Sara L. Rynes

University of Iowa | UI · Department of Management and Organizations

The well documented academic-practice gap has frequently been viewed as a problem to be solved via evidence-based management. Evidence-based management focuses heavily on aggregating and evaluating research evidence to address practical questions via meta-analysis and other forms of systematic review, as well as educating managers and management st...

We review the recent development of evidence-based management (EBMgt), tracing its origins to longstanding gaps between research and practice, discrepant findings across studies, and the emergence of evidence-based medicine (EBMed). We provide a definition of EBMgt and review four foundational articles advocating its use. We then review categories...

Conflicts between scholars who are working together are not unusual. Some of these conflicts are famous (or infamous). Freud and Jung came to disagree strongly with each other (Borch-Jacobsen & Shamdasani, 2012). After developing grounded theory together, Glaser and Strauss (1967) had a falling out that led them in two conflicting directions regard...

This introduction traces the disappearance of Chinese family businesses from 1949 to 1978, their revival since then, and their future challenges. It then summarizes the three papers included in this Special Issue and proposes an agenda for family business studies in China. The article first focuses on the nonmarket social and political network stra...

Management educators often assume that research-based arguments ought to be convincing to students. However, college students do not always accept even well-documented research findings. Among the reasons this might happen, we focus on the potential role of psychological mechanisms triggered by scholarly arguments that affect students' self-concept...

Abusive supervision, bullying, and sexual harassment sometimes produce mental injuries that make it difficult or impossible for employees to work. However, there are few remedies available for employees who become disabled as a result of these working conditions. One possible remedy – winning a mental injury claim under Workers’ Compensation – may...

In this essay we challenge standard approaches to the academic-practitioner gap that essentially pit sides against each other, treating them as dichotomous. Instead, we identify and suggest ways of working with such dichotomies to foster research and theory building. We delineate several tensions associated with the gap, including differing logics,...

Teaching from an evidence-based perspective relies on bringing the best scientific evidence to the classroom. However, research shows that people may not believe even well- documented research findings in management and other areas. Among the reasons that people might reject particular research results, we focus on the potential role of self- motiv...

This study examines the syllabi of 241 required organizational behavior (OB) related classes in full-time U.S. MBA programs. Syllabi were coded for information about course title, topics, readings, cases, teaching methods, and learning assessment methods. Results revealed that the most frequent topics listed across courses are leadership and groups...

In this article we introduce AMR's Special Topic Forum on Understanding and Creating Caring and Compassionate Organizations. We outline why the time is right for such a forum, uncover scholarly and philosophical roots of a focus on compassion and care, and provide a brief introduction to the diverse and rich set of articles contained in this forum....

This chapter reviews the extant literature on employee recruitment and suggests directions for future research. More specifically, the chapter reviews how organizational context, recruitment activities and practices, and recruitment processes relate to job seekers' attraction to organizations, application intentions, job choices, and organization-l...

Management and Organization Review Special Issue on ‘Expanding Research on Family Business in China’ - Volume 8 Issue 2 - Jess Chua, Ling Chen, Bradley L. Kirkman, Xin-chun Li, Sara Rynes, Luis R. Gomez-Mejia

Management and Organization Review Special Issue on ‘Expanding Research on Family Business in China’ - Volume 8 Issue 1 - Jess Chua, Ling Chen, Bradley L. Kirkman, Xin-chun Li, Sara Rynes, Luis Gomez-Mejia

Workplace bullying and harassment on the job can lead to mental injuries including depression, anxiety, and PTSD. One of the few ways workers can recoup medical bills and lost wages for these injuries is through the workers’ compensation system. Our study found that while 44% of claimants proved their mental injuries were caused by their jobs, only...

Although scholarship in management learning and education (MLE) has existed for many years, its volume and visibility have increased dramatically over the past decade. With the addition of Academy of Management Learning and Education (AMLE) in 2002 and Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education (DSJIE) in 2003 to the long-established journal...

