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Full-Text Articles in Business

Examining Strategic Fit And Misfit In The Management Of Knowledge Workers, Christopher J. Collins, Rebecca Kehoe Jul 2017

Examining Strategic Fit And Misfit In The Management Of Knowledge Workers, Christopher J. Collins, Rebecca Kehoe

Christopher J Collins

This study advances research on strategic human resource management by examining whether better firm performance depends on the alignment between an organization’s human resources (HR) system and its innovation strategy. The authors argue that the unique problems underlying exploration innovation strategies and exploitation innovation strategies require core workers to engage in different types of knowledge-search and -combination behaviors. Alternative HR systems theoretically produce different knowledge-search and -combination behaviors by way of their effect on employees’ ability, motivation, and opportunity structures at work. Drawing on a field study of 230 software firms, the authors demonstrate that alternative HR systems support either …


The Relationship Of Achievement Motivation To Entrepreneurial Behavior: A Meta-Analysis, Christopher J. Collins, Paul J. Hanges, Edwin A. Locke May 2013

The Relationship Of Achievement Motivation To Entrepreneurial Behavior: A Meta-Analysis, Christopher J. Collins, Paul J. Hanges, Edwin A. Locke

Christopher J Collins

Entrepreneurship is a major factor in the national economy; thus, it is important to understand the motivational characteristics spurring people to become entrepreneurs and why some are more successful than others. In this study, we conducted a meta-analysis of the relationship between achievement motivation and variables associated with entrepreneurial behavior. We found that achievement motivation was significantly correlated with both choice of an entrepreneurial career and entrepreneurial performance. Further, we found that both projective and self-report measures of achievement motivation were valid. Finally, known group studies yielded a higher validity coefficient than did individual difference studies.


Recruitment And Selection, Christopher J. Collins, Rebecca R. Kehoe Jun 2012

Recruitment And Selection, Christopher J. Collins, Rebecca R. Kehoe

Christopher J Collins

[Excerpt] In this chapter, we look to address the second issue by developing a theoretical model of the link between different staffing systems and firm-level performance. We first look to existing theory on organizational design and structure to better understand the role of recruitment and selection. Specifically, we argue that organizations are structured into unique subunits of employees based on the equivocality of available information in their jobs and the resulting need for organizational rationality or openness. Drawing on existing empirical work on strategic human resource management, we argue that unique systems of recruitment and selection practices are necessary to …


Initial Organizational Images And Recruitment: A Within-Subjects Investigation Of The Factors Affecting Job Choices, Christopher J. Collins, Cynthia Kay Stevens May 2012

Initial Organizational Images And Recruitment: A Within-Subjects Investigation Of The Factors Affecting Job Choices, Christopher J. Collins, Cynthia Kay Stevens

Christopher J Collins

[Excerpt] The purpose of this study was to examine the dimensions, influenceability, and consequences of applicants’ images of prospective employers early in the recruitment and job search process. Specifically, we examined three questions: (1) On what dimensions do applicants assess organizational images early in their job searches? (2) Which recruitment practices contribute to applicants’ organizational images? (3) How do organizational images influence applicants’ decisions to apply to organizations?


Strategic Decision-Making In High Velocity Environments: A Theory Revisited And A Test, Kevin Clark, Christopher J. Collins May 2012

Strategic Decision-Making In High Velocity Environments: A Theory Revisited And A Test, Kevin Clark, Christopher J. Collins

Christopher J Collins

[Excerpt] A decade ago, Eisenhardt (1989) proposed a model of strategic decision-making speed for firms facing high-velocity environments. This theory, while important at the time, has become even more relevant to the strategy-making bodies of firms in the entrepreneurial millennium. The model differed in important ways from much of the existing literature on decision-making speed (Frederickson and Mitchell, 1984; Janis, 1982; Mintzberg, et al., 1976; Nutt, 1976). Eisenhardt's ideas were based on a series of inductive case studies of eight firms competing in the fast-paced micro-chip industry. As such, it was an important theory-building effort in a central area of …


Entrepreneurial Human Resource Strategy, Christopher J. Collins, Matthew Allen, Scott Snell May 2012

Entrepreneurial Human Resource Strategy, Christopher J. Collins, Matthew Allen, Scott Snell

