CAHRS Working Paper Series

A Multilevel Analysis of the Effect of Prompting Self-Regulation in Technology-Delivered Instruction

Traci Sitzmann et al. — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:37:23 PST

We used a within-subjects design and multilevel modeling in two studies to examine the effect of prompting self-regulation, an intervention designed to improve learning from technology-delivered instruction. The results of two studies indicate trainees who were prompted to self-regulate gradually improved their knowledge and performance over time, relative to the control condition. In addition, Study 2 demonstrated that trainees’ cognitive ability and self-efficacy moderated the effect of the prompts. Prompting self-regulation resulted in stronger learning gains over time for trainees with higher ability or higher self-efficacy. Overall, the two studies demonstrate that prompting self-regulation had a gradual, positive effect on learning, and the strength of the effect increased as trainees progressed through training. The results are consistent with theory suggesting self-regulation is a cyclical process that has a gradual effect on learning and highlight the importance of using a within-subjects design in self-regulation. research.

Current Issues and Future Directions in Simulation-Based Training

Bradford S. Bell et al. — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:37:11 PST

A number of emerging challenges including globalization, economic pressures, and the changing nature of work have combined to create a business environment that demands innovative, flexible training solutions. Simulations are a promising tool for creating more realistic, experiential learning environments to meet these challenges. Unfortunately, the current literature on simulation-based training paints a mixed picture as to the effectiveness of simulations as training tools, with most of the previous research focusing on the specific technologies used in simulation design and little theory- based research focusing on the instructional capabilities or learning processes underlying these technologies. This article examines the promise and perils of simulation-based training, reviews research that has examined the effectiveness of simulations as training tools, identifies pressing research needs, and presents an agenda for future theory-driven research aimed at addressing those needs.

Changing an Unfavorable Employment Reputation: A Longitudinal Examination

Adam M. Kanar et al. — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:36:59 PST

Although a favorable employment reputation plays an important role in generating a large and qualified pool of job applicants for an organization (Rynes & Cable, 2003), little research has investigated whether organizations can improve applicants’ existing unfavorable employment reputation perceptions. Results from a four-week longitudinal experiment using 222 student job seekers revealed that participants’ employment reputation perceptions improved after exposure to recruitment practices and followed diminishing returns trajectories over time. High information recruitment practices (e.g., personal communication from a recruiter) from both single and multiple sources were more effective for changing unfavorable employment reputation perceptions than repeated mere exposure to the organization (i.e., exposure to only the company logo), and high information practices from multiple sources were the most effective overall. Finally, participants reporting less familiarity with the organization experienced greater reputation change across the four weeks, but only for participants in the mere exposure condition.

A Multilevel Analysis of the Effects of Technical Interruptions on Learning and Attrition From Web-Based Instruction

Traci Sitzmann et al. — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 09:57:49 PST

As training is increasingly integrated in the workplace and embedded in work technology, trainees are confronted by a variety of workplace and technological interruptions. This article presents a conceptual framework characterizing different types of interruptions and the extent to which they disrupt learning. A longitudinal design was then used to examine the effects of one form of interruption — technical difficulties — on trainees’ (N = 530) self-regulatory processes, learning, and attrition from Web-based instruction. Test scores were 1.33 points lower (out of 20) in modules where trainees encountered technical difficulties. Technical difficulties also had differential effects on attrition rates over time with attrition from the first module being 10 percentage points higher for trainees who encountered these interruptions. Technical difficulties increased negative thoughts and impaired learning more for trainees who dropped out than those who completed the course. Finally, the negative effects of technical difficulties on self-regulatory processes were less for trainees with high technology self-efficacy, but self-efficacy did not mitigate the negative effects of technical difficulties on learning. The implications of these findings for future research and practice are discussed.

CEO Pay-For-Performance Heterogeneity Using Quantile Regression

Kevin F. Hallock et al. — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:57:40 PDT

We provide some examples of how quantile regression can be used to investigate heterogeneity in pay–firm size and pay-performance relationships for U.S. CEOs. For example, do conditionally (predicted) high-wage managers have a stronger relationship between pay and performance than conditionally low-wage managers? Our results using data over a decade show, for some standard specifications, there is considerable heterogeneity in the returns to firm performance across the conditional distribution of wages. Quantile regression adds substantially to our understanding of the pay-performance relationship. This heterogeneity is masked when using more standard empirical techniques.

