Bøger udgivet af Lmu Institut für Personalwirtschaft

Compensation contracts have become ever more complex and individualized, particularly in the executive compensation domain, where increasingly diverse stakeholder demands and governance requirements have led to the inclusion of more and increasingly interrelated components into compensation contracts. Even the compensation of lower-level employees has become complex as firms individualize employee compensation and use many different rewards simultaneously. Research has examined elements of compensation in isolation but has attempted to avoid the complexities of compensation. This dissertation examines the consequences of compensation complexity and compensation design dispersion and contributes to a better understanding of compensation and its consequences for firms and employees.The first study examines how the complexity of executive compensation contracts affects firm performance. It finds that CEO compensation complexity negatively affects accounting, market, and ESG (i.e., environmental, social, and governance) metrics of firm performance and explores mechanisms that help explain the relationships. The second study examines the effect of compensation design dispersion within top management teams and its impact on executive turnover. The results show that compensation design dispersion affects executive turnover, both directly and in interaction with relative pay level. The third study addresses the role of compensation design dispersion in the development of procedural justice perceptions. Using two experiments, this study shows that compensation design dispersion causes lower procedural justice perceptions, which appears to be less problematic for participants with relatively easier to understand contracts. In summary, this dissertation provides a nuanced overview of complex compensation design and compensation design dispersion. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the effectiveness of compensation as an incentive and sorting tool for organizations, and of the implications of compensation design for the functioning of teams.

Executive compensation has inspired controversial debate in both academia and the general public, and many voices criticize that executive compensation designs fail to deliver desired outcomes. Although much research has been devoted to understanding the antecedents and consequences of executive compensation design, important questions remain unanswered. This dissertation contributes to the field by exploring a previously neglected aspect: executive compensation complexity. Given the absence of an established measure of executive compensation complexity, there is an incomplete understanding of how complexity enters executive compensation contracts and what the consequences are for managers and corporations. The essays of this dissertation aim to narrow this gap.The first study presents a novel measure of executive compensation complexity, which is validated and utilized to examine the antecedents of executive compensation complexity. The second study explores the consequences of executive compensation complexity and finds that complexity impairs firm performance, regardless of the performance metric chosen (accounting-based, market-based, or ESG-based performance metrics). The third study explores the link between compensation design dispersion and executive turnover and reveals that executives with riskier compensation packages and fewer performance goals are more likely to move. The fourth study provides experimental evidence on the effect of CSR Fit dimensions and organizational reputation.Taken together, the essays of this dissertation make a significant and valuable contribution to the scholarly discourse on executive compensation. By shedding light on the complex nature of executive compensation and its implications for managers and corporations, this dissertation advances the current understanding of executive compensation and provides insights for policymakers, managers, and investors.

Top managers have a significant impact on organizations because they are responsible for the formulation and implementation of corporate strategies, have the visibility and influence to shape the opinions of internal and external stakeholders, and coin the culture of their organizations, affecting employees at every level of the organization. Research has focused on the drivers and consequences of top managers' actions, with a particular focus on executive compensation, but important questions remain unanswered. This dissertation contributes to the literature on top executives by examining the antecedents of executive compensation, the influence of executive compensation on executive behavior, and the interplay of executive compensation and top executive personality. The first study introduces the role of compensation benchmarking for determining executive compensation to the management literature. It finds that benchmarking leads to compensation convergence. The second study examines the impact of executive compensation complexity on firm performance. The results show that compensation complexity is negatively related to accounting-based, market-based, and ESG-based metric of firm performance. The third study explores the implications of relative performance evaluation (RPE) on the imitation behavior of firms. It finds that the introduction of RPE is positively related to the imitation of the strategic actions of peer firms. The fourth study contributes to the growing literature on the impact of corporate social performance (CSP) goals in CEO contracts. Specifically, it examines how and when CSP incentives influence the CEO's attention to corporate social responsibility topics. The final essay examines the role of CEO personality; it finds that differences in CEO personality explain differences in the level of strategic conformity.Taken together, the essays in this dissertation make a significant contribution to the scholarly discourse on the influence of top managers on their companies. The empirical evidence presented expands the current understanding of how top executives affect strategic firm behaviors, and it provides insights for policymakers, managers, and investors.

