International Journal of Manpower

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Publisher:
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Publication date:
2021-02-01
ISBN:
0143-7720

Issue Number

Latest documents

  • The gender gap in the early progression of academic careers: evidence from Italy

    Purpose: This paper contributes to the existing literature on the gender gap in academic career advancement by focusing on the very early stage of the academic career, i.e. the transition from Ph.D. completion to a tenured position. Design/methodology/approach: Using Italian individual-level data, our econometric analyses estimate the likelihood of holding a tenured position conditional on a set of individual-level covariates. Findings: Our findings support the idea that women have a lower probability of obtaining a tenured position. Results hold even when research productivity and experience are controlled for. Originality/value: Our conclusions suggest that there is a significant gender gap in progression through an academic career.

  • Fixed-term contracts and firm productivity: Do workers’ skills and firm conversion rates from fixed-term to permanent contracts matter?

    Purpose: We aim to elucidate the relationship between fixed-term employment and firm productivity by examining workers’ skills and considering how firm-level conversion rates influence this relationship. Design/methodology/approach: We use longitudinal employer-employee data between 2011 and 2017 in the Netherlands to estimate a nonlinear regression derived from a production function proposed by Addessi (2014) and Castellani et al. (2020). Findings: The contribution of fixed-term contracts to firm-level productivity is less than that of permanent contracts. However, this contribution is greater when firms exhibit a high conversion rate from fixed-term to permanent positions. The effect of the conversion rate is more substantial for high-skilled fixed-term workers than for low-skilled ones. Originality/value: Our results suggest the extent to which firms benefit from fixed-term contracts when these are used for screening high-skilled workers for permanent employment.

  • Is employment protection legislation a driver or an inhibitor of entrepreneurship? The interaction between stringency and enforcement

    Purpose: This study aims to revisit the relationship between the stringency of employment protection legislation and entrepreneurship at the macro-level using time series data from 28 OECD countries. Design/methodology/approach: To address model uncertainty, a Bayesian model averaging methodology is employed, overcoming issues related to predictor selection. Additionally, the study delves into the interaction between employment protection legislation and the rule of law, considering potential unintended consequences and overlapping effects. Heterogeneity within self-employment is explored, making a distinction between solo self-employment and employer entrepreneurship. Findings: The findings reveal that the impact of employment protection legislation, both for regular and temporary employment, on aggregate solo self-employment rates is contingent upon the level of practical regulatory compliance. The legislation can either stimulate or hinder entrepreneurship, highlighting the nuanced nature of its influence on macro-level entrepreneurial activities. Practical implications: The results of this study provide valuable insights for policymakers and regulators by emphasizing the complexity of the relationships under consideration. Understanding the potential interactions between employment protection legislation, rule of law and practical regulatory compliance is crucial for designing an effective and conducive regulatory environment for entrepreneurship. Originality/value: This research offers a unique contribution to the literature in three distinct ways: by addressing model uncertainty through Bayesian model averaging, examining the interaction between employment protection legislation and the rule of law and differentiating between solo self-employment and employer entrepreneurship. These distinctive elements enhance the originality and value of the study, providing a more nuanced understanding of the intricate relationship between legal frameworks and macro-level entrepreneurship.

  • Does greater filial piety bring more gender income advantages? Exploring the influence of traditional Chinese filial piety on the gender wage gap

    Purpose: Based on traditional Chinese filial piety, this article examines the impacts and mechanisms of the two-dimensional filial piety concept “Qinqin – Zunzun” on gender wages in China via China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) conducted in 2014 and 2018. Design/methodology/approach: This article construct regression models to examine the relationship between filial piety concepts and wages. Also, it uses unconditional quantile regression and decomposition to explore the impact of filial piety concepts on the wage gap. Findings: It is found that: (1) The effects of two-dimensional filial piety are heterogeneous in terms of gender. Specifically, authoritarian filial piety significantly suppresses individual wages and has a stronger suppressive effect on women’s wages, whereas affinity filial piety significantly enhances individual wages without gender heterogeneity; (2) Parents' time support in the intergenerational exchange model is a crucial mechanism by which filial piety affects wages, exhibiting significant gender heterogeneity; (3) Regarding wage distribution, authoritarian filial piety mainly widens the gender income gap in the low and middle income-groups, while affinity filial piety narrows the gender wage gap by “raising the floor”, with its converging effect being most significant in the middle and high-income groups. This article deepens the understanding of the gender wage gap and intergenerational income mobility, providing policy references for better utilizing the social governance function of culture. Originality/value: The article deepens the understanding and mechanisms of the gender wage gap and inter-generational income mobility, providing policy reference for better utilizing the social governance function of culture.

