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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Cordella, Antonio; Cordella, Tito |
| Abstract: | Monitoring technologies and pay for performance (PFP) contracts are becoming popular solutions to improve public services delivery. Their track record is however mixed. To show why this may be the case, this paper develops a principal agent model where agents’ motivations vary and so the effectiveness of monitoring technologies. In such a set-up, it shows that: (i) monitoring technologies should be introduced only if agents’ motivations are poor; (ii) optimal PFP contracts are non-linear/non-monotonic in agents’ motivations and monitoring effectiveness; (iii) investments aimed at improving agents’ motivations and monitoring quality are substitutes when agents are motivated, complements otherwise; (iv) if the agents’ “type” is private information, the more and less motivated agents could be separated through a menu of PFP/non-PFP contracts, designed in a way that only the less motivated ones choose the PFP. |
| Keywords: | Pay for performance; Public sector management; Information and communication technologies; Asymmetric information; Motivations; Optimal contracts |
| JEL: | D82 J33 J45 M52 |
| Date: | 2017–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:68713&r=hrm |
| By: | Florian Fuchs; Roland Füss; Tim Jenkisnon; Stefan Morkoetter |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate whether the educational background of private equity managers, which represents an important part of their human capital, impacts fund performance. In particular, we explore three potential channels how the educational background may influence fund performance: (i) institutional quality, (ii) individual performance, and (iii) academic variety. We find that a combination of top-tier education and work experience identifies individual performance in the management team. In addition, academic variety, in particular among graduates of high-ranked universities, rather than uniform institutional quality, is an important return driver. |
| Keywords: | Performance, Buyout, Teams, Education, University |
| JEL: | G11 G15 G24 G34 |
| Date: | 2018–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:sfwpfi:2018:06&r=hrm |
| By: | Elena Grinza (Department of Economics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino, Italy); Francois Rycx (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the impact of sickness absenteeism on productivity by using rich longitudinal matched employer-employee data on Belgian private firms. We deal with endogeneity, which arises from unobserved firm heterogeneity and reverse causality, by applying a modified version of the Ackerberg et al's (2015) control function method, which explicitly removes firm fixed effects. Our main finding is that, in general, sickness absenteeism substantially dampens firm productivity. An increase of 1 percentage point in the rate of sickness absenteeism entails a productivity loss of 0.24%. Yet, we find that the impact is much diversified depending on the categories of workers who are absent and across different types of firms. Our results show that sickness absenteeism is detrimental mainly when absent workers are high-tenure or blue-collar workers. Moreover, they show that sickness absenteeism is harmful mostly to industrial firms, high capital-intensive companies, and small- and medium-sized enterprises. This overall picture is coherent with the idea that sickness absenteeism is problematic when absent workers embed high levels of firm/task-specific (tacit) knowledge, when the work of absent employees is highly interconnected with the work of other employees (e.g., along the assembly line), and when firms face more limitations in substituting temporarily absent workers. |
| Keywords: | Sickness absenteeism, firm productivity, semiparametric methods for estimating production functions, longitudinal matched employer-employee data. |
| JEL: | D24 M59 I15 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tur:wpapnw:051&r=hrm |
| By: | Cristian–Liviu Vele (Technical University of Cluj Napoca) |
| Abstract: | This article examined the relations between transformational leadership and employee efficiency and profitability. Transformational leadership is the most efficient style of leadership when it comes to organizational change necessary to gain competitive advantages. We found out that building vision about what an organization and its members need to do, is extremely important and it provides meaning and purpose in work and consequently leads to higher levels of individual and organizational efficiency and profitability. Also, we discovered that it is not enough to communicate vision, it is necessary to find the proper meant to build it. Employees that took part in this study declared that they actively communicate vision, but a large proportion failed in building it and in generating purpose. Although scoring high in inspirational motivation, the participants involved in the study could not get others to fully visualize the organization’s strategic outcomes, thus generating a possible lack of involvement in ensuring organizational success. The findings in this article provide useful information for managers and leaders regarding the key elements that allow employees to better use their abilities in performing their work. Also, the findings provided relevant information about the people’s willingness to be an active part of the strategic implementation process and their willingness to influence and help others understand their role and contribution for the organization. |
