Transforming Caterpillars Into Butterflies: The Role of Managerial Values and HR Systems in the Performance of Emergent Organizations

Emerging firms are the foundation for economic growth in today's business world, yet relatively little is known about the factors that contribute to the success or failure of developing organizations. This research study helps to address this broad question by examining the role that managerial values and practices play in the performance of high-tech start-ups. Using the resource-based and dynamic capability perspectives, this research project examines three critical factors that are likely to affect the performance of emerging firms: human resource policies and practices, an overarching philosophy of partnership, and an entrepreneurial orientation. Each of these is argued to produce a sustainable competitive advantage by providing firms with the ability to dynamically configure and reconfigure resource bundles. Results indicate that high performance work systems and partnership philosophy are positively associated with sales growth and innovation. Additional findings suggest that partnership and an entrepreneurial orientation both increase the likelihood of implementing high performance work systems. Finally, the results suggest that firms combining a greater utilization of high performance work systems with an entrepreneurial orientation achieve higher levels of sales growth

Pulling in different directions? Exploring the relationship between vertical pay dispersion and high-performance work systems

Vertical pay dispersion (VPD), a hierarchical pay structure used to motivate employees, has traditionally been studied separately from high-performance work systems (HPWSs). As a component of HPWSs, incentive-based compensation schemes focus on employee- or team-level incentives. However, the influence of the simultaneous utilization of VPD and HPWS on performance remains understudied. This study addresses the question of whether these approaches to managing human capital serve as complements or substitutes to one another. VPD and HPWS are argued to substitute for one another with respect to motivation- and skill-enhancing practices. The opposite notion is true in regard to opportunity-enhancing HPWSs, which serve to amplify the effectiveness of VPD. In a multisource, longitudinal sample of South Korean firms, the hypothesized predictions are supported

Entrepreneurship Everywhere: Across Campus, Across Communities, and Across Borders

This paper introduces the theme of this special issue related to “Entrepreneurship Everywhere: Across Campus, Across Communities, and Across Borders.” We explore three critical points as we set up the accepted articles for the special issue. First, if we are everywhere are we anywhere? Second, we focus on the importance of collaboration. Third, we discuss the importance of strategically planning on how your efforts intervene or integrate into the wider ecosystem. Entrepreneurship is everywhere. A search of the term “entrepreneurship” on Google yields 132 million results. By comparison a search on “strategic management” yields a mere 17.2 million results. Despite the highly unscientific nature of this comparison, the results shine the light on the tremendous interest and growth in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs. The job creation potential of small businesses and entrepreneurial firms has captured the attention of politicians from across the globe and the ideological spectrum, who frequently hale the benefits of entrepreneurial activity. Citing work by Tornatzky and Rideout (2014), the Kauffman Foundation’s (2015) “State of Entrepreneurship” address indicates that entrepreneurship programs, both curricular and noncurricular, are the fastest-growing programs on college campuses. While many large corporations are villainized, entrepreneurs and small businesses are generally held in high regard and lionized in many instances. Further, interest and growth in the topic of entrepreneurship is unbound by geography or academic discipline. Across many university campuses it is common to find multiple programs and centers dedicated to fostering and growing entrepreneurship. Programs as diverse as engineering, music, pharmacy, agriculture, art, and law are all focusing on helping their students to both engage in entrepreneurial thinking and activity. While the business school remains a key component of the entrepreneurial ecosystem on campuses across the globe, the diversity of programs has grown dramatically. This special issue seeks to highlight this expansive growth by including a diverse set of articles that point to the explosive growth of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship programing around the world, within our communities and on college campuses. We will briefly preview each of the contributions below, but first we highlight three critical and related questions of the growth of entrepreneurship. First, if entrepreneurship is everywhere, is it truly anywhere? Second, as entrepreneurship continues to be an emphasis across levels of federal, state, and local government and as diverse university entities continue to seek to spark entrepreneurial activities, how is this best managed? Third, how is the entrepreneurial ecosystem affected by the tremendous investment and enhanced focus of universities and government entities in trying to engineer entrepreneurship

On the shoulders of giants: A meta-review of strategic human resource management

Recent years have witnessed significant growth in the field of strategic HRM. This article summarizes the literature in this field by conducting a meta-review, a review of the reviews that have covered various topics of strategic HRM. In doing so, the authors highlight theoretical frameworks and empirical findings of studies in the field over the past three decades, identify methodological issues and challenges in the previous research, and discuss recent trends in the field of strategic HRM. The author concludes by suggesting some interesting and important directions for future work. Supplementary material attached below

Bang for the buck: Understanding employee benefit allocations and new venture survival

Providing employee benefits is costly for new ventures, yet offering such inducements is often essential to developing human capital. While a broad combination of employee benefits could yield synergistic effects, adopting a large number of benefits may not be feasible for resource constrained ventures. To ensure survival, while limiting misallocation of scarce resources towards benefits that have lower returns, entrepreneurs must be selective in choosing the benefits that generate the most ‘bang for the buck’. Our study assesses the effects of employee benefit offerings on venture survival odds. Based on a longitudinal sample of 1012 US-based ventures from the Kauffman Firm Survey and leveraging, signaling and motivation theories, we find that offering health insurance, flexible work schedules, paid vacation, or paid sick leave increase the odds of survival. However, offering employee stock ownership plans or tuition reimbursement has no significant influence on the odds of survival

