Reducing Ongoing Product Design Decision‐Making Bias*

The objective of this exploratory study is to add to our understanding of ongoing product design decision‐making to reduce eventual decision‐making bias. Six research questions are formulated with the aim to establish if and how functional membership and informal patterns of communication within an organization influence whether and why employees are willing to engage in product design modifications. We selected as a field site for our study an industrial company that had an internal research and product development operations and where the employees were located on the same site. A three‐step approach within the manufacturing case company was designed: (1) In‐depth interviews were carried out with managers and employees; (2) a survey questionnaire was sent out to all employees involved with a specific product that is subject to potential design modifications; and (3) a post hoc group feedback session was organized to further discuss our findings with the management. First, analysis of the nine in‐depth interviews establishes a taxonomy of product design decisions involving four types of criteria; product‐related, service‐related, market‐related, and feasibility‐related criteria explain why employees would engage or not in product design modifications. Second, it is demonstrated that functional membership has a significant influence on the concern for these decision‐making criteria as well as on the decision to proceed or not with product design modifications. In other words, functional membership influences whether and why employees are more or less willing to make product design modifications. In this manufacturing company, a global industrial player, the differences in concern appear especially for service‐ and market‐related criteria and pertain particularly to the research and development (R&D) and service function. Overall, even though the perceived performance of the specific product under study did not differ significantly among the different departments, it is observed that R&D employees were significantly less in favor of proceeding with product design modifications than other employees were. Third, using UCINET VI software, we provide some explanations for this finding. It is shown that informal patterns of communication (i.e., employee degree centrality) operate a situational opportunity to make modifications to an existing product and a cognitive opportunity influencing the decision to modify product design following an inverted U‐shaped function. Ultimately, we derive practical guidelines for an ideal product–team composition to reduce product design decision‐making bias.     

The Impact of Innovative Culture on Individual Employees: The Moderating Role of Market Information Sharing

Current innovation literature provides a very limited understanding of the potential impacts of innovative culture on employees. Building on resource‐based view theory, the authors investigate theoretically and empirically how a perceived innovative culture can be a building block for a firm's competitive resource and advantage by creating superior employee‐level outcomes and how a market information‐sharing process may moderate these effects. The authors identify three distinct types of individual‐level outcomes stemming from an innovative culture. The three outcome variables—job satisfaction, organizational dynamism perception, and firm performance perception—reflect employees’ psychological and cognitive reactions to the process of creating organizational innovation and innovative culture. The authors collect survey data from 3960 individual employees in China. Their findings first show that a perceived innovative culture significantly and positively affects employees’ job satisfaction and perceptions of organizational dynamism and firm performance. Moreover, organizational dynamism perception plays an important mediating role among three employee‐level outcomes by converting job satisfaction into firm performance perception. The authors also find support for the direct, positive effect of a perceived market information‐sharing process on job satisfaction but not on perceptions of organizational dynamism and firm performance. Most importantly, their findings on the significant moderating role of a market information‐sharing system contribute to innovation theory by emphasizing the importance of the innovation/marketing interface: bundling market information sharing and innovative culture together enhances employees’ positive attitudes and perceptions. This result also suggests that examining only the direct effects of innovative culture and market information sharing may lead to incorrect conclusions as to how to manage the cultural infusion process: the market information‐sharing process shows only a weak effect on job satisfaction and no effect on perceptions of organizational dynamism or firm performance. Organizational designs should ensure simultaneous consideration of both variables in the cultural transformation process to enhance employees’ derived benefits in the process of creating an innovative culture. We offer a new insight: a perceived market information‐sharing process may strengthen the effect of an innovative culture on employees’ job satisfaction and organizational dynamism perception, while it may weaken the effect of an innovative culture on firm performance perception. This more nuanced view of market information sharing in the cultural infusion process presents new wisdom and calls for further studies in entrepreneurial innovation.     

Collective Bargaining and Faculty Job Satisfaction

Estimates of the impact of union membership on job satisfaction suffer from nonrandom self‐selection of employees into unions. In this paper, we circumvent this problem by examining the impact on satisfaction of collective bargaining representation, rather than of union membership. We use a two‐stage technique that controls for nonrandom selection of faculty into institutions, and apply that to a panel of faculty at repeatedly observed four‐year universities. We find that bargaining agreements increase satisfaction with compensation but reduce satisfaction with faculty workload. Bargaining has no statistically measurable impact on overall job satisfaction or on faculty's satisfaction with their authority to make decisions regarding their instructional duties.     

Does Wage Rank Affect Employees’ Well‐being?

