Contributions published at Human Resource Management

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The present paper analyses the opportunities and pitfalls that arise for companies at a compa-ny or market-wide disclosure of salaries and bonuses of all employees. The identification of opportunities and pitfalls is based on the theoretical analysis of famous concepts of social comparison processes, especially on those of wage comparisons. In this context, the role of feelings of envy will further be discussed. The consequent implications for companies raise the reader's awareness for the challenges that arise when considering individual transparency in wages and bonuses and illustrate the complexity of this issue. The main conclusion is that individual wage transparency requires to be accompanied by transparency regarding the wage system and by the fairness of wages.

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This thesis develops recommendations for a large Swiss company (LSC) to improve gender equity. In order to achieve this goal I took social role and role congruency theory as starting point and reviewed the literature concerning the double bind. In this review I identified tokenism, closed networks, stereotype threat and glass cliff positions as the major elements of impediments, which reinforce current societal structure and hence strengthen implicit stereotypes. Further, I examined how these consequences of the double bind influence decision making. I showed that these consequences elicit cognitive biases, which skew promotion decisions in favour of men. Subsequently I analysed the LSC and its employees using a grounded theory approach. The results reveal inconsistent perception of the promotion process by the employees of the LSC and show some impediments for gender equity on a cultural level. In addition first attempts to introduce gender equity are suggested. The recommendations I develop address foremost critical points concerning corporate culture. Further I exemplify an alternative promotion process which should increase gender equality. Thus the recommendations I develop address foremost these critical points. Further I exemplify an alternative promotion process which should increase gender equality.

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Why do workers remain loyal to their employers and how can a corporation strengthen the bond with their employees? Employment relationships have been a common field of research in the past decades. This thesis concentrates on an area in this field called job embeddedness, where the influence of cultural difference on fluctuational behavior is being discussed. Too little attention is given to cultural aspects in research, even though these are highly relevant for a global and multicultural corporation. The aim of this thesis is to examine the cultural differences and their influence on the role of job embeddedness in China and in Switzerland with publications on this matter. The term job embeddedness along with the above mentioned cultural differences and their influence will be more deeply explained throughout the process.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to analyse the effects of the use of different polite forms in the German language on collaboration in organizations over several hierar-chical levels. The personal pronouns du and Sie have different meanings on sociological as-pects, such as politeness, respect, authority, power, proximity and distance. This thesis, a work in the form of an empirical study based on qualitative interviews, explored how the use of the different forms of address affects these aspects in collaboration. Therefor contributors of three organizations were interviewed about their experience with the culture of address. The analysis showed that saying du or Sie had no influence on politeness, respect, authority or power in any of the investigated organizations. Correlations between the address and the in-terpersonal proximity and distance as well as the gradient of the hierarchy of an organization could be observed. The advantages and disadvantages of a du-culture were analysed based on the interviews and consequential implications for business practice were deduced.

This study examines the relationship between mentors’ leadership impression and mentoring outcomes such as intention to stay in the mentoring, group building, and confidence. There exists a large amount of research on mentoring which suggests that it is beneficial on many different levels. The aim of this study was to enrich the existing literature by analyzing the effect of mentors’ leadership impression on mentoring outcomes under the inclusion of with-in-group agreement and relative leadership impression as moderators. The empirical analysis was conducted with a data set from a mentoring program of the University of Zurich. The results revealed a positive effect of mentors’ leadership impression on mentees’ intention to stay, group building, and confidence. Regarding within-group agreement and relative leader-ship impression, no moderating effects were found. Furthermore the results show that men-tors’ leadership impression is a more important predictor of the mentioned mentoring out-comes. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

In this study the relationship between organizational change and employee’s well-being has been investigated. Also possible impacts on this relationship by seniority (job tenure) have been analyzed. This study’s findings suggest that organizational change, such as downsizing, mergers & acquisitions, shutdown, etc. are generally perceived as stressful by the employees and therefore possibly lead to an impairment of the employees’ well-being. To manage these difficult situations, employees need to apply so called coping strategies. Many different studies implicate that employees of higher seniority have a larger selection of coping strategies and that these employees are much more efficient in applying these coping strategies than employees of lower seniority. Furthermore there were analyzed several measures that can be implemented by a company’s management in order to provide the necessary support to manage the upcoming difficulties of organizational change, e.g. job rotation, job redesign, incremental change management, supervision, etc.

