Michael Sturman

• Professor at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Despite the agreement on the importance of internal marketing, the central dogma that it creates value for employees which will incite employees to in turn create value for their organization and customers lacks empirical verification and remains a contentious issue. Two separate multisource-multilevel datasets are used to illuminate the effects of...

Compensation research has generally considered pay-for-performance (PFP) perceptions in terms of how people react to only a single PFP form or PFP systems as a whole, regardless of the complexity of the compensation system pertaining to the individual. Synthesizing construal level theory, expectancy theory, compensation activation theory, and Call...

This study examines the degree to which hotel owners influence the operation of their hotels in both single- and multiple-agency scenarios. Key findings from a survey of 499 general managers are that: (1) owners influence financial property-level decisions to a greater extent than operational property-level decisions; (2) owners of independently op...

A principal-agent relationship exists between hotel owners and the management companies which often operate their hotels. In addition, they both act as principals to a mutual agent, the hotel's General Manager, who is tasked with trying to achieve each parties' objectives. Extensive research on hotel management agreements which govern the owner-ope...

Understanding measurement model specification is especially important for hospitality research due to its cross-disciplinary nature and the prevalence of measures used in the field which are often central to the formative versus reflective debate (e.g., SERVQUAL, socioeconomic status). The current study contributes to this topic by providing empiri...

Compensation decisions are some of the most important decisions made in organizations, and research in this area has the potential to inform these decisions. Yet compensation has been viewed as a neglected area of HR research. In order to encourage greater quantity and quality of compensation research, this article provides an overview of perspecti...

Drawing on agency theory and the resource-based view, this study examines the moderating effect of hotel ownership structure on the relationship between high-performance work systems for service quality (HPWS-SQs) and service performance as well as the curvilinear relationship between hotel service performance and hotel profitability. Results from...

This study examines the effect of cost of living (COL) on employee wages in the hotel industry. Although prior research clearly indicates that COL and wages are positively related, there is a lack of research explicitly considering the specific nature of the relationship between COL and wages, and potential moderators to the relationship. Using a d...

Research has shown that performance differences exist between brand-affiliated hotels and unaffiliated properties. However, the extant empirical results are mixed. Some research has shown that brands outperform unaffiliated hotels on various metrics, whereas other research has shown the opposite. This article analyzes this issue using a matched-pai...

Using two-year longitudinal data from a large sample of US employees from a service-related organization, the present study investigates the relative effects of three forms of pay-for-performance (PFP) plans on employees’ job performance (incentive effects) and voluntary turnover (sorting effects). The study differentiates between three forms of pa...

Although it has been argued that leader-member exchange (LMX) is a phenomenon that develops over time, the existing LMX literature is largely cross-sectional in nature. Yet, there is a great need for unraveling how LMX develops over time. To address this issue in the LMX literature, we examine the relationships of LMX with 2 variables known for cha...

Decision-making autonomy is often seen as a beneficial way to improve the operating performance of firms, but according to agency theory, principals may want to reduce agents’ autonomy to ensure that they act in the best interest of their firm’s owners or top executives. While hotels once tended to be owned and managed by the same individual, the i...

While it is generally accepted that hotel reviews and ratings posted on travel websites drive hotel sales and revenue, the effects of reviews can be parsed into volume (the number of reviews about a hotel) and valence (the ratings in those reviews). This study finds that the two chief aspects of reviews-volume and valence-have different effects on...

Today's hourly workers are facing revised work schedules and shifting hours, which may have critical implications for employment relationships. This study considers the impact of work-hours fit on key attitudes of hourly employees—perceived organizational support, job stress, work–family conflict, intent to turnover, and life satisfaction. We defin...

Hotel owners and managers are increasingly outsourcing their spas to specialist firms that oversee the spa's operations and personnel. In such spas the assume the role of boundary spanners as they are responsible for overseeing the operational relationship between the hotel and spa companies. In this role, they are responsible for trying to satisfy...

One of the continuing challenges in the hotel industry is developing effective compensation policies that motivate frontline employees. Unfortunately, the areas of compensation and pay fairness are underresearched, and what research does exist often provides methodological and theoretical precision without necessarily lending itself to practical in...

Given the increasingly diverse customer preferences, customization has become a strategic opportunity for organizations to create value. There is no systematic effort, however, in understanding the implementation of customization as a competitive strategy. Based on theories of resources and capabilities and the multidimensional view of economic ren...

