Knowledge that Transforms

Drawing on evidence from a unique data set of in‐depth qualitative interviews with 12 female CEOs (and 139 male CEOs) of global corporations, we explore what enables some women to become CEOs. By drawing on our data from male and female CEOs, we set the scene by comparing the advice they would give to young women as they start their careers. We then focus the rest of our article on the experiences and career trajectory of the 12 female CEOs. We make three theoretical contributions: We identify, at the individual level, how women cantake active ownershipof their careers as part of a self‐acceptance process; how they canembrace gynandrous leadershipas part of a self‐development process wherebothfeminineandmasculine leadership behaviors are embraced, with the feminine being dominant to help move beyond gender stereotypes, and finally, how theytranslate leadership—rather than combine—gender‐based behaviors as part of a self‐management process to develop their unique leadership style. For each of these theoretical contributions at the individual level, we also provide two practical recommendations for HR practice and policy, one relating to the intraorganizational context and the second having institutional‐level implications. We conclude by discussing implications for future research.

This study advances research on high‐commitment work systems (HCWSs) and organizational innovation by examining how the configuration of middle managers' work–family issues (i.e., work–family conflict and work climate for sharing family concerns) shape the relationship between HCWSs and innovation performance. Using a matched sample of senior management team members, middle managers, and frontline employees from 113 Chinese manufacturing firms and two waves of survey, we found that HCWSs are associated with enhanced levels of middle managers' innovative behavior, an association that improves innovation performance. The results also show that high levels of work–family conflict weaken the relationship between HCWSs and innovative behavior, but can be attenuated when a work climate better facilitates the sharing of family concerns. The study contributes to the knowledge of the role of HCWSs and contextual conditions of their effects in enhancing organizational innovation performance, with specific implications for the Chinese context.

Organizations increasingly depend on employee efforts to innovate. However, the quality of relationships between leaders and employees may affect the recognition that employees receive for their innovative work behaviors. Drawing from a social cognition perspective, we tested a model in which leader–member exchange (LMX) moderates the impact of employee innovative work behavior on supervisory ratings of employee performance. Results from two multisource studies combining self, colleague, and supervisor ratings consistently showed that employees receive more favorable performance ratings by engaging in innovative work behavior when they have high‐quality LMX relationships. Moreover, we found that this interactive relationship was mediated by leader perceptions of innovative employee efforts, providing support for a moderated mediation model. Implications for the literatures on performance appraisal, LMX, and innovation are discussed.

Two key groups central to improving firm performance are the top management team (TMT) and the board of directors. Executives undertake strategic actions, whereas board members fulfill their resource provision and monitoring roles. Drawing on tournament theory and equity theory, we propose that high pay dispersion among outside directors and the TMT is positively associated with strategic risk, whereas high (low) TMT pay dispersion and low (high) outside director pay dispersion are positively associated with firm performance. Our predictor is the unexplained component of horizontal pay dispersion, or the residual of pay dispersion resulting from regressing pay on observable firm, industry, period, and individual characteristics. Our results highlight the importance of unexplained pay dispersion for TMTs, but not for boards of directors, in improving firm performance.

The importance of workforce diversity has become a salient management concern given that demographic minorities comprise key sources of the workforce and consumers. As a result, some firms created chief diversity officer (CDO) positions to manage workforce diversity. This study takes a multitheoretic approach, drawing upon institutional, resource dependence, and upper echelons theories to explain firms' adoptions of this key position. Using Cox event history analyses based on a sample of S&P 500 firms, we find that, from an institutional theory perspective, firms are more likely to adopt CDOs when they are headquartered in legalized gay marriage states and the accumulative number of industry CDO adoptions is high. From a resource dependence perspective, we find that firm innovation intensity, diversification levels, transient institutional ownership, and industry female and African American employment bases can predict firms' adoptions of CDO positions. From an upper echelons explanation, we find that female top management team representation is positively associated with firms' adoptions of CDO positions.

