ABSTRACT Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) face growing competition for human capital from for‐profit organizations (FPOs). However, little research adopts a comparative lens to explore management practices that are associated with an advantage in retaining employees for NPOs relative to FPOs. Integrating resource orchestration theory and firm‐specific incentives theory, we contend that employee‐centered management practices (i.e., employee benefits, participation, and training) should be more effective in retaining NPO (versus FPO) employees. We tested our theory with four studies. The Preliminary Study documented that NPO employees rated their organization more positively than FPO employees when their organization implemented more employee‐centered management practices. Study 1 utilized archival survey data from Statistics Canada and showed that employee‐centered management practices were associated with lower voluntary turnover rates in NPOs (versus FPOs). Further, through Study 2, a qualitative study, we identified psychological contract fulfillment as a possible employee‐level mechanism that explained the observed differential effects for NPO versus FPO employees. We further tested this mechanism using scenario experiments in Study 3, finding support for the mediating role of psychological contract fulfillment. Our work suggests that NPOs may achieve an employee retention advantage over FPOs by aligning management practices with their institutional contexts and employee values.
ABSTRACT Newcomers comprise substantial portions of modern workforces, yet they represent high exit risks due to their lack of embeddedness in their new firms. Organizations often source new employees via comobility, wherein newcomers join simultaneously from another firm. Despite the prevalence of comobility and other affiliation‐based hiring practices, research to date has not considered if, when, or how those affiliations affect newcomer retention. We also have scant research on the effects of such comobile, affiliation‐based hiring on incumbent retention, a vital consideration for organizations. Integrating comobility and turnover event theorizing, we explore how comobility affects subsequent exit likelihood. We argue that comovers benefit from the embeddedness fortified through shared ties and work structures with other comovers, increasing their retention. Conversely, we posit that the arrival of comovers negatively impacts incumbents’ social and work structures, reducing incumbents’ job embeddedness and increasing their exit likelihoods. We expect these effects to be amplified when comobility groups are larger and have a leader. We test our framework in two archival analyses of United States (U.S.) college football coaches and U.S. law firm partners (2001‐2018). To investigate how comobility affects embeddedness with comovers and incumbents, we conducted an exploratory cross‐industry survey of full‐time U.S. workers and targeted interviews with comovers to illustrate the phenomenon.
ABSTRACT An extensive body of evidence supports the benefits of team training on team outcomes, yet the extent to which individuals themselves benefit from such training remains largely underexplored. Drawing on role and self‐regulation theories, this study examines how team role orientations influence the extent to which team members acquire the targeted competencies of team training. We explain how team role orientations direct team member cognitive and behavioral resources in team training contexts, and team members’ specific role orientations can either aid or hinder individual learning outcomes. From a sample of 84 student teams ( N = 330) engaged in a simulation‐based team training program, we find that the Doer role orientation enhances taskwork knowledge and skill outcomes from team training, the Team Builder orientation enhances teamwork skill and knowledge outcomes, and the Organizer role orientation inhibits taskwork knowledge and skill and teamwork knowledge outcomes. We also hypothesize regulatory learning behavior (i.e., planning, assessing, and adjusting individual contributions to teams) as a key mediating mechanism that explains these effects and find supporting evidence as it relates to the Doer and Team Builder orientations. Further, we find support for the amplifying top‐down influence of team learning effectiveness on the relationships between Doer and Organizer orientations and learning outcomes. Our findings underscore the complexity of individual learning transfer in team training settings, emphasizing the need to consider team contexts, individual tendencies, and regulatory learning behaviors when designing team training interventions.
ABSTRACT First impressions are critical in shaping work‐related outcomes and social judgments in organizational contexts. However, research has generated conflicting findings and left unanswered questions about their dimensional structure, antecedents, consequences, and temporal stability. We meta‐analyzed 204 independent samples from 145 studies to address these ambiguities and generate a stronger foundation for future theoretical development. Results reveal that perceivers tend to form broad evaluations of displayers rather than unique, narrow impressions, as conceptually distinct impression dimensions demonstrated consistently positive and often sizable cross‐dimension correlations. While perceivers rely on a range of informational cues to form first impressions, certain types (i.e., communication cues) exert a more consistent impact than others (e.g., content cues). First impressions strongly predicted both achievement‐oriented and relational outcomes, and although these effects diminished somewhat over time, they remained highly durable even at longer durations (i.e., more than a month). Taken together, these findings help reconcile competing theoretical perspectives on first impressions and provide numerous insights for more coherent theorizing and precise applications in organizational settings.