The idea that an organization's employees have value has been both an implicit or explicit component of human resource management research throughout its history. Some attempts have been made to quantify this value; other research has simply assumed that human capital is a valuable resource without further detail as to this concept. This chapter re...

Companies regularly use multiple types of pay-for-performance plans to motivate and sustain high performance levels. Although research generally confirms that pay-for-performance plans can influence these outcomes, it is unclear how effective different pay plans are relative to each other. The current study examines how three different forms of pay...

Theoretical and empirical research suggests that job experience, organizational tenure, and age have non-linear relationships with performance. Considered simultaneously, there should exist an inverted U-shaped relationship between time and performance. This paper includes three studies — a meta-analysis, a cross-sectional sample, and a longitudina...

Although researchers have theorized that there exists a curvilinear relationship between job performance and voluntary turnover, their research has been tested in the United States or culturally similar Switzerland. Through a study of the performance-turnover relationship from a multinational service-oriented organization in 24 countries, we demons...

With the encouragement of marketing scholars, many companies are tying employee incentives to customer ratings of satisfaction, service quality, or employee performance. One potential drawback to these practices is that customers' evaluations of employees—and, therefore, any associated rewards—may be biased by employee race. This possibility was ex...

Gratuities paid by consumers are widely used to compensate workers in the service industry despite the fact that this practice permits and even encourages a variety of negative practices – from customer–employee collusion against the interests of the firm to service discrimination against consumers thought to be poor tippers. Such negative effects...

Despite an amassing organizational justice literature, few studies have directly addressed the temporal patterning of justice judgments and the effects that changes in these perceptions have on important work outcomes. Drawing from Gestalt characteristics theory (Ariely & Carmon, 2000, 2003), we examine the concept of justice trajectories (i.e., le...

This chapter presents various aspects of a successful career in the hospitality industry. Employment prospects in the hospitality industry are promising. All companies want to hire people with the right knowledge, skills and abilities. Since companies are looking for job experience, one needs to show that one's background relates well to hospitalit...

Research has provided little empirical support for the concept that employee job satisfaction is a causal driver of employee job performance, customer satisfaction, and company performance. This concept is an enduring one, however, and it has been codified as the starting point in the widely espoused service profit chain. Using a sample of eighty-f...

Restaurant tips are supposed to be an incentive/reward for the delivery of good service. For tipping to serve this function, consumers must leave larger tips in response to better service. Numerous studies have found a relationship between evaluations of service and tip size, but these studies have involved between-subjects, correlational designs t...

Integrity tests can be a hiring tool to help employers determine which of their prospective employees will be more likely to engage in unproductive, dangerous, or otherwise risky actions on the job. Candidates are surprisingly candid when answering test questions about their workplace theft or drug use, but the tests also have control questions int...

The practice of rounding statistical results to two decimal places is one of a large number of heuristics followed in the social sciences. In evaluating this heuristic, the authors conducted simulations to investigate the precision of simple correlations. They considered a true correlation of .15 and ran simulations in which the sample sizes were 6...

Many researchers who use same-source data face concerns about common method variance (CMV). Although post hoc statistical detection and correction techniques for CMV have been proposed, there is a lack of empirical evidence regarding their efficacy. Because of disagreement among scholars regarding the likelihood and nature of CMV in self-report dat...

This study examined the effects of server race, customer race, and their interaction on restaurant tips while statistically controlling for customers' perceptions of service quality and other variables. The findings indicate that consumers of both races discriminated against Black service providers by tipping them less than White service providers....

Human capital is a key resource for which firms compete intensely. Human capital theory suggests that firms value both transferable and specific human capital. Yet as transferability increases, specificity decreases. This article examines the value firms place on acquiring executives'human capital as a function of its transferability versus specifi...

The notion that good service results when companies ensure their employees’ satisfaction has found little support in empirical research. The idea is an enduring one, however, and it has been codified as the starting point in the widely espoused service-value-profit chain. This study of food and beverage managers in forty Asian hotels is the first t...

This paper demonstrates how cost-benefit analysis can be used to develop a company's pay strategy. Using the case of Punk's Backyard Grill, a new venture starting in the Washington, DC area, quantitative aspects of Utility Analysis are combined with the judgments of the company's owners to provide estimates of the value associated with seven pay st...

There has been little research examining executives who change jobs by specifically following these individuals both before and after their employer changes. By incorporating research on the boundaryless career [Arthur, M. B., & Rousseau, D. M. (Eds.). (1996). The boundaryless career: A new employment principle for a new organizational era. New Yor...

