposal, and an agreement is reached, the target'S management team is likely to experience abnormally high turnover 4 years later. Additional research ideas are suggested to help explain the sizeable turnover rates in the 3 years immediately following a merger or acquisition.     

High‐Performance Work System and Organizational Turnover in East and Southeast Asian Countries1

In this paper, we examine the impact of high‐performance work systems (HPWSs) on both voluntary and involuntary organizational turnover rates. Most research on this topic has been done in the United States. Given the global competitive pressures confronting many of the countries of East and Southeast Asia, companies in this region are seeking to become more flexible and often adapt HPWSs practices. We explore the impact of HPWSs in both locally owned companies and subsidiaries of multinational corporations in Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Thailand. These countries have significantly different national cultures from the United States and most other Western countries and HPWSs effects in relation to turnover might vary from the studies based in the United States. Our findings are, however, somewhat consistent with U.S.‐based studies. In fact, HPWSs were found to be more effective in reducing turnover in locally owned companies than in subsidiaries of Western and Japanese multinational companies.