Theoretical and Empirical Challenges in Studying: The HR Practice - Firm Performance Relationship

Over the past 10 years a plethora of research has been conducted seeking to establish a relationship between human resource (HR) practices and firm performance. While this research has demonstrated promising results, a significant number of problems exist. This paper seeks to identify the theoretical and empirical challenges facing researchers who wish to further establish the impact of HR practices on firm performance. We conclude with some recommendations for future research in this area that might more accurately assess this relationship in ways that will be useful for both researchers and practitioners

ILR Impact Brief - Affective Commitment Links Human Resource Practices and Voluntary Turnover

[Excerpt] Motivation- and empowerment- enhancing human resource (HR) practices are positively associated with employees’ collective emotional attachment to, and identification with, a company and its goals; this affective commitment, in turn, is negatively associated with the aggregate of employee decisions to exit an organization. Thus, collective affective commitment mediates the relationship between these two sets of HR practices and voluntary turnover. Practices that enhance workforce skills, however, are not mediated by collective affective commitment; rather, they are directly and positively associated with increased voluntary turnover

The Consequences of and Factors Affecting Perceptions and Use of Technology

Technology and its impacts on society are the subject of constant debate. Technology has been influential in creating a global economy, which has given people more time for leisure activities. However, technology has also produced unintended by-products, including issues such as a dependence on foreign nations for commodities like food. Analyzing both the positive and negative consequences of technology can help people better understand both its regional and global impacts. In turn, this knowledge can help us make more beneficial choices regarding how we use technology moving forward. This thesis explores how technology positively and negatively affects society, and will also examine how people use technology, as well as the things that impact how people perceive technology. The technologies being examined include smartphones, household technology (appliances), genetically modified crops (GMOs), and other technologies such as the Internet and social media. These technologies will be contextualized in several different aspects of life, (such as connectivity, personal privacy, work-family conflict, education and quality of health) to illustrate the extent to which technology has both improved and hindered society, as well as to show that these effects often impact how people view these technologies

The Impact of Human Resource Practices on Business-Unit Operating and Financial Performance

This study examined the impact of HR practices and organizational commitment on business-unit operating performance and profitability. Using a predictive design with a sample of 50 autonomous business-units within the same corporation, the study revealed that both organizational commitment and HR practices were significantly related to operational measures of performance as well as operating expenses and pre-tax profits

High Performance HR Practices And Customer Satisfaction: Employee Process Mechanisms

This research examined organizational commitment and customer focus as mediators between HR practices and customer satisfaction of seventy-one work units from twenty-five business units from a single firm in the food service industry. Customer satisfaction was assessed by ratings from multiple customers eighteen months after HR practices and process mechanisms were assessed from unique groups of employee respondents. Results suggest that employee commitment and customer focus partially mediate the relationship between HR practices and customer satisfaction

The HR-Firm Performance Relationship: Can it be in the Mind of the Beholder?

This study examined whether respondents’ implicit theories of performance could impact their responses to surveys regarding HR practices and effectiveness. Senior Human Resource and Line Executives and MBA, graduate Engineering, and graduate HR students read scenarios of high and low performing firms and were asked to report on the prevalence of various HR practices and effectiveness of the HR function in each firm. Results indicated that all four groups of respondents held implicit theories that high performing firms were characterized by extensive HR practices and had highly effective HR functions relative to low performing firms. Subjects with substantial work experience reported greater differences between and high and low performing firms than did subjects with relatively little work experience. The implications of these results for research on the HR Practices – Firm Performance relationship are discussed

Characterization of Spatial and Temporal Anisotropy in Turbulent Mixing Layers Using Optical Techniques

The optical aberrations induced by mixing layers of dissimilar gases are recorded and analyzed in order to characterize the spatial and temporal properties of the flow. Laser light was propagated through a mixing layer of Helium and Nitrogen gas, having velocities of 8.5 m/sec and 1.5 m/sec, respectively. The light was propagated in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the mixing layer. The mixing layer was evaluated in two experimental regimes: free turbulent mixing, where the mixing layer spreads into the surrounding air; and channel flow, where the mixing layer is confined to a rectangular channel. The optical perturbations induced by the mixing layer were recorded using a lateral shearing interferometer and a point spread function camera. Autocorrelation functions and structure functions were computed from the spatially resolved phase surfaces obtained using the shearing interferometer. For both the free and channel flows, the phase fluctuations were not wide-sense stationary. Consequently, the Strehl ratio predicted by traditional aero-optical models did not agree with experimental measurements except m regions of the flow where the Reynolds number was low. However, the phase fluctuations were locally homogeneous. A two-dimensional power law model was developed, analogous to the one-dimensional Kolmogorov model for isotropic turbulence. This model predicted a relative Strehl ratio which closely matched experiment throughout the flow. In a second series of experiments, the gas velocities were reduced to 4.5 rn/s and 1.0 rn/s for the Helium and nitrogen gas, respectively. The flow orientation was rotated such that the laser light propagated in a direction parallel to the plane of the mixing layer

A Pacifist’s Point: William Warder Cadbury, His Mission in Canton, and Public Health Initiatives 1909–1937

This paper examines the mission of William Warder Cadbury (1877–1959) to Canton from 1909 to 1937. As a Quaker medical missionary, Cadbury had the freedom to move around Canton and engage himself in the projects that interested him. He used this to engage in a number of public health projects. He had more power to do this inside of Lingnan University than out of it, mapping the limits of private individuals to bring about public health and the way in which Cadbury himself inserted into a debate about the future of Chinese modernity

Beginning to Unlock the Black Box in the HR Firm Performance Relationship: The Impact of HR Practices on Employee Attitudes and Employee Outcomes

Theoretical models in strategic human resource management research commonly include employee attitudes and behaviors as key mediating links between human resource practices and firm performance. However, almost all empirical SHRM work to date has ignored the mediating hypothesis and merely examined the direct relationship between HR practices and firm outcomes. The purpose of this study is to test the relationship between HR practices and employee attitudes and behaviors. Using a sample of 174 independent work groups, we examined the relationship between HR practices and collective behaviors (turnover and absenteeism) mediated by collective attitudes (job satisfaction and commitment). Results indicate attitudes partially mediate the relationship between HR practices and employee behaviors. The direct and indirect relationships identified in this study support the notion that attitudes and behaviors play a mediating role between HR practices and firm outcomes. These findings illustrate the varying impacts of HR practices and the importance of utilizing multilevel theory and methods

HR Practices and Customer Satisfaction: The Mediating Link of Commitment

This research examined organizational commitment as a mediator between HR practices and customer satisfaction of 35 job groups from 13 service firm business units. Both commitment level and consensus were predicted to influence customer satisfaction. Results found that commitment level mediated the relationship between HR practices and customer satisfaction