Digital Commons Network^™

Paying To Reduce Disparity: Financially Incentivizing Workforce Diversity And Its Effects On Managers’ Promotion Decisions And Employees’ Effort, Bret S. Sheeley

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Disparities in employee representation persist in higher-level organizational positions despite recent attention to workforce diversity and its associated benefits. In response, companies have begun integrating diversity initiatives with varying degrees of specificity (hereafter, “initiative specificity”) into their managers’ compensation packages to increase underrepresented employees’ representation in higher-level organizational positions. This study uses an experiment to examine how offering managers financial incentives to accomplish diversity initiatives (hereafter, “diversity incentives”) and initiative specificity interact to influence managers’ promotion decisions and employees’ effort choices in a promotion setting.

The results suggest that as underrepresented employees’ pre-promotion efforts increase relative to overrepresented employees’ efforts, …

Comparative Performance Of Cooperative Equity Retirement Plans, Jeffrey S. Royer

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

This paper compares the performance of revolving fund, percentage-of-all-equities, and base capital plans, and special plans for redeeming equity held by estates or based on member age. It also examines how the performance of the base capital plan is affected by changes in the base period, relaxing the equity requirements for underinvested members, and a variable cash patronage refund program. The base capital plan performs better than other systematic plans but places financial burdens on young members. Two modifications can mitigate that problem with only a slight diminution in performance. Special plans benefit cooperatives operating revolving fund plans the most.

Cross-National Attitudes About Paid Parental Leave Offerings For Fathers, Qi Li, Chris Knoester, Richard J. Petts

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Using cross-national data from the 2012 International Social Survey Programme (N = 33,273), this study considers institutional, self-interest, and ideational factors in analyzing public opinions about the provision, length, and source of paid parental leave offerings for fathers. We find substantial support for generous leave offerings. Multilevel regression results reveal that being a woman, supporting dual-earning expectations, and realizing more family strains lead to support for more generous leave offerings. Endorsing separate spheres and intensive mothering attitudes reduces support for more generous leave offerings; although, gendered attitudes interact with one another in predicting leave preferences, too. Finally, country-level indicators …

Bang For The Buck: Understanding Employee Benefit Allocations And New Venture Survival, Jake G. Messersmith, Pankaj C. Patel, Christopher Crawford

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Providing employee benefits is costly for new ventures, yet offering such inducements is often essential to developing human capital. While a broad combination of employee benefits could yield synergistic effects, adopting a large number of benefits may not be feasible for resource constrained ventures. To ensure survival, while limiting misallocation of scarce resources towards benefits that have lower returns, entrepreneurs must be selective in choosing the benefits that generate the most ‘bang for the buck’. Our study assesses the effects of employee benefit offerings on venture survival odds. Based on a longitudinal sample of 1012 US-based ventures from the Kauffman …

Nonprofit Pay In A Competitive Market: Wage Penalty Or Premium?, Christian King, Gregory B. Lewis

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Two competing theories argue that the nonprofit sector pays differently: Nonprofit employees may accept lower pay to be able to do meaningful work for a good cause, or they may earn higher pay due to nonprofit organizations’ tax exemptions and weaker incentives to hold down wages. To test these opposing expectations, we use the 2005-2013 American Community Surveys to examine pay differences among registered nurses working for nonprofit, for-profit, and public hospitals. We also test hypotheses that public and nonprofit hospitals have smaller pay disparities by gender, race, and relationship status. We find that pay is highest in nonprofit hospitals, …

How To Grow Your Rural Business With Purpose And Meaning, Connie I. Reimers-Hild, Alyssa Dye

Community Vitality Initiative Collections

No one can predict the future; however, rural entrepreneurs and business owners can use a future-focused leadership approach, which includes examining megatrends, to shape the future of their businesses. Megatrends are global shifts that influence society, the economy and the environment. The purpose of this article is to help rural entrepreneurs discover ways to grow their businesses with Living with Purpose and Meaning Megatrend.

Reinforce For Performance: The Need To Go Beyond Pay And Even Rewards, Fred Luthans, Alexander D. Stajkovic

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Perhaps the most talked about, if not actually implemented. practical solution for making human resources more productive is pay for performance. Yet many researchers and practitioners doubt the true effectiveness of this approach. To help solve this controversy. we suggest drawing from reinforcement theory and behavioral management. This approach can be used to explain the simple statements: You get what you reinforce. but you do not necessarily get what you pay for. We first critically review the traditional pay for performance practices and address the question of whether rewards. not reinforcers. do more harm than good. Next, we discuss the …