The effects of flexibility in employee skills, employee behaviors, and human resource practices on firm performance

The components of human resource (HR) flexibility and theirpotential relationship to firm performance have not been empirically examined. The authors hypothesize that flexibility of employee skills, employee behaviors, and. HR practices represent critical subdimensions of HR flexibility and are related to superior firm performance. Results based on perceptual measures of HR flexibility and accounting measures of firm performance support this prediction. Whereas skill, behavior, and HR practice flexibility are significantly associated with an index of firm financial performance, the authors find that only skill flexibility, contributes to cost-efficiency

The Effect of Chief Executive Officer and Board Prior Corporate Social Responsibility Experiences on Their Focal Firm’s Corporate Social Responsibility: The Moderating Effect of Chief Executive Officer Overconfidence

This research aims to examine how the prior experiences of the chief executive officer (CEO) and board influence the focal firm’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. Further, the present study examines how CEO overconfidence influences the diffusion of CSR activities. The authors theorize that overconfident CEOs are influenced more by the corporate strategies they experienced on other boards and less by the corporate strategies experienced by other directors. Through longitudinal analyses of the CSR profiles a sample of S&P 500 companies for the period 2006-2013, the study shows that CEO and board prior CSR experience are positively related to the firm’s current CSR activities. The authors find a significant positive moderating effect of CEO overconfidence on the relationship between CEO prior CSR and the focal firm’s CSR. The theory and results highlight how CEO and board prior CSR exposure may influence the focal firm’s stances toward CSR and that CEO overconfidence may have differential effects on these relationships

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

The Organizational Context and Performance Implications of Human Capital Investment Variability

In contrast to the traditional focus of HRD on human capital accumulations we examine the issue of variability in human capital investment. Drawing on Real Options Theory, we theorize that larger firms and firms that are faced with greater organizational risk will create a greater number of options in terms of human capital investment decisions resulting over time in greater variability in labor costs. Based on a large sample of U.S. firms and longitudinal data, we found that labor cost variability was positively related to organizational risk and firm size, but negatively related to capital intensity. These relationships were significant even after controlling for employment variability. Overall, we found that in the long term, firms with greater variability in labor costs achieved better performance. Implications for strategic HRD theory and practice are discussed

The Effects of Flexibility In Employee Skills, Employee Behaviors, and Human Resource Practices On Firm Performance

The components of human resource (HR) flexibility and theirpotential relationship to firm performance have not been empirically examined. The authors hypothesize that flexibility of employee skills, employee behaviors, and. HR practices represent critical subdimensions of HR flexibility and are related to superior firm performance. Results based on perceptual measures of HR flexibility and accounting measures of firm performance support this prediction. Whereas skill, behavior, and HR practice flexibility are significantly associated with an index of firm financial performance, the authors find that only skill flexibility, contributes to cost-efficiency

Divergence Between Informant and Archival Measures of the Environment: Real Differences, Artifact, or Perceptual Error?

Although organizational environments are a central concern for researchers in organization theory and strategy, many researchers report that informant assessments and archival measures of the environment do not converge. This study investigates whether the observed divergence can be attributed to perceptual error, to real differences in constructive definitions, to differences between a firm\u27s environment and an aggregate industry environment, or simply to methodological artifacts. Results show that environmental uncertainty and environmental variation are distinct multidimensional constructs even when only informant measures from the same respondents are considered, and that organizational level mediating filters are more strongly related to informant measures of environmental variation than to environmental uncertainty. However, the effects of individual level filters on environmental variation do not decrease after controlling for organizational level filters. We conclude that, although there are some real differences between informant and archival measures of the environment, the possibility of perceptual bias cannot be ruled out. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

What counts versus what can be counted:The complex interplay of market orientation and marketing performance measurement

Market orientation (MO) and marketing performance measurement (MPM) are two of the most widespread strategic marketing concepts among practitioners. However, some have questioned the benefits of extensive investments in MO and MPM. More importantly, little is known about which combinations of MO and MPM are optimal in ensuring high business performance. To address this research gap, the authors analyze a unique data set of 628 firms with a novel method of configurational analysis: fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. In line with prior research, the authors find that MO is an important determinant of business performance. However, to reap its benefits, managers need to complement it with appropriate MPM, the level and focus of which vary across firms. For example, whereas large firms and market leaders generally benefit from comprehensive MPM, small firms may benefit from measuring marketing performance only selectively or by focusing on particular dimensions of marketing performance. The study also finds that many of the highest-performing firms do not follow any of the particular best practices identified