We examine the degree to which required management courses in U.S.-based MBA programs make reference to the emerging evidence-based management (EBM) movement. More than 800 required management course syllabi from 333 programs were reviewed for either explicit reference to the concept of EBM, or verbiage within course descriptions that was consisten...

The article discusses the constructions and contributions of implications for practice (IFP) sections of management research manuscripts. Research was conducted on five management-related academic journals between the dates of 1992-1993 and 2003-2007. The authors believe that it is beneficial for management researchers to place IFP sections in rese...

The gap between science and practice in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and related fields is large and, some believe, getting larger. Although not everyone views this as a matter for concern, there is growing momentum to take actions to strengthen the interface between science and practice. The present paper examines three underlying sources...

In this chapter, we address three pay for performance (PFP) questions. First, what are the conceptual mechanisms by which PFP influences performance? Second, what programs do organizations use to implement PFP and what is the empirical evidence on their effectiveness? Third, what perils and pitfalls arise on the way from PFP theory to its execution...

As editor of The Academy of Management Journal (AMI), I am often asked whether or not I like the job. Almost without thinking, I say: “I like it much better than being a reviewer. It’s much more positive and creative.”

The author offers opinions on the articles published in this issue and on the future of the discipline of management science and its role in business education. A common theme of whether management science has limited its influence with actual business by a quest for academic legitimacy and recognition is seen. The body of research accumulated by m...

The author offers opinions on her tenure as editor of the publication from 2005-2007. The editorial board's goals of making the publication of more professional interest, of increasing the transparency of its review process, and of making it more internationally focused are given, and the steps taken to meet them are described. The author thanks he...

It is hardly news that many organizations do not implement practices that research has shown to be positively associated with employee productivity and firm financial performance (e.g., Hambrick, 1994; Johns, 1993; Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000). Indeed, the failure to implement research-supported prac-tices has been observed in nearly every field where t...

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, com-mitted people can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has. -Margaret Mead In The Diffusion of Innovations (2003), Everett Rogers summarizes voluminous research showing that the adoption of new ideas or ways of doing things follows a nonlinear progression. Specifi-cally, the adopt...

This article examines the influence of citation impact on scholarship. Citation analysis allows authors to determine how often their work has been cited by others. It has become a performance metric for scholars of the influence and relevance of their work. However, the authors contends there is very little research to understand citation rates. Th...

Although many opinions have been expressed about the potential merits and pitfalls of conducting academic research inside organizations, empirical research on the question is nearly nonexistent. Consequently, the present study examined the origins, processes, and outcomes of 141 academic research projects that were conducted in (nonacademic) organi...

Directors of college recruiting for Fortune 1000 corporations were surveyed regarding a broad set of college recruiting practices and college recruiting effectiveness measures. Descriptive results suggested that most college recruiting programs diverge from normative prescriptions (e.g., little recruiter training, limited data collection, and almos...

Although much professional and managerial hiring involves experienced workers, previous recruitment research has focused almost exclusively on new college graduates. To remedy this imbalance, 251 staffing professionals were surveyed concerning experienced-versus-college hiring practices in their organizations. Results suggest that a majority of pos...

One of the most important jobs of any editorial team is ensuring the quality of the review process. As Chet Miller discussed in a recent "From the Editors" column (Miller, 2006), the existence of such realities as complexity bias (Armstrong, 1980), confirmation bias (Kuhn, 1970), limited abil- ity to predict which papers will become highly influent...

Total quality is increasingly used by companies as an organization-wide system to achieve fully satisfied customers through the delivery of the highest quality in products and services. The goals of total quality can be achieved only if organizations entirely reform their cultures. Traditional management, operations, finance and accounting systems...

This article discusses management research and what makes it interesting. In a well-known paper, “That’s Interesting!” Murray Davis argued that what most makes scholarly work interesting is that it disconfirms some (but not all) of the assumptions held by its audience. Davis’ arguments about what constitutes interesting research are summarized, inc...