How do workers make wage comparisons? Both an experimental study and an analysis of 16,000 British employees are reported. Satisfaction and well‐being levels are shown to depend on more than simple relative pay. They depend upon the ordinal rank of an individual's wage within a comparison group. “Rank” itself thus seems to matter to human beings. Moreover, consistent with psychological theory, quits in a workplace are correlated with pay distribution skewness.     

International Patterns of Union Membership

This paper examines changes in unionization that have occurred over the last decade or so using individual level micro data on many countries, with particular emphasis on the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. I document an empirical regularity not hitherto identified, namely the probability of being unionized follows an inverted U‐shaped pattern in age, maximizing in the mid‐ to late 40s in 34 of the 38 countries I study. I consider the question of why union membership seems to follow a similar inverted U‐shape pattern in age across countries with such diverse industrial relations systems. I find evidence that this arises in part because of cohort effects, but even when cohort effects are removed a U‐shape remains.     

Why Have Workers Stopped Joining Unions? The Rise in Never‐Membership in Britain

This paper tracks the rise in the percentage of employees who have never become union members (‘never‐member’) since the early 1980s and shows that it is the reduced likelihood of ever becoming a member, rather than the haemorrhaging of existing members, that is behind the decline in overall union membership in Britain. We estimate the determinants of ‘never‐membership’ and consider how much of the rise can be explained by structural change in the labour market and how much by change in preferences among employees.     

The Part‐Time Job Satisfaction Puzzle: Different Types of Job Discrepancies and the Moderating Effect of Family Importance

Although part‐time employment often appears as a substandard form of employment, evidence that part‐time employees are less satisfied than full‐time employees is ambiguous. To shed more light on this puzzle, I test an extended discrepancy theory framework using data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel. The results help explain previous inconsistent findings: Part‐time employment increases the chances of being underemployed while it reduces the likelihood of working more hours than preferred, and the negative effects of both types of working time mismatches on job satisfaction are similar in size. Furthermore, the importance attributed to family roles mitigates the negative effect of part‐time employment on job satisfaction.     

What Types of Diversity Benefit Workers? Empirical Evidence on the Effects of Co‐worker Dissimilarity on the Performance of Employees

This study explores the consequences of grouping workers into diverse divisions on the performance of employees using a dataset containing the detailed personnel records of a large U.S. firm from 1989 to 1994. In particular, I examine the effects of demographic dissimilarity among co‐workers, namely differences in age, gender, and race among employees who work together within divisions, and non‐demographic dissimilarity, namely differences in education, work function, firm tenure, division tenure, performance, and wages among employees within divisions. I find evidence that age dissimilarity, dissimilarity in firm tenure, and performance dissimilarity are associated with lower worker performance, while wage differences are associated with higher worker performance. My analysis also reveals that the effects of certain types of dissimilarities get smaller in magnitude the longer a worker is a part of a division. Finally, the paper provides evidence that the relationships between performance and the various measures of dissimilarity vary by occupational area and division size.     

Blocked But Not Tackled: Who Founds New Firms When Rivals Dissolve?

Research summary: This article examines the role of competitive shocks in creating opportunities for new firm foundings. I argue that the sudden dissolution of rival firms may release resources that create opportunities for firm formation, particularly among employees facing impediments to capturing value in their current organizations. Analyzing microdata from the legal services industry, I use unexpected deaths of solo‐practicing attorneys as quasi‐exogenous sources of rival dissolution. Results indicate that these shocks increase the odds of founding by about 30%, with stronger effects among attorneys with weaker social connections or higher competition for promotion. The article thus highlights the role that founders play in reallocating dissolved rivals' resources while demonstrating that founding may be an important outlet for “blocked” employees to capture value from opportunities. Managerial summary: This article finds that the shutdown and dissolution of a rival organization may spur employees to found new firms. As a consequence, managers may find it valuable to pay attention to employees' turnover intentions following the dissolution of a rival. Findings suggest that employees who are having trouble advancing in the firm may be the most likely to found a new organization when a rival dissolves, so managers may want to focus retention efforts on these individuals. To the extent that managers wish to capture customers, employees, and other resources that were formerly attached to a dissolved rival, managers may wish to be aware that they could be in competition with their own employees for these resources and opportunities. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Are Employers Omniscient? Employer Learning About Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills

Do employers recognize noncognitive skills at the beginning of a career or is there a learning process? Does learning transfer perfectly across employers or is there a degree to which learning resets as employees change jobs throughout their careers? This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 to incorporate measures of noncognitive skills into a model of symmetric employer learning described originally by Altonji and Pierret ( 2001 ) and nested in a model of asymmetric employer learning as in Schönberg ( 2007 ). I find evidence that employers reward self‐esteem, internal control, and schooling initially, while rewarding cognitive skills and motivation over time.     