The Geography of Giving: The Effect of Corporate Headquarters on Local Charities

David Card et al. — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:57:24 PDT

We use data on the locations of the head offices of publicly traded U.S. firms to study the impact of corporate headquarters on the receipts of local charitable organizations. Cities like Houston, San Jose, and San Francisco gained significant numbers of corporate headquarters over the past two decades, while cities like Chicago and Los Angeles lost. Our analysis suggests that attracting or retaining the headquarters of an average firm yields approximately $10 million per year in contributions to local non-profits, while the headquarters of a larger firm (one ranked among the top 1000 in total market value) yields about $25 million per year. Likewise, we find that each $1000 increase in the market value of the firms headquartered in a city yields 70 cents or more to local non-profits. Most of the increase in charitable contributions arises from an effect on the number of highly-compensated individuals in a city, rather than through direct donations by the corporations themselves.

How Does Unfavorable Information Impact Job Seekers’ Organizational Attraction?

Adam M. Kanar et al. — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:57:07 PDT

Prior research has been inconclusive regarding the effects of unfavorable information on job search outcomes, particularly during the initial stage of job search and recruitment. In this study, we investigated the effects of unfavorable organizational information on applicant attraction using an experimental study with active university job seekers (n = 202). Exposure to unfavorable information had a substantially greater impact on applicant attraction than exposure to favorable information and the significant effect size difference persisted one week after exposure. In addition, job seekers who were exposed to unfavorable information freely recalled more overall evaluations of the organization than job seekers who were exposed to favorable information one week later.

Research Report On Phase 3 of the Cornell University/Gevity Institute Study – Employee Outcomes: Human Resource Management Practices and Firm Performance In Small Businesses

Christopher J. Collins et al. — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 06:34:46 PDT

[Excerpt] Improving company performance is something of interest to all small business leaders. Small business leaders have many tools at their disposal — from finance to marketing to customer service — that could potentially improve the performance of their company. Among these tools is the way that small business leaders manage their people.

As has been mentioned in previous reports, research has shown that people management does indeed impact company performance, even at the financial level. Studies show increases in value per employee of up to $40,000 and survival rates for IPO firms as much as 20% higher for companies that effectively manage their human resources.

The Cornell University/Gevity Institute study of human resource management practices in small businesses is attempting to answer two important questions faced by small business leaders:

1. Do people contribute to the success of small businesses?
2. What human resource management strategies and practices can small business leaders employ to foster firm success?

In phase two of the study, we found that employee management practices help small employers improve workforce alignment, which was defined as having the right people with the right skills in the right jobs. Firms with high levels of workforce alignment experience higher performance than firms with lower levels of workforce alignment.

Building on these findings, the third phase of the study addresses the positive employee outcomes that can result from effective people management and seeks to understand which employee outcomes or behaviors tend to lead to different types of performance outcomes important to small business leaders.

The results for this study were taken from a sample of 111 small companies where responses were received from both the top manager as well as the employees. Companies ranged in size from 10 to 165 employees with an average size of approximately 30 employees representing a broad range of industries.

The results of the study will be presented as follows: First, we briefly discuss what is known about how human resource management impacts performance through employees. Second, we discuss the performance outcomes, and employee outcomes and behaviors that were studied as well as the specific employee behaviors and outcomes that seem to drive the different kinds of performance. Finally, we present some key takeaways from the results of this study.

Employee Outcomes: Human Resource Management Practices and Firm Performance in Small Businesses

Christopher J. Collins et al. — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:15:28 PDT

[Abstract] Improving company performance is something of interest to all small business leaders. Small business leaders have many tools at their disposal — from finance to marketing to customer service — that could potentially improve the performance of their company. Among these tools is the way that small business leaders manage their people.

The Cornell University/Gevity Institute study of human resource management practices in small businesses is attempting to answer two important questions faced by small business leaders:

1. Do people contribute to the success of small businesses?

2. What human resource management strategies and practices can small business leaders employ to foster firm success?

Targeted Employee Retention: Performance-Based and Job-Related Differences in Reported Reasons for Staying

John Hausknecht et al. — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:25:02 PDT

A content model of 12 retention factors is developed in the context of previous theory and research. Coding of open-ended responses from 24,829 employees in the leisure and hospitality industry lends support to the identified framework and reveals that job satisfaction, extrinsic rewards, constituent attachments, organizational commitment, and organizational prestige were the most frequently mentioned reasons for staying. Advancement opportunities and organizational prestige were more common reasons for staying among high performers and non-hourly workers, and extrinsic rewards was more common among low performers and hourly employees, providing support for ease/desirability of movement and psychological contract rationales. The findings highlight the importance of differentiating human resource management practices when the goal is to retain those employees valued most by the organization.

New Data for Answering Old Questions Regarding Employee Stock Options

Kevin Hallock et al. — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:27:27 PDT

This paper is a description and summary of existing questions and sources of data on stock options with an emphasis on two issues; what are the issues surrounding stock options in the national accounts and what value do employees place on stock options? We survey many existing data sources and outline some of the ways these data can be used to answer questions about the use and impact of employee stock options. The data sources include administrative records from individual firms, survey data of employee perceptions, disclosure filings with the SEC and other government, nonprofit, and international sources. We explore ways to investigate the value of options to employees and their cost to the firms using data on employee exercise decisions. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for public policy, the reporting of stock options, and how options are considered in the national accounts.