  • Connecting the dots: exploring the role of ebullient supervision in fostering knowledge sharing through curiosity and informal learning

    Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine curiosity as a distal predictor of knowledge sharing facilitated by informal learning. It also probes the boundary conditions imposed by ebullient supervision in the influence of curiosity on knowledge sharing. Design/methodology/approach: The authors collected data through a two-wave survey of 349 knowledge workers in the IT sector and used structural equation modeling to analyze the data. Findings: The results indicated a positive relationship between curiosity and knowledge sharing. In particular, informal learning was found to mediate the relationship between curiosity and knowledge sharing and ebullient supervision was identified as a significant condition that strengthens the effect of curiosity on informal learning. Practical implications: Organizations can promote knowledge sharing by harnessing curiosity as an intrinsic motivator for employees to engage in informal learning. Moreover, the findings identified ebullient supervision as an extrinsic motivator within the work environment, suggesting its potential to enhance the impact of curiosity on knowledge sharing. Originality/value: This paper broadens the limited literature on ebullient leadership by revealing how it strengthens the effects of curiosity and informal learning on knowledge sharing.

  • Labour market feminization and economic development in sub-Saharan Africa

    Purpose: Women’s direct or subtle exclusion from the labour market is still evident, necessitating more rigorous inquiries into the subject matter. The study aims to assess the moderating factors that can boost the inclusion of women participation in the labour market by complementing and actualising the doctrine of the feminist U-shaped hypothesis. Design/methodology/approach: This study is situated within the feminist U-shaped hypothesis and employs the generalised method of moments (GMM) on 38 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Findings: This study validates the U-shaped labour hypothesis and expands on the moderating effects of the U-shaped curve in 38 SSA countries. Originality/value: The study contributes to the influences of human capital development and technological access that can significantly improve the workings of the feminist U- hypothesis in SSA countries.

  • The trees of occupation are flourishing: employment and substitution effects of regional economic complexity

    Purpose: Can regional economic complexity improve the employment effect, and is the employment structure also affected by heterogeneity? In order to solve these doubts, this paper plans to carry out systematic theoretical analysis and quantitative tests on these problems. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the macroeconomic data of 129 countries from 1995 to 2022, this paper empirically studies the impact of economic complexity on the employment effect and its mechanism channel by building relevant models. Findings: The results show that regional economic complexity can significantly improve the employment effect of society. At the same time, regional economic complexity has an indirect positive role in promoting employment from two aspects: accumulating fiscal surplus and increasing the working-age population. The former can stimulate employment policies by increasing the government’s tax sources, while the latter can increase production specialization and complexity by stimulating demand and increasing employment. In addition, regional economic complexity will lead to job market differentiation, making the boundary between the service sector and the labor market between industry and agriculture and between the informal employment market and the formal employment more obvious, thus triggering the substitution effect of employment. Originality/value: The possible innovations and marginal contributions of this paper are as follows: First, there are many studies on the influencing factors of employment or unemployment, and this paper provides a new research direction for the literature on the influencing factors of employment effect by using the concept of regional economic complexity for the first time. Second, this paper broadens the research perspective of the employment effect of regional economic complexity, divides the employment substitution effect of various sectors from the perspective of industrial structure and further analyzes the employment promotion effect of regional economic complexity.

  • Feedback, training, goal-setting, planning and performance: understanding the pathway to improved organizational outcomes

    Purpose: As competitive pressures persist and global economic influences continue to present new challenges, businesses need to be able to respond to emerging circumstances. Goal-setting and planning are key mechanisms contributing to organizational competitive success, yet organizations underappreciate the role of competency and capacity building factors that contribute to successful planning. This paper integrates three theoretical models enabling an investigation into the positive relationships between managerial activities generating information feedback, training in planning and skills and organizational performance outcomes, while exploring the positive mediating roles of goal-setting and planning. Design/methodology/approach: A unique organizational sample of agribusiness producers (n = 499) in Canada is examined. A structural equation path analysis model is used to evaluate the main relationships. Findings: The results suggest that organizations are finding that managerial and training activities should not be considered in isolation, but rather as supports for goal-setting, planning and performance outcomes. Thus, the implications are that managers can find organizational value enhanced through the building of human resource competency (e.g. management activities and training) with these emerging capacities aiding goal setting and planning activities. Originality/value: This study makes three main contributions: first, by adopting a rational-design perspective and integrating theoretical frameworks focusing on (a) planning-performance and (b) goal-setting-planning. This extended model goes beyond previous studies by including managerial activities, training, goals, planning and performance outcomes. Second, this study uniquely accounts for a more comprehensive set of key confounding factors such as operational activities, organizational strategy and organizational size in the integrated framework. Finally, as far as the authors are aware, there has not been a survey study at the organizational level that has explored the role of managerial activities and training in planning within a similarly comprehensive model.