Back when the great society was building, they were present at the creation. Academics, especially in the social sciences, laid the groundwork; they testified before Congress, they contributed to the process. Now, you know, they've largely become irrelevant. The locus of power has shifted to specialists in think tanks, many of whom are refugees fro...

The article discusses the role of management scholarship in the public sector. Many believe management scholars should matter more to how organizations operate. However, opinions differ as to whether the public sector demands greater involvement, and if scholars should immerse themselves in practical affairs individually or collectively. Some say i...

As our editorial team completes its first year of receiving manuscripts, we believe it would be helpful to reflect upon and share answers to the most frequently asked questions regarding publication goals and processes at Academy of Management Journal (AMJ). This editorial deals with everything one has always wanted to know about AMJ. AMJ aspires t...

Because research-supported human resource (HR) practices appear to positively affect organizational outcomes, it is important to understand the factors that impact managers’ agreement with HR research findings. The authors drew from two theoretical perspectives to develop and test a model of factors related to managers’ agreement with research find...

Although there is a voluminous psychological literature on performance evaluation (PE), surprisingly little of this research examines the consequences of linking pay to evaluated performance in work settings. Rather, PE research has been dominated by cognitive processing, measurement, and construct validity issues. At the same time, a large literat...

A majority of human resources professionals appear to believe that employees are likely to overreport the importance of pay in employee surveys. However, research suggests the opposite is actually true. We review evidence showing the discrepancies between what people say and do with respect to pay. We then discuss why pay is likely to be such an im...

Compensation: Theory, Evidence, and Strategic Implications provides a comprehensive, research-based review of both the determinants and effects of compensation. Combining theory and research from a variety of disciplines, authors Barry Gerhart and Sara L. Rynes examine the three major compensation decisions-pay level, pay structure, and pay deliver...

Business recruiters generally report seeking to hire well-rounded students who have not only technical knowledge and skills, but also behavioral ones. However, business students appear to be somewhat skeptical of this claim. One reason for this skepticism may be students' attention to recruiter signals concerning the importance of behavioral knowle...

This article discusses professionalism in business education. The past year has witnessed an outpouring of concern that business education may be headed in the wrong direction. The inaugural issue of this journal also revealed clear signs of concern about the direction business education is taking. However, scholars differed widely in their analysi...

Research on recruitment practices (recruiters, recruitment sources, administrative procedures, vacancy characteristics, and selection standards) and recruitment processes (time-related, social, information-related, and interactive processes plus applicant self-selection and person-organization fit) is reviewed, and increments to knowledge about rec...

Most theorizing on the relationship between corporate social/environmental performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) assumes that the current evidence is too fractured or too variable to draw any generalizable conclusions. With this integrative, quantitative study, we intend to show that the mainstream claim that we have little ge...

Recent research suggests that HR practices can have considerable impact on both individual and organizational performance. These findings strongly suggest that not knowing this HR research can be costly to organizations. In this article, we pinpoint areas where HR practitioners seem to be most unaware of research findings related to effective HR pr...

Recent research suggests that HR practices can have considerable impact on both individual and organizational performance. These findings strongly suggest that not knowing this HR research can be costly to organizations. In this article, we pinpoint areas where HR practitioners seem to be most unaware of research findings related to effective HR pr...

Five thousand human resource (HR) professionals were surveyed regarding the extent to which they agreed with various HR research findings. Responses from 959 participants suggest that there are large discrepancies between research findings and practitioners' beliefs in some content areas, especially selection. In particular, practitioners place far...

This study examines how several indicators of ability and achievement are associated with individual differences in preferences for job and organizational attributes. Results from a sample of 378 business and liberal arts students suggest that students with high cognitive ability and all types of high achievement place greater importance on interes...

One common suggestion for reducing the gap between research and practice is for academics to conduct more of their research in real organizational settings. However, there is considerable skepticism among academics about the willingness of organizations to open their doors to researchers, and among both academics and practitioners about the potenti...

Observers have long noted a considerable gap between organizational research findings and management practices. Although volumes have been written about the probable causes and consequences of this gap, surprisingly little empirical evidence exists concerning the various viewpoints. The articles in this forum provide data on the role of academic-pr...