Bifurcated Effects of Place‐of‐Origin Diversity on Individual and Team Performance: Evidence from Ten Seasons of German Soccer

How does diversity affect performance? We develop a theoretical framework in which diversity of prevention employees (protecting the organization from harm) and of promotion employees (advancing positive outcomes) have different effects on individual and organizational performance. We use data for twenty‐eight soccer teams and 1723 players that played in 6120 games during ten seasons and find that diversity of defensive (prevention) players has a positive effect on player and team performance whereas the opposite holds for offensive (promotion) players. Joint tenure of offensive players tends to amplify these effects.     

Employee Mobility and Interfirm Relationship Transfer: Evidence from the Mobility and Client Attachments of United States Federal Lobbyists, 1998–2014

Research summary : Employee mobility can erode competitive advantage by facilitating interfirm knowledge and relationship transfer. This study investigates the latter and identifies factors that influence the likelihood of its occurrence. Using a novel database that tracks the employment and client attachments of U.S. federal lobbyists, I show that repeated exchange with employees (firms) increases (decreases) the likelihood clients follow employees who switch firms. Structurally, multiplexity reduces the likelihood of client transfer and weakens the effect of employee–client repeated exchange, with the multiplexity effect strongest when team members have specialized expertise. By examining the main and interactive effects of repeated exchange, multiplexity, and specialized human capital, this study extends prior work by demonstrating how individual, organizational, and structural relationship characteristics affect client transfer and retention ex‐post employee mobility . Managerial summary : When do clients follow employees who switch firms? What can firms do to guard against it? These questions are important in service‐based industries where clients may become loyal to individual employees within the firm rather than to the firm itself. This study provides evidence that helps practicing managers: (a) identify which clients are most at risk of defecting if employees exit, and (b) structure relationships in ways that mitigate the likelihood that employee exit results in client loss. Findings suggest that a client is more likely to defect when she has extensive history working with the exiting employee, particularly if the employee was the sole link between the client and firm. Managers, however, can reduce the risk of client loss following employee exit by structuring relationships so that clients work with teams of employees rather than exclusively with an individual and by increasing the degree of specialization within these teams . Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Individualism–collectivism as predictors of BPO employee attitudes toward union membership in India

Drawing on data from a survey of 342 employees from three BPO organizations in Mumbai (India), this study examined whether cultural variables of individual cultural orientation and organizational culture, and their interaction were predictive of employees’ attitudes toward union membership in BPO organizations in India where unionization has hitherto not taken place. Using regression analysis, the researcher found that over and above the effects of demographic and job-related variable, and work stress and job satisfaction, horizontal individualism could predict union attitudes significantly and negatively whereas vertical individualism and collectivism could predict the attitudes significantly and positively. Similarly, organizational collectivism could predict employees’ attitudes toward union membership significantly and negatively. Using the univariate analysis of variance, the researcher found that the contrast between personal value and organizational culture of an individualist working in a collectivistic organizational culture or collectivist working in an individualistic culture are found to have stronger influence on union attitudes compared to the congruence of an individualist working in an individualistic culture or collectivist working in a collectivistic culture. The results and implications of findings are discussed in the paper with reference to the literature on role of cultural and attitudinal variables in relation to organizational outcomes like union membership.

The impact of membership in competing alliance constellations: Evidence on the operational performance of global airlines

Many industries have witnessed the formation of multiple‐partner alliances or constellations competing against each other for both clients and members. Using the global airline industry as an empirical setting, I evaluate the proposition that membership in airline constellations allows carriers to capture externalities from other firms in the form of direct or indirect traffic flow, thereby enhancing their operational performance. I also distinguish between two ways to demarcate the boundaries of constellations: explicitly or implicitly. Analyzing patterns of membership in explicit constellations involving formal, multilateral agreements (such as the Star Alliance, Oneworld, SkyTeam), I find that membership benefits are greatest in groups involving large aggregate traffic and for carriers contributing with a large portion of the group's capacity. I also evaluate patterns of membership in implicit constellations, corresponding to groups of firms showing relatively more ties to one another than to firms outside their group. I find that carriers bilaterally linked with key players of such groups are able to increase their operational performance even if they do not belong to any explicit constellation. Thus, results show that it is worth analyzing distinct patterns of membership simultaneously, because they are likely to have distinct implications for firm performance. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lighting the way or stealing the shine? An examination of the duality in star scientists' effects on firm innovative performance