Analyzing ERP implementation at a public university using the innovation strategy model

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have revolutionized the way companies are using information technology in their businesses. ERP was created in an effort to streamline business processes and has proven to be successful in many operations. Unfortunately, not all ERP implementations have met expectations. One way that businesses may be able to increase success rates is to embrace creativity and innovation in their ERP implementations. For businesses to do this, they must first understand how creativity originates and how that creativity can be integrated into business solutions. This article presents a case study that examines the ERP implementation at a public university and analyzes the applicability of the Innovation Strategy Model on public sector organizations. 1

Entrepreneurship Everywhere: Across Campus, Across Communities, and Across Borders

This paper introduces the theme of this special issue related to “Entrepreneurship Everywhere: Across Campus, Across Communities, and Across Borders.” We explore three critical points as we set up the accepted articles for the special issue. First, if we are everywhere are we anywhere? Second, we focus on the importance of collaboration. Third, we discuss the importance of strategically planning on how your efforts intervene or integrate into the wider ecosystem. Entrepreneurship is everywhere. A search of the term “entrepreneurship” on Google yields 132 million results. By comparison a search on “strategic management” yields a mere 17.2 million results. Despite the highly unscientific nature of this comparison, the results shine the light on the tremendous interest and growth in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs. The job creation potential of small businesses and entrepreneurial firms has captured the attention of politicians from across the globe and the ideological spectrum, who frequently hale the benefits of entrepreneurial activity. Citing work by Tornatzky and Rideout (2014), the Kauffman Foundation’s (2015) “State of Entrepreneurship” address indicates that entrepreneurship programs, both curricular and noncurricular, are the fastest-growing programs on college campuses. While many large corporations are villainized, entrepreneurs and small businesses are generally held in high regard and lionized in many instances. Further, interest and growth in the topic of entrepreneurship is unbound by geography or academic discipline. Across many university campuses it is common to find multiple programs and centers dedicated to fostering and growing entrepreneurship. Programs as diverse as engineering, music, pharmacy, agriculture, art, and law are all focusing on helping their students to both engage in entrepreneurial thinking and activity. While the business school remains a key component of the entrepreneurial ecosystem on campuses across the globe, the diversity of programs has grown dramatically. This special issue seeks to highlight this expansive growth by including a diverse set of articles that point to the explosive growth of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship programing around the world, within our communities and on college campuses. We will briefly preview each of the contributions below, but first we highlight three critical and related questions of the growth of entrepreneurship. First, if entrepreneurship is everywhere, is it truly anywhere? Second, as entrepreneurship continues to be an emphasis across levels of federal, state, and local government and as diverse university entities continue to seek to spark entrepreneurial activities, how is this best managed? Third, how is the entrepreneurial ecosystem affected by the tremendous investment and enhanced focus of universities and government entities in trying to engineer entrepreneurship

Bang for the buck: Understanding employee benefit allocations and new venture survival

Providing employee benefits is costly for new ventures, yet offering such inducements is often essential to developing human capital. While a broad combination of employee benefits could yield synergistic effects, adopting a large number of benefits may not be feasible for resource constrained ventures. To ensure survival, while limiting misallocation of scarce resources towards benefits that have lower returns, entrepreneurs must be selective in choosing the benefits that generate the most ‘bang for the buck’. Our study assesses the effects of employee benefit offerings on venture survival odds. Based on a longitudinal sample of 1012 US-based ventures from the Kauffman Firm Survey and leveraging, signaling and motivation theories, we find that offering health insurance, flexible work schedules, paid vacation, or paid sick leave increase the odds of survival. However, offering employee stock ownership plans or tuition reimbursement has no significant influence on the odds of survival

A theory-based analysis of null causality between HRM practices and outcomes:Evidence from four-wave longitudinal data

The last three decades have seen a growing interest in understanding the influence of human resource management (HRM) practices on employee job satisfaction and organizational performance. While the results have been generally positive, most studies have utilized cross-sectional research designs, which limit causal inferences. Recently, several studies have used longitudinal data but have not consistently found significant causal links between HRM practices and outcomes after controlling for past outcomes. This points to a tension in the literature that merits further investigation. Drawing on general systems theory (GST), we explore this issue by proposing and testing a set of null causal relationships involving HRM practices, organizational performance (i.e., patient satisfaction), and job satisfaction. We show that average scores on HRM practices and outcomes remain relatively stable at the organizational level over time, such that any observed within-organization change is likely negligible or non-significant. Using four-wave longitudinal data (with two, four, and six-year time lags) from the public healthcare sector, we argue that the causal links between HRM practices and outcomes are indeed sensitive to the forces of dynamic equilibrium operating within a highly institutionalized context. We use GST to highlight the self-sustaining nature of HRM systems and discuss the ramifications of this stability for strategic HRM research and practice