In this article we use the concept of the organizational field to examine how recent developments in the institutional environment of business schools may be affecting student attitudes toward the behavioral sciences in business schools. Based on this analysis, we propose a number of ways in which recognition of changing logics in the organizationa...

There is very limited information availableabout whether organizational recruitment practicesinfluence the impressions made by recruiters on jobapplicants. In response to the scarcity of two-sidedinformation about recruitment processes, the present studyobtained data directly from 1571 applicants and 216matched recruiters who interviewed them. Resu...

There is very limited information available about whether organizational recruitment practices influence the impressions made by recruiters on job applicants. In response to the scarcity of two-sided information about recruitment processes, the present study obtained data directly from 1571 applicants and 216 matched recruiters who interviewed them...

145 job seeking engineers were surveyed to determine whether applicants who interviewed at Total Quality Management (TQM) organizations perceived any differences in the way they were recruited or selected as compared with those who interviewed at non-TQM firms. TQM firms were identified in two ways: “explicit TQM” (where applicants were specificall...

This report summarizes the results of research conducted with support from the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences Office of Basic Research, Contract MDA 903-87-K-0001. This research was undertaken to develop and explore the effects of cost-benefit or 'utility' models for evaluating the consequences of personal decis...

Seven hundred and eighty-five human resource professionals responded to a questionnaire about diversity issues in their organizations. Analyses were conducted to determine the factors associated with (a) adoption of diversity training and (b) perceived training success. Results revealed that both training adoption and perceived training success wer...

54 campus recruiters in 4 colleges provided examples of "best-fitting" and "worst-fitting" applicants from just-completed interview schedules, along with specific descriptions of what it was that made each applicant "fit" or "not fit." Examination of interview transcripts suggested that despite the recent emphasis on unique organizational values, s...

The present study solicited the reactions of 390 current and future job seekers to 13 selection procedures. Results suggest that applicants prefer selection methods with high apparent content validity, in particular, simulations (both written and oral) and tests with business-related content. Reference checks also received positive evaluations, whi...

Recent literature reviews have called into question the impact of recruitment activities on applicants' job choices. However, most previous findings have been based on cross-sectional ratings obtained immediately after initial screening interviews, thus raising questions about the degree to which prior conclusions are bound to that particuJar metho...

Although it has been suggested that women negotiate over salaries less frequently than men, there is little empirical evidence on this point. Moreover, outside of laboratory settings, there are no investigations of whether, or to what extent, such negotiations actually pay off in higher salary outcomes for either men or women. The salary negotiatin...

Previous research has revealed but not explained the occurrence of wide variations in pay for the same job, even within a single local labor market. We investigated how compensation managers from a wide variety of organizations combined information about current job pay rates, market rates, and job evaluation points to arrive at new pay rates. In a...

[Excerpt] "Technology in employee selection is more highly developed than in recruiting or placement; therefore, the major emphasis is on selection Recruiting or placement are not less important processes; to the contrary, they probably are more vital and more profitable to the organization. An organization's success in recruiting defines the appli...

Developing labor shortages are expected to increase the importance of applicant attraction into the next century. Unfonunately, previous research has provided little in the way of unified theory or operational guidelines for organizations confronted with attraction difficulties. In part, this is because much research has been framed from the applic...

Although both strategic management theorists and practicing recruiters endorse selecting applicants on the basis of "fit," precise delineation of fit in a selection context remains elusive. Moreover, the majority of previous work in this area has been based on anecdotes, case studies, or prescriptions rather than empirical evidence. The present inv...

The present study investigates the effects of current pay, market surveys, job evaluation points, job gender, and rater sex on pay rates for jobs. 406 compensation administrators assigned new pay rates to nine jobs in one of two matched job sets: either all predominantly female, or all predominantly male. The two sets were matched on all quantitati...

