Employment Flexibility and Firm Performance: Examining the Interaction Effects of Employment Mode, Environmental Dynamism, and Technological Intensity

Building on recent arguments advocating the benefits of different types of employment flexibility, we examine the relationships among the four types of employment (knowledge-based, job-based, contract, and alliances) and firm performance. The results indicate that a greater use of knowledge-based employment and contract work is positively associated with firm performance. The results also indicate that both knowledge-based employment and contract work positively interact with job-based employment to impact firm performance. In addition, the relationships between knowledge-based employment and firm performance, as well as between job-based employment and firm performance, vary across levels of technological intensity.

[1]  John E. Delery,et al.  Modes of theorizing in strategic human resource management: Tests of universalistic, contingency, and configurational performance predictions , 1996 .

[2]  S. Snell,et al.  THE STRATEGIC USE OF INTEGRATED MANUFACTURING: AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION , 1996 .

[3]  Sharon F. Matusik,et al.  The Utilization of Contingent Work, Knowledge Creation, and Competitive Advantage , 1998 .

[4]  Barbara W. Keats,et al.  A Causal Model of Linkages Among Environmental Dimensions, Macro Organizational Characteristics, and Performance , 1988 .

[5]  R. Sanchez.  Strategic flexibility in product competition , 1995 .

[6]  Robert E. Hoskisson,et al.  Diversification Strategy and R&D Intensity in Multiproduct Firms , 1989 .

[7]  David P. Lepak,et al.  Examining the Human Resource Architecture: The Relationships Among Human Capital, Employment, and Human Resource Configurations , 2002 .

[8]  James N. Baron,et al.  The Structure of Opportunity: How Promotion Ladders Vary within and among Organizations. , 1986 .

[9]  Ernest H. Hall,et al.  Resource Allocation as an Outcropping of Strategic Consistency: Performance Implications , 1993 .

[10]  Patrick M. Wright,et al.  Toward a Unifying Framework for Exploring Fit and Flexibility in Strategic Human Resource Management , 1998 .

[11]  J. Heckman.  Sample selection bias as a specification error , 1979 .

[12]  O. Williamson,et al.  Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications. , 1977 .

[13]  R. E. Miles,et al.  Managing 21st century network organizations , 1992 .

[14]  J. Arthur.  The Link between Business Strategy and Industrial Relations Systems in American Steel Minimills , 1992 .

[15]  Jay R. Galbraith.  Designing Complex Organizations , 1973 .

[16]  J. Kimberly.  Organizational size and the structuralist perspective: a review, critique, and proposal , 1976 .

[17]  R. Berk.  An introduction to sample selection bias in sociological data. , 1983 .

[18]  John E. Delery.  Issues of fit in strategic human resource management: Implications for research , 1998 .

[19]  Richard L. Priem,et al.  The new corporate architecture , 1995 .

[20]  A. Rasheed,et al.  Making More by Doing Less: An Analysis of Outsourcing and its Effects on Firm Performance , 2000 .

[21]  Diane E. Bailey,et al.  KNOWLEDGE AT WORK , 2003 .

[22]  S. Parker,et al.  Correlates of Employee Attitudes Toward Functional Flexibility , 1993 .

[23]  Brian E. Becker,et al.  Methodological Issues in Cross‐Sectional and Panel Estimates of the Human Resource‐Firm Performance Link , 1996 .

[24]  Mark A. Huselid.  The Impact of Human Resource Management Practices on Turnover, Productivity, and Corporate Financial Performance , 1995 .

[25]  David P. Lepak,et al.  Human Resource Management, Manufacturing Strategy, and Firm Performance , 1996 .

[26]  John W. Slocum,et al.  Technology, Structure, and Workgroup Effectiveness: A Test of a Contingency Model , 1984 .

[27]  Kenneth Hudson,et al.  Bad Jobs in America: Standard and Nonstandard Employment Relations and Job Quality in the United States , 2000, American Sociological Review.

[28]  Rita Gunther McGrath,et al.  IMPROVING LABOR PRODUCTIVITY: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT POLICIES DO MATTER , 1996 .

[29]  K. R. Conner,et al.  A Resource-Based Theory of the Firm: Knowledge Versus Opportunism , 1996 .

[30]  Paul Osterman,et al.  Choice of Employment Systems in Internal Labor Markets , 1987 .

[31]  David P. Lepak,et al.  The Human Resource Architecture: Toward a Theory of Human Capital Allocation and Development , 1999 .

[32]  Brian E. Becker,et al.  HIGH PERFORMANCE WORK SYSTEMS AND FIRM PERFORMANCE : A SYNTHESIS OF RESEARCH AND MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS , 1998 .

[33]  Gregory G. Dess,et al.  Dimensions of Organizational Task Environments. , 1984 .

[34]  J. Guarino.  Book Review Psychological Contracts in Organizations: Understanding Written and Unwritten Agreements. By Denise M. Rousseau. Sage, Thousand Oaks, California , 1998 .

[35]  Brian K. Boyd,et al.  Corporate linkages and organizational environment: A test of the resource dependence model , 1990 .

[36]  Randall S. Schuler,et al.  Organizational Characteristics as Predictors of Personnel Practices. , 1989 .

[37]  S. Snell.  Control Theory In Strategic Human Resource Management: The Mediating Effect Of Administrative Information , 1992 .

[38]  C. Hardy.  Organizations: Rational, Natural and Open Systems , 1983 .

[39]  D. Organ,et al.  A META-ANALYTIC REVIEW OF ATTITUDINAL AND DISPOSITIONAL PREDICTORS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR , 1995 .

[40]  M. Hitt,et al.  Strategic Restructuring and Outsourcing: The Effect of Mergers and Acquisitions and LBOs on Building Firm Skills and Capabilities , 1995 .

[41]  C. B. Schoonhoven.  Problems with contingency theory: testing assumptions hidden within the language of contingency "theory.". , 1981, Administrative science quarterly.

[42]  Brian Uzzi,et al.  Determinants Of Employment Externalization - A Study Of Temporary Workers And Independent Contractors , 1993 .

[43]  Lyman W. Porter,et al.  Choice of employee-organization relationship: Influence of external and internal organizational factors , 1995 .

[44]  R. Osborn,et al.  Forms of Interorganizational Governance for Multinational Alliances , 1990 .

[45]  Richard Schmalensee,et al.  Using the H-Index of Concentration with Published Data , 1977 .

[46]  R. Cattell.  The Scree Test For The Number Of Factors. , 1966, Multivariate behavioral research.

[47]  Otto Wassermann,et al.  The Intelligent Enterprise , 2001 .

[48]  James D. Thompson.  Organizations in Action , 1967 .