Meritocracy is an ideal that today’s organizations strive for. However, the practice of meritocracy doesn’t often live up to the aspiration. For example, studies continue to show that women and minorities are paid less than their white male counterparts. A study from MIT and Berkeley offers one explanation for why companies and organizations are not […]
Read More… from Divergent Views of Merit Complicate Merit-Based Corporate Practices
Past research has demonstrated that high external performance expectations (e.g., from supervisors, co-workers, clients, family, friends, and the media) can motivate individuals to increase their efforts and be more persistent, leading to higher levels of performance. The source of this motivation is the desire to make a good impression on those who are watching. One […]
Read More… from Setting High Performance Expectations Can Lead to Failure
While it is well documented that women earn less than men, a series of three studies examined whether agreeableness had an impact on this wage inequality — that is, whether men and women being agreeable or disagreeable changed the equation. Agreeableness incorporates attributes such as being trusting, altruistic, compliant, modest and tender-minded. Disagreeableness refers to […]
Read More… from Why Are Disagreeable Men Being Rewarded for Being Disagreeable?
Psychopaths are manipulative, bullying, lying and egocentric people without a conscious. They use coercion and intimidation to get what they want, and never have a sliver of remorse for their deceit or the pain that they cause. Some psychopaths become criminals and end in prison. Others, called corporate psychopaths, use lies and intimidation to succeed […]
Read More… from Corporate Psychopaths: A Menace to Your Organization
Self-determination theory describes four types of motivation, moving on a spectrum from other-directed to self-directed. External motivation is at the other-directed end of the spectrum. Motivation is based on what others can give you (e.g. money, promotions, stock options and even praise) or what others can take away (e.g. demotion, termination). Introjected motivation is more […]
Read More… from Motivation Profiles: Pay and Reward Vs Fulfilling Work
Equity-based incentives, such as restricted stock grants or options, are common for C-suite corporate executives. This is not surprising as they have corporate-level responsibilities. For business-unit managers in decentralized corporations, however, the practice has been less common. The preference in the past was for business unit-level incentives — that is, compensation tied to business unit-level […]
Read More… from Why Equity-Based Incentives Work Below the C-Suite
To study the talent management processes of an organization, a team of researchers focused on the managerial skills required for management promotion. Identification of those skills is the key element in developing effective talent management programs. Managerial skills or attributes important for promotion can be broken down into human capital and social capital. Human capital […]
Read More… from Competition Among Peers Key to Managerial Promotions
Personnel policies are often considered in the context of the individual — policies related to hiring, promoting, and firing individuals, for example. However, personnel policies must operate within the context of the organization as a whole. Thus, for example, the ideal career path within a company seems straightforward. The individual is hired, does continuously well, […]
Read More… from Promotion Vs Compensation: Managing Employee Careers to Benefit the Organization
Previous studies have explored the link between CEO pay and future business performance with mixed results. In some cases, higher CEO pay is linked to better results; other studies show the opposite: the companies of the highest paid CEOs perform less well, on average, than their more moderately paid counterparts. A research team from the […]
Read More… from High CEO Pay Leads to Overconfidence and Poor Results
Does hiring compensation consultants result in higher pay for CEOs? Until recently, academic studies exploring this question have yielded no evidence that CEOs use compensation consultants to justify higher pay. A new disclosure requirement from the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), however, allows researchers to better differentiate the potential motives behind the hiring of compensation consultants […]
Read More… from How CEOs Strong-Arm Their Compensation Consultants to Get What They Want
