Nancy Brown Johnson

Strategic human resource management effectiveness and firm performance

This study tests whether strategic human resource management (SHRM) effectiveness significantly affects organizational level outcomes. Using the resource-based view of the firm, this study examines the effective use of human capital on organizational performance. Further, the role that a contextual factor - capital intensity - plays in modelling is explored. Results show that SHRM effectiveness significantly reduces employee turnover and increases overall market performance assessment. However, SHRM effectiveness affected both firm productivity and return on equity only when moderated by capital intensity.

Knowledge capability, strategic change, and firm performance: The moderating role of the environment

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the relationships between knowledge capability, strategic change, and firm performance in the US airline industry from regulation to deregulation.Design/methodology/approach – This is a longitudinal study with a cross‐sectional time series research design. A theoretical model is tested in which knowledge capability exerts a direct effect on strategic change; strategic change then influences firm performance. The environment moderates the relationship between strategic change and firm performance. The sample of the study includes the major US air carriers from 1972 to 1995. Knowledge capability is operationalized as the education level and functional diversity of top management. Strategic change is measured as change in hub concentration, a key variable for the airlines. The data for the present study come from archival sources.Findings – Time series statistics with fixed effects are used to examine the relationships between the variables. The results support the theor...

Top management team demographic characteristics, business strategy, and firm performance in the US airline industry: The role of managerial discretion

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on top management demographic characteristics, business strategy, and firm performance in the major US airlines.Design/methodology/approach – The relationships between management characteristics and business strategy are examined as well as the business strategy – firm performance relationships before and after airline deregulation. This is a longitudinal study (1972‐1995) that includes data from publicly available sources. Pooled cross‐sectional time series regression analyses were used with fixed‐effects to test specific hypotheses. The management demographics include age, tenure, education, and functional background. Business strategy was measured as low cost, differentiation, and scope. The study includes three measures of firm performance.Findings – There were significant management demographics‐business strategy relationships in the deregulatory period. There were also significant business strategy‐firm performance relationships with deregulation.Origi...

Employee commitment and organizational policies

Purpose – To propose new commitment construct‐policy commitment, and to examine the influence of attitude, role clarity, and role conflict on policy commitment, as well as the influence of policy commitment on citizenship behavior.Design/methodology/approach – Using a self‐report questionnaire and a sample of 148 workers in a rural manufacturing plant, we use structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques to examine the effects of attitude, role clarity, and role conflict on policy commitment, as well as the effect of policy commitment on the conscientiousness and civic virtue dimensions of citizenship behavior.Findings – SEM revealed that attitudes and role clarity positively influenced policy commitment, and that policy commitment positively influenced conscientiousness and civic virtue.Research limitations/implications – Our sample is relatively small (N=148) and largely homogeneous, which may limit its generalizability. A number of additional research opportunities are suggested in the study, including...

The relationship between work/family benefits and earnings: A test of competing predictions

Abstract Using data from a random statewide telephone survey, this study examines the relationship between four specific types of work/family benefits (child care, flextime, and two types of flexible leaves) and employee earnings. The research is guided by two competing theoretical perspectives. One—compensating wage differential theory—is based on the presumed cost of the benefits, and the other is based on their potential productivity enhancing effects. Despite the prevalence of the former perspective for guiding work on the impact of job characteristics on earnings, we found limited supporting evidence. Instead, earnings more closely related to work/family benefits were likely to have a positive impact on productivity, but only among those groups that stood the most to gain. Building on the findings of this study, suggestions are made to examine further how and in what ways this important new class of benefits might affect employee earnings.

An analysis of current human resource management publications

Human resource articles published in the top human resource management (HRM) journals from 1994 through 2001 are analyzed by topic, research technique, level of analysis, and data source. The results are aggregated and summarized to address the current state of affairs in human resource management research. Moreover, these data are used to examine what is not being addressed in the field at the current time. Results point to a lack of focus on methods, diversity, and technology, and the decline of the once‐popular absenteeism and turnover streams of research. Also lacking is variance in research methodologies, with empirical analyses, specifically regression, being the most frequently employed methodology. The article concludes with suggestions for future HRM research.

