nep-hrm New Economics Papers
on Human Capital and Human Resource Management
Issue of 2017‒01‒15
seven papers chosen by
Patrick Kampkötter
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

  1. Affirmative Action and Team Performance By Felix Koelle
  2. Helping with the Kids? How Family-Friendly Workplaces Affect Parental Well-Being and Behavior By Verena Lauber; Johanna Storck
  3. Do women respond less to performance pay? Building evidence from multiple experiments By Bandiera, Oriana; Fischer, Greg; Prat, Andrea; Ytsma, Erina
  4. Does Job Support Make Workers Happy? By Petri Böckerman; Alex Bryson; Antti Kauhanen; Mari Kangasniemi
  5. Killer Incentives: Status Competition and Pilot Performance during World War II By Ager, Philipp; Bursztyn, Leonardo; Voth, Hans-Joachim
  6. Interfirm Relationships and Business Performance By Cai, Jing; Szeidl, Adam
  7. Empirical Analysis on Human Resource Management and ICT Use for Product Innovation among Firms in ASEAN Economies By Idota, Hiroki; Ueki, Yasushi; Shigeno, Hidenori; Bunno, Teruyuki; Tsuji, Masatsugu

  1. By: Felix Koelle (Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences, University of Cologne)
    Abstract: We experimentally investigate spillover effects of affirmative action policies in tournaments on subsequent team performance and the willingness to work in teams. In three different team environments, we find that such policies in form of gender quotas do not harm performance and cooperation within teams, and do not weaken people’s willingness to work in teams. Our results, thus, provide further evidence that gender quotas can have the desired effect of promoting women without harming efficiency.
    Keywords: Affirmative action; teams; gender; performance; cooperation; selection; experiment
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:not:notcdx:2016-20&r=hrm
  2. By: Verena Lauber; Johanna Storck
    Abstract: Despite political efforts, balancing work and family life is still challenging. This paper provides novel evidence on the effect of firm level interventions that seek to reduce the work-life conflict. The focus is on how a specific workplace policy, namely childcare support, affects the well-being, working time, and caring behavior of mothers with young children. We exploit the fact that since the mid 2000s an increasing number of employers have become proactive and implemented more family-friendly workplaces. These changes over time allow us to identify causal effects of childcare support using a difference-in-differences approach combined with matching. Based on a large panel dataset on families with children in Germany (FiD), we find evidence pointing to welfare enhancing effects of childcare support, as it strongly increases both childcare satisfaction and job satisfaction. In particular mothers who worked limited hours before the introduction, possibly due to constraints, increase their working time and use formal care more intensively. Satisfaction levels are also more strongly affected if mothers are career-orientated. In comparison, flexible work schedules, another family-friendly policy, only affect job satisfaction. Paternal well-being and behavior is not affected by the workplace policy.
    Keywords: family-friendly workplace policies, well-being, work-life balance, difference-in-differences, matching
    JEL: I31 J13 J22 J28
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp883&r=hrm
  3. By: Bandiera, Oriana; Fischer, Greg; Prat, Andrea; Ytsma, Erina
    Abstract: Performance pay increases productivity but also earnings inequality. Can it widen the gender gap because women are less responsive? We provide answers by aggregating evidence from existing experiments on performance pay that have both male and female subjects, regardless of whether they test for gender differences. We develop a Bayesian hierarchical model (BHM) that allows us to estimate both the average effect and the heterogeneity across studies. We find that the gender response difference is close to zero and heterogeneity across studies is small. We also find that the average effect of performance pay is positive, increasing output by 0.28 standard deviations. The data are thus strongly supportive of agency theory for men and women alike.
    Keywords: econometrics; Gender; meta-analysis; wage differentials
    JEL: C11 J16 J31
    Date: 2016–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11724&r=hrm
  4. By: Petri Böckerman (Turku School of Economics, Labour Institute for Economic Research and IZA); Alex Bryson (University College London, National Institute of Social and Economic Research and Institute for the Study of Labor); Antti Kauhanen (The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy); Mari Kangasniemi (Labour Institute for Economic Research)
    Abstract: Using linked employer-employee data for Finland we examine associations between job design and ten measures of worker wellbeing. In accordance with Karasek's (1979) model we find positive correlations between many aspects of worker wellbeing and job control. However, contrary to the model, job demands have no adverse effects on worker wellbeing. We find a strong positive correlation between job support and all aspects of worker wellbeing that is independent of job controls and job demands, a finding that has not been emphasized in the literature. The effects are most pronounced in relation to supervisor support. We also find evidence of unemployment scarring effects: substantial experience of unemployment has long-term consequences for the wellbeing workers experience in their current jobs, even controlling for the quality of those jobs.