An executive's firm-specific human capital is argued to be a critical resource to the executive's current organization, but because of its lack of transferability, is of little value outside the firm. We argue that there exists a form of firm-based knowledge, which we term firm-explicit human capital, that is, in fact, transferable to competing fir...

All hospitality operators want employees who can learn their jobs quickly and have personality traits that allow them to maintain their performance over time. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to find individuals who possess all of the desirable attributes, and thus, some degree of compromise is generally required. The prevailing view is to...

The authors conducted Monte Carlo simulations to compare the Hedges and Olkin, the Hunter and Schmidt, and a refinement of the Aguinis and Pierce meta-analytic approaches for estimating moderating effects of categorical variables. The simulation examined binary moderator variables (e.g., gender—male, female; ethnicity—majority, minority). The autho...

Within the context of climate strength, this simulation study examines the validity of various dispersion indexes for detecting meaningful relationships between variability in group member perceptions and outcome variables. We used the simulation to model both individual-and group-level phenomena, vary appropriate population characteristics, and te...

A method for validating expert systems, based on validation approaches from psychology and Turing's “imitation game,” is demonstrated using a flexible employee benefits expert system. Psychometric validation has three aspects: the extent to which the system and expert decisions agree (criterionrelated validity), the inputs and processes used by exp...

Previous work investigating the dimensionality of psychological constructs has assumed a fixed-effects model, in which one true correlation describes the relationship between two given dimensions. We challenge this assumption by showing how a random-effects model may aid in representing individual perceptions of multidimensional constructs. Using t...

This article reviews the extensive history of dynamic performance research, with the goal of providing a clear picture of where the field has been, where it is now, and where it needs to go. Past research has established that job performance does indeed change, but the implications of this dynamism and the predictability of performance trends remai...

There are both practical and theoretical reasons to measure lump-sum bonus satisfaction. The practical need for such a measure stems from its increased use as a component in modern compensation practices. Based on the means of administering and allocating lump-sum bonuses, a theoretical case can be built suggesting that lump-sum bonus satisfaction...

Review chapters and case descriptions suggest that expert systems and decision support systems are useful decision aids in human resource management. Our study examines this belief by exploring the effects of two such systems on the quality of employees' desired benefit choices and satisfaction with benefits in a flexible benefits environment. Resu...

Although research has shown that individual job performance changes over time, the extent of such changes is unknown. In this article, the authors define and distinguish between the concepts of temporal consistency, stability, and test-retest reliability when considering individual job performance ratings over time. Furthermore, the authors examine...

In this study, we investigated the relationship between organization-level compensation decisions and organizational performance. Specifically, we examined how companies' pay structures and pay levels relate to resource efficiency, patient care outcomes, and financial performance. We expected both nonlinear and interactive effects. Results from a l...

While the business press suggests that “winning the talent war,” the attraction and retention of key talent, is increasingly pivotal to organization success, executives often report that their organizations do not fare well on this dimension. We demonstrate how, through integrating turnover and compensation research, the Boudreau and Berger (1985)...

Theoretical and empirical research suggests that job experience, organizational tenure, and age have non-linear relationships with performance. Considered simultaneously, there should exist an inverted U-shaped relationship between time and performance. Furthermore, the nature of this inverted U-shaped relationship should be affected by characteris...

In this paper, we critically review various explanations for the magnitude effect in tipping and offer a simpler explanation for this effect. We also present a simulation that demonstrates the plausibility of our explanation. The practical implications of both the magnitude effect in tipping and our explanation for it are discussed.

With health care costs rising, increased attention has been paid to the human resource practices of hospitals. This chapter examines the effects that staffing levels and wages of registered nurses have on hospitals' average lengths of stay. Based on data from 352 California hospitals, we show that both increased staffing levels and wage rates relat...

The effects of 9/11 extend from individuals' personal experiences and reactions to distortions in the industry's business patterns and, further, to company policies and government statutes.

Job sharing took on a new meaning when it allowed NYC hotels to avoid laying off key staff members.

When making hiring decisions, it is imperative to know whether internal candidates' job-performance information is as reliable as selection-test data, and whether recent job-performance information is more valuable than similar but aged data.

Individuals' perceptions of what they are entitled to have long been regarded as an important area of debate. We examine the various uses of entitlement perceptions across fields to develop a typology that identifies two dimensions: employee entitlement perceptions and reciprocity in the employee–employer relationship. We discuss how our typology i...

