About Me

I am an assistant research professor in the School of Labor and Employment Relations at Penn State. My research focuses on the adoption and effect of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices on workers and organizations. My projects primarily cover practices relating to pay and turnover, though since joining Penn State’s School of Labor Relations I have developed a nascent interest in studying union busting. I also work on team effectiveness where I consider the allocation of scarce talent and the nature of strategically core team roles. Additionally, I am affiliated with the Center for International Human Resource Studies where I help manage the CRANET dataset along with organizing the biennial Global Conference on IHRM. Previous conference locations include New York City, USA and Gothenburg, Sweden.

Prior to joining Penn State, I received my Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and my Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Before academia, I also worked in HR recruitment and organizational development in Bangkok, Thailand.

Below are research projects that I am working on (click to display abstracts). For completed projects, please see the Publications tab.

1. Strategic and International HRM

Temporal Patterns of Collective Voluntary Turnover Surrounding Bonus Payments

Abstract The relationship between bonuses and voluntary turnover is far from simple because not only do bonuses influence the likelihood of turnover occurring, but also the timing at which they occur. Conventional beliefs suggest that bonuses help reduce the level of voluntary turnover; however, there are theoretical bases suggesting that such behaviors may simply be delayed, only to reemerge en masse. The current study investigates voluntary turnover patterns surrounding multiple bonus pay periods in a call center context where some workers receive annual bonuses while others do not. This creates an opportunity for a quasi-experimental research design with enhanced degree of internal validity. Consistent the temporal discounting framework, results from interrupted time-series analyses show that voluntary turnover decreases as bonus payout approaches and that turnover increases significantly post-bonus. Thus, the timing of bonus pay and its relationship with outcomes of interests should be carefully considered when designing compensation schemes.

Cultural Values as Predictors of Congruence between Employee and Supervisor HR Strength Perceptions

with Elaine Farndale, Gaye Özçelik, Dora Roumpi, and Dorra Yahiaoui

Abstract Since employee perceptions of human resource management (HRM) can differ from their manager’s perception, it is important to study both sources of perceptions along with their degree of congruency. While countless studies exist on the role of congruency as predictors of employee attitudes and behaviors, few have been conducted on congruence as outcomes in general. Furthermore, none has examined the antecedents of congruency in perceptions of HRM. We overcame fundamental limitations of congruence research by using a novel methodological approach: the Directional and Nondirectional Differences (DNDD) framework. The current study contributes to the HRM process literature by exploring the antecedents of congruence between employee and supervisor perceptions of “strength” in the HRM system. Incorporating data from 786 employees and 244 supervisors across six countries, our results provide nuanced insight into the nature of congruency between employee and supervisor perceptions of HR strength. Specifically, we showed how the level of agreement between these two perceptions as well as their shared and unique variations can be predicted based on the cultural values of employees.

Turnover and its Anti-Unionization Effect

with Charlie Trevor

Abstract Previous research clearly documents the role of unions in reducing employee turnover through mechanisms such as higher pay, formalized grievance processes, and improved job security. The current study takes an alternative causal perspective on the two fundamental constructs by examining how employee turnover might subvert the formation of unions in the first place. This counterintuitive relationship has not yet been examined in the extant literature. Such omission is not surprising, given that the idea that a company would purposefully engage in an HRM strategy that drives up turnover rate ostensibly contradicts the position that companies can try to substitute for unions by cultivating amicable employee relations that would normally reduce turnover. Moreover, meta-analytic evidence has largely shown that collective turnover is negatively associated with firm performance due to the operational disruption caused by the depletion of both human and social capital. Given such well-established deleterious effects, it seems, at least on the surface, that choosing to pursue the strategy of inducing collective turnover in order to impede unionization would be cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Yet, there is some sentiment that a high-turnover environment is problematic for union organizing. Support for the union must be developed, which takes time. Continual employee churn and an abundance of newcomers as replacements undermine this initiative through lost votes and wasted resources. As labor organizer Joshua Brewer puts it, “You’ll never deep-organize a workplace that has 100% turnover. You’ll just chase your tail.” Meanwhile, high-profile organizational leaders take a decidedly anti-union stance. For example, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has referred to unions as “a new outside force that’s trying desperately trying to disrupt our company” and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy views unions as an impediment to efficiency due to them being “much slower and much more bureaucratic.” Given this rhetoric, might facilitating Brewer’s “tail-chasing” be strategically appealing to firms? If encouraging employee turnover, or at least creating HRM systems that precipitate it, actually inhibits the creation of bargaining units, establishing that relationship would have important, and arguably novel, implications for union organizing, union avoidance, and broader HRM strategy. Our aim is to begin to explore this intriguing possibility.

2. Team Effectiveness

Talent Dispersion within Teams

with Tiffany Trzebiatowski and Charlie Trevor

  • Given limited resources, should you build a team with a star employee surrounded by less capable teammates or a team of moderately capable members?

3. Research Methods

Mediation Research: Drawing Valid and Complete Inferences

with Jasmine Feng, Mevan Jayasinghe, and Barry Gerhart

Abstract Mediation research is indispensable in drawing valid causal inferences and thus in providing a sound basis for policy decisions pertaining to personnel psychology and beyond. However, our comprehensive review shows that current mediation research has serious deficiencies that frequently result in incomplete, or worse, invalid conclusions and policy recommendations. The most fundamental problem in mediation research is the prevalent exclusive focus on the indirect effect (and its statistical significance), while ignoring the direct and/or total effect. This problem is most serious when mediation is inconsistent (the sign of the direct effect is opposite to that of the indirect effect), which we find is common (but almost always ignored), occurring in about one-quarter of mediation studies. Focusing only on the indirect effect is especially problematic in inconsistent mediation when the direct effect is larger than the indirect effect, resulting in the total effect and indirect effect having opposite signs. Even when mediation is consistent, a sole focus on the indirect effect fails to satisfy a fundamental effect size requirement unique to mediation research: the need to quantify the size of the indirect effect relative to the size of the total effect. We provide a set of recommendations to address these concerns and to improve mediation research going forward. One key recommendation is to report PM, as well as a form of PM, Absolute PM, that has been largely overlooked, but which our analyses demonstrate has crucial advantages (smaller sampling variability, robustness to inconsistent mediation) over the use of PM alone.