Although it has been suggested that women negotiate over salaries less frequently than men, there is little empirical evidence on this point. Moreover, outside of laboratory settings, there are no investigations of whether, or to what extent, such negotiations actually payoff in higher salary outcomes for either men or women. Using a power and depe...

Many, perhaps most, individuals who are trained as engineers eventually become managers. However, the reasons for this occupational transition are unclear. The present study examines the occupational aspirations (technical versus managerial) of two groups of engineers with varying work experience: current engineering students and engineering alumni...

Undergraduate engineering students (N = 284) at a prestigious 4-year engineering college were surveyed regarding their long-term career aspirations. Preliminary results revealed that 20 years from now, 36% of those sampled want to be managers, 30% engineers, 17% entrepreneurs, and 17% academics or consultants. Additional analyses revealed a number...

The comparable worth controversy has generated much discussion about the appropriate valuation of job worth. To date, academic inquiries into the measurement of job worth have focused primarily on job evaluation; however, recent court decisions suggest that market wages are a more compelling indicator of job worth than are job evaluation results. T...

What are the principal causes of the earnings gap between men and women? Executives, union officials, and compensation experts all put discrimination and bias at the top of their lists, but they don't agree that comparable worth is the most effective way to narrow that gap.

Contends that previous utility models have focused either on selection activities or on human resource activities that follow the hiring decision (e.g., performance appraisal or training). A more complete staffing model incorporating the effects of recruitment activities that precede selection is proposed by the present authors. A numerical example...

This study reports on approaches to the comparable-worth issue that are being taken by compensation specialists in 360 small, medium, and large companies.

Two methodological approaches, policy capturing and narrative self-reports, were used to examine how individuals combine information about job characteristics and probabilities of receiving job offers (expectancies) in decisions to pursue job vacancies. 10 college students evaluated 24 hypothetical job alternatives at 3 expectancy levels in terms o...

The influence of pay and three other attributes on job application decisions under two sets of market conditions were examined. Consistent with economic hypothesizing, results suggested that most respondents used noncompensatory strategies to evaluate pay in making their application decisions. Moreover, both model usage and the pay importance appea...

In Exp I, videotapes of mock interviews, constructed so that recruiter affect and recruiter knowledge of the job were varied, were shown to 133 undergraduates. In Exp II with 178 Ss, recruiter affect and job attractiveness were varied. Reliable effects of recruiter behavior and job attributes on Ss' propensities to pursue the job were obtained. Res...

Male and female managerial, professional, and technical employees participated in a study to test for the existence of sex differences in (1) attitudes toward the risks and sacrifices associated with career advancement and (2) salary increments required to accept a promotion opportunity. Results showed no differences in male and female attitudes to...

Typescript. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1981. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-165).

The present paper reviews the research that has examined the influence of organizational recruiting on applicants' attitudes and job choice behaviors. It was found that recruiting representatives, administrative practices, and procedures used to evaluate applicant qualifications are all potentially important influences on job seeker attitudes and b...

Consider the photo in Figure 1. Think of it as depicting, on its not-so-parallel poles, academic and practitioner communities, solid, separate, and challenging for each other to penetrate. Look at the lone person 20 meters above the ground, in liminal space, taking steps towards bridging the gap be-tween the poles. Think about the difficulty that p...

You've submitted the manuscript to the journal. The waiting begins. Tick, tock, tick, tock. When the decision letter finally arrives, you almost wish you could postpone the moment that is finally upon you. Perhaps with trembling hands, you click on (or tear open) the mail. For a first submission, you know that the chances of an outright acceptance...

To date, normative selection models have focused primarily on matching individual knowledges, skills, and abilities to job requirements. However, it has increasingly been argued that people should also be selected for fit to broader organizational characteristics such as strategy, culture and values. Despite the apparent reasonableness of these cla...

Developing labor shortages are increasing the importance of recruitment to organizations. However, previous recruitment research has provided few operational guidelines for persuading high quality candidates to apply for, and to accept, job offers. This is because most recruitment research has either ignored major independent variables (e.g., vacan...