When Does Employee Turnover Matter? Dynamic Member Configurations, Productive Capacity, and Collective Performance

In theory, employee turnover has important consequences for groups, work units, and organizations. However, past research has not revealed consistent empirical support for a relationship between aggregate levels of turnover and performance outcomes. In this paper, we present a novel conceptualization of turnover to explain when, why, and how it affects important outcomes. We suggest that greater attention to five characteristics—leaver proficiencies, time dispersion, positional distribution, remaining member proficiencies, and newcomer proficiencies—will reveal dynamic member configurations that predictably influence productive capacity and collective performance. We describe and illustrate the five properties, explain how particular member configurations exacerbate or diminish turnover’s effects, and present a new measurement approach that captures these characteristics in a collective context and over time

Causes and Consequences of Collective Turnover: A Meta-Analytic Review

Given growing interest in collective turnover (i.e., employee turnover at unit and organizational levels), the authors propose an organizing framework for its antecedents and consequences and test it using meta-analysis. Based on analysis of 694 effect sizes drawn from 82 studies, results generally support expected relationships across the 6 categories of collective turnover antecedents, with somewhat stronger and more consistent results for 2 categories: human resource management inducements/investments and job embeddedness signals. Turnover was negatively related to numerous performance outcomes, more strongly so for proximal rather than distal outcomes. Several theoretically grounded moderators help to explain average effect-size heterogeneity for both antecedents and consequences of turnover. Relationships generally did not vary according to turnover type (e.g., total or voluntary), although the relative absence of collective-level involuntary turnover studies is noted and remains an important avenue for future research

Collective Turnover at the Group, Unit, and Organizational Levels: Evidence, Issues, and Implications

Studies of the causes and consequences of turnover at the group, unit, or organizational level of analysis have proliferated in recent years. Indicative of its importance, turnover rate research spans numerous academic disciplines and their respective journals. This broad interest is fueled by the considerable implications of turnover rates predicting broader measures of organizational effectiveness (productivity, customer outcomes, firm performance) as well as by the related perspective that collective turnover is an important outcome in its own right. The goal of this review is to critically examine and extract meaningful insights from research on the causes and consequences of group, unit, and organizational turnover. The review is organized around five major “considerations,” including (1) measurement and levels of analysis issues, (2) consequences, (3) curvilinear and interaction effects, (4) methodological and conceptual issues, and (5) antecedents. The review concludes with broad directions for future research

The effect of technology disruption on organisational health: mediating effect of competence adequacy and moderating effect of innovation capacity and competence building

As a world’s fastest growing telecommunication market, India is undergoing evolutionary changes in telecommunication technologies. Rapidly changing communication technology has been posing innumerable challenges to the telecommunication companies in India for adequate skill availability and at the same time significantly changing competence requirements. The recognition of competence adequacy as a key factor to sustain organizational health in an increasingly competitive telecommunication sector has opened up several possibilities of competence based research. The study examined the inverse effect of technology disruption on competence adequacy and subsequently on the organizational health. Further, the organization’s intervention to competence building and innovation capacity was also put through the moderating tests as balancing factors. Knowledge Evolution Theory underpins this study framework to highlight the competence issues caused by technology disruption. This quantitative study was conducted in India among four leading Telecommunication firms. An online questionnaire was administered to managers from the firms who were selected using stratified random sampling. The eight hypotheses of this study were tested with Structural Equation Modelling using AMOS software. The results of the study found significant positive effects of competence adequacy, innovation capacity and competence building on organisational health. Secondly, technology disruption was found to have significant negative relationship with both competence adequacy and organisational health. In addition, the interaction of competence building and innovation capacity on the path of technology disruption and competence adequacy significantly moderated the relationship and finally, competence adequacy was found to have a significant mediating effect on the relationship between technology disruption and organisational health. The study provides new directions to the practising human resource professionals to improve the competence adequacy in high technology industries especially among telecommunication companies. The results of the study also highlights the widening technology skill gap present in telecommunication industry in India. The findings of this study also have pointed out the importance of innovation capacity as balancing factor in technology firms in the wake of evolutionary changes in telecommunication technology