Christopher J Collins

[Excerpt] Entrepreneurship is the process by which "opportunities to create future goods and services are discovered, evaluated, and exploited" (Shane and Venkataraman, 2000: 218). In other words, it is the process by which organizations and individuals convert new knowledge into new opportunities in the form of new products and services. Strategic human resource management (SHRM) has been defined as the system of organizational practices and policies used to manage employees in a manner that leads to higher organizational performance (Wright and McMahan, 1992). Further, one perspective suggests that sets of HR practices do not themselves create competitive advantage; instead, they …


The Effects Of Recruitment Message Specificity On Applicant Attraction To Organizations, Quinetta M. Roberson, Christopher J. Collins, Shaul Oreg May 2012

The Effects Of Recruitment Message Specificity On Applicant Attraction To Organizations, Quinetta M. Roberson, Christopher J. Collins, Shaul Oreg

Christopher J Collins

We used the elaboration likelihood model from marketing research to explain and examine how recruitment message specificity influences job seeker attraction to organizations. Using an experimental design and data from 171 college-level job seekers, the results showed that detailed recruitment messages led to enhanced perceptions of organization attributes and person-organization fit. Perceptions of fit were found to mediate the relationship between message specificity and intention to apply to the organization. In addition, perceptions of organization attributes and person-organization fit were found to influence intentions to apply under circumstances of explicit recruitment information while attractiveness and fit perceptions were shown to …


Organizational Recruitment: Enhancing The Intersection Of Research And Practice, M. Susan Taylor, Christopher J. Collins May 2012

Organizational Recruitment: Enhancing The Intersection Of Research And Practice, M. Susan Taylor, Christopher J. Collins

Christopher J Collins

[Excerpt] How have recruitment practices changed in response to the tight labor market pressures? A few brief examples will suffice for the present. Cisco Systems, a rapidly growing California-based networking firm, has replaced virtually all of its prior recruitment advertising (for example, newspaper, radio, etc.) with the Internet-based recruiting programs that are specially targeted to the desired applicant population. Based on their own market research that most job-related web entries are received from employed candidates searching the Internet during work hours, Cisco provides job browsers easy to access fake computer screens in case a boss or co-worker enters the room …


Employee Outcomes: Human Resource Management Practices And Firm Performance In Small Businesses, Christopher J. Collins, Jeff Ericksen, Mathew Allen May 2012

Employee Outcomes: Human Resource Management Practices And Firm Performance In Small Businesses, Christopher J. Collins, Jeff Ericksen, Mathew Allen

Christopher J Collins

[Abstract] Improving company performance is something of interest to all small business leaders. Small business leaders have many tools at their disposal — from finance to marketing to customer service — that could potentially improve the performance of their company. Among these tools is the way that small business leaders manage their people. As has been mentioned in previous reports, research has shown that people management does indeed impact company performance, even at the financial level. Studies show increases in value per employee of up to $40,000 and survival rates for IPO firms as much as 20% higher for companies …


Human Resource Practices, Knowledge-Creation Capability And Performance In High Technology Firms, Christopher J. Collins, Ken G. Smith, Cynthia Kay Stevens May 2012

Human Resource Practices, Knowledge-Creation Capability And Performance In High Technology Firms, Christopher J. Collins, Ken G. Smith, Cynthia Kay Stevens

Christopher J Collins

This study examines the relationship among key HR practices (i.e., effective acquisition, employee-development, commitment-building, and networking practices), three dimensions of knowledge-creation capability (human capital, employee motivation, and information combination and exchange), and firm performance. Results from a sample of 78 high technology firms showed that the three dimensions of knowledge creation interact to positively affect sales growth. Further, the HR practices were found to affect sales growth through their affect on the dimensions of knowledge-creation capability.


The Interactive Effects Of Recruitment Practices And Product Awareness On Job Seekers’ Employer Knowledge And Application Behaviors, Christopher J. Collins May 2012

The Interactive Effects Of Recruitment Practices And Product Awareness On Job Seekers’ Employer Knowledge And Application Behaviors, Christopher J. Collins

Christopher J Collins

In this paper, I draw on research from the literatures on marketing and recruitment to identify how recruitment practices and company product awareness are related to job seekers’ application behaviors through three aspects of job seekers’ employer knowledge. Based on results from a within-subjects design with data from 123 recruiting companies and 456 student job seekers, my findings suggested the relationships between recruitment strategies and application intentions and decisions are moderated by product awareness. Specifically, low-information recruitment practices are significantly and positively related to application behaviors through employer familiarity and employer reputation when product awareness is low rather than high. …