There has been much debate about people’s perceptions of entitlement. We trace the history of the different uses of entitlement perceptions across fields in order to develop a typology that identifies two dimensions: level of entitlement and degree of reciprocity. We conclude that a historical, cross-disciplinary examination of the construct of emp...

Traditional utility analysis only calculates the value of a given selection procedure over random selection. This assumption is not only an inaccurate representation of staffing policy but leads to overestimates of a device's value. This paper generates a new utility model that accounts for multiple selection devices and multiple criteria. The mode...

This article examines how the literatures of dynamic performance and the performance-turnover relationship inform each other. The nonrandom performance turnover relationship suggests that dynamic performance studies may be biased by their elimination of participants who do not remain for the entire study period. The authors demonstrated that the pe...

A comparison of salaries paid for jobs in the hospitality industry versus those in other industries showed that the hospitality positions on average paid less for comparable positions. The only exception was that both the hospitality industry and the comparison group (N = 140) paid about the same amount for low-level jobs—probably due to minimum-wa...

This article examines how the literatures of dynamic performance and the performance-turnover relationship inform each other. The nonrandom performance-turnover relationship suggests that dynamic performance studies may be biased by their elimination of participants who do not remain for the entire study period. The authors demonstrated that the pe...

This paper argues that most utility analysis (UA) applications are flawed because they employ an overly simplistic formula. This piece reviews the literature on UA adjustments and demonstrates that the adjustments have a large impact on resulting estimates. These results imply that human resources programs do not invariably yield positive returns;...

The present study compares eight models for analyzing count data: ordinary least squares (OLS), OLS with a transformed dependent variable, Tobit, Poisson, overdispersed Poisson, negative binomial, ordinal logistic, and ordinal probit regressions. Simulation reveals the extent that each model produces false positives. Results suggest that, despite m...

In 1991, Dannon employees had the choice to stay with their current health care plan or switch to a new plan which offered a lower premium and less hospital cost coverage that better fit the needs of most employees. Both plans were the same in all other respects. Only 25% of employees chose the new lower-premium plan over the old plan. This article...

Drawing on social exchange theory and research on organizational commitment, we developed a model of contingent workers’ commitment to two foci: their hiring agencies and the organizations to which they have been assigned. Hypotheses were tested using survey data from 197 contingent workers. We found that commitment to the hiring agency was positiv...

Absenteeism research has often been criticized for using inappropriate analysis. Characteristics of absence data, notably that it is usually truncated and skewed, violate assumptions of OLS regression; however, OLS and correlation analysis remain the dominant models of absenteeism research.This piece compares eight models that may be appropriate fo...

Using data from both company records and an insurance provider, the authors develop a direct measure of out-of-pocket costs incurred by employees choosing a health care plan. Previous studies have used characteristics of medical plans and demographic variables as proxies for OPC. By better specifying the consequences of the health care choice, the...

In 1991, The Dannon Company provided 287 of its employees with a choice of healthcare plans. The new plan was less expensive and designed to fit employees' needs better. Contrary to managerial expectation, three-quarters of employees continued to choose the more expensive plan. To study why this was occurring and to determine if these choices refle...

While pay mix is one of the most frequently used variables in recent compensation research, its theoretical relevance and measurement remains underdeveloped. There is little agreement among studies on the definitions of the various forms of pay that go into pay mix. Even studies that examine the same theories tend to overlook the implications of di...

Evidence from executive surveys and the business press suggests that while “winning the talent war,” the attraction and retention of key talent, is increasingly pivotal to organization success, it is an area of poor perceived performance. This paper shows how the Boudreau & Berger (1985) staffing utility framework can be used by industrial/organiza...

This study analyzes employees' ability to select health insurance benefits that fit their needs.The study analyzes both the actual choices and the implications of those choices for employees, measured as out-of-pocket costs (OPC). By introducing OPC as a measure of decision quality, this study demonstrates its advantages over measuring only employe...

Anecdotal reports and recent reviews assert that expert systems are potentially useful decision aids in human resource management. This study examines the effects of an expert system designed to aid employees when they make their choices in a flexible bellcfit program. A four group quasi-field experimental design is used to examine the relative eff...

A method for validating expert systems, based on psychological validation literature and Turing's "imitation game," is applied to a flexible benefits expert system. Expert system validation entails determining if a difference exists between expert and novice decisions (construct validity), if the system uses the same inputs and processes to make it...