[Excerpt] There has been an explosion of interest in the changing relationship between employees and employers, sometimes referred to as the  Deal.  There is widespread agreement between researchers and practitioners that a new deal is evolving which has important implications for the management of employees. However, fundamental issues regarding the nature of the new deal have not been investigated

Ash, Karin

Boswell, Wendy

Boudreau, John

Cavanaugh, Marcie

Roehling, Mark

English

DigitalCommons@ILR

Cornell University ILR School 
DigitalCommons@ILR 
CAHRS Working Paper Series Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies (CAHRS) 
September 1997 
The "Deal" Pilot Study Results: Preliminary Report 
Mark Roehling 
Cornell University 
Marcie Cavanaugh 
Cornell University 
John Boudreau 
Cornell University 
Wendy Boswell 
Cornell University 
Karin Ash 
Cornell University 
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The "Deal" Pilot Study Results: Preliminary Report 
Abstract 
[Excerpt] There has been an explosion of interest in the changing relationship between employees and 
employers, sometimes referred to as the "Deal." There is widespread agreement between researchers and 
practitioners that a new deal is evolving which has important implications for the management of 
employees. However, fundamental issues regarding the nature of the new deal have not been 
investigated. 
Keywords 
employer, employee, job, deal, responsibilities, student, security, recruiter 
Comments 
Suggested Citation 
Roehling, M., Cavanaugh, M., Boudreau, J., Boswell, W. & Ash, K. (1997). The "deal" pilot study results: 
Preliminary report (CAHRS Working Paper #97-18). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, School of Industrial and 
Labor Relations, Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies. 
http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cahrswp/159 
This article is available at DigitalCommons@ILR: https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cahrswp/159 
W O R K I N G  P A P E R  S E R I E S
The "Deal" Pilot Study Results:
Preliminary Report
Mark Roehling
Marcie Cavanaugh
John Boudreau
Wendy Boswell
Karin Ash
Working Paper  9 7 - 1 8
CAHRS / Cornell University
187 Ives Hall
Ithaca, NY  14853-3901  USA
Tel.  607 255-9358
www.ilr.cornell.edu/CAHRS/
Advancing the World of Work
The "Deal" Pilot Study Results WP 97-18
Page 1
The "Deal" Pilot Study Results:
Preliminary Report
A study by:
Mark Roehling, Marcie Cavanaugh, John Boudreau,
Wendy Boswell, and Karin Ash
Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies
School of Industrial and Labor Relations
Cornell University
There has been an explosion of interest in the changing relationship between employees
and employers, sometimes referred to as the "Deal." There is widespread agreement between
researchers and practitioners that a new deal is evolving which has important implications for
the management of employees. However, fundamental issues regarding the nature of the new
deal have not been investigated:
· What is the new deal and what are the important components?
· Do employers and employees (or job seekers) share a similar understanding of the terms of
the new deal?
· Where do employees and job seekers get their understanding of the employment deal?
The primary purpose of this research was to begin exploring these fundamental issues.
Ms. Kate O'Brien provided assistance in the data collection and data analysis. Ms. Lori Miller provided assistance in designing
and producing this report.
Research Supported by CAHRS
This report has not undergone formal review or approval of the faculty of the ILR School. It is intended to make results of
research, conferences, and projects available to others interested in human resource management in preliminary form to
encourage a discussion and suggestions.
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cahrs
The "Deal" Pilot Study Results WP 97-18
Page 2
Study Method
A sample of Cornell students and campus
recruiters completed a survey that assessed their
views of the employee-employer exchange
relationship. Respondents were asked questions about
81 specified employee and employer responsibilities.
Respondent Profile
Surveys were completed by 108 students
and 67 recruiters.  The students were from the
Engineering, Hotel, Johnson, Business Agriculture,
and the ILR Schools, who were currently undergoing
or had recently undergone the job search process.
Seventy of the student respondents were
undergraduates, 55 were female, and their average
age was 23. Twenty-six of the recruiter respondents
were female. The average recruiter was 36years old
and had been employed by their current employer for
7.2 years. Thirty-six were HR staff recruiters, and the
remaining recruiters were from functional areas
outside HRM ("line" recruiters).
A Summary of the Study's Findings
• The concept of "employability" is a key
component of students' and recruiters' views
of employer-employee responsibilities.
Students and recruiters agree that employers are
responsible for providing training and development
opportunities that will maintain or enhance
employees' career related knowledge and skills. In
fact, employers' duty to provide training and
development was rated significantly higher by both
students and recruiters than any other group of
employer responsibilities other than the core
responsibilities. Students and recruiters also agree
that employees are responsible for taking advantage
of those opportunities to maintain or enhance their
employability.
The "Deal" Pilot Study Results WP 97-18
Page 3
§ There is agreement that long-term job
security is not an employer responsibility.
BUT ...
§ Despite employment-at-will, there is strong
perceived employer responsibility to provide
security from arbitrary discharge.
Two aspects of job security were investigated. First,
we looked at employers' responsibilities to provide
long-term security. Students and recruiters rated this
responsibility significantly lower than any other
