Knowledge that Transforms

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.

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.

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.

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.

Integrating literature on small firm informality and organizational growth and development into Stone and Colella's model of the workplace treatment of disabled individuals, we assess prior claims that disability employment outcomes are better in large firms than in small and medium‐sized firms. Drawing on the principle of equifinality, we propose disability employment outcomes (workforce disability prevalence and disability gaps in contentment and job satisfaction) will not vary by firm size, given both the formalized approach of large firms (disability equality practices, HR specialists, and union recognition), and the more informal approach of small firms (greater job autonomy, a stronger fairness culture, better work‐life balance, and single‐site operations with closer personal relationships) may have benefits for disabled people. Analyzing nationally representative matched employer–employee data, we show that, as anticipated, formalized approaches are more prevalent in large firms (and to an extent medium‐sized firms) and informal approaches are more prevalent in small firms, and disability employment outcomes do not vary by firm size. However, this appears to reflect the ineffectiveness (rather than effectiveness) of characteristics and practices associated with both large firm formality and small firm informality, with both being weakly associated with better disability employment outcomes.

Analyzing qualitative case‐study data from two emerging market multinational corporations (MNCs) from the Indian pharmaceutical industry, we develop two theoretical frameworks based on goal‐setting and cognitive evaluation theories along with indigenous Indian management theories, including the principles of Ayurveda for analyzing performance management systems in an indigenous and modern pharmaceutical MNC. Data were analyzed from multiple data sources, such as interviews, non‐participant observation, multiple site visits, organizational documents, policies, client testimonials, and publically available information through the website and annual reports. The indigenous firm offered a holistic approach to managing multiple stakeholders. Its overarching performance goal focused on all stakeholders collectively contributing to the patient' and others' holistic well‐being. All employees' and stakeholders' unified and singular efforts dovetailed to achieve physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and environmental well‐being as a proxy for performance. Organizational values, culture, and contextual influences of informal learning, empowerment, and task variability helped achieve its overarching goals. The Western pharmaceutical firm focused on atomistic, granulated, and an objective way of assessing and evaluating performance, wherein cost‐effectiveness, innovation, and high‐performance were vital performance outcomes. Performance coaching and task invariability adversely affected individual outcomes. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Information on a company's employment webpage sends signals about the employer image the company intends to project to applicants. Nonetheless, we know little about the content of recruitment signals sent via company employment webpages. This study develops a method to measure companies’ projected employer image attributes based on their employment webpages. Specifically, we analyze companies’ projected employer image attributes by applying computer‐aided text analysis (CATA) to the employment webpages of 461 Fortune 500 companies (i.e., more than 11,100 individual pages). Our results show that projected employer image attributes remain relatively stable over time. Moreover, we find relatively low levels of employer image differentiation between companies and between industries. Only a small group of companies (<20%) use distinct employer attribute signals to communicate their projected employer image. Finally, there is limited convergence between projected employer image attributes based on employment webpages and ratings on similar attributes on employer review websites. Generally, our results show that CATA is a viable method for assessing companies’ projected employer image in the context of employer image management and engineering.

Due to the high costs and strategic importance of expatriate assignments, expatriate performance management (EPM) plays an increasingly important role for multinational enterprises (MNEs). However, research on EPM is still in its infancy. Drawing from the convergence/divergence debate in international human resource management, this study investigates and compares EPM strategies and practices across MNEs from three different country clusters to better understand whether EPM practices tend to converge, diverge, or crossverge (i.e., show aspects of both). Results from surveying 132 Anglo‐Saxon, Germanic, and Japanese MNEs reveal prominent differences (divergence) at the EPM strategic level such that Japanese MNEs tend to pursue more ethnocentric staffing strategies and design EPM systems specifically tailored to expatriates. On the practice level, we found both commonalities and differences between Japanese and Anglo‐Saxon and Germanic MNEs, pointing toward crossvergence. Theoretical and practical implications of our results are discussed.

In this comprehensive summary, we take a critical look at the state of performance management systems in multinational enterprises, summarizing what we have learned to this point, and speculating on where the field should go. We specifically address four challenges (i) can performance really be managed? (ii) if so, how do we go about doing this? (iii) the need to balance consistency across locations with the need to accommodate unique realities of individual locations, and (iv) addressing the different employee profiles ‐ i.e., expatriates vs. host country nationals. In terms of what we have learned to this point, we believe that global organizations need to pay more attention to (i) performance context, (ii) ratee reactions, and (iii) rater motivation, as these are integral to successful performance management. On the other hand, they might re‐consider and re‐visit the amount of time and energy spent on factors such as (i) appraisal forms and (ii) rater training, as these may not be serving any useful purpose. We next discuss the unique challenges faced by multinational enterprises, including (i) the type of strategy a corporation might employ (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1998), (ii) the different cultures of the nations where the organization operates (Hofstede et al., 2010), and (iii) managing the performance of expatriates (Toh & DeNisi, 2007). Looking ahead, we would like to remind multinational corporations (and all other corporations) that culture and context matter, but these must be addressed in concert with the need to treat all employees fairly and consistently. We conclude by proposing several research ideas, including the need to explore the potential role of host country nationals in the performance management process for multinational enterprises.

Context is a central construct in the study of performance appraisal (PA) systems, but to date studies linking the distal context within which organizations operate to PA have been limited in two ways. First, these studies have focused predominantly on national culture, and have paid less attention to the legal/political and economic environment within which organizations. Second, few studies reflect the growing international nature of business organizations, which create multiple layers of context (e.g., home and host country context). Drawing on both situational strength and institutional theories, we hypothesize the links between the “big three” facets of distal context (i.e., culture, legal/political, and economic) and the processes and purposes of PA systems. Using data from 472 multinational enterprises (MNEs) in 22 countries, we show that all three facets of the distal context of the host country influence decisions about the conduct of PA systems. In addition, we show that the culture and legal/political systems of the home country from which the MNE originated are also linked to the PA processes and purposes. Finally, we find evidence that MNEs are more likely to develop hybridized PA systems that depart from host country norms.