Patrick Wright

University of South Carolina | USC · Department of Management

In the current study, we contend that one way in which the management of people and work impacts organization performance is through building capabilities. More specifically, expanding beyond the traditional HR systems–organization performance research literature, we examine how HR flexibility, technical HRM, strategically-oriented HRM, and workfor...

Early in the history of the Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) literature, writers frequently discussed stakeholders to the organization that were relevant to the Human Resources (HR) function. However, over the years the field narrowed its focus to be primarily, if not solely, on one stakeholder: the shareholders. While many authors have p...

The impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic is unprecedented. At an organisational level, the crisis has been hugely disruptive, complex and fraught with ambiguity for leaders. The crisis is fundamentally a human one, making human resource (HR) leaders central in enabling organisations to manage through and ultimately exit the crisis...

While the field of strategic human capital (SHC) was created as a platform for dialogue between economics-based strategy researchers and psychology-based human resources (HR) researchers, it has increasingly become dominated by the economics-based logic. This paper argues that while such logic is not wrong, it is incomplete. By ignoring aspects of...

Chief executive officer (CEO) narcissism is an important area of research due to the strategic implications of how this multifaceted personality trait affects CEO behavior. This article presents a combined meta-analytic and narrative review of CEO narcissism and makes future research recommendations. Our review and meta-analytic findings lead to th...

Based on the 2018 HR@Moore Survey of Chief HR Officers, this report examines the CEO’s and the board’s expertise in, experience in, and attitude toward HR. Results indicate that experience in HR is rare among directors and CEOs; however, CHROs reported CEOs often have good expertise of the organization’s HR policies and practices. Further, both boa...

Empirical work on human capital has tended to focus on the direct effects of human capital on performance, whereas little attention has been paid to behaviours through which human capital influences performance. This study uses the “human capital emergence” model to examine relationships among human capital, social capital, coordination, and perfor...

Research in strategic human resource management (SHRM) has evolved over the past 30 years to become more theory based and to exhibit greater empirical rigor. However, much has changed in the external environment that makes the existing theories, approaches, and methodologies inappropriate for addressing the questions that organizations face in mana...

Using data from 170 for-profit U.S. firms with 100 or more employees from 27 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industry subsectors, we investigated firm-level precursors of HR flexibility and industry-level boundary conditions of the HR flexibility—firm financial performance relationship. The findings denote that a contingency i...

Although the importance of positive, trusting, and cooperative relations between HR professionals and line managers has been well documented, little is known about how organizations can systematically nurture such relationships. This article specifies the “HR–line-connecting HRM system,” which consists of a bundle of HRM practices designed to impro...

Purpose This paper explores some of the practical challenges boards face in setting CEO pay in order to show why the failure to see considerable overlap between pay and performance may not be due to poor governance. Design/methodology/approach The paper critically explores the different types of pay reported in public sources (actual vs. realize...

Despite substantive organizational ramifications, surprisingly little theory explains executive succession planning processes. A firm's board of directors has the fiduciary responsibility to select CEOs, but, historically, boards have failed to exercise this authority. Increasing focus on corporate governance has prompted directors to become more e...

This article provides an overview of the field of strategic human resource management (SHRM) by tracing its roots, describing its current state, and predicting its future directions. We discuss some past stages in the evolution of the field, including eras of conceptual models, empirical examinations, and empirical critiques. We then discuss the pr...

In this editorial we discuss the problems associated with HARKing (Hypothesizing After Results Are Known) and draw a distinction between Sharking (Secretly HARKing in the Introduction section) and Tharking (Transparently HARKing in the Discussion section). Although there is never any justification for the process of Sharking, we argue that Tharking...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to conduct a comprehensive analysis and synthesis of the splintered chief executive officer (CEO) succession literature and provide a unifying future research agenda. Design/methodology/approach This review content analyzes 227 relevant articles published after 1994. These articles examine the causes, process,...

This publication contains reprint articles for which IEEE does not hold copyright. Full text is not available on IEEE Xplore for these articles.