  • Analysis of the factors determining educational mismatches: evidence from the Catalonian employment insertion surveys

    Purpose: The existence of mismatches between training and jobs is relatively common and is accentuated in times of crisis where unemployment is growing. The negative effects that this phenomenon can generate on both workers and the economy makes its study relevant. The objective of this research is to analyse whether graduates of the Catalan university system have jobs according to their educational level. Design/methodology/approach: This paper sees how graduates’ own and acquired characteristics influence the probability of a mismatch from the analysis of the microdata of different waves of the employment insertion survey conducted by the Agència per a la Qualitat del Sistema Universitari de Catalunya (AQU). Findings: The main conclusions focus on confirming that more humanities-oriented degrees tend to have a higher level of mismatch while technology or medicine approach a perfect fit. Therefore, bringing the education and business systems together is important to reduce this gap. Meanwhile, in terms of activities, services such as hospitality and retail have historically been sectors with a poor fit, and what has happened with Catalan graduates has not been an exception. Originality/value: The main contribution of the research has been to highlight where there is a greater mismatch from the point of view of training, the type of work and its evolution over time, detecting the need to adjust labour supply and demand.

  • Firm strategy, employee retention and organizational performance: a moderated mediation study of New Zealand SMEs

    Purpose: An effective firm strategy is key to sustained financial performance, while interactions between strategy, employee retention and top talent retention have been seldom explored. We test hypotheses using New Zealand SMEs which are defined as having up to 250 employees. We initially explore firm strategy using Porters competitive advantage model predicting employee retention (including top talent), with study 1 (n = 208) using firm size as a moderator, finding a direct significant relationship from firm strategy toward employee retention. Next, we explore firm strategy predicting firm performance with employee retention mediating and include firm size as a moderator, testing a moderated mediation model in study 2 (n = 474) and study 3 (n = 300, with time-lagged performance). Design/methodology/approach: There are no open databases holding NZ firms’ performance data and thus data was sourced from a Qualtrics survey panel. Such panels have become more common (e.g. Haar et al., 2021a, b) and a recent meta-analysis by Walter et al. (2019) showed that this type of panel data was no different from data sourced through conventional means (i.e. mail survey). We focused on NZ private sector SMEs using senior managers across a range of industries and geographic locations. Because the influence of firm strategy on employee retention remains unknown in the literature, we conducted study 1 (n = 208) to test the initial part of our overall model. Study 2 (n = 474) and study 3 (n = 300) tested the full model (with organizational performance), with study 3 having organizational performance time-lagged by one month. Findings: All direct effect hypotheses are supported, although firm size interacted significantly with firm strategy showing smaller not larger-sized firms leverage firm strategy to achieve superior retention benefits. This was against hypothesis 5a in all three studies. Studies 2 and 3 supported the moderated mediation hypothesis, with firms of larger size having a stronger indirect effect from firm strategy on firm performance while employee retention mediated the influence of firm strategy on firm performance. Finally, dominance analysis found that a quality differentiation strategy was the key strategy across all studies and outcomes. We discuss the implications for organizations. Practical implications: The first managerial implication from the study is that small and medium sized firms would benefit both from developing a deeper understanding of the strategic alternatives open to them and placing a greater emphasis on the implementation of their selected strategic approach. A second managerial implication relates to findings indicating that retention generally, and top talent retention specifically, is positively related to firm strategy and firm performance. Given the importance and challenges of staff retention, particularly in the current environment where there are significant skill shortages, these results suggest that small and medium sized business would benefit from considering how strategy can create an organizational environment that is attractive to employees and support stronger retention outcomes as a mechanism for driving both retention and performance. Originality/value: The study makes three major contributions. First, it examines firm strategy and extends the focus on firm performance by including not only employee retention but also top talent retention, responding in part to the call to develop and refine performance measures (Lieberman, 2021). Second, beyond using retention as a mediator, firm size is included as a moderator and a moderated mediation model is ultimately tested. Third, we conduct dominance analysis to identify the key firm strategy that influences firm performance and retention. Ultimately, this paper asks: what is the role of firm strategy on New Zealand SME performance, and what influence does retention and relative firm-size play.

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