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Many organizations have turned to “just-in-time” pay systems to manage fluctuations in demand for products and services. For example, the trucking industry commonly pays truck drivers by the mile, and retail organizations fluctuate hours available to work to align with holiday demand. Based on the Unfolding Model of Turnover, we propose that the pay volatility, that is, fluctuations in individual pay over time, created by such systems create shocks that initiate thoughts of leaving the organization. We propose that these thoughts increase turnover likelihood. We also propose that pay level and pay trajectory moderate the pay volatility and turnover relationship. Based on a large dataset containing information on objective pay and turnover for truck drivers over a period of 34 weeks, the results of this study support the role of pay volatility, pay level, and pay trajectory in affecting voluntary turnover. Specifically, the results show that all three factors predict turnover likelihood and that pay volatility and pay level interact to predict turnover likelihood. The findings indicate that pay volatility has organizational downsides due to its effects on employee turnover in addition to its known upsides (i.e., flexibility).

The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm has been consistently used as a backdrop in strategic human resource management (SHRM) research and has the potential to bridge the ‘micro–macro’ divide. The tension between the SHRM and the strategic human capital literature, however, signifies that RBV has not reached its potential. In this paper, we begin with a brief review of the conceptual logic linking human resource management (HRM) practices and firm outcomes that aim at highlighting the different treatment of RBV in the SHRM and strategic human capital literatures. We then propose a conceptual model that suggests that HRM practices are not simple levers that enable firms to create sustainable competitive advantage, as most of the strategic human capital research postulates. On the contrary, we argue that HRM practices can contribute to a firm's sustainable competitive advantage not only by enhancing employees' ability, and offering motivation and opportunities, but also by shaping supply-side and demand-side mobility constraints.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to test alternative conceptualizations of the relationship between systems of human resource management (HRM) practices and organizational effectiveness. The authors describe a framework suggesting a complex relationship between HRM practices and organizational effectiveness, test this approach empirically in a large sample of US motor carriers, and compare the results to those derived using other approaches prevalent in the strategic HRM literature.Design/methodology/approach– The study used a large scale cross-sectional survey design. In a sample of US motor carriers, questionnaires completed by senior HRM department staff were used as the primary data. The data were supplemented by organizational effectiveness data reported by motor carriers to the US Government.Findings– The results support the general hypothesis that HRM practices enhance organizational effectiveness, provide some evidence that HRM practices can enhance each other’s effectiveness, and underscore the value of theory driven methodological approaches. Specifically, the authors found that HRM system comprising practices that ensure selectivity in staffing, performance-based pay, and enhanced employee opportunity through participation in decision-making result in higher levels of organizational effectiveness. Additionally, the effects of other combinations of these practices varied.Practical implications– This study highlights the need for HRM departments and organizations to approach the strategic management of employees with a systems perspective. The optimal design of an HRM strategy must take into account the various components.Originality/value– This study is one of the first to test the main assumptions of the systems perspective in strategic HRM using multiple measures and empirical approaches for combining HRM practices into systems. Comparison of these different approaches in a single study offers insight into how researchers can test the relationship between HRM practices and organizational effectiveness and provide practitioners more useful approaches for designing HRM systems.

As employee mobility drastically increases for the modern workforce, returning to one’s previous employer (“boomerang” employment) is increasingly becoming a career pattern pursued by both job seek...

This symposium brings together scholars from Strategic Management and Human Resources with the intent of promoting interdisciplinary discussion about executive compensation that can advance future ...

Research on pay variation and organizational outcomes has yielded inconsistent results. We argue that this is due to a lack of construct clarity regarding pay variation, and we attempt to provide clarification by distinguishing among the sources and types of pay variation. Using these distinctions, we integrate different theoretical perspectives on pay variation, and we propose avenues through which different kinds of pay variations affect outcomes. This clarification also elucidates some measurement concerns affecting pay variation studies.

Correlational field studies have become commonplace in the management literature. Because these studies do not allow researchers to control potential third variables as part of the study design, re...

While much research has been conducted on pay differences across people and jobs, very little has focused on within-person pay differences (i.e., pay variability). Based on Uncertainty Management T...

HR systems are sets of separate but interconnected HR practices, such as selection, training, performance appraisal, and rewards, designed to help organizations to achieve their objectives. The HR ...

The degree of pay spread can influence many organizational level outcomes (e.g., workforce productivity and organizational performance), but empirical studies are inconsistent about the directionality of the effect. We argue that it is not simply the width of the pay range but also the factors responsible for the width that explain the effects of the pay range on employee and organizational outcomes. We expect that when wider pay ranges are attributable to the use of performance-based pay, the effects of the pay range on performance are positive, but narrower pay ranges attributable to performance-based pay reduce this effect substantially. By contrast, wider pay ranges attributable to politically based pay should have negative effects on performance, and this effect should be weakened when the pay ranges are narrower. Data from a sample of motor carriers generally support our predictions. Although wider pay ranges have positive effects, the results reveal a complex pattern of relationships among the basis of pay allocations and pay range width on the one hand and workforce productivity and organizational performance on the other. Implications for future compensation and strategic human resource management research are discussed.