Drawing from strategic human resource management and organizational theory, this article develops an integrated typology of employee governance. This typology is based on the dimensions of eliciting employees’ commitment to the organization (commitment-eliciting) and achieving employees’ compliance to rules (compliance-achieving), which yields four...

The papers compiled in this symposium bridge human capital ideas across research domains (economics, entrepreneurship, human resources, industrial-organizational psychology, labor economics, organizational theory, and strategy) and research levels (macro and micro). These articles draw on conversations that took place during a human capital confere...

Wright and Snell (1998) contend that HR flexibility is an important construct that may enable managers and management scholars to gain a greater understanding of the role of human resource management in enhancing firm performance. However, there is limited evidence regarding the psychometric properties of the measures that have been used to assess...

Professor Bruce Kaufman's look back at two seminal books published at the beginning of the strategic HRM field and examination of two recent books to trace the evolution of the field identifies some issues, but ones with which the field has dealt for a number of years. His choice of our book HRM and Performance provided the wrong target, and conseq...

Issues of ethics, justice, and social responsibility are as fundamental to organizational behavior as they are to society at large. As contracts are forged, individuals employed, and power differentials created, opportunities for exploitation, oppression, and victimization emerge. In contrast, as social structures evolve, coordinated opportunities...

The Multidimensional HR Flexibility Measure (Way et al., 2015) was developed for a study that sought to validate a measure of the HR flexibility construct. Based on the prior conceptual work of Wright and Snell (1998) and others (e.g., Sanchez & Heene, 1997), an initial set of 71 items was reduced to 36 following confirmation of content validity. A...

CEO succession is one of the most important transitions in any firm’s life cycle. However, despite substantive ramifications for the actors and the firm, and the potentially competing interests that can arise among the actors who influence the decision, there remains surprisingly little theory or exploration about the processes used for making exec...

This symposium will present recent research on global talent management (GTM), which has become of significant focus to both academics and management practitioners, and generate critical discussion on how GTM can create long-term value for firm performance through insights from recent research and adoption of a wider stakeholder approach to GTM, ex...

One of the biggest challenges facing multinational companies is building and sustaining a strong talent pipeline. To learn how leading multinational companies are facing up to the talent test, the team of authors examined both qualitative and quantitative data at leading companies from a wide range of industries. The research drew on 18 in-depth ca...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR), defined as a firm’s responsibility that goes beyond the traditional and narrow focus on maximizing profit (Davis, 1973), has attracted considerable attention among management researchers. While our knowledge on CSR and sustainability has accumulated over years (e.g., McWilliams & Siegel, 2000), the majority of...

This article seeks to extend the literature on how change occurs in organizational routines by examining the link between routines and schemata and showing the cognitive and motivational factors involved. Using an in-depth analysis of a Japanese multinational, we develop an account of how a newly-implemented centralized performance management routi...

ABSTRACT: Way, Tracey, Fay, Wright, Snell, Chang, and Gong (2012) proposed that HR flexibility is firm-level capability which is instrumental in fostering the capacity of firms to be responsive to changes in competitive market demands and successful in dynamic industries. Although, scholars (e.g., Way et al., 2012; Wright & Snell, 1998) have propos...

Strategic human capital has emerged as an area of interest in both the strategy and human resources management literatures, yet these literatures have developed without adequate interdisciplinary conversation. The special issue on strategic human capital sought to bridge this divide through creating a platform for researchers from both fields to en...

Way, Tracey, Fay, Wright, Snell, Chang, and Gong (2012) proposed that HR flexibility is firm-level capability which is instrumental in fostering the capacity of firms to be responsive to changes in competitive market demands and successful in dynamic industries. Although, scholars (e.g., Way et al., 2012; Wright & Snell, 1998) have proposed that th...

Way, S.A., Tracey, J.B., Fay, C.H., Wright, P.M., Snell, S.A., Chang, S., & Gong, Y. 2012. Multidimensional HR flexibility measure. PsycTESTS. doi: 10.1037/t45609-000. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association (APA). APA PsycNET: http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Ft45609-000

The multidimensional HR flexibility measure (Way et al., 2015) was developed for a study that sought to validate a measure of the HR flexibility construct. Based on the prior conceptual work of Wright and Snell (1998) and others (e.g., Sanchez & Heene, 1997), an initial set of 71 items was reduced to 36 following confirmation of content validity. A...

