G. Douglas Jenkins

An Organization-Level Analysis of Voluntary and Involuntary Turnover

Although there are many individual-level models of turnover, little research has examined the effects of human resource management practices on quit rates and discharge rates at the organizational level. This study used organization-level data from 227 organizations in the trucking industry to explore this issue. Results show that human resource management practices predict quit rates and discharge rates hut that the determinants of each are quite different. Implications are derived and directions for future research suggested.

Are Financial Incentives Related to Performance? A Meta-Analytic Review of Empirical Research

The relationship of financial incentives to performance quality and quantity is cumulated over 39 studies containing 47 relationships. Financial incentives were not related to performance quality but had a corrected correlation of.34 with performance quantity. Setting (laboratory, field, experimental simulation) and theoretical framework moderated the relationship, but task type did not.

Method Versus Substance: How Strong are Underlying Relationships Between Job Characteristics and Attitudinal Outcomes?

This study compared the relative strengths of the effects of method versus substance on relationships between job characteristics and attitudinal outcomes. Reports from both job incumbents and nonincumbents on job characteristics and job attitudes were compared for 509 employees of four organizations. Substantive relationships were observed between job characteristics and effort, supporting the job characteristics model. Common method effects, however, inflated relationships between job characteristics and affective outcomes, thereby supporting the social information processing model. Implications are discussed for other areas of organizational research that rely on single data sources.

Unionization, Compensation, and Voice Effects on Quits and Retention

This study explores the relationships among unionization, compensation practices, and employee attachment (quit rates and tenure) among trucking companies to assess the applicability of Freeman and Medoffs exit/voice argument. Unionization was associated with lower quit rates, higher tenure, a better compensation package, and stronger voice mechanisms. The relationship of unionization to quit rates and tenure becomes nonsignificant after accounting for compensation (pay and benefits), and voice mechanisms do not add explanatory variance.

A drop in the bucket: when is a pay raise a pay raise?

Summary Although merit pay continues to receive much theoretical and practical attention, little systematic eAort is devoted to determining how large a pay raise must be before employees see it as a pay raise. This study uses psychophysical reasoning and techniques in a sample of 192 student ‘employees’ to establish the size of pay raise thresholds in a relatively controlled setting. Results indicate that, below about the 7 per cent level, increases in pay amounts are unlikely to evoke positive perceptual and attitudinal reactions among employees. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of these results are highlighted. #1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Case of the Invisible Merit Raise How People See Their Pay Raises

Many HR managers assume that any raise can be motivational-but as this study illustrates, very small and very large merit raises may actually obstruct an organizations motivational efforts.

Rethinking dysfunctional employee behaviors

Abstract The failure of organizational research to make significant advances in understanding attitude-behavior relationships may be largely attributed to our penchant for examining one behavior at a time. This article presents an alternative approach to viewing dysfunctional employee behaviors, outlines the “escape” meta-construct, and proposes a theoretical framework for examining these behaviors.

Practical problems in using job evaluation systems to determine compensation

Since job evaluations have historically provided a primary basis for compensation, it is easy to accept them unquestioningly as a starting point for compensation determination. But job evaluations suffer from inherent problems, they are often misused, and they are fundamentally incompatible with many innovative managerial approaches. This article highlights many of these practical problems in using job evaluations and urges their critical examination prior to their adoption and use.

The Politics of Pay: Who gets what is often a matter of who is the better game player than of who really deserves more pay. You cannot overlook political dynamics if you want your company's compensation system to be effective

, etc.). Such explanations assume that people are inclined to behave rationally and that, given the right tools, people will behave rationally. This article demonstrates that designing and administering pay systems are largely political matters, and that power and politics play as significant a role as, if not a more significant role than, motivational, mechanistic, and other factors in determining how, to whom, and how much pay is allocated. We see that politics and game-playing thrive among both organizational decisionmakers and individual pay recipients, and that who gets what is often more a matter of who is the better game player than of who really deserves more pay. This article discusses the political dynamics of both base pay and incentive pay decisions, addressing each decision from the perspective of the organization and of the individual.

The Effects of Turnover on Perceived Job Quality Does the Grass Look Greener

Despite extensive turnover research, there is little information on whether peoples perceived job quality actually improves as a function of turnover. Using data from people who stayed with the job, who changed jobs, or who changed employers, this study examined the relative validity of three theoretical frameworks regarding the impact of turnover on perceived job quality. The results, although not overwhelming, provided tentative support for dispositional arguments; people tended to retain similar attitudes regardless of actual job quality.