Knowledge that Transforms

Abstract With increased globalization, multinational enterprises (MNEs) have become pervasive in emerging economies such as India. Given that employee performance is multidimensional and culture‐bound, the management of performance in MNEs is very critical for the successful implementation of their business strategy. We focus on promotions and incentives as they are considered the two crucial aspects of any performance management system. Based on a multisource, temporal study spanning over 19 months, we tested the interaction effect of promotion and annual incentive on employee outcomes. We conducted interviews of 15 senior officers in phase 2 to understand the inconsistencies in our findings. The contribution of the study to industry and academia are discussed.

Abstract While research suggests a link between individuals' prior international experiences and their future participation in global work, we know little about how and the conditions under which this relationship occurs. Drawing on career motivation theory, we conceptualize global identity as a mediator between individuals' density of prior international experiences—defined as the extent to which time spent in culturally novel countries has provided individuals with developmental opportunities—and their global work aspirations, which in turn leads to their global work involvement. Further, this multi‐stage mediation model holds mainly when individuals receive positive feedback regarding their intercultural competencies (i.e., cultural intelligence) from their peers. We test our model using a multi‐wave multi‐source dataset spanning 6 years. We discuss implications for the literatures on prior international experiences and global careers.

Abstract In recent times, leading information technology (IT) multinational enterprises claim to have abandoned many traditional features of their performance management systems (PMSs), including the bell curve. However, there is no published empirical study on how employees are perceiving the change. Using an inductive approach and an employee‐centric theoretical lens, we investigated employees' ( n = 426) perceptions and satisfaction levels with the revamped PMS in three Indian IT services and business solutions multinational enterprises. Employees perceived the present purposes of PMS marginally more favorably than those in the past; however, the gap between the present and future aspirational perceived purposes of PMS was significantly much higher. Satisfaction levels with different dimensions of PMS and alignment of PMS with other human resource functions and leader‐member exchange were only modest. Employees mentioned goal setting and continuous feedback as the most positive features of the current PMSs, and transparency, 360° feedback, and adherence to timelines—as improvement areas. The results are indicative of a positive, but the only modest trend in employee satisfaction and perceptions. We discuss the implications of the findings for the employee‐centric theory and practice of PMS in the IT industry.

Abstract We introduce the job crafting competency construct and apply it to predict tradeoffs between competing outcomes that are inherent in job crafting, like performance and well‐being or engagement and withdrawal. Job crafting competencies are the clusters of individual knowledge , skills , and abilities that are necessary to achieve personal objectives through effective job crafting problem‐solving . We create a framework of job crafting competencies consisting of comprehensive/simplistic heuristic information use and approach/avoidance problem‐solving skills. In Study 1, we operationalize competencies as profiles demonstrated through an aptitude‐oriented assessment that predicts differences in outcomes. Five distinct profiles emerged in a sample of 174 workers. The high‐volume analytic problem‐solving profile was associated with higher performance and strain, while the ambivalent acquiescence profile was associated with lower performance and strain. The practical problem‐solving profile minimized tradeoffs between performance and strain. Rapid problem‐solving and low‐volume analytic problem‐solving profiles were variants in between these other patterns. Study 2 used a survey of 323 workers to support the uniqueness of the five competencies, and their relationships with approach/avoidance job crafting, engagement, and withdrawal. The research identifies a new job crafting individual difference (job crafting competencies) to delineate outcomes and tradeoffs according to unique competency profiles.

Abstract Employee ownership is an important governance tool used to encourage employee participation and enhance employee productivity, but we know little about what encourages employee ownership. This study investigates the influence of chief executive officer (CEO) positive framing in public speeches on employee ownership. We propose that CEO positive framing can increase employee ownership when employees internalize CEOs' positive beliefs about firms' accomplishments and prospects. Using a sample of 664 U.S. listed firms from 2002 to 2018, we find that CEO positive framing increases employee ownership. In addition, the stock purchasing behaviors of top executives, analyst recommendations, and positive media coverage strengthen the effectiveness of CEOs' positive framing on employee ownership. Findings from this study advance employee ownership research by highlighting the vital role of CEOs' public language use in promoting employee ownership.

