Search results
1 – 10 of over 1000Thomaz Teodorovicz, Sandro Cabral and Sergio Lazzarini
This paper aims to present a new trend in management research: the Insider Econometrics approach.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a new trend in management research: the Insider Econometrics approach.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors argue that the use of internal organizational data not available in public sources can benefit both researchers interested in advancing theories and practitioners interested to improve the decision-making toward more solid and evidence-based grounds.
Findings
The authors demonstrate the subjects involved in Insider Econometrics realm and provide a framework to guide management scholars to successfully engage in research involving strong partnerships between academia and real world organizations.
Originality/value
This paper introduces a guide to Insider Econometric research to management scholars.
Details
Keywords
Sandro Cabral, Priscila Fernandes Ribeiro and Sanders Zurdo Romão
This paper aims to analyze the underlying factors of contract renewals in business-to-business (B2B) contracts.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the underlying factors of contract renewals in business-to-business (B2B) contracts.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors build a unique data set with 296 contracts signed between a major firm supplying petrochemical goods and its 128 customers between 2013 and 2016. They use Insider Econometrics as their methodological approach.
Findings
The econometric results suggest that contracts involving higher volume of trade, higher levels of dedicated assets representing seller’s specific investments in each transaction, and contracts comprising more than one product present an increased likelihood of being renewed.
Research limitations/implications
Although limited to a single organization, this paper contributes to management theories focused on buyer–supplier relationships in which coordination between interdependent parties is required.
Practical implications
Practitioners engaged in B2B relationships may benefit from the findings to shape their bargaining strategies in contexts of high levels of asset specificity and bilateral dependence.
Originality/value
This paper contribute to theories related to the strategic negotiation between buyers and suppliers by emphasizing the importance of asset specificity in a nuanced and multifaceted fashion, by highlighting aspects related to resource dependency, and idiosyncratic characteristics on contract renewal.
Details
Keywords
Lucas López-Manuel, Antonio Sartal and Xosé H. Vázquez
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how temporary labor moderates the relation between two well-known lean initiatives (process flow and process quality) and line…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how temporary labor moderates the relation between two well-known lean initiatives (process flow and process quality) and line productivity. This paper focuses on high-volume, low-variety (HVLV) shop floors, where work experience may not be as relevant as expected and extrinsic motivation of the temporary workforce could become a key driver of individual performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors follow an insider econometrics approach based on panel microdata (1,793 observations) from nine lines over two years in a Spanish manufacturing plant. The authors selected this setting for two reasons: Spain has traditionally had one of the highest levels of temporary employment in the world, so it perfectly represents labor market trends in OECD countries. Simultaneously, the authors also searched for a type of shop floor that could be representative of one of the most common manufacturing environments: a shop floor with highly repetitive and low-complexity work tasks.
Findings
The results of this paper suggest that in HVLV environments, temporary labor could contribute up to a 1.4% improvement in line productivity, provided there is a strong lean implementation. Otherwise, the use of temporary labor could undermine the positive effects of both process flow and process quality on plant productivity.
Originality/value
External incentives derived from high levels of unemployment, coupled with manufacturing’s increasing automation and specialization, may be minimizing the weaknesses traditionally associated with temporary workers in lean environments. By contrast, those shop floors lacking lean standards face serious productivity consequences from adjusting to global trends by using temporary work.
Details
Keywords
Guido Friebel, Matthias Heinz, Ingo Weller and Nick Zubanov
Using data from a retail chain of 193 bakery shops that underwent downsizing, we study the effects of two types of downsizing announcements – closure or sale to another operator …
Abstract
Using data from a retail chain of 193 bakery shops that underwent downsizing, we study the effects of two types of downsizing announcements – closure or sale to another operator – on sales in the affected shops, and how these effects are moderated by job security perceptions. On average, sales in the affected shops go down by 26% after a closure announcement and by 7% after a sale announcement. Sales decline more sharply in shops where employees had higher job security perceptions before the announcement. Our findings are consistent with psychological contract theory: a breach of an implicit contract promising job security in exchange for work effort results in a reciprocal effort withdrawal. We rule out several alternative explanations to our findings.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to address two questions: who commits? And who engages? For example, does an individual’s likelihood of committing/engaging vary with his/her age; or…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address two questions: who commits? And who engages? For example, does an individual’s likelihood of committing/engaging vary with his/her age; or with the level of his/her qualifications; or with his/her occupation? Of what consequences are the characteristics of the workplace at which the individual is employed?
Design/methodology/approach
The investigation uses the Skills and Employment Surveys Series Data set to construct the indicators of commitment and engagement. Using an ordered-logit model and an OLS model, these indicators are analysed to identify their covariates.
