The Human Capital Dimensions of Sustainable Investment: What Investment Analysts Need to Know

This paper identifies a number of questions that need to be answered if the growing interest in building investment portfolios of firms that follow socially and environmentally sustainable practices is to be successful in transforming the financial institutions and analysts from a liability to an asset in expanding the number of sustainable firms in the economy. Evidence from three decades of research on "high performance workplace practices" is reviewed that identifies what is required for firms to align human capital and financial strategies. A longer term research and education agenda is presented for answering the remaining open questions

Relationships, Layoffs, and Organizational Resilience: Airline Industry Responses to September 11

The terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 affected the U.S. airline industry more than almost any other industry. Certain of these companies emerged successful, however, and demonstrated remarkable resilience while others languished. This investigation identifies the reasons why some airline companies recovered successfully after the attacks while others struggled. Evidence is provided that layoffs after the crisis, while intended to foster recovery, instead inhibited recovery throughout the four years after the crisis. But layoffs after the crisis were strongly correlated with the lack of financial reserves and the lack of a viable business model prior to the crisis. Digging deeper, we find that having a viable business model itself depended on the extent to which positive employee relationships had been achieved and maintained over the long term. One implication of our findings is that layoffs, while reducing costs in the short term, may also undermine the positive relationships that are critical for achieving lasting recovery.Relationships, layoffs, organizational resilience, terrorist attacks, aviation.

Up In The Air: How Airlines Can Improve Performance by Engaging Their Employees

[Excerpt] In the chapters that follow, we explore the competitive strategies and employment-relations strategies found in the United States (chapter 2) and in a range of other countries (chapter 3), before and after deregulation. In chapter 4 we analyze recent trends in quality, productivity, and costs, as well as employee outcomes. In chapter 5 we look more closely at selected new-entrant airlines and find a wide range of competitive and employment-relations strategies being used in this segment of the industry. In chapter 6, we examine several legacy airlines and identify the distinct strategies they have adopted to respond to competitive pressures from new-entrant airlines. These chapters each focus on selected U.S. airlines and those based in some other countries. In chapter 7, we summarize the strategies of new-entrant and legacy airlines, and offer lessons about how airlines can and do change their strategies over time in their efforts to compete more effectively. We offer recommendations, using our historical and comparative analyses to discuss whether a path forward can be identified that can provide a better balance in stakeholder outcomes. We end on a positive note, arguing that if the parties learn from their experiences and from each other, in the United States and other countries, there is a path that deals with the pressures building up in the airline industry, offering hope for a better balance between investor, employee, customer, and societal interests. Key questions are whether and from where the leadership will come to get the industry moving down this path or whether the main parties might not take such action before there is a perfect storm

A Social Capital Model of High Performance Work Systems

In this paper we explore a causal mechanism through which high performance work systems affect performance outcomes. We propose a model in which a particular type of high performance work system – a relational work system – enhances organizational performance by creating a framework that encourages the development of social capital between employees who perform distinct functions. In a nine-hospital study of patient care, we show that the adoption of a relational work system predicts high levels of social capital among doctors, nurses, physical therapists, social workers and case managers in the form of relational coordination, in turn predicting quality and efficiency outcomes for patients. Results suggest that social capital models of high performance work systems are a promising counterpart to models that focus on employee skills or commitment

Resilience & Growth

The Bryant University Women’s Summit® is the largest and longest-running conference for women in Rhode Island and the region. The current context has allowed us to reimagine this signature event. We are happy to announce that 24th Women’s Summit will take place on June 16, 2021. We look forward to sharing our speakers, sessions and everything this fully virtual platform offers, from robust networking opportunities to meaningful interactions with our sponsors

Cross-Boundary Coordination Under Organizational Stress: Communication Patterns and Resilience

Coordination is one of the key activities that organizations must carry out on a day-to-day basis to maintain reliable performance in the face of changing conditions. When organizations come under stress it is important that they continue to maintain high levels of coordination. Yet extensive evidence suggests that organizations and individuals within them respond differently to stress, in ways that are sometimes functional and sometimes dysfunctional. We study the Continental air control tower in Newark that was built to co-locate representatives from key airline functions and key external parties in order to facilitate communication among them. Initial research was based on informal interviews and site visits, as well as secondary analysis of company documents and industry reports. In addition, using communication network data, we explore how cross-boundary coordination occurs under conditions of predictable and unpredictable stress, and how co-location can facilitate adaptation to changing conditions

Institutional Labor Economics, the New Personnel Economics, and Internal Labor Markets: A Reconsideration

The author illustrates the utility of institutional labor economics and makes a case for a reconsideration of it. Two recent developments motivate this effort: the rise of New Personnel Economics (NPE) as a significant subfield of labor economics and the substantial shifts in work organization that have taken place since the 1990s. Understanding how and why firms have reorganized work opens the door for a renewed interest in institutional approaches. The author explains that the rules of institutional labor markets (ILMs) emerge from the competition between organizational interest groups—unions, personnel professionals, and the government—and competing views of firms’ objectives—resulting in the rise of ILMs, the slow diffusion of High Performance Work Systems, strategies used to obtain a high level of commitment from workers, the use of contingent employees, and the spread of new promotion rules in response to equal employment opportunity pressures. As such, the role of power and influence in establishing work rules is of central concern, though more conventional NPE considerations also remain important

Crossfunctional coordination and control : influencing employee behavior and process outcomes through organization design in the airline industry

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1995.Includes bibliographical references (p. 245-255).by Jody Hoffer Gittell.Ph.D

The Southwest Airlines Way: Using the Power of Relationships to Achieve High Performance

xvi. 319 hal.;23 c