Brian S. Klaas

The Outsourcing of Training and Development: Factors Impacting Client Satisfaction

Firms increasingly use outside vendors to provide their training and development needs. However, the strategic importance of many training programs often introduces unique challenges for organizations outsourcing this function. To better understand the effects of outsourcing in this key area, we use transaction cost economics, social exchange theory, and the resource-based view to identify factors thought to impact client satisfaction with external training vendors. Using data obtained from 157 organizations, structural equation modeling results suggest that socially-oriented trust and contractual specificity mediate the relationship between client satisfaction and a number of vendor, relationship, training, and firm characteristics.

Managerial Reactions to Employee Dissent: The Impact of Grievance Activity on Performance Rating

This study explored whether managerial reactions to grievance activity introduced bias into the process of performance appraisal. Using panel data techniques and data on unionized employees in a pu...

The Determinants of Alternative Forms of Workplace Voice An Integrative Perspective

Workplace voice has been the subject of much research over the past 30 years. Prior work has examined the precursors of a wide variety of voice types including prosocial voice, grievance filing, whistle-blowing, informal complaints, and participation in suggestion systems. However, research on each type of voice has largely been conducted in isolation from work examining alternate types of workplace voice. The goal of this article is to review and integrate the literature on the determinants of workplace voice. The authors’ review of the literature is organized around the major categories of determinants that have been observed in the separate literatures on workplace voice. Based on the review, the authors identify commonalities and differences across alternative forms of voice in the determinants observed. Following this, they explore how the nature and purpose of voice varies, with emphasis on three dimensions of voice: formality, focus, and identifiability. The authors then explore whether this variation is relevant for understanding the pattern of determinants observed across alternative forms of voice. They close by discussing the implications of an integrative perspective of scholars’ understanding of the processes that determine voice and for organizations as they strive to facilitate the productive use of workplace voice.

Managing HR in the Small and Medium Enterprise: The Impact of Professional Employer Organizations

Due to their limited size, many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) cannot justify full-time HR professionals in their organizations. Thus, the complex and time-consuming nature of many HR activities can result in a significant drain on existing managerial resources. Professional employer organizations (PEOs), however, offer SMEs an alternative for handling their workforce by providing compensation programs, regulatory compliance, and other HR-related services. This study examines the satisfaction levels of 763 customers of one large PEO. Results show that firm growth, past HR problems, workforce size, contractual detail, service representative-client relations, value congruence, and overall PEO usage are significantly related to managerial satisfaction with PEO services.

Professional Employer Organizations and Their Role in Small and Medium Enterprises: The Impact of HR Outsourcing

While effective HR services and programs can help firms gain competitive advantage, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) often lack the internal resources required to develop and deliver these services and programs. As a result, SMEs increasingly are outsourcing HR activities to professional employer organizations (PEOs). Questions remain, however, about the conditions under which SMEs will benefit from outsourcing HR to a PEO, as well as about the type of benefits that are potentially available. The very nature of many HR activities raises questions about the risks associated with market governance and a PEOs ability to ensure service quality for SMEs. In order for these questions to be addressed, it is necessary to understand the process by which PEO utilization affects SME outcomes. In this article, we use transaction cost economics, social exchange theory, and the strategic HR literature to develop a framework for understanding the factors and conditions likely to affect whether and how an SME will benefit from using a PEO.

Determinants of strike-related militancy: An analysis of a university faculty strike

This article examines the determinants of differences in militancy among the union workers involved in a faculty strike at Temple University in 1990. Three forms of strike-related militancy are investigated: voting to continue the strike, voting to defy a court injunction, and picketing and related strike-support activities. The results indicate that job attitudes, attitudes toward the union, the perceived instrumentality of striking, attitudes toward militancy, social support, and some demographic variables were related to at least one form of militancy examined. The three forms of militancy, however, had different determinants. For example, social support and union commitment were significantly related to the more risky and confrontational forms of militancy, but not to voting to continue a strike.

Professional Employer Organizations and Their Impact on Client Satisfaction With Human Resource Outcomes: A Field Study of Human Resource Outsourcing in Small and Medium Enterprises

Increasingly, small and medium enterprises are outsourcing human resource (HR) activities to professional employer organizations (PEOs). The authors draw on social network theory, transaction cost economics, and social exchange theory to examine how PEO and client characteristics moderate the impact associated with outsourcing human capital-enhancing HR services. Results from a study suggest that using a PEO for human capital-enhancing services was positively related to HR outcomes and that this relationship was stronger when a weak-ties service delivery model was used, client receptivity was high, and the PEO contract was more detailed.

Decision-Making about Workplace Disputes: A Policy-Capturing Study of Employment Arbitrators, Labor Arbitrators, and Jurors

Firms are increasingly turning to the controversial practice of employment arbitration to resolve workplace disputes. Yet little is know about how decisions are made by employment arbitrators or how their decisions compare to those made in traditional dispute-resolution forums. This study uses a policy-capturing design and hierarchical linear modeling to compare how decisions about termination cases are made by employment arbitrators, labor arbitrators, and jurors. The results indicate significant differences in the overall willingness to uphold termination, with labor arbitrators being the most likely to rule in favor of the employee, followed by jurors, employment arbitrators judging statutory and for-cause claims, and employment arbitrators judging statutory-only claims. Significant differences were also observed between categories of decision makers in the weight given to procedural compliance, evidence of discrimination, employee work history, and stress-inducing personal circumstances.

Outsourcing and the HR function: an examination of trends and developments within North American firms

As increased use of outsourcing by a number of firms within North American has produced significant changes over the last decade in how the human resource function delivers services. In this article, we draw on transaction cost economics, the resource-based view, the HR architecture literature, and institutional theory to examine why these changes have been observed. Following this, we use these same theoretical perspectives to examine how different types of firms are likely to make use of outsourcing in the future to provide human resource services and programmes.

Pay dispersion and the financial performance of the firm: evidence from Korea

Pay dispersion has been found in prior research to negatively affect both individual and workplace performance. In this study, we examine whether the relationship between horizontal pay dispersion and firm financial performance is curvilinear in nature, with moderate levels of dispersion leading to more positive outcomes than either low or high levels. Using data from a government-sponsored survey of Korean firms, we find support for the hypothesized curvilinear relationship between pay dispersion and firm financial performance. We further find that this curvilinear relationship is moderated by firm and human resource system characteristics. Where the firm had more incumbents in the rank being examined, where pay level was higher, and where there was greater organizational investment in performance evaluation and feedback, the positive slope (within the curvilinear relationship) inverted at a higher level of dispersion.