Do star employees enhance or constrain the innovative performance of an organization? Using data from 456 biotechnology firms between 1973 and 2003, we highlight the duality of the effects that stars have on firm performance. We show that while stars positively affect firms' productivity, their presence constrains the emergence of other innovative leaders in an organization. We find that firm productivity and innovative leadership among non‐stars in a firm are greatest when a star has broad expertise and collaborates frequently. We offer cross‐disciplinary insights into the role of human capital as a source of competitive advantage, suggesting that the value of human capital in a firm is contingent on the mutual dependence inherent in high‐status employees' relationships with other individuals in a firm. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Union Membership and Job‐Related Training: Incidence,Transferability, and Efficacy

This study examines the relationship between union membership and (i) the incidence of training, (ii) the degree to which training is transferable to firms other than the one providing the training and (iii) the degree to which workers perceive that training improves job performance. Using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, I find that union members are more likely to receive employer‐sponsored training than their non‐union counterparts. I also find that male union members are more likely than non‐members to report that training improved job performance. Union membership was not related to transferability of skills between employers.     

California's Health Insurance Act of 2003: View of the Market

This “play or pay” mandate would have required California employers to either provide medical insurance for their employees or pay into a state insurance fund. Although the law ultimately did not go into effect, movements in shareholder wealth provide evidence about the differential effects of such health‐care mandates on various types of employers. Large or unionized firms had no negative effects; expected profits declined most for firms with 50–199 employees.     

Stakeholder Orientation and Acquisition Performance

Research summary : In this article, we study how a firm's stakeholder orientation affects the performance of its corporate acquisitions. We depart from prior literature and suggest that orientations toward employees, customers, suppliers, and local communities will affect long‐term acquisition performance both directly and through its interactions with process characteristics, such as preacquisition relatedness and postacquisition integration. Analyses of data on a sample of 1884 acquisitions show overall a positive association between acquirers' stakeholder orientation and acquisition performance. In addition, we find support for a positive moderation of business relatedness on the performance impacts of stakeholder orientation. Structural integration has a similarly positive moderation effect only for some of the stakeholder categories. Managerial summary : Does collaboration with stakeholders during an acquisition pay off in terms of performance? The results of this research show that it is worth engaging stakeholders during the M&A process, but that the efficacy of involvement practices may depend on the type of stakeholders and the characteristics of the acquisition. While acquiring firms that take account of suppliers and local communities consistently overperform in their acquisitions, the inclusion of employees might be not beneficial (and even harmful) when the target firm operates in a dissimilar business or when managers do not plan to maintain it as a separate entity. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does Individualizing the Labor Contract Hurt Women?

The twenty‐first century has been marked by a retreat of the collective bargaining rights of public employees throughout the United States. This study exploits the variation in legal environments resulting from these reforms to estimate the causal impact of different collective bargaining policies on public employee compensation. Using data from the American Community Survey, results show a modest wage penalty at the aggregate level for employees covered by constraints on collective bargaining. However, this wage penalty is differential and is concentrated on women in all but one case—a legal environment in which collective bargaining over wages has either been prohibited or directly constricted, allowing governments to periodically institute wage freezes and caps on raises for public employees. In this case, a pre‐existing wage gap in which men earned more than women is disappearing as male and female earnings converge at a lower wage. The paper suggests that the long‐term effects of restricting collective bargaining occur through the individualization of the labor contract and should be examined along individual‐level characteristics, such as gender.     

The direct and indirect effects of core and peripheral social capital on organizational performance

Research summary : In this paper we adopt a core‐periphery approach to specify the direct and indirect effects of social capital on organizational performance. We suggest that social capital deriving from stable task relationships between organizational members has a direct positive effect on organizational performance. Said effect depends, in both strength and functional form, on whether actors involved in stable dyads are located at the core or at the periphery of the organization. We also argue that core and peripheral social capital affect performance indirectly by moderating the organization's ability to leverage its human capital to improve performance. Results from a 48‐year study of the National Basketball Association support our arguments and bear important implications for strategic human resource practices and organizational performance in competitive settings. Managerial summary : Stable work relationships among employees generate trust, more efficient work routines, common understanding and thus higher organizational performance. These benefits depend on the location of such stable relationships in the organization. Relational stability among core organizational members has an immediate, strong impact on performance, an effect that plateaus as stability grows. Stable relationships between core and peripheral members have instead a weaker, yet linear effect on performance. The location of stable relationships is also critical to leverage the talent of core employees, whose contribution to performance is stronger when relational stability is high in the organizational core, yet hindered by stable relations between core and periphery. Such findings provide relevant implications for strategic human resource management, in particular for choices regarding team composition and managing stars. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.