Demographic Faultlines and Creativity In Diverse Groups

Lisa Hisae Nishii et al. — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:27:17 PDT

Despite the oft made argument that demographic diversity should enhance creativity, little is known about this relationship. We propose that group diversity, measured in terms of demographic faultlines, affects creativity through its effects on group members’ felt psychological safety to express their diverse ideas and the quality of information sharing that takes place across subgroup boundaries. Further, we propose that the relationship between faultlines and creativity will be moderated by task interdependence and equality of subgroup sizes. Finally, we provide suggestions for how organizations can establish norms for self-verification and use accountability techniques to enhance creativity in diverse groups.

Employee Attributions of the “Why” of HR Practices: Their Effects on Employee Attitudes and Behaviors, and Customer Satisfaction

Lisa Hisae Nishii et al. — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:27:06 PDT

The construct of Human Resource (HR) Attributions is introduced. We argue that the attributions that employees make about the reasons why management adopts the HR practices that it does have consequences for their attitudes and behaviors, and ultimately, unit performance. Drawing on the strategic HR literature, we propose a typology of five HR-Attribution dimensions. Utilizing data collected from a service firm, we show that employees make varying attributions for the same HR practices, and that these attributions are differentially associated with commitment and satisfaction. In turn, we show that these attitudes become shared within units and that they are related to unit-level organizational citizenship behaviors and customer satisfaction. Findings and implications are discussed.

Multi-Level Issues in International HRM: Mean Differences, Explained Variance, and Moderated Relationships

Patrick M. Wright et al. — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 07:48:59 PST

[Excerpt] While neither denying that differences in HR systems exist, nor that some of the variety of practices is due to real differences across countries, we will attempt to dissect the issue of International HRM using ideas, concepts, and models emerging from multilevel theory and research. We posit that three ideas are critical to this line of research: Mean differences in the use of HR practices across countries, the amount of variance in HR practices that is explained by countries, and the extent to which countries (or specifically culture) moderates the relationships between HR practices and outcomes. Our conclusion is that these differences may not be as large as we think they are, and may in fact be due less to differences in culture and more to differences in institutional contexts.

The Influence of Human Resource Practices and Collective Affective Organizational Commitment on Aggregate Voluntary Turnover

Timothy M. Gardner et al. — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 07:48:50 PST

Recent research has demonstrated the importance of managing aggregate voluntary turnover. A number of studies have clearly demonstrated that increased turnover is associated with declining organizational effectiveness {Glebbeek & Bax 2004; Shaw et al. 2005}. Scholars and managers, however, would be committing a serious ecological fallacy by assuming the conclusions derived from studies of individual turnover apply to aggregate turnover in the same way and/or with the same intensity {Klein, et al. 1994; Rousseau 1985}. Unfortunately, the literature examining the antecedents of aggregate turnover is sparse, relative to the volume of studies examining individual turnover, and is riddled with significant theoretical and methodological challenges. Thus while it is tempting to assume that the contextual and attitudinal drivers of individual turnover also drive aggregate turnover, the scarcity and shortcomings of the research stream prohibit firm conclusions. This study seeks to provide scholars with a more rigorous theoretical framework for examining the antecedents of aggregate turnover as well as an inventory and solution to many of the methodological shortcomings of past research.

The second purpose of this paper is to contribute to the strategic human resource management literature by including human resource (HR) systems as a primary antecedent of aggregate turnover. As a collective phenomenon, drivers of aggregate turnover must theoretically exist and be measured at the same collective level {Klein, et al. 1994; Rousseau 1985}. Collective behavior is a function of, among other things, common experiences resulting from common policies and practices, such as HR management practices, used to control and direct the behavior of organizational members {Levinson 1965; Morgeson & Hofmann 1999}. Thus the inclusion of HR systems allows for at least two theoretical contributions. First, previous models of the antecedents of aggregate turnover have rarely included the HR systems that likely have a strong homogenizing effect on the experiences, interactions, make-up, and thus turnover of the organizational unit members. This study will shed insight into an important driver of collective turnover. Second, this study will provide insights into the mediating linkages between HR systems and organizational outcomes. Strategic HR research emerged out of the desire to verify the link between how organizations manage their people and organizational effectiveness {Delery & Shaw 2001}. While there is a great deal of evidence that HR practices are at least weakly related to firm performance, the intervening variables have not been adequately tested or explored (Becker & Gerhart 1996; Wright & Gardner 2003). This study will test the role of collective commitment in both explaining collective turnover and meditating the relationship between HR systems and turnover.

