| Human Resource Management Practices and Voluntary Turnover: Theoretical and Empirical Integration |
| | Menna, Ty | U. of Arkansas, Fayetteville | tmenna@comp.uark.edu | (501) 575-7237 |
| | Delery, John E. | U. of Arkansas, Fayetteville | jdelery@comp.uark.edu | (501) 575-6230 |
| | Gupta, Nina | U. of Arkansas, Fayetteville | ngupta@comp.uark.edu | (501)-575-6233 |
| | Faught, Kent S. | U. of Arkansas, Fayetteville | kfaught@comp.uark.edu | (501) 575-7237 |
| | Macro-level predictors of voluntary turnover rates of an organization are identified from the literature. Following the human capital paradigm,
employer inducements and employer expectations are considered critical in determining quit rates. Inducements are operationalized as pay,
job security, employee participation, information-sharing, training, and procedural justice, and expectations are operationalized as performance-
based pay. Following psychological and economic research, alternative job opportunities are also viewed as critical in predicting voluntary
turnover. This variable is operationalized as local unemployment rates. Despite promising results when considered separately, human capital
and available job opportunities studies rarely integrate these perspectives. We investigate the main and interactive effects of inducements,
expectations, and alternative opportunities in a sample of 92 plants manufacturing concrete pipe and products. Data were obtained from the
plant manager of each facility, and were supplemented through information available on the World Wide Web. Results show that pay and job
security have strong main effects on quit rates, that performance-based pay is not related to this outcome, and that alternative job opportunities
also has a strong effect with respect to quit rates. Only one inducement - procedural justice - interacted with alternative job opportunities in the
prediction of voluntary turnover. These results are discussed in terms of their relevance for explicating strategic human resource management
in general and turnover dynamics in particular. |
| | Keywords: turnover; strategic HRM; organization-level analysis |
| Designing a HR System: The roles of HR specialists and senior managers |
| | Mc Mackin, John F. | Dublin City University Business School | john.a.mcmackin@aib.ie | (01) 230 1692 |
| | Monks, Kathy | Dublin City University Business School | Kathy.Monks@dcu.ie | (01) 704 5397 |
| | The importance of research showing the impact of HRM on firm performance is now widely recognised. However, remarkably little is known about how this relationship operates, and this dearth of understanding poses a serious threat to the credibility of research on the topic. This paper reports the results of a study which looks at one element of this relationship by investigating how HR practices emerge and why they may or may not form part of a cohesive ‘HR system’. The qualitative research reported here was conducted in the wholesale banking arm of a major international financial institution and included in-depth interviews with senior line management as well as HR managers. Our analysis suggests that there are manifold layers to the concept of ‘practice’, and that the HR practices in use in this organisation were the result of a complex series of negotiations and interpretation. We consider the implications of these findings for both research and practice.
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| | Keywords: HR practitioners; HR system; line managers |
| Drug testing programs and their impact on workplace accidents |
| | Lockwood, Frank S. | Tallahassee Community College | fslockwood@netally.com | 850-922-8154 |
| | Klaas, Brian S. | U. of South Carolina | klaasb@darla.badm.sc.edu | (803) 777-4901 |
| | Logan, John E. | U. of South Carolina | loganj@darla.badm.sc.edu | 803-777-5973 |
| | Sandberg, William R. | U. of South Carolina | sandberg@darla.badm.sc.edu | 803-777-5980 |
| | Using a time-series design, this study examines the impact of introducing drug-testing programs on workplace accidents. Using data from three seperate hotels, we examined the impact associated with pre-employment testing programs and the impact associated with programs that included both pre-employment and random testing. The results of the interrupted time-series analysis suggest that the introduction of pre-employment testing did not affect the trend line for workplace accidents. However, the introduction of a program including both pre-employment and random testing was associated with a significant reduction in workplace accidents resulting from a downward shift in the trend line for accidents. The implications for the design of drug-free workplace programs are discussed as are the implications for future research. |
| | Keywords: drug; testing; accidents |
| Relational Principal-Agent Contracts, Employment Risk, and Firm Survival |
| | Gomez-Mejia, Luis R. | Arizona State U., Main | Luis.Gomez-Mejia@asu.edu | (602)-9658221 |
| | Nuñez-Nickel, Manuel | Universidad de Jaen | mnunez@ujaen.es | (34)-953-212-611 |
| | Gutierrez, Isabel | U. Carlos III | isagut@eco.uc3m.es | (34)-91-624-9627 |
| | We examine how relational contracts in an agency relationship affect the sensitivity of executive´s length of service to firm performance. We also examine the extent to which executive terminations enhance or hinder organizational survival. Using a sample of 276 Spanish newspapers during a 27 years period (1966-1993), our findings show that length of service of executives operating under a relational contract (those with family bonds to owners) is less responsive to observed performance results than that of their counterparts without such ties. The former also remains on their post longer as the firm's probability of death increases. CEO successions exert a positive effect on newspaper survival suggesting that agent entrenchment under a relational contract may be prejudicial to the principal. These findings have important implications for agency theory since relational contracts are shown to have a negative impact on agents' accountability for performance outcomes and this accountability (as reflected in managerial succession) improves organizational survival.
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| | Keywords: Agency theory; performance; entrenchment |