Exploring Applicant Pool Quantity And Quality: The Effects Of Early Recruitment Practice Strategies, Corporate Advertising, And Firm Reputation, Christopher J. Collins, Jian Han May 2012

Exploring Applicant Pool Quantity And Quality: The Effects Of Early Recruitment Practice Strategies, Corporate Advertising, And Firm Reputation, Christopher J. Collins, Jian Han

Christopher J Collins

Drawing on marketing and recruitment theory, we examined relationships between early recruitment practices, organizational factors, and organization-level recruitment outcomes, predicting that low-involvement recruitment practices, high-involvement recruitment practices, corporate advertising, and firm reputation would positively affect the quantity and quality of organizations’ applicant pools. We also predicted that corporate advertising and firm reputation would moderate the effects of the two recruitment strategies. Data for 99 organizations collected from multiple sources provided some evidence that early recruitment practices, corporate advertising, and firm reputation each had direct effects on applicant pool quantity and quality. More importantly, we found that low-involvement recruitment practices were …


Human Resource Management Practices, Workforce Alignment, And Firm Performance, Christopher Collins, Jeff Ericksen, Mathew Allen May 2012

Human Resource Management Practices, Workforce Alignment, And Firm Performance, Christopher Collins, Jeff Ericksen, Mathew Allen

Christopher J Collins

Small business leaders are charged with delivering high levels of company performance. There is no shortage of potentially fruitful investments available for consideration; these include developing new products or services, improving product or service quality, and enhancing marketing and sales. Another possible investment - improving the way a company manages its people - tends to receive less attention. This is somewhat surprising, however, when one considers that the human resource management practices a company uses can dramatically impact the bottom-line. One study of large publicly traded firms, for example, found that companies using "high performance" human resource practices have market …


Knowledge Exchange And Combination: The Role Of Human Resource Practices In The Performance Of High-Technology Firms, Christopher J. Collins, Ken G. Smith Dec 2005

Knowledge Exchange And Combination: The Role Of Human Resource Practices In The Performance Of High-Technology Firms, Christopher J. Collins, Ken G. Smith

Christopher J Collins

[Excerpt] In this study, we developed and tested a theory of how human resource practices affect the organizational social climate conditions that facilitate knowledge exchange and combination and resultant firm performance. A field study of 136 technology companies showed that commitment-based human resource practices were positively related to the organizational social climates of trust, cooperation, and shared codes and language. In turn, these measures of a firm's social climate were related to the firm's capability to exchange and combine knowledge, a relationship that predicted firm revenue from new products and services and firm sales growth.


Existing Knowledge, Knowledge Creation Capability, And The Rate Of New Product Introduction In High-Technology Firms, Ken G. Smith, Christopher J. Collins, Kevin D. Clark Dec 2004

Existing Knowledge, Knowledge Creation Capability, And The Rate Of New Product Introduction In High-Technology Firms, Ken G. Smith, Christopher J. Collins, Kevin D. Clark

Christopher J Collins

[Excerpt] A field study of top management teams and knowledge workers from 72 technology firms demonstrated that the rate of new product and service introduction was a function of organization members' ability to combine and exchange knowledge. We tested the following as bases of that ability: the existing knowledge of employees (their education levels and functional heterogeneity), knowledge from member ego networks (number of direct contacts and strength of ties), and organizational climates for risk taking and teamwork.


Strategic Human Resource Practices, Top Management Team Social Networks, And Firm Performance: The Role Of Human Resource Practices In Creating Organizational Competitive Advantage, Christopher J. Collins, Kevin D. Clark Nov 2003

Strategic Human Resource Practices, Top Management Team Social Networks, And Firm Performance: The Role Of Human Resource Practices In Creating Organizational Competitive Advantage, Christopher J. Collins, Kevin D. Clark

Christopher J Collins

In this article, we begin to explore the black box between human resources (HR) practices and firm performance. Specifically, we examine the relationships between a set of network-building HR practices, aspects of the external and internal social networks of top management teams, and firm performance. Results from a field study with 73 high-technology firms showed that the relationships between the HR practices and firm performance (sales growth and stock growth) were mediated through their top managers’ social networks.