The multidimensional HR flexibility measure (Way et al., 2015) was developed for a study that sought to validate a measure of the HR flexibility construct. Based on the prior conceptual work of Wright and Snell (1998) and others (e.g., Sanchez & Heene, 1997), an initial set of 71 items was reduced to 36 following confirmation of content validity. A...

Purpose – This study aims to directly examine the relationships between various aspects of human capital and relationship stability (overlapping tenure) and team performance. Additionally, this study aims to contribute to strategic human resource management and human capital research by placing an emphasis on human resources (i.e. people) and their...

The content and effectiveness of a human resource management system needs to be understood in a certain management context. However, research on strategic human resource management in China has largely ignored the local realities. In response, we develop and test a model of China based effective HRM system rooted in the local management context. Re...

[Excerpt] Human Resource Planning Society’s (HRPS) annual State of the Art/Practice (SOTA/P) study has become an integral contributor to HRPS’s mission of providing leading edge thinking to its members. Past efforts conducted in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999 have focused on identifying the issues on the horizon that will have a significant impac...

A major challenge for Strategic Human Resource Management research in the next decade will be to establish a clear, coherent and consistent construct for organizational performance. This paper describes the variety of measures used in current empirical research linking human resource management and organizational performance. Implications for futur...

In order to better understand the relevant resources in the resource based view of the firm, this study examines which resources executives in initial public offering (IPO) firms think are important to their success two years after the IPO. Results indicate that managers recognized five different resources as important, with the executives consider...

Special Issue on ‘Behavioral Ethics, Organizational Justice, and Social Responsibility across Contexts’ - Volume 7 Issue 2 - Deborah E. Rupp, Patrick M. Wright, Samuel Aryee, Yadong Luo

This study advances research on macro human resource management by examining collective commitment as a mediator of motivation, empowerment, and skill-enhancing practices and aggregate voluntary turnover. Findings from 20 top HR managers and 1,748 employees in 93 different job groups suggest collective affective commitment independently mediates th...

This study contributes to strategic human resource management (HRM) research by offering a contextualized model of HRM effectiveness. Building on HR attribution theory, we propose that the high commitment work system will be more effective in a context when: (i) employees are conditioned to trust employers and (ii) regulatory institutions are less...

We clarify that management scholars do not have a shared conceptualization of what the terms micro and macro mean. Therefore, there is not one, but rather there are multiple micro—macro divides within management. Specifically, there are three micro—macro divides that separate scholarship at three levels of the social and economic systems that manag...

Special Issue on ‘Behavioral Ethics, Organizational Justice, and Social Responsibility across Contexts’ - Volume 7 Issue 1 - Deborah E. Rupp, Patrick M. Wright, Samuel Aryee, Yadong Luo

This distinction and logic has significant implications for strategic HRM. First, firms should compensate employees for specific human capital in order to incent them to gain such human capital. However, the distribution of the rents from specific human capital need not go all to the employee. In fact, Becker (1996) recognised this as the central d...

MOR Special Issue Behavioral Ethics, Organizational Justice, and Social Responsibility across Contexts - Volume 6 Issue 3 - Deborah E. Rupp, Patrick M. Wright, Samuel Aryee, Yadong Luo

Strategic human resource management is an emerging field of study in the transitional economy of China. The purpose of this study is to identify the current status of strategic human resource management research in the context of mainland China, and offer recommendations for future research. This study reviewed recently published articles (between...

Considerable attention has focused on how multinational corporations (MNCs) deal with the simultaneous pressures of globalization and localization when it comes to human resource management (HRM). HR function activities in this process, however, have received less focus. The study presented here identifies configurations of the corporate HR functio...

Although strategic human resource (HR) management research has established a significant relationship between high-performance HR practices and firm-level financial and market outcomes, few studies have considered the important role of employees’ perceptions of HR practice use or examined the more proximal outcomes of high-performance HR practices...

