Frequent CEO Turnover and Firm Performance: The Resilience Effect of Workforce Diversity

© 2020, Springer Nature B.V. CEO turnover (or succession) is a critical event in an organization that influences organizational processes and performance. The objective of this study is to investigate whether workforce diversity (i.e., age, gender, and education-level diversity) might have a resilience effect on firm performance under the frequency of CEO turnover. Based on a sample of 409 Korean firms from 2010 to 2015, our results show that firms with more frequent CEO turnover have a lower firm performance. However, firms with more gender and education-level diversity could buffer the disruptive effect of frequent CEO turnover on firm performance to offer a benefit to the organization. Our theory and findings suggest that effectively managing diverse workforce can be a resilience factor in an uncertain organizational environment because diverse workforce has complementary skills and behaviors that can cope better with uncertainty and signals social inclusion of an organization, thus fostering a long-term exchange relationship. These findings contribute to the literature on CEO turnover (or succession) and diversity

Sharing vocabularies: towards horizontal alignment of values-driven business functions

This paper highlights the emergence of different ‘vocabularies’ that describe various values-driven business functions within large organisations and argues for improved horizontal alignment between them. We investigate two established functions that have long-standing organisational histories: Ethics and Compliance (E&C) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). By drawing upon research on organisational alignment, we explain both the need for and the potential benefit of greater alignment between these values-driven functions. We then examine the structural and socio-cultural dimensions of organisational systems through which E&C and CSR horizontal alignment can be coordinated to improve synergies, address tensions, and generate insight to inform future research and practice in the field of Business and Society. The paper concludes with research questions that can inform future scholarly research and a practical model to guide organizations’ efforts towards inter-functional, horizontal alignment of values-driven organizational practice

From staff-mix to skill-mix and beyond: towards a systemic approach to health workforce management

Throughout the world, countries are experiencing shortages of health care workers. Policy-makers and system managers have developed a range of methods and initiatives to optimise the available workforce and achieve the right number and mix of personnel needed to provide high-quality care. Our literature review found that such initiatives often focus more on staff types than on staff members' skills and the effective use of those skills. Our review describes evidence about the benefits and pitfalls of current approaches to human resources optimisation in health care. We conclude that in order to use human resources most effectively, health care organisations must consider a more systemic approach - one that accounts for factors beyond narrowly defined human resources management practices and includes organisational and institutional conditions

Exploring an impact sourcing initiative for a community of people with disabilities:A capability analysis

Part 1: Communities, ICT-Enabled Networks, and DevelopmentInternational audienceThe purpose of this paper is to bridge the knowledge gap on how new technology, like online platforms can help people with disabilities (PWD’s) improve their capabilities.The paper presents an interpretive qualitative case study of individuals who were all trained to be online freelancers using digital “gig” work platforms (e.g. Upwork) by “Virtualahan”, a social enterprise based in the Philippines. Data is analyzed through the lens of Bjørn Gigler’s Alternative Evaluation Framework (AEF). Interview and ethnographic data provide the evidence to analyze the achieved functionings for PWD and the barriers and facilitators of the functionings.The findings indicate that online technology facilitated employment has wider implications than an improved financial situation. Employment through online technology increased the informants self-confidence and how they are perceived by their families.This paper contributes to the literature on PWD’s, capabilities and online gig work, and how such work can help to build a community for PWD’s. Practical contributions of the findings for policymakers, consultants etc. are guidelines for helping PWD’s to find online employment, which can contribute to their capabilities

A simple paradigm for nooconomics, the economy of knowledge

International audienceThe human noosphere and its inner dynamic are forming a fascinating yet poorly understood multiscale complex system, in which one may represent the interaction of individual knowledge holders and their collective dynamic. Here I propose a simple, improvable paradigm for noodynamics (the study of knowledge flows) and nooconomics at large (the economy of knowledge) based on two intrinsic properties of knowledge-its prolificity and collegiality-and on three simple transfer laws capturing some fundamental differences between material and immaterial economics, namely 1) that knowledge exchanges , unlike property exchanges, are flows, and thus time-dependent, 2) that knowledge exchanges are positive sum, unlike material exchanges and 3) that combinations of knowledge are non linear. I then make a suggestion for a basic knowledge flow equation, namely that transferred knowledge is proportional to the product of spent attention and time, and discuss some of its social and political implications. keywords: knowledge economy, noosphere, multiscale dynamic, knowledge flow, noodynam-ics The purpose of this article is to outline a simple and improvable paradigm for noody-namics, the study of knowledge flows. If we endow this paradigm with an economic perspective, and consider its agents buyers and sellers, it can then also be considered an early working paradigm, or more precisely, an early building block towards a working paradigm, for nooconomics, the economy of knowledge. I thus attempt to demonstrate that noodynamics can be codified extremely simply, although not entirely , and will leave the many exceptions to the present paradigm to discussion

The strategic and cultural legitimacy of HR professionalization in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, human resources (HR) practice has reached a point of professionalization not yet apparent in other parts of China creating opportunities for best practice diffusion across rapidly developing cities, provinces, and regions. The aim of this paper is to ascertain the strategic and cultural legitimacy of human resource management (HRM) in Hong Kong from the perspective of the occupation’s status as an emerging profession. Combining established theory on professions with documented insights from normative associational ideals, this paper derives four major sources of HR professionalization, which it entitles strategy, communication, administration, and discipline. Assuming that tasks performed by the most senior, qualified and experienced practitioners hold greatest empirical sway over the prospect of occupational association, this study finds that a combination of strategic and communication practices emerge as the two most likely routes to HR professionalization. Based on survey responses from a representative sample of 172 certified practitioners, the findings support the notion of HR as a strategic asset, raising important implications for the professional status of the occupation within an Asian management context