Brian E. Becker

Strategic Human Resources Management: Where Do We Go From Here?:

The authors identify the key challenges facing strategic human resource management (SHRM) going forward and discuss several new directions in both the scholarship and practice of SHRM. They focus on a clearer articulation of the “black box” between HR and firm performance, emphasizing the integration of strategy implementation as the central mediating variable in this relationship. There are direct implications for the nature of fit and contingencies in SHRM. They also highlight the significance of a differentiated HR architecture not just across firms but also within firms.

HR as a Source of Shareholder Value: Research and Recommendations

The role of the Human Resource Management (HRM) function in many organizations is at a crossroads. On one hand, the HRM function is in crisis, increasingly under fire to justify itself (Schuler, 1990; Stewart, 1996) and confronted with the very real prospect that a significant portion of its traditional responsibilities will be outsourced (Corporate Leadership Council, 1995). On the other hand, organizations have an unprecedented opportunity to refocus their HRM systems as strategic assets. Indeed, the same competitive pressures that provide an incentive for firms to outsource costly HRM transactions have dramatically increased the strategic value of a skilled, motivated, adaptable workforce, and the HRM system that supports and develops it .Transforming this crisis into an opportunity, however, requires a new organizational perspective on the HRM system, one that is also a perspective shared by the CEO and the chief HR officer (CHRO). At its core, this strategic perspective requires that the CHRO be focused on identifying and solving the human capital elements of important business problems (e.g., those problems likely to impede growth, lower profitability, and diminish shareholder value). The tangible evidence of this focus is an internally coherent, externally aligned, and effectively implemented HRM system.

The Incentive Effects of Tournament Compensation Systems

Brian E. Becker and Mark A. Huselid State University of New York at Buffalo Tournament models have developed into an important component of the theoretical literature on organizational reward systems. However, with one exception there have been no empirical tests of the incentive effects of tournament models in a field setting. Drawing on a panel data set from auto racing, we show that the tournament spread (prize differential) does have incentive effects on both individual performance and driver safety, that these effects peak at higher spreads, and that controlling for the dollar value of the tournament spread, the prize distribution has little influence on individual performance.

Bridging Micro and Macro Domains: Workforce Differentiation and Strategic Human Resource Management

In this article, the authors focus on the challenges and opportunities associated with integrating the macro and macro domains of the strategic human resource (HR) management literature. Their specific focus is on the development of a differentiated HR architecture in support of strategy execution as a key organizing theme. A focus on strategic capabilities and strategic jobs as the focal point of workforce management system design represents a significant potential source of value creation for most firms. But, also, differentiation by strategic capability instead of hierarchical organizational level represents potential implementation challenges for managers, and theoretical and empirical challenges for academics.

Overview: Strategic human resource management in five leading firms

This article synthesizes findings from five case studies conducted in firms known to be leaders in the management of people. We drew three broad conclusions: 1. The foundation of a value-added HR function is a business strategy that relies on people as a source of competitive advantage and a management culture that embraces that belief; 2. A value-added HR function will be characterized by operational excellence, a focus on client service for individual employees and managers, and delivery of these services at the lowest possible cost; and 3. A value-added HR function requires HR managers that understand the human capital implications of business problems and can access or modify the HR system to solve those problems.

Sex Discrimination in the Promotion Process

Previous research has suggested that intra-occupational earnings differences are the principal source of the long-standing earnings gap between men and women. Following that line of research, this study examines the extent of gender differences in the incidence of and returns to promotions. Drawing on the Quality of Employment Panel, the authors compare the earnings and promotion experience of men and women over the period 1973–1977. After controlling for unmeasured differences in job level and constant individual ability in a fixed-effect model, they conclude that the returns to promotion are comparable for men and women. Further analysis indicates, however, that women are held to higher promotion standards than men and therefore receive fewer promotions than men with equal measured abilities. Although the female/male wage ratio in this sample increased by nearly 6 percent over four years, the increase could have been as much as 9.2 percent if women and men had been held to the same promotion standards.

The Impact of Strikes on Shareholder Equity

From an analysis of data for 1962–82, the authors find that strikes substantially affect shareholder equity as measured by the change in stock prices associated with strikes. Over that period the average strike involving 1,000 or more workers resulted in a 4.1 percent drop in shareholder equity, representing a decline of

Unionization and shareholder interests

72–87 million in 1980 dollars. Costs varied widely across industries. The authors also find that capital markets are usually able to anticipate whether an impending contract deadline will result in a strike or settlement. In the prestrike period, however, the stock market consistently underestimates the cost of a strike to shareholders, as evidenced by the fact that nearly two-thirds of the total decline in returns (2.7 percent) occurs after the strike is announced.

Human resource management : an economic approach

Drawing on agency theory, this study examines union-nonunion differences in the allocation of both firm profits and business risk to employees and shareholders. Using a sample of more than 1,000 large private sector firms, the authors find that over the period 1970–81 shareholders in unionized firms assumed less of the firms business risk than shareholders in nonunion firms. This finding is interpreted as evidence that managers of unionized firms attempted to minimize agency costs by capitalizing on the incentive effects of risksharing. In addition, risk-adjusted returns to shareholders were lower in unionized firms than in nonunion firms. The authors view the relatively poor performance of union firms as a primary motivating factor behind the restructuring of the American industrial relations system during the period studied.

Patterns and determinants of union growth in the hospital industry

1 An Economic Approach to Human Resource Management 2 The US Workforce 3 Productivity 4 Employee Appraisal and Reward 5 Alternative Pay Systems 6 Analysis of Pay Setting 7 The Compensation Decision 8 Making General Pay Adjustments 9 Making General Pay Adjustments 10 The Collective-Bargaining Relationship 11 Conflicts Between Employer and Employee Goals 12 The Employment Market 13 Training, Human Capital and Employment Stabilization 14 Economic Regulation, Social Insurance and Minimum Standards 15 Restricting Opportunity and Enhancing Opportunity: Immigration Control and EEO 16 International Side of Human Resource Management.