Human resource management (HRM) research indicates that HRM activities have a positive impact on organizational performance. However, most studies employ data sets from large and established firms and while neglecting the backbone of most economies: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This dissertation deals with the role of HRM in emerging SMEs. Emerging SMEs have lower survival changes than established firms, lack organizational legitimacy, are organizationally less complex and more vulnerable to external forces. By incorporating an HRM system perspective, this dissertation advances the knowledge about how emerging firms design and enact HRM systems. Specifically, the first study examines the employment models that owner-managers of emerging SMEs use to attract, retain, and control employees. Theoretically, this paper builds on the configurational view and the notion of equifinality, i.e., different types of HRM systems can be equally effective, and different elements synergistically complement each other. The second study analyzes the effects of formal vs. informal HRM practices on SME performance. Building on organization theory, it argues that informal HRM practices are a better fit with the organic organizational design of most emerging SMEs. The third study addresses the value added of an HR department in emerging SMEs. It contributes to the literature on the HR function, the enactment of HRM systems, and their joint performance consequences.

As societies increasingly transform into knowledge societies, the effective management of employees becomes essential for firm success. Along these lines, research in strategic human resource management (HRM) has analyzed how HRM activities impact firm performance through their effects on employee attitudes and behaviors. This dissertation comprises three empirical studies that address as of yet under-researched topics in this research stream; thereby, it contributes to a more complete understanding of the HRM-firm performance link. The first study integrates content- and process-based views of HRM and examines how employee consensus on an organization's HRM system emerges and how it impacts the effects of the HRM system on job satisfaction and customer satisfaction. The second study focuses on HRM philosophies and analyzes different employment models in emerging firms, and how they relate to employee turnover and financial performance. The third study considers employee personality as a boundary condition of the relationship between HRM activities and employee attitudes. More specifically, it tests how personality moderates HRM practices effects on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviors.

Human resource management (HRM) research indicates that HRM activities interact and reinforce each other in their impact on people and organizations; they are thus designed and studied as holistic systems. In this dissertation, systems theory is utilized to explore the interactive nature of HRM effectiveness. In the first study, a causal model is developed that explains and elaborates on the assumed interaction effects. The second study integrates popular theoretical approaches of HRM effectiveness with systems theory, and develops a systems-behavioral model that explains how interaction emerges and manifests as an effect of the organization's management system. In the third study, regression analysis is compared to neural networks, which are increasingly recognized as a research tool for complex organizational problems. Neural networks are introduced and evaluated, and extended by tools that examine interactions empirically; moreover, an ideal-type research approach is presented that combines the benefits of regression and neural network-based methodologies. Through integrating theoretical, methodological and practical considerations, the dissertation provides a comprehensive overview on HRM system effectiveness, applicable methodological tools to conceptualize and study interaction effects , and useful insights on how to leverage interaction in management practice.

Management, strategy, and organization theory scholarship have developed a growing interest in "microfoundations". The microfoundations movement aims at explaining macro-level outcomes (e.g., competitive advantage) with micro-level heterogeneity (e.g., differences in resource endowments, individual differences in people, their behaviors, and interactions). This microfoundations movement serves as an integrative framework for strategic HRM and this dissertation. The first paper of this dissertation develops a microfoundational and behavioral model for the concept of internal fit, i.e., internal alignment of different HRM practices in a larger HRM system. The second paper employs a lab experiment to shed light on the microfoundational role of individual heterogeneity in collective value creation. Finally, the third paper offers a review and a methodological discussion of experimental case studies; it explicates how experimental and qualitative insights can be methodologically soundly combined to study HRM practices effects in organizations.

Consumer demands, technological developments, and competitive conditions are increasingly unpredictable, and the globalization of markets and the opportunities of the internet disrupt the ways business is done and firms are managed. Companies need to foresee and react to such changes, and to initiate them themselves. Not surprisingly, flexibility has become a key driver of business success. Flexibility is achieved through the ownership of resources that provide adaptive capabilities, and through the adequate coordination of those resources. In this dissertation, the role of human resources for firm flexibility is studied. Employees contribute to a firm's flexibility through providing the basis for the "informal organization" and through showing discretionary behaviors (i.e., organizational citizenship behaviors). Likewise, management and firm structures also have a positive impact on a firm's flexibility, through coordinating and developing human resources strategically. The three chapters of this dissertation examine how firm structures, human resource management, and human resources interact in the creation of flexibility.