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DOES CONTEXT AFFECT STAFFING DECISIONS? THE CASE OF GENERAL MANAGERS
Author(s) -
GUTHRIE JAMES P.,
OLIAN JUDY D.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
personnel psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.076
H-Index - 142
eISSN - 1744-6570
pISSN - 0031-5826
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-6570.1991.tb00959.x
Subject(s) - staffing , affect (linguistics) , contingency , psychology , context (archaeology) , organizational commitment , organizational performance , organizational behavior and human resources , perspective (graphical) , human resource management , knowledge management , social psychology , business , marketing , management , economics , computer science , paleontology , linguistics , philosophy , communication , artificial intelligence , biology
A resource dependency framework (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978) is applied to general manager (GM) selection decisions. Hypotheses are developed predicting associations between organizational contextual features (environmental instability, strategy, organizational performance, size) and background characteristics of GMs selected to head business units (organizational familiarity, functional experience, age). Data were collected on 40 recent GM selection decisions. Findings indicate that organizational contextual features influence the type of GM selected. Key results are that industry instability, organizational strategy, and organizational size were associated with GMs’organizational familiarity (i.e., tenure levels), and that organizational strategy was associated with the age of selected GMs. This study provides support for the application of a contingency perspective to human resource management.