1. Hiring Expert Talent in a Recession: Targeted Labor Pool Sourcing and Firm Performance
- Author
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Rhett Andrew Brymer, Amit Jain Chauradia, John Mawdsley, Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC Paris), HEC Research Paper Series, and Haldemann, Antoine
- Subjects
Longitudinal sample ,Labour economics ,Financial performance ,ComputingMilieux_THECOMPUTINGPROFESSION ,labor pools ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Context (language use) ,Human capital ,Recession ,firm performance ,knowledge workers ,Extant taxon ,Corporate law ,Economics ,[SHS.GESTION]Humanities and Social Sciences/Business administration ,human capital ,[SHS.GESTION] Humanities and Social Sciences/Business administration ,economic recession ,media_common - Abstract
Extant research suggests that hiring experts during economic downturns can improve firm financial performance. However, recessionary labor markets deepen the challenges facing hiring firms, calling to question both the firm-level benefits and the tactics of acquiring talent when demand for a firm’s business is declining. We theorize and find that hiring expert talent during a recession actually weakens firm performance in the context of knowledge-based services. Notably though, we find firms can effectively attenuate the negative hiring effect by targeting particular labor pools, underlining the significance of gaining human capital advantages through focused sourcing. We test our hypotheses using a longitudinal sample of large U.S. corporate law firms between 2002 and 2010.
- Published
- 2017