Abstract Integrating theoretical perspectives on tokenism and perceived preferential selection, we explore whether the relationship between chief executive officers' (CEOs') external board memberships and CEO compensation is gendered. Based on recent pressures to diversify corporate boards, we theorize that female CEOs' memberships on external boards will result in less monetary compensation relative to male CEOs due to concerns of organizational decision‐makers that female CEOs generally inhabit token or “symbolic” positions of limited value. Additionally, we present competing hypotheses (i.e., mitigation vs. exacerbation) regarding how this devaluation will be affected by female representation on the board of directors and compensation committee, respectively. Using a panel sample of 12,464 firm‐year observations comprising of 1,805 unique firms and 2,782 unique CEOs, the relationship between CEO external board memberships and compensation is indeed weaker for female compared to male CEOs. Furthermore, this devaluation primarily occurred in organizations where there was stronger (vs. weaker) female representation on the board of directors or compensation committee. However, supplemental analyses revealed that this differential devaluation was mitigated when female executives on the board held greater power (i.e., chaired important committees), highlighting the importance of moving beyond mere representation to ensuring influence on boards for female directors.

Abstract Research on job assignments has generally assumed employees will accept assignments when offered. In this study, we examine managerial preferences for potential job assignment opportunities conceptualized using human capital theory to provide a holistic understanding of this phenomenon. Using two pilot studies, we refine the list of reasons managers use when forming lateral assignment preferences. In the main study, we collected data from a representative sample of more than 1200 managers in a large US organization who provided preferences for all possible assignment locations (about 40) in their regions and reported reasons for their preferences. Results showed career development reasons (e.g., promotion potential, opportunity to learn) and social information reasons (e.g., location manager, customers) attracted managers to assignments, and health and well‐being reasons (e.g., commuting, stress) repelled managers. There were several differences in these relationships by managerial level such that health and well‐being reasons were more important than career development reasons for lower‐level managers than higher‐level managers, who seemed to generate their preferences based more evenly on both types of reasons. We ask whether gender moderates the relationship between health and well‐being reasons and preferences and find little support. We also explore whether manager racioethnicity moderates the relationship between community racioethnicity and preferences and find a few differences. Most findings were replicated when predicting actual movement 2 years later. Results suggest managerial preferences should consistently be considered in job assignment research and that organizations should obtain and use preference data when making internal staffing decisions.

Abstract Career research has focused on the changing structures of careers, mainly in the private sector. Recent literature on employment patterns in the public sector suggests that career structures are evolving, gradually moving away from their signature traditional structures to contemporary ones. However, empirical evidence of this change is scarce and inconclusive. This qualitative study examines the changes currently unfolding in the career structure of the civil service by eliciting the experiences and views of senior Foreign Offices (FOs) staff in four countries: 198 state ambassadors from the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, and Denmark were interviewed about their career trajectories. The data were analyzed using a thematic analysis framework. The findings revealed a gradual breakdown of the structures and policies that support traditional careers, and the emergence of new principles and practices that characterize contemporary careers. However, as they were captured midway through the process of change, all FOs display a combination of traditional and contemporary career structures at this point. The findings offer unique insights into the drivers of this evolution and highlight some of the consequences.

Abstract We draw on deonance theory and social learning theory to propose a framework that explains how individual team members with varying levels of leader–member exchange (LMX) with their team leader have different emotional and behavioral responses upon observing teammate‐directed abusive supervision. After employing a social relations paradigm with two‐wave round‐robin data collected from a sample of 378 engineers on 89 work teams, we did not find that witnessing teammate‐targeted abusive supervision increased sympathy for the targeted teammates, but we did find that observers with a higher level of LMX were more likely to legitimize such abuse and less likely to sympathize with its victims. Furthermore, we found that for individuals with a higher level of LMX, perceiving leaders' abusive supervision of teammates was negatively related to providing help to those teammates through the mediating role of sympathy for the teammates.

Abstract Prior research on recruitment and employer brand equity has primarily drawn on the cognitive psychology perspective from the marketing brand equity literature to examine how recruitment practices and job seekers' perceptions of employer brand image impact recruitment outcomes. This perspective, however, provides little guidance for how unknown organizations can use recruitment messages to influence job seekers. Our study draws from research on the search‐experience framework, which uses an information economics approach to brand equity, to identify how recruitment claims from companies with no employer brand image shape job seekers' job pursuit intentions. Results based on a within‐subjects study with 197 participants showed that job seekers perceive differences in claim verifiability depending on the job or company attribute in the message. Further, we found that job seekers' perceptions of recruitment claim verifiability are indirectly related to intentions to pursue the recruiting organization through perceived claim credibility. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.