The use of daclizumab, tacrolimus and mycophenolate mofetil in African-American and Hispanic first renal transplant recipients

Limited data are available on the use of tacrolimus and mycophenolate mofetil in conjunction with anti‐IL‐2 receptor antibody, in groups of kidney transplant recipients considered to be at higher risk. This study compared the incidence of acute rejection between African‐American (AA), Hispanic (H), and non‐African‐American, non‐Hispanics (non‐AA, non‐H) first renal transplant recipients. We studied 233 sequential first renal transplants. Of the 233, 37 recipients (16%) were AA, 85 (36.5%) were H and 111 (47.5%) were non‐AA, non‐H. All received daclizumab induction therapy (1 mg/kg) on the day of surgery, and every other week for a total of 5 doses, as well as mycophenolate mofetil, tacrolimus, and steroids. At 1 year, patient and graft survival were 97% and 95% in AA, 98% and 98% in H, and 96% and 95% in non‐AA, non‐H, respectively (not statistically different). Biopsy‐proven acute rejection episodes were 8.1% in AA, 4.7% in H, and 4.5% in non‐AA, non‐H (also not statistically different). This immunosuppressive protocol appears to be safe and effective in helping to minimize biopsy‐proven acute rejection and optimize renal allograft survival in African‐American and Hispanic renal transplant recipients in the first year post transplantation.

Broken Rules and Constrained Confusion: Toward a Theory of Meso-Institutions

Meso-institutions are weak, intermediate forms of institutions that bridge the gap between institutional disintegration and the development of new, more firmly established institutions. Meso-institutions lack the stronger behaviour-guiding signs and symbols of more established institutions, but instead contain fragments of former institutions mixed with emerging, but fragile, components of developing institutions. Institutional disintegration leads to a disorienting period characterized by the dissolution of fundamental, widely held ideologies. This offers an opportunity for actions rather than institutions to guide actions. Because meso-institutions are weak, only after actions are repeated will they solidify into specific patterns that may be retrospectively granted legitimacy. Using archival data supplemented by interviews, we identified three meso-institutional occurrences with the phenomenologically based manifestations of fractured ideology, actions as rules and retrospective legitimization.

5. AIRLINE EMPLOYMENT, PRODUCTIVITY, AND WORKING CONDITIONS FOLLOWING DEREGULATION

Despite predictions that the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 would lower wage levels for airline workers, evidence of significant wage declines did not appear until the 1990s. The lagged wage effects suggest that airlines used alternative employment strategies to adjust to the new competitive environment. This chapter examines whether and the extent that deregulation had an effect on non-wage employment factors including employment, productivity, and working conditions. Employment has expanded but with periods of significant economic downturns, part-time workers are increasingly used, and industry productivity has also advanced but at a rate concomitant with the manufacturing sector. Some evidence of deteriorating working conditions exists including increased fatigue among pilots and flight attendants, customer abuse, and continuing high levels of injuries.

Incentives and Self-Interest: Balancing Revenue and Rewards in China's Tourism Industry

The travel service industry is a fast-growing part of the Chinese economy. With the recent announcement of Beijing as the host city for the 2008 Olympics, this trend is poised to continue. The quality of a travel service companys (TSC) reputation generates revenue from repeat and referral business and is critical to the ongoing success of firms in this industry. A key factor in maintaining reputation is the level of quality services provided by tour guides employed by these firms. Using an agency theory framework, this paper suggests that the optimal compensation contract of tour guides is a mixture of outcome-based and behaviour-based contracts. The authors propose specific contract components that balance TSC revenue requirements and their need to maintain a strong reputation while providing incentives for tour guides to act in the best interest of the company.