Organizational Unit:
Scheller College of Business
Scheller College of Business
Permanent Link
Research Organization Registry ID
Description
Previous Names
Parent Organization
Parent Organization
Organizational Unit
Includes Organization(s)
Organizational Unit
ArchiveSpace Name Record
Publication Search Results
Now showing
1 - 3 of 3
-
ItemEmployee Evaluation and Performance Management(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-04-27) Green, Christopher M.The three essays in this dissertation focus on understanding how the structural policies and organizational procedures set by management may impact the performance of the workforce. Specifically, this dissertation: (i) employs analytical (e.g. game-theoretical and optimization models) and experimental techniques and (ii) encompasses the following three areas: performance management systems, rating systems, and sequential selection. Performance and Talent Management: The U.S. Army is at an inflection point with its talent management process. The Secretary of the Army has stated that a focused priority of the Army is to revolutionize the decades old process that was established in the 1980s under the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA) which has fallen woefully behind current talent and personnel management programs. One of the most promising areas for change is in the arena of performance management. To support this effort, I review performance management and evaluation systems studied in literature and currently in use within industry to identify how organizational and structural characteristics impact their effectiveness. I then apply this analysis to the unique case of the U.S. Army. The procedural limitations and legal constraints set on the military services make understanding and incorporating the factors of the external environment and organization structure critical to constructing a performance management system that meets the unique needs of these organizations. Rating Systems: Performance evaluation has long been a key mechanism for supervisors to grade the proficiency of employees at executing the tasks associated with their jobs. To conduct these evaluations firms often rate workers compared to their peers or against an objective standard. Which of these rating systems leads to higher workforce performance? To answer this question, I construct game-theoretic models of two performance rating systems. First, for a Relative rating system where workers compete with each other for a constrained number of high ratings. Second, for an Absolute rating system where workers are awarded high ratings by performing at or above a standard threshold. I derive the workers’ equilibrium performance as a function of their ability and the characteristics of the rating pool. From a firm’s perspective, I find that an Absolute rating system can lead to higher performance than a Relative rating system when the rating pool size is small or the workers’ cost of effort relative to their efficiency rate is low, and the reverse holds true otherwise. When considering the workers’ perspective, I find that higher ability workers prefer an Absolute system due to its predictable nature, while lower ability workers prefer a Relative system as it provides them an opportunity to outperform other workers. Sequential Selection: Enhancing workforce performance is the key to success for professional firms. Many firms employ competitive rating systems where supervisors can only award promotions or bonuses to a certain percentage of their subordinates. In many cases, such as the evaluation system of the U.S. Army, supervisors evaluate subordinates' performances over time and in sequence (e.g., based on employee’s work anniversary). As such, supervisors must make decisions based on incomplete information due to the temporal nature of the evaluation process. In this paper, I study how managers react under such sequential evaluation systems. I construct a theoretical model of a sequential selection problem to generate the optimal solution. I then conduct a set of experimental studies and evaluate the impact of pool size on the accuracy of each participant's decisions as compared to the state dependent optimal solutions. Despite theoretical increases in performance with larger pools, experimental performance did not yield an increase. Indeed, the average performance of subjects was the highest in the treatment that had the smallest pool size. I conduct multiple decision mechanism analyses to provide insights about the approaches subjects take and the nature of the behavioral traits leading to sub-optimal outcomes. Those comparisons suggest that the search fatigue mechanism may account for subjects’ sub-optimal behavior across treatments.
-
ItemAm I Paranoid or Did I Just Receive Advice?: The Impact of Disability Status on Recipient Behavior Following Unsolicited Advice(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-04-17) Speach, Mary Eve PatriceAlthough advice in the workplace is associated with positive outcomes, employees tend not to seek out advice from coworkers. As such, organizations may be tempted to encourage unsolicited advice between employees to maximize benefits. However, little is understood regarding its detrimental effects for particular groups of employees. Therefore, I leverage the literature on advice and model of stigma-induced identity threat to assert that those with disabilities, due to their unique backgrounds, are more likely to perceive unsolicited advice as an identity threat. This dissertation posits that this heightened perception, also known as an identity threat appraisal, will influence levels of paranoid cognition and decrease daily work engagement. Furthermore, given that not all advice is equal I propose that the nature of the unsolicited advice offered (message and context) may operate as features of advice, impacting paranoid cognition levels. Results of Study 1 indicate that recipients of unsolicited advice experience greater levels of paranoid cognition than those in the control condition. Study 2 explores the features of unsolicited advice through a vignette experimental design. Findings illustrate that paranoid cognition varies as a function of context but not message. Using an ESM approach, Study 3 replicates the main effect findings of the previous studies and links paranoid cognition to daily work engagement. Finally, for the moderating effects those with a disability who received public unsolicited advice reported higher levels of paranoid cognition than those without a disability in the third study. Theoretical and practical implications of this model are discussed.
-
ItemInnovation and Supply Networks(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-01-13) Palit, ShubhobrataThe three essays in this dissertation aim to improve our understanding of the influence of a firm’s network of buyers and suppliers as a source of external technological knowledge and, subsequently on its innovation performance. Such understanding is important for effectively managing technological knowledge, which involves managing not only the firm’s internal but also external technological knowledge. In the first essay (Chapter 2), I focus on the available technological knowledge in a firm’s supplier network and examine factors that accrue innovation benefits from such knowledge for a buyer firm. Specifically, I study technological distance, technological breadth, and extent of global sourcing, and how these factors interrelate in influencing a firm’s innovation performance. In the second essay (Chapter 3), I focus on a buyer as a source of technological knowledge for a supplier, and examine factors that make a supplier accumulate technological knowledge from the buyer. Specifically, I study how buyer innovation, technological similarity between a supplier and a buyer, a supplier’s dependence on a buyer, buyer-supplier size asymmetry, and the interrelationships between them influence the extent of supplier’s knowledge accumulation from the buyer. In the third essay (Chapter 4), I study the extent of a supplier’s knowledge accumulation from its buyers as a mechanism through which buyer innovation positively influences supplier innovation performance. Additionally, I demonstrate the moderating role of the supplier’s position within its supply network on the indirect effect of buyer innovation on supplier innovation performance.