The article discusses strategic human resource management. Personnel management can have a direct impact on the efficiency of an organization in both positive and negative fashions. Synergy, negati...

We propose four alternative predictions regarding the relationship between voluntary turnover and workforce performance and develop the hypothesis that safety and productivity outcomes mediate that...

The relationships among affective organizational commitment, guest workers status, and two dimensions of individual performance (overall and helping) were explored in a unique international setting. Employees and supervisors (N=226) at two commercial banks in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) participated in the study. With a dissonance perspective as a backdrop, it was predicted that U.A.E. nationals, with substantial economic security and choice, would maintain more attitude–behavior consistency than guest workers, employed under highly restrictive work visas. Organizational commitment–guest worker status interactions were significant predictors of overall performance and helping, and partially supported the dissonance perspective. Implications are discussed and future research directions identified. D 2003 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

The relationship between voluntary turnover rates and two types of organizational performance — work force and financial — is investigated in two intra-industry studies. Drawing on multiple perspec...

The compensation literature is replete with arguments, but lacking in empirical tests, regarding the effects of pay dispersion on organizational outcomes. Pay dispersion may increase effort and provide incentives for high workforce performance levels, but may also inhibit cooperation and goal orientation among employees. Drawing on several theoretical perspectives (individual motivation, institutional theory, organizational justice, and neoclassical economics), this study predicts that pay dispersion will be associated with higher levels of workforce performance when accompanied by formal individual incentive systems and independent work, while pay compression is desirable in the absence of individual incentive systems and when work is interdependent. Survey research studies in two industrial sectors (the motor carrier and concrete pipe industries) were conducted to address these issues. Interactive regression results were generally supportive of the predictions across several measures of workforce performance (accident rates, safety violations, and productivity). Implications of these studies for strategy implementation in terms of compensation theory and practice are addressed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Human capital resources, according to the Resource Based View, are key for sustainable competitive advantage. The owners of these resources (employees), however, are not an organizational possessio...

This Symposium will be a conversation on defining the 21st century employment relationship between scholars and practitioners from human resources, law, and management, particularly corporate socia...

This paper examines the interactive relationship between the use of integrated manufacturing and compensation practices in predicting several aspects of plant performance in the concrete pipe industry. We predicted that compensation practices reinforcing collective effort, teamwork, and flexibility (team incentives and skill-based pay) enhance the effectiveness of integrated manufacturing systems (total quality management and advanced manufacturing technology), while practices inhibiting cooperation and teamwork among employees (individual incentives and seniority-based pay) impede it. Results provide moderate support for the congruence model across several measures of plant effectiveness (labor hours per ton, lost-time accidents, perceptual performance, and customer satisfaction). Implications of the research are addressed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Response rate research among individual respondents is applied to key-informant methodology in organizational research. Five organizational samples (two industry-specific samples and three cross-industry samples) are examined to assess the extent to which research procedures, informant characteristics, and organizational characteristics affect response outcomes. Three response outcomes are of interest: response rates (proportion of sample participating), response speed (number of days to respond), and amount of missing data. Response rates in the five samples ranged from 19% to 71%. Research procedures are related to response outcomes, but the data are mostly suggestive and not conclusive with respect to the relationships of informant and organizational characteristics to response outcomes. Implications of these results for key-informant methodology are discussed.

This study explores the relationships among unionization, compensation practices, and employee attachment (quit rates and tenure) among trucking companies to assess the applicability of Freeman and Medoff's exit/voice argument. Unionization was associated with lower quit rates, higher tenure, a better compensation package, and stronger voice mechanisms. The relationship of unionization to quit rates and tenure becomes nonsignificant after accounting for compensation (pay and benefits), and voice mechanisms do not add explanatory variance.

Performance rating research about individual performance may not necessarily generalize to rating performance of dyads. Using data from the 1992 Winter Olympics, this study demonstrates that observed interdimensional correlations are higher when dyads rather than individuals are being rated, particularly when raters have the opportunity to form prior general impressions of ratees. Implications of these results are discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Although there are many individual-level models of turnover, little research has examined the effects of human resource management practices on quit rates and discharge rates at the organizational level. This study used organization-level data from 227 organizations in the trucking industry to explore this issue. Results show that human resource management practices predict quit rates and discharge rates but that the determinants of each are quite different. Implications are derived and directions for future research suggested.