The Value of Stock Options To Non-Executive Employees

Kevin Hallock et al. — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 07:48:42 PST

This study empirically investigates the value employees place on stock options using information from the option exercise behavior of individuals. Employees hold options for another period if the value from holding them and reserving the right to exercise them later is higher than the value of exercising them immediately and collecting a profit equal to the stock price minus the exercise price. This simple model implies the hazard describing employee exercise behavior reveals information about the value to employees of holding options another time period. We show the parameters of this model are identified with data on multiple option grants per employee and we apply this model to the disposition of options received in the 1990s by a sample of over 2000 middle-level managers from a large, established firm outside of manufacturing. Exercise behavior is modeled using a random effects probit model of monthly exercise behavior that is estimated using simulated maximum likelihood estimation methods. Our estimates show there is substantial heterogeneity (observed and unobserved) among employees in the value they place on their options. Our estimates show most employees value their options at a value greater than the option’s Black-Scholes value.

The Role of Corporate HR Functions In Multinational Corporations: The Interplay Between Corporate, Regional/National And Plant Level

Elaine Farndale et al. — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 07:48:34 PST

The HR literature has been abundant in providing typologies of the roles of HR professionals in their organisation. These typologies are largely related to the changing nature of HRM over time, and the context in which empirical work was carried out. In this paper we focus on the context of the increasing internationalisation of firms and how this has an effect upon modern-day typologies of HR roles. We explore these roles by focusing on the way in which HRM practices come about. Especially in a MNC setting of increasing internationalisation of firms the issues of coordination, shared learning and standardisation versus leeway for adapting to the local context (customisation) are prominent. These issues present themselves both at the corporate and regional level and at the national and local (plant) level. On all these levels HR practitioners are active and find themselves amidst the interplay of both (de-)centralisation and standardisation versus customisation processes. This paper thus explores the way in which HR practices come into being and how they are implemented and coordinated. These insights help us understand further the roles of international corporate HR functions that are being identified. Our data is based on 65 interviews, which were held (as part of larger study of HR-function excellence) with HR managers, line managers and senior executives of six multinational companies in eight countries from September to December 2004. This data reveals new classifications of processes by which HR activities are developed, implemented and coordinated, both in terms of who is involved and how these processes are carried out.

HRM and Performance: What’s Next?

Jaap Paauwe et al. — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 07:48:26 PST

The last decade of empirical research on the added value of human resource management (HRM), also known as the HRM and Performance debate, demonstrates evidence that ‘HRM does matter’ (Huselid, 1995; Guest, Michie, Conway and Sheehan, 2003; Wright, Gardner and Moynihan, 2003). Unfortunately, the relationships are often (statistically) weak and the results ambiguous. This paper reviews and attempts to extend the theoretical and methodological issues in the HRM and performance debate. Our aim is to build an agenda for future research in this area. After a brief overview of achievements to date, we proceed with the theoretical and methodological issues related to what constitutes HRM, what is meant by the concept of performance and what is the nature of the link between these two. In the final section, we make a plea for research designs starting from a multidimensional concept of performance, including the perceptions of employees, and building on the premise of HRM systems as an enabling device for a whole range of strategic options. This implies a reversal of the Strategy-HRM linkage.

Human Resource Function Competencies in European Companies

Paul Boselie et al. — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:00:12 PST

This paper presents an overview of recent empirical research on human resource competencies in Europe. The data were collected in 2002 in the global Human Resource Competence Study, an initiative of the University of Michigan. The results suggest that personal credibility and HR delivery have a positive effect on the relative ranking of the HR function and its professionals. According to non-HRM respondents strategic contribution is the competency that will lead to financial competitiveness, while HR managers consider business knowledge to be crucial for added value of the HR function.

The Changing Relationship Between Job Loss Announcements and Stock Prices: 1970-1999

Henry S. Farber et al. — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:01:33 PST

We study the reaction of stock prices to announcements of reductions in force (RIFs) using a sample of 4273 such announcements in 1160 large firms during the 1970-99 period collected from the Wall Street Journal. We note that the total number of actual announcements for the firms in our sample follows the business cycle quite closely. We then examine changes over time in standard summary statistics (means, medians, fraction positive) of the distribution of stock market reactions, measured by the cumulative excess returns (CER) of firms’ stock prices over a 3-day event window centered on the announcement date, as well as changes over time in kernel density estimates of this distribution. We find clear evidence that the distribution of stock market reactions shifted to the right (became less negative) over time. One possible explanation for this change is that, over the last three decades, RIFs designed to improve efficiency have become more common relative to RIFs designed to cope with reductions in product demand. We estimate multivariate regression models of the CER controlling for the stated reason for the announceed layoff, industry, and other characteristics of the announced layoff. We find that almost none of the decline in the negative average stock price reaction between the 1970s and 1990s can be explained by these factors.