    Keywords: Worker wellbeing; Job control; Job demands; Job support; Job design; Supervisors; Job satisfaction; Stress; HRM; Unemployment; Scarring effects
    JEL: J28 J8 L23 M54
    Date: 2016–12–29
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qss:dqsswp:1616&r=hrm
  5. By: Ager, Philipp; Bursztyn, Leonardo; Voth, Hans-Joachim
    Abstract: A growing theoretical and empirical literature shows that public recognition can lead to greater effort amongst employees. At the same time, status competition can be associated with excessive expenditure on status goods, higher risk of bankruptcy, and more risk taking amongst money managers. In this paper, we look at the effects of recognition and status competition jointly: We focus on the spillover effects of public recognition on the performance and risk taking of peers. Using newly collected data on monthly victory scores of over 5,000 German pilots during World War II, we find corrosive effects of status competition: When the daily bulletin of the German armed forces mentioned the accomplishments of a particular fighter pilot, his former peers perform markedly better. Outperformance is differential across skill groups. When a former squadron peer is mentioned, the best pilots try harder, score more, and die no more frequently; average pilots win only a few additional victories, but die at a markedly higher rate. Our results suggest that the overall efficiency effects of non-financial rewards can be ambiguous in settings where both risk and output affect aggregate performance.
    Keywords: Behavioral economics; Employee motivation; Nonfinancial incentives; Status competition; World War II
    JEL: J24 J32 M52 N44
    Date: 2017–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11751&r=hrm
  6. By: Cai, Jing; Szeidl, Adam
    Abstract: We organized business associations for the owner-managers of randomly selected young Chinese firms to study the effect of business networks on firm performance. We randomized 2,800 firms into small groups whose managers held monthly meetings for one year, and into a "no-meetings" control group. We find that: (1) The meetings increased firm revenue by 8.1 percent, and also significantly increased profit, factors, inputs, the number of partners, borrowing, and a management score; (2) These effects persisted one year after the conclusion of the meetings; and (3) Firms randomized to have better peers exhibited higher growth. We exploit additional interventions to document concrete channels. (4) Managers shared exogenous business-relevant information, particularly when they were not competitors, showing that the meetings facilitated learning from peers. (5) Managers created more business partnerships in the regular than in other one-time meetings, showing that the meetings improved supplier-client matching. (6) Firms whose managers discussed management, partners, or finance improved more in the associated domain, suggesting that the content of conversations shaped the nature of gains.
    Keywords: business networks; field experiment; information diffusion; meetings; peer effects; referrals; Trust
    JEL: D22 L14 O12 O14
    Date: 2016–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11717&r=hrm
  7. By: Idota, Hiroki; Ueki, Yasushi; Shigeno, Hidenori; Bunno, Teruyuki; Tsuji, Masatsugu
    Abstract: To achieve successful innovation, firms in ASEAN countries have to elevate their innovation capability including human resources, business structure of firms, technologies including ICT use by collaborating with outside organizations such as MNCs (Multi-national companies) and university/public research institutes. These outside organizations are termed as external linkages. Based on authors'survey data of five ASEAN economies such as Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Laos from 2014 to 2015, this paper examines how internal innovation capability such as human resource management (HRM), organizational learning and ICT use enhance product innovation. These factors are used as latent variables in analysis and consist of the following variables:(i) HRM such as recruitment, job training and rewards and 5S; (ii) organizational learning including QC and cross-functional teams;(iii) ICT use such as B2B, B2C, EDI, SCM, ERP, CAD/CAM, groupware, SNS; and (iv) external linkages. This study employs SEM (Structural equation modeling) to analyze the causal relationships not only among the above four latent variables but also between these and innovation.The six hypotheses were postulated. Estimation results demonstrate that organization learning and ICT use enhance product innovation, and particularly, human resource management enhances organization learning.
    Keywords: ICT use,human resource management,external linkages,cross-functional teams,QC,SEM
    JEL: O32 O31 O19
    Date: 2016
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itse16:148675&r=hrm

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