Yuhee Jung

Performance implications for the relationships among top management leadership, organizational culture, and appraisal practice: testing two theory-based models of organizational learning theory in Japan

The purpose of this study was to examine the interrelationships among top management leadership, organizational culture and human resource (HR) practices, and their associative effects on organizational performance. Based on the theory of organizational learning, we developed and tested two different causal models: (1) a feed-forward learning flow model in which supportive leadership by top management would create a community culture and HR practices within organizations; and (2) a feedback learning flow model in which a community culture would support the practice of supportive leadership by top management and HR practices within a firm. Our structural equation modelling (SEM) results for a sample of 225 Japanese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Japan supported the second model, in which the dominance of a community culture within the firm is an antecedent of top managements supportive leadership, which in turn necessitates a performance-based appraisal practice and eventually leads to better organizational performance in terms of objective indicators of turnover and absenteeism rates and workforce productivity. The findings are used to discuss the role of top management leadership in a particular organizational culture from the organizational learning perspective. Limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.

A lifespan perspective for understanding career self-management and satisfaction: The role of developmental human resource practices and organizational support

The contemporary career literature or ‘new career’ theory emphasizes the importance of individual agentic career management processes in which individuals manage their careers to achieve career satisfaction by flexibly adjusting to the dynamic environment. There is limited research, however, on how individuals strategize their careers as they age, by utilizing or balancing organizational career management factors, including developmental human resource (HR) practices and organizational support. This study, therefore, documents how age, career self-management and organizational career management factors interactively influence career satisfaction, integrating conservation of resources (COR) and socioemotional selectivity (SES) theories. Using time-lagged data collected from 364 Japanese employees, the results supported the predicted three-way interaction effects. For young employees, the positive relationship between career self-management and satisfaction was stronger when developmental HR practices and organizational support were high, and thus a synergistic effect was salient. For middle-aged employees, the positive relationship was stronger when these factors were low, and thus a compensatory effect was manifested. Interestingly, middle-aged employees who perceived a lack of developmental practices or support showed marked improvements in career satisfaction by engaging in career self-management behaviors. We discuss the changing nature of career management strategies across an individual’s lifespan from both vocational and managerial viewpoints.

Gender differences in career planning and success

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it attempts to examine how employees’ career planning (CP) interacts with the quality of leader-member exchange (LMX) to explain subjective career success. Second, the authors investigate how the pattern of such interactions differs between male and female employees. Design/methodology/approach – To increase the generalizability, the study tested hypotheses in two studies whose data were collected in different national settings. Study 1 was designed to analyze 144 Korean employees and Study 2 investigated 140 Japanese employees. Both groups of employees worked for privately owned firms. Findings – The authors found a three-way interaction effect between gender, CP, and LMX quality in predicting subjective career success. As hypothesized, the positive relationship between quality of LMX and subjective career success was stronger for males with high CP, whereas for females such a stronger relationship was found for women with low CP. Research limitation...

Top management team diversity and firm performance: exploring a function of age

Purpose Based on socioemotional selectivity theory, the authors aimed to develop and test hypotheses that identify the direct effect of top management team (TMT) age diversity on firms’ financial performance (return on equity [ROE], return on assets [ROA]) and the interactive effect of TMT age diversity and TMT average age on firms’ financial performance. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents results from a quantitative study of 867 TMTs in Korean manufacturing firms. Multiple hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Findings The results show that TMT age diversity had a negative and significant main effect on ROE but not on ROA. They also indicate that the negative relationship between TMT age diversity and firm performance (ROE) was attenuated when the members of TMTs were relatively older. Originality/value First, this study extends existing TMT research, which mainly focuses on macro factors, such as industry and environment, by using micro factors, including TMT age diversity and TMT average age. Second, this paper combines and extends previous TMT studies, which have been dominated by either “property” or “tendency”, by examining the interactive effect of the distributional property (diversity) and central tendency (average) of TMT age on firms’ financial performance. Finally, this study indicates that socioemotional selectivity theory may be useful to explain the link between TMT age diversity and firms’ financial performance.

Top management team (TMT) tenure diversity and firm performance: Examining the moderating effect of TMT average age

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to investigate the effect of top management team (TMT) tenure diversity and firm financial performance (return on equity [ROE], return on assets [ROA]), and, second, to examine the moderating effect of TMT average age between TMT tenure diversity and firm performance. Design/methodology/approach The paper presented results from a quantitative study of 744 TMTs in Japanese manufacturing firms. The multiple hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Findings The results show that TMT tenure diversity had a negative and significant main effect on ROE but not ROA. Furthermore, the results also indicated that the negative relationship between TMT tenure diversity and firm performance was attenuated by having older TMTs. Originality/value First, this paper expands scope of research on TMT diversity, which has hitherto primarily on non-individualistic variables (such as industry setting) by examining the moderating role of an individualistic variable (TMT average age). Second, this paper extended the attempts to apply the age-related theory by considering the role from the viewpoint of group level, namely, TMT average age.

CEO Power and Top Management Team Tenure Diversity: Implications for Firm Performance

Using agency theory, we explore how the CEO (as principal) and the top management team (TMT) members (as agents) interactively influence the performance of a firm. By adding performance feedback theory into agency relations, we investigate whether the interactive effect of CEO–TMT relations on firm performance differs when past firm performance is either poor or strong. Using a sample of 115 Japanese firms, our results show that the interactive effect of CEO power and TMT tenure diversity on firm performance is positive in a situation of poor past firm performance. However, in a situation of strong past firm performance, the opposite result is found. These findings imply that CEO power might play a significant role in enhancing the effectiveness of TMT diversity on firm performance when past firm performance is poor.

Understanding psychological processes of applicants’ job search

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it empirically examines two theory-based models of applicants’ job search developed from planned happenstance theory (PHT) and theory of planned behavior (TPB). Second, it tests the cross-cultural compatibility of these models in Japan and Korea. Design/methodology/approach - The authors tested two theory-based job search models, PHT model and TPB model based on samples of college students from Japan ( Findings - The results indicated that the TPB model was a significantly better fitting to the data than the PHT model. Moreover, a multi-group test of the TPB model demonstrated that the TPB model was invariant between the Japanese and the Korean samples. Originality/value - Although there had been an important question among job search literatures regarding how important the planned behavior in the job search processes would be, the study gave an empirical support to the TPB job search model in contrast to the PHT model. Another contribution is that the study tested the Western-driven theories using Asian samples from Japan and Korea, constituting an important benchmark for further studies that attempt to test the generalizability of the TPB model, particularly in countries/areas that employ different employment systems.