Despite the growing prevalence of work‐life support (WLS) practices in companies, there is a lack of theoretical and empirical clarity on their benefits to organizational performance. It is also unclear if the organizational performance effects of WLS practices vary based on an organization's internal and external environments. The dual objective of this paper is to investigate whether WLS practices relate to customer‐focused outcomes and, if so, under which conditions WLS practices yield benefits. Drawing on contingency theory, we examine how the boundary conditions of internal firm characteristics (e.g., percentage of top management team [TMT] members with children) and external environmental factors (e.g., gender egalitarianism of the country) moderate the relationship between WLS practices and customer satisfaction. We shed light on these issues by examining multisource, longitudinal data collected over three years from a multinational corporation operating in 27 countries. The results show that both percentage of TMT members with children and gender egalitarianism of the country strengthen the relationship between WLS practices and customer satisfaction. The findings provide insights into the circumstances when WLS practices provide performance benefits for firms and the translatability of these benefits from one country to another.

Relative performance evaluation, wherein the performance of employees is evaluated relative to the performance of their peers, is popular within organizations. In this article, we report four experimental studies to explore the impact that such an evaluation system has on unethical behavior. We find that participants under relative performance evaluation expect others to be more likely to use unethical means (Study 1) and indulge more in unethical behavior themselves (Study 2). Drawing on these results, in Study 3 we propose a technique that we call consequential reflection to reduce intentions of unethical behavior, and we also test for the mediating role of perceived risks and benefits. In Study 4, we explore how individual differences in rational–intuitive decision‐making styles moderate the effectiveness of consequential reflection. Overall, the article provides evidence of moral side effects of relative performance evaluation. Furthermore, keeping in mind the constraints and needs of practitioners, we suggest a simple intervention to curb tendencies toward unethical behavior.

This special issue of Human Resource Management is focused on the latest thinking, research, and practical advances in the emerging field of Workforce Analytics. The eight diverse papers in this issue present new theoretical developments, methodological and statistical tools, and examples of innovative workforce analytics in practice. Taken as a whole, the findings show that workforce analytics can significantly enhance the ability of leaders and managers to achieve their operational and strategic objectives through more effective workforce management. But capitalizing on these opportunities will require both HR and line managers to develop a comprehensive understanding of how the workforce contributes to their firm's strategic success—and this understanding must be reflected in the workforce metrics and analytics they develop and deploy.

This study investigates the effects of two internal factors, performance‐based rewards and employee perceptions of human resource (HR) strength, and one external factor, country‐level uncertainty avoidance, on employee innovative behaviors. Drawing on situational strength theory, we first hypothesize performance‐based rewards will positively relate to innovative behaviors, and second, this relationship is stronger when employees understand the wider Human Resource Management (HRM) system as intended by management, referred to as HR strength. Finally, we assess the effect of uncertainty avoidance on the relationship between performance‐based rewards and innovative behaviors. Three‐level data from 1,598 employees and 186 managers in 29 organizations across 10 countries showed both employee perceptions of HR strength and uncertainty avoidance of a country that differentially influence the relationship between performance‐based rewards and innovative behaviors. However, a significant relationship between performance‐based rewards and innovative behaviors was not found. This study offers novel insights into how organizations can use internal factors in a systematic manner to promote innovative behaviors in their workplace, and highlights the limitations of sustaining innovative behaviors in countries characterized by high levels of uncertainty avoidance.

Although the belief that support alleviates the detrimental effect of job demands on employee health is intuitive, past research has produced an equivocal picture, requiring a renewed evaluation of this relationship. In the present study, we examine three sources of support (from the organization, leader, and team) that employees may draw from to reduce the negative effect of a specific job demand, that is, role overload. Unlike most prior research, we focus on these sources of support at the group level of analysis to determine the relative effectiveness of organizational support climate, leadership climate, and team climate as moderators of the role overload–subjective health relationship. Hierarchical linear modeling of data from 2,288 employees nested in 132 workgroups in a state administration of Switzerland revealed that, after controlling for individual perceptions of support, team climate weakened the negative relationship between role overload and health. We did not find support for the buffering effect of organizational support or leadership climates. The article provides a nuanced test of the support‐buffering hypothesis by simultaneously exploring individual and group‐level sources of support and by demonstrating that some sources of support matter more than others in ameliorating the negative outcomes of role overload.