Social Structures for Learning

This article investigates what learning groups there are in organizations, other than the familiar 'communities of practice'. It first develops an interdisciplinary theoretical framework for identifying, categorizing and understanding learning groups. For this, it employs a constructivist, interactionist theory of knowledge and learning. It employs elements of transaction cost theory and of social theory of trust. Transaction cost economics neglects learning and trust, but elements of the theory are still useful. The framework is used in an empirical study in a consultancy company, to explore what learning groups there are, and to see if our theory can explain their functioning and their success or failure.learning groups;social theory of trust;theory of knowledge and learning;transaction cost theory

The Impact of an Executive High Performance Work System on Business Model Innovation

Business model innovation is a phenomenon that has been gaining traction since the 1990s. Recently, a global survey of more than 4,000 senior managers by the Economic Intelligence Unit found that business model innovation was overwhelmingly preferred versus new products and new services (Amit & Zott, 2012). Both executives as well as practitioners suggest that business model innovation is ideal for future competitive advantage (Amit & Zott, 2012; Foss & Saebi, 2017). Increasing competition, globalization, and rapid changes in technology have all provided the impetus for organizations to reconsider the approaches they use to manage their numerous resources and capabilities, in order to achieve and maintain their competitive advantage (Cuskelly et al., 2006). Organizations have to implement strategies to differentiate themselves from competitors so as to create value for their various stakeholders (Ridder et al., 2012). For instance, organizations, such as non-profit organizations (NPOs), are faced with increasing pressure to make efficient use of their resources (Ridder et al., 2012). The top management team in an organization is responsible for creating value in their organizations through their management of organization capabilities and resource allocation. Many scholars (Akinlade & Shalack, 2017; Brown & Yoshioka, 2003; Barkema & Shvyrkov, 2007) have suggested the importance of human resources, such as top management team knowledge, skills, and abilities for achieving organizational goals. Although the research has received little attention (Chen et al., 2016), the implementation of an executive high-performance work system is suggested to create an ideal TMT behavior and composition. Compared to high-performance work system at the employee level, high performance work system at the executive level aims to “improve team collaboration and effectiveness among strategic decision makers and thus produce widespread effects on firm strategic and financial results” (Chen et al., 2016: 920). I show how the executive high-performance work system (Lin & Shih, 2008; Chen et al., 2016) creates a top management team that will pursue business model innovation. My dissertation is intended to contribute to the business model innovation literature (Foss & Saebi, 2017) and the high-performance work system literature (Huselid, 1995; Posthuma et al., 2013). First, I conceptualize executive high-performance work system as an HR system to enhance the effectiveness of TMT to pursue business model innovation. Second, I investigate entrepreneurial orientation, creative climate, and strategic agility as mediators of the executive high-performance work system and business model innovation relationship. I used established scales of entrepreneurial orientation, creative climate and complemented Hock and colleagues’ (2016) strategic agility scale by including the 5 subcomponents for each component of strategic agility: strategic sensitivity, collective commitment, and resource fluidity. To analyze the model, I collected data from a sample of dean’s office team business schools in USA listed in the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) website to understand how top management teams operate within an independent business unit. I sent questionnaires to the dean’s office team using a Qualtrics survey link via email. Further details are provided in Chapter 4. In addition to contributing to research, the dissertation contributes to managerial practice. The executive high-performance work system developed in this dissertation should create a top management team who will more likely become strategically agile in order to keep the organization at a competitive advantage. Additionally, the executive high-performance work system should develop and further enhance the skills, knowledge, and abilities of the top management team members as well as influence their decision-making and interaction-processes. Development of skills, knowledge, and abilities of top management team members is crucial in the given context with myriad of uncertainties such as receiving resource support from the Board of Trustees, balancing institutional pressures from the Board of Trustees and the local community

ILR Faculty Publications 2012-13

The production of scholarly research continues to be one of the primary missions of the ILR School. During a typical academic year, ILR faculty members published or had accepted for publication over 25 books, edited volumes, and monographs, 170 articles and chapters in edited volumes, numerous book reviews. In addition, a large number of manuscripts were submitted for publication, presented at professional association meetings, or circulated in working paper form. Our faculty's research continues to find its way into the very best industrial relations, social science and statistics journals.Faculty_Publications_2012_13.pdf: 77 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020