| Keywords: | Leadership, organizational change, creativity, strategy, competitive advantage |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:smo:tpaper:005&r=hrm |
| By: | Michaela Slotwinski; Alois Stutzer |
| Abstract: | The role of women in Western societies changed dramatically in the 20th century. We study how political empowerment affected women’s emancipation as reflected in their life choices like marital decisions and labor market participation. The staggered introduction of female suffrage in Swiss states allows us to exploit the variation in the age women experienced enfranchisement to estimate the differences in life choices between women who were socialized in a world where women had a formal say in politics and those who were mainly socialized before. Our empirical findings document that political empowerment strongly increased female labor force participation, weakened marital bonds and motivated human capital investment. Moreover, being socialized with female suffrage increased long-term voting participation and perceptions of control. Our evidence suggests that changes in formal political institutions hold the power to change norms. |
| Keywords: | female suffrage, voting rights, institutions, norms, female labor force participation, marital choices, voting participation, efficacy |
| JEL: | D02 D72 J12 J16 J22 J24 Z13 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7002&r=hrm |
| By: | Philipp Lergetporer; Katharina Werner; Ludger Wößmann |
| Abstract: | The gap in university enrollment by parental education is large and persistent in many countries. In our representative survey, 74 percent of German university graduates, but only 36 percent of those without a university degree favor a university education for their children. The latter are more likely to underestimate returns and overestimate costs of university. Experimental provision of return and cost information significantly increases educational aspirations. However, it does not close the aspiration gap as university graduates respond even more strongly to the information treatment. Persistent effects in a follow-up survey indicate that participants indeed process and remember the information. Differences in economic preference parameters also cannot account for the educational aspiration gap. Our results cast doubt that ignorance of economic returns and costs explains educational inequality in Germany. |
| Keywords: | inequality, higher education, university, aspiration, information, returns to education, survey experiment |
| JEL: | D83 I24 J24 H75 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7000&r=hrm |
| By: | Francesco Devicienti (Department of Economics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino, Italy); Elena Grinza (Department of Economics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino, Italy); Davide Vannoni (Department of Economics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino, Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the full-time/part-time wage gap by using matched employer-employee data on the entire population of workers and firms in Italy over a 32-year period. Relying on regression models that control for worker, firm, and match fixed effects, we find that part-time work attracts a wage premium compared to full-time work. This finding, coupled with the detrimental effect of part-time work on productivity documented by Devicienti et al. (2018), explains why firms are often unwilling to concede part-time positions to employees asking for them. |
| Keywords: | Part-time/full-time wage gap, matched employer-employee panel data, multiple fixed effects regressions. |
| JEL: | J31 J22 J53 |
| Date: | 2018–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tur:wpapnw:052&r=hrm |
| By: | Ilona Babenko; Viktar Fedaseyeu; Song Zhang |
| Abstract: | We analyze whether CEOs influence their employees’ political choices whether this influence has implications for firm value. We find that employees donate three times more money to CEO-supported political candidates than to other candidates. This relation also holds around CEO departures, including plausibly exogenous departures due to retirement or death. Equity returns are significantly higher when CEO-supported candidates win elections than when employee-supported candidates win. Further, CEO influence is strongest in firms with the largest potential benefits from political participation and firms that explicitly advocate for political candidates. Our results suggest that CEOs are a political force that benefits shareholders |
| Keywords: | campaign contributions, elections, voting, CEOs, political activism, PACs, political candidates, voter turnout |
| JEL: | D72 P48 G30 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp1750&r=hrm |
| By: | Ghazala Azmat; Rosa Ferrer (Universitat Pompeu Fabra [Barcelona]) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the gender gap in performance among high-skilled professionals in the United States. On the basis of widely used performance measures in law firms, we find that male lawyers bill 10 percent more hours and bring in more than twice as much new client revenue as female lawyers. The differential impact across genders in the presence of young children and differences in aspirations to become a law firm partner account for a large share of the difference in performance. We show that accounting for performance has important consequences for gender gaps in lawyers’ earnings and subsequent promotion. |
| Keywords: | Performance measures; Gender gaps; High-skilled professionals |
| JEL: | M52 J16 K40 J44 |
| Date: | 2017–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/3t1fcs7p369jmaalnboqhpgknn&r=hrm |