Strong situations and firm performance: A proposed re-conceptualization of the role of the HR function Facilitator: Imagine yourself in a world where all of the administrivia, the lowest value added work you do, is suddenly gone. What is it that you will now do with that available time? HR Practitioner: (After a long pause) I don't honestly know, b...

Thepresentstudy examined theimpact of supervisor impression management tactics and feedback on the subordinate's ratings of the supervisor and the feedback received. Specific findings indicated that both impression management and feedback had a significant mane effect on supervisory ratings. Subordinate reactions to the supervisor were higher when...

Global firms often struggle to replicate practices among their culturally and geographically dispersed subsidiaries. Part of the reason for this is that certain practices, including human resource management (HRM) practices, are complex and context specific. In this study, we develop a framework to help identify how firms might overcome challenges...

Since the publication of Huselid's (1995) paper examining the relationship between HR practices and firm performance, there has been an explosion of published papers examining the empirical relationship between HR practices and various measures of firm performance. This study examines the possibility that informants typically providing data about o...

This book draws upon a wide cast of international contributors to analyse the nature and state of strategic human resource management across the globe.

Global fi rms often struggle to replicate practices among their culturally and geographically dispersed subsidiaries. Part of the reason for this is that certain practices, including human resource management (HRM) practices, are complex and context specifi c. In this study, we develop a framework to help identify how fi rms might overcome challeng...

The aspiration to involve, engage and win commitment from employees has long been high on the agenda of a select portion of enlightened management. However, there has been a notable resurgence of interest in employee engagement in recent times and it seems that the phenomenon has evolved and been redrawn. Distinctive posts are now advertised which...

An 'options' view of human capital acquisition explains value creation through timedeferred, sequential, path-dependent investment choices and addresses gaps in the resourcebased theory explanation of the relationship between human resources and competitive advantage. Firms will invest in options for human capital, using alternative employment arra...

Empirical Challenges in Examining the Relationship Between Hr Practices and Firm PerformanceTheoretical Challenges in Examining the Relationship Between Human Resource Practices and Firm PerformanceConclusions Future DirectionsSummaryReferences

This paper examines newer conceptualizations of HRM practices in the HR-Performance Relationship as well as newer conceptualizations of commitment. Juxtaposing these categories of HR practices and types of commitment provides a clearer theoretical rational for at least some ways that HR practices can influence organizational performance, be that po...

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss some of the main features and trends in human resources (HR) strategy. Inasmuch as people are among the most important resources available to firms, one could argue that HR strategy should be central to any debate about how firms achieve competitive advantage. But this "people are our most important asset"...

[Excerpt] Motivation- and empowerment- enhancing human resource (HR) practices are positively associated with employees’ collective emotional attachment to, and identification with, a company and its goals; this affective commitment, in turn, is negatively associated with the aggregate of employee decisions to exit an organization. Thus, collective...

[Excerpt] Strategic human resource management refers to the pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable an organization to achieve its goals (Wright & McMahan, 1992). It involves all of the activities that are implemented by an organization to affect the behavior of individuals in an effort to implement the strat...

Moneyball (Lewis, 2003) is a book about baseball. The book describes how a small-market Major League Baseball team, the Oakland Athletics, has been able to compete with large-market teams by being innovative in a tradition-laden industry. However, when read through a business management lens, one discerns that this baseball book, in fact, has gener...

We investigate the role of collective affective commitment in consistently and inconsistently mediating the relationship between skill, motivation, and empowerment enhancing human resource practices and aggregate voluntary turnover in a multi-source, longitudinal study. Findings from 20 top HR managers and 1748 employees in 93 different job-groups...

Recent research has demonstrated the importance of managing aggregate voluntary turnover. A number of studies have clearly demonstrated that increased turnover is associated with declining organizational effectiveness {Glebbeek & Bax 2004; Shaw et al. 2005}. Scholars and managers, however, would be committing a serious ecological fallacy by assumin...

This study investigated the validity and incremental validity of a situational interview beyond that of a composite measure of cognitive ability. Forty-seven factory service technicians underwent an interview and took four cognitive ability tests. Supervisors rated the performance of these subjects in a concurrent validation study. The interview wa...