Findings
Who commits and who engages depends upon the indicator used to measure the attitude/behaviour in question. Changing these indicators sometimes means that an individual no longer commits/engages. Further, even for the same indicator of commitment/engagement, who commits/engages varies across individuals.
Research limitations/implications
The indicators of commitment and engagement examined are derived from the responses in a pre-existing data set which has its origins in survey instruments which had quite comprehensive terms of reference. Owning to the cross-sectional nature of this data set and the statistical methodology applied, the statistical results are correlations between some possible indicators of commitment and engagement and some variables which denote the personal characteristics of individuals and the characteristics of the organisations with which they are employed. Causation cannot be inferred from these correlations.
Originality/value
Commitment and engagement are central to many models of the management of human resources. However, the likelihood that an individual commits and/or engages differs across the workforce has rarely been examined. This paper addresses this research lacuna using a data set which is rich in detail about an individual’s personal characteristics.
Details
Keywords
Mark Klinedinst cuts straight to the chase with a chapter which examines the performance of commercial banks in the United States relative to credit unions which are financial…
Abstract
Mark Klinedinst cuts straight to the chase with a chapter which examines the performance of commercial banks in the United States relative to credit unions which are financial cooperatives with democratic structures. Using panel data for the 1990s and early 2000s Mark shows that credit unions are more efficient than banks that are comparable in size, the metric being the assets per dollar of salary managed by the organization. Given that credit unions in the United States have not required a massive taxpayer bailout, the chapter offers food for thought as to what shape financial institutions should take in the United States going forward.
Edward P. Lazear, Kathryn Shaw, Grant Hayes and James Jedras
Wages have been spreading out across workers over time – or in other words, the 90th/50th wage ratio has risen over time. A key question is, has the productivity distribution also…
Abstract
Wages have been spreading out across workers over time – or in other words, the 90th/50th wage ratio has risen over time. A key question is, has the productivity distribution also spread out across worker skill levels over time? Using our calculations of productivity by skill level for the United States, we show that the distributions of both wages and productivity have spread out over time, as the right tail lengthens for both. We add Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries, showing that the wage–productivity correlation exists, such that gains in aggregate productivity, or GDP per person, have resulted in higher wages for workers at the top and bottom of the wage distribution. However, across countries, those workers in the upper-income ranks have seen their wages rise the most over time. The most likely international factor explaining these wage increases is the skill-biased technological change of the digital revolution. The new artificial intelligence (AI) revolution that has just begun seems to be having similar skill-biased effects on wages. But this current AI, called “supervised learning,” is relatively similar to past technological change. The AI of the distant future will be “unsupervised learning,” and it could eventually have an effect on the jobs of the most highly skilled.
Details
Keywords
Daniel A. Verreault and MaryAnne Hyland
To communicate the development and results of strategic human resource management (HRM) research to the audit research community in order to stimulate audit research specific to…
Abstract
Purpose
To communicate the development and results of strategic human resource management (HRM) research to the audit research community in order to stimulate audit research specific to HRM audits.
Design/methodology/approach
Prior research that served as impetus for this paper is discussed. The findings of other studies are presented to make a case for the business impact of strategic human resource management practices.
Findings
Studies on the competitive environment of firms, theoretical development in HRM, empirical work on the link between HRM practice and firm performance, and emerging models based on intellectual capital, suggest that there are compelling reasons for internal audit to devote substantial resources to the evaluation of strategic risk in HRM audits.
Research limitations/implications
The literature is still developing. The literature presented here is not an exhaustive list and does not include all findings, but rather what we perceive to be the most important findings.
Practical implications
Both “high performance work systems” and “strategic fit” should guide internal audit in planning, designing audit programs, and executing strategic audits of human resources consistent with the risk management paradigm.
Originality/value
This paper bridges a gap between the human resource management literature and the internal auditing literature.
Details
Keywords
Florian Englmaier, Nicolai J. Foss, Thorbjørn Knudsen and Tobias Kretschmer
The authors argue that organization design needs to play a more active role in the explanation of differential performance and outline a set of ideas for achieving this both in…
Abstract
The authors argue that organization design needs to play a more active role in the explanation of differential performance and outline a set of ideas for achieving this both in theoretical and empirical research. Firms are heterogeneous in terms of (1) how well they do things, capturing persistent productivity differences, and (2) how they do things – and both reflect firms’ organization design choices. Both types of heterogeneity can be persistent, and are interdependent, although they have typically been studied separately. The authors propose a simple formal framework – the “aggregation function framework” – that aligns organization design thinking with the emphasis on performance heterogeneity among firms that is characteristic of the strategy field. This framework allows for a more precise identification of how exactly organization design may contribute to persistent performance differences, and therefore what exactly are the assumptions that strategy and organization design scholars need to be attentive to.
Details