employer responsibility. We also looked at
employers' responsibilities to have good reasons for
employment termination (i.e., security from arbitrary
discharge). Here, students and line recruiters rated
the employers' responsibility significantly higher than
the staff recruiters' rated this responsibility. This is
consistent with other research which found that
despite their employer's explicit at-will policies,
employees from a variety of organizations
overwhelmingly believed that their employer was
"highly obligated" to have good reasons for
discharging them. The fact that staff recruiters, when
compared to students and line recruiters, believed
that employers have significantly less responsibility in
this area might be due to greater familiarity with the
employment at will legal doctrine among HR staff
recruiters, or perhaps their greater first hand
experience conducting workforce reductions.
§ Loyalty is not dead, but it is changing.
We examined three aspects of loyalty: employees'
responsibilities to promote or defend the
organization, make sacrifices, and remain with the
organization (commitment to stay). Both students
and recruiters believed that employees have little
responsibility to remain with their employer in the
face of alternative offers. Staff recruiters gave lower
ratings to this responsibility than students or line
recruiters. However, both groups equally felt that
employees have a higher responsibility to promote or
defend the organization and make sacrifices.
The "Deal" Pilot Study Results WP 97-18
Page 4
• Commitment goes hand in hand with job
security.
Does lower job security undermine employee
commitment to stay with the organization? Present
findings suggest that there is a significant, relatively
strong relationship between perceived job security
obligations and employee commitment to stay with
the organization. The more a person believed that
the employer was responsible for job security, the
more they believed that employees' have
responsibility to stay with the organization. Is it
inevitable that lower job security will result in lower
employee commitment? The present data cannot
answer that question, but they give employers
reason to be concerned.
• Business students' beliefs were
significantly different from other
students' beliefs.
The pattern of student responses across colleges was
similar, but the Johnson Business School students'
beliefs regarding employee responsibilities was a
clear exception. Johnson School students rated five
of the six groups of employee responsibilities
significantly higher than other students. They also
rated employer responsibility of job security
somewhat lower. These findings cannot be explained
by differences in average age and work experience
between the two groups. Perhaps this pattern reflects
a "management orientation," -employees should give
a lot, but employers needn't guarantee security.
• Women and men hold similar views of the
"Deal."
In both the student and recruiter samples, there were
no significant differences between women and men.
§ Line recruiters' view of the "Deal" is more
closely aligned with students' view than the
stag recruiters' view.
Compared to line recruiters, both staff recruiters and
students rated employers as having significantly less
responsibility to provide job security, but more
responsibility to provide two-way communication and
contingent pay.
The "Deal" Pilot Study Results WP 97-18
Page 5
Looking to the Future ...
The Need to Dig Deeper
• Look beyond recruiters and students.
The present exploratory findings raise a number of
questions. The significant differences that were found
between staff recruiters and students, line and staff
recruiters, and the Johnson Business school
students and the other students, suggest that it may
be simplistic to talk about "the" new deal. The fact
that recruiters are the organization's interface with
college job seekers means they might be expected to
view the new deal more similarly to students than the
typical manager. Greater difference in employees'
understanding of the new deal might be found if a
broader range of job seekers, employees, and
managers are compared.
§ How do people learn about the "Deal?"
Differences between line and staff recruiters were
unexpected and highlight the need to investigate
how individuals come to understand the employment
relationship. For example, compared to students and
line recruiters, staff recruiters believed that
employees' have less responsibility to remain with
the organization, and, that employers have less
responsibility to guard against arbitrary discharge.
Do staff recruiters' beliefs reflect more awareness of
what the new deal is said to involve, or is their
understanding a more accurate reflection of the
"Deal" their organization is offering?
• Have important components of the "Deal"
been ignored?
We focused on specific elements of the "Deal" (e.g.,
training opportunities, long-term job security) based
on the relevant research and professional literatures.
These descriptions are mostly based on anecdotes.
Few attempts have been made to systematically
explore the areas of exchange that are of greatest
relevance. Are there important terms of the new
employment relationship that current literature has
failed to identify (particularly as it relates to student
job seekers)? Would new findings emerge if new
questions were asked in new ways?


The  Deal  Pilot Study Results: Preliminary Report

[Excerpt] There has been an explosion of interest in the changing relationship between employees and employers, sometimes referred to as the "Deal." There is widespread agreement between researchers and practitioners that a new deal is evolving which has important implications for the management of employees. However, fundamental issues regarding the nature of the new deal have not been investigated.The_Deal_Pilot_Study_ResultsWP97_18.pdf: 242 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

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