Abstract
AbstractThis study draws on institutional theory to investigate why and how staffing effectiveness varies across countries. Utilising data from multiple sources (Cranfield Network on Comparative Human Resource Management [CRANET], Global Leadership and Organisational Behaviour Effectiveness [GLOBE], World Economic Forum [WEF], Transparency International, Tightness‐Looseness Index), it covers 2,918 organisations in 11 countries. Extending earlier research on comparative staffing that focuses on cultural or regulatory differences separately, our findings show that companies in different countries implement staffing practices in line with their normative (i.e., cultural), regulatory, and cognitive institutions. A second key finding shows that institutionally embedded staffing practices are associated with organisational turnover, thus challenging dominant universalist perspectives on staffing effectiveness. Finally, we shed light on a central yet understudied boundary condition of contextual perspectives on staffing by identifying the strength of institutional pressures (i.e., societal tightness‐looseness) as a moderator of the relationships between national institutions, staffing, and turnover.
Highlights
Understanding the determinants of variation in employee movement into and out of organisations is crucial given its extensive impact on organisations' talent pools (Al Ariss & Sidani, 2016; Call et al, 2015; Makarius & Stevens, 2019)
With regards to Hypothesis 7 and 8, we found that: (1) national institutions were associated with staffing comprehensiveness; (2) the relationship between national institutions and staffing comprehensiveness was stronger in tight societies; (3) staffing comprehensiveness was associated to turnover; (4) staffing comprehensiveness was more strongly related to turnover in tight societies; and (5) national institutions were related to turnover via the indirect effect of staffing practices
Using multi-level data from 2,918 organisations in 11 countries, we found that (1) companies in different countries implement different staffing practices in line with different national institutions, (2) the use of institutionally embedded staffing is related to organisational turnover, and (3) the relationships between national institutions, staffing and turnover are stronger in tight societies
Summary
Understanding the determinants of variation in employee movement into and out of organisations is crucial given its extensive impact on organisations' talent pools (Al Ariss & Sidani, 2016; Call et al, 2015; Makarius & Stevens, 2019). Drawing on the country institutional profile (CIP) approach (Kostova, 1999), we first examine how staffing-specific cognitive (i.e., a country's human capital), normative (i.e., institutional collectivism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance), and regulatory (i.e., institutional flexibility and corruption) institutions relate to organisational staffing practices. Given the high value of personal relationships and interdependence in collectivistic societies, candidates and organisations are expected to prefer personal, relationship-oriented staffing practices such as word-of-mouth recruitment, references, or selection interviews (Aycan, 2005). The study of corruption provides an essential extension of neo-institutional theory, its potential to explain variance in international business and staffing practices, in particular, is highly understudied We use both institutional flexibility (vs legislative restrictions) and high versus low corruption to consider the country-specific legal and illegal room for manoeuvre concerning staffing. Hypothesis 8: Societal tightness-looseness moderates the relationships between (a) national institutions and staffing comprehensiveness and (b) staffing comprehensiveness and organisational turnover, such that the association between institutions and staffing comprehensiveness and the association between staffing comprehensiveness and turnover are strengthened in societies with tight (vs. loose) social norms
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