Organizational Behavior: A Skill-Building Approach
SAGE Journal Articles
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Journal Article 1: Ployhart, R. E., Nyberg, A. J., Reilly, G., & Maltarich, M. A. (2013). Human capital is dead; Long live human capital resources! Journal of Management, 40(2), 371-398.
Abstract: This paper introduces a radically different conceptualization of human capital resources that runs counter to the individual-level approaches that have dominated human capital theory for the last 50 years. We leverage insights from economics, strategy, human resources, and psychology to develop an integrated and holistic framework that defines the structure, function, levels, and combinations of human capital resources. This multidisciplinary framework redefines human capital resources as individual or unit-level capacities based on individual knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) that are accessible for unit-relevant purposes. The framework and definition offer three broad contributions. First, multidisciplinary communication is facilitated by providing precise definitions and distinctions between individual differences, KSAOs, human capital, human capital resources, and strategic human capital resources. Second, given that human capital resources originate in individuals’ KSAOs, multiple distinct types of human capital resources exist at individual and collective levels, and these types are much more diverse than the historical generic-specific distinction. Third, the multiple types of human capital resources may be combined within and across levels, via processes of emergence and complementarity. Consequently, the locus of competitive advantage has less to do with whether human capital resources are generic or specific but instead occurs because nearly all human capital resource combinations are complex, are firm-specific, and lack strategic (or efficient) factor markets. Overall, the proposed multidisciplinary framework opens new avenues for future research that challenge the prevailing literature’s treatment of human capital resources.
Abstract: One of the primary challenges in teaching Organizational Behavior concepts is that undergraduate business students often have little or no work experience. We propose a method that utilizes students’ experience in the university as the basis for understanding these concepts. This understanding is achieved by highlighting the fact that the university is an organization and that students are members of this organization. Students are encouraged to think about how the material applies to them in the university. This approach, we believe, has increased students’ interest in the material and helped them reflect on the concepts, thus providing opportunities to grow and develop both as students and as individuals. We used surveys that were distributed in the university and answered by the students. Students participated in experiments, and in many instance, they were surprised by the results.
Abstract: The relationship between organizational performance and two dimensions of the ‘high performance work system’—enriched job design and high involvement management (HIM)—is widely assumed to be mediated by worker well-being. We outline the basis for three models: mutual-gains, in which employee involvement increases well-being and this mediates its positive relationship with performance; conflicting outcomes, which associates involvement with increased stress for workers, accounting for its positive performance effects; and counteracting effects, which associates involvement with increased stress and dissatisfaction, reducing its positive performance effects. These are tested using the UK’s Workplace Employment Relations Survey 2004. Job satisfaction mediates the relationship between enriched job design and four performance indicators, supporting the mutual gains model; but HIM is negatively related to job satisfaction and this depresses a positive relationship between HIM and the economic performance measures, supporting a counteracting effects model. Finally, HIM is negatively related to job-related anxiety—comfort and enriched job design is unrelated to it.