There is a growing body of research showing that the methods used by an organization to manage its human resources can have a substantial impact on many organizationally relevant outcomes. Human resource management (HRM) practices have been linked with turnover (Arthur 19941, productivity (Ichniowski, Shaw, & Prennushi 1997; MacDufYie 1995), financial returns (Delcry & Doty 19961, survival (Welbourne & Andrews 19961, and firm value (Huselid 1995). This growing area of research has been labeled strategic human resource management (SHRM) in that it emphasizes the strategic role of human resources management in meeting business objectives. Estab~shing that HRM practices are linked with firm effectiveness is an important first step in this line of research, however, there is still little understanding of the mechanisms through which HRM practices influence effectiveness. For instance, Delaney and Huselid (1996) stated that researchers still do not know “how HRM practices affect org~izational outcomes, whether some practices have stronger effects than others, and whether complemtarities or synergies among such practices can further enhance organizational performance” (p. 950). This line of research has been interesting in that it points to the importance of human resources, but it has provided few real insights for organizations wishing to gain a competitive advantage through human resources. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, I provide a brief review of the major theoretical and empirical work completed to date in SHRM, focusing most closely on the fit of HRM practices into a coherent system. Second, I present several issues critical to empirical research in SHRAiI on which researchers must focus greater attention. To date, there is clearly no consensus as to how researchers must address these issues. It is argued throughout this article that the conceptual foundations of SHRM have been relatively weak and many of the empirical investigations have made assumptions not driven

This study investigated the relationship between characteristics of applicants and interviewers, and type and amount of impression management (IM) used by applicants in the employment interview. Specifically, applicant self-monitoring, self-esteem, locus of control, age, and training, and interviewer communication apprehension, interpersonal communication skill, age, and experience all were expected to influence the type and amount of IM behavior exhibited by applicants in the employment interview. Data from 64 field interviews confirmed that characteristics of the interviewer and, to a lesser extent, characteristics of the applicants were related to the use of IM tactics by applicants.

The field of strategic human resource management (SHRM) has been criticized for lacking a solid theoretical foundation. This article documents that, contrary to this criticism, the SHRM literature ...

This study investigated the validity and incremental validity of a situational interview beyond that of a composite measure of cognitive ability. Forty-seven factory service technicians underwent an interview and took four cognitive ability tests. Supervisors rated the performance of these subjects in a concurrent validation study. The interview was found to be a valid predictor of a supervisor rating of performance (r = 0.32, p < 0.05 uncorrected), however, was unable to show incremental validity over ability tests (Incremental R2= 0.05, n.s.). Limitations of the present study and directions for future research are discussed.

It has been a commonly held belief for some time that applicants attempt to manage impressions of interviewers in the employment interview process, but only recently have researchers begun to examine systematically the tactics applicants use, and how effective they are. The present study contrasted two sets of impression management tactics used by applicants and observed their effects on interviewer decisions in a controlled laboratory experiment. An applicant who employed self-focused-type impression management tactics was rated higher, received more recommendations for a job offer, and received fewer rejections from business students, who had just completed an interviewer training program, than when he used other-focused-type tactics. The implications of these results in terms of both theory and practice are discussed.

Previous reviews of the fit perspectives in SHRM have had a pessimistic tone and concluded that there was little evidence of the assumption that ‘fit’ leads to organizational success, although most reviews did not specifically focus on internal fit. This article aims to revisit the theoretical foundation of internal fit and provide a review of the literature addressing this issue. Specifically, it sets out to explore the theory and research behind the internal fit perspective in an attempt to summarize and advance our knowledge behind HRM systems and internal fit. In doing so, it addresses the theory behind ‘fit’, the interplay between external and internal fit, issues of the level of abstraction (e.g. focus on HRM philosophies, policies, or practices in measuring HRM systems), different types of internal fit, problems stemming from levels of analysis issues, and the empirical evidence, before summarizing and concluding.

This symposium proposal aims to reinvigorate the investigation of the role of formal HRM functions in strategic HRM (SHRM) research. The majority of recent SHRM research has investigated the influe...

A framework that organizes the myriad of contextual factors in performance appraisals is developed to guide systematic future research in this area. Emphasis is placed on categorizing contextual fa...

The strategic management of human resources (HR) has been one of the most rapidly growing areas of research within human resources. In the last decade, there have been numerous empirical examinations and theoretical treatments of the link between HR and firm performance. In this paper, we review this empirical and conceptual literature and highlight areas of agreement and those that need further development. We then begin the process of building a conceptual framework based on this review and the extensive employment systems literature. Using our framework, we then discuss several methodological concerns that must be addressed for continued substantive research to proceed. We conclude with our suggestions for future empirical and conceptual work.

The development of any scholarly debate depends on knowledge domains which inform it. This panel symposium aims to explore the domains of knowledge of the HRM-performance debate in order to predict its future development. Unlike numerous recent discussions that focus on the development of the HRM-performance debate itself, this symposium will discuss the development of endogenous and exogenous knowledge domains that have informed one of the most popular debates within the HRM field. The symposium will first expose the audience to a longitudinal analysis of relevant knowledge domains – an extensive cocitation analysis including more than 20,000 scholarly contributions that researchers studying HRM-performance cited between 1985 and 2010 depicted as a landscape. This will be followed by panel discussions of highly influential researchers, whose work has both shaped and informed the debate, who will interpret the development of knowledge domain(s) and comment interactions between them. Finally, the panel wil...

Pay policies have been found to provide explanatory power in understanding firm performance. Of these policies, pay level, pay basis and pay structure are three of the most critical. Little researc...