Herausragendes Personal schafft für Firmen bedeutende Wettbewerbsvorteile gegenüber der Konkurrenz. Dementsprechend gross ist der Kampf um vielversprechende Talente. Jene Unternehmen, welche die grösste Attraktivität auf potenzielle Kandidaten ausüben, können sich auch die besten Mitarbeitenden sichern. Deshalb stellt sich für jede zu besetzende Stelle oft dieselbe Frage: Soll die Stelle in einem Printmedium publiziert werden oder genügt die Publikation auf der Website des Unternehmens?

The fraction of women in the BoD of large European companies is small. The introduction of a quota for women in the BoD is globally discussed. Several countries, public traded companies and/or state enterprises have established gender quotas in their business conditions and/or legislations. The politicians and relevant companies could expect a better performance. In Switzerland, cantonal votes are already realized in order to figure out if such quotas shall be legally implemented. The question, whether a mandatory gender quota has a significant influence on the company performance, will be elaborated in this thesis and analyzed on the basis of an empirical study by a regression analysis. The regression investigates, whether the companies of the STOXX ALL EUROPE 100 indices have achieved a higher return on equity (ROE) if the company has a quota of at least 20%. The period of investigation refers to the last nine years (2005-2013). The regression analysis showed that the hypothesis, for a better performance by a gender quota of 20% cannot be confirmed. Keywords. Gender Quota, Board of directors, supervisory Board, performance, gender diversity

This study investigates the negative effects from being passed over for promotion with respect to work attitudes, behaviour and behaviour intentions. Possible unintended nega-tive affects are particularly evaluated with respect to frustrated desires in the case of the rejec-tion of a promotion. A cause and effect relationship is presented that relates undesired non-promotion to work attitudes and behaviour as well as behaviour intentions through negative affects resulting from the violation of desires. An longitudinal empirical analysis could not support the theoretically derived relationship. No significant relationships have been found with regard to overall job satisfaction, organization-al commitment and the intention to quit among the individuals that have undesirably been passed over for promotion. A reversed relationship is indicated for minor organizational devi-ance, possibly induced by temporal effects towards a decreased level of deviant behaviour in the considered period. Keywords. Being passed-over for promotion, Desire, Work Attitudes, Behaviour Intentions, Behaviours

Organizational socialization is a learning, integration and adjustment process of an employee into a new work environment. This socialization process starts during recruitment and its goal is that newcomers become efficient organizational members and insiders. The organization can support the socialization process by realistic recruitment and also by using practices which improve the technical and social skills of newcomers. A successful socialization process leads to positive work related outcomes such as higher work performance or positive work attitude. This study investigates the effect of realistic recruitment on four proximal socialization outcomes. To analyze this effect, an empirical model was developed to investigate a dataset including 113 newcomers with tenure of less than twelve months. Completeness of information provided to the future employee during recruitment was positively associated with task mastery and PO-Fit. The effect of completeness of information on task mastery was partially mediated by the degree of met expectation whereas the effect on PO-Fit was fully mediated by the degree of met expectations. Furthermore, usefulness of information provided during recruiting was positively connected to role clarity, social integration and PO-Fit. The relationship between usefulness of information and role clarity was partially mediated whereas the relationship between usefulness of information and social integration and PO-Fit was fully mediated by the degree of met expectations.

Turnover intentions of employees bear significant costs for companies. The intent to resign can lead to poor job motivation and reduced work effort, both of which lower a company’s productivity. Therefore, it is critical to identify turnover intentions at an early stage to ensure that proper actions can be taken to counteract the root of the issue. The majority of insights gained by previous fluctuation analysis and research originates from studies performed in the United States and can thus not be easily applied to different cultural environments. The pur-pose of this paper is to analyse to which extend job satisfaction affects turnover intentions in China and in Switzerland. For this purpose the data from the study “Fluctuation analysis and retention management in China and in Switzerland” was analysed and interpreted. This empirical analysis shows the following effect: Higher overall job satisfaction or higher satisfaction with career opportunities are associated with less turnover intentions. Addition-ally, the analysis found that the relationships between job-related satisfactions, overall job satisfaction, pay satisfaction and satisfaction with career opportunities and turnover intentions are stronger in Switzerland than in China.

The situation of Swiss women has considerably improved over the last decades, even so they still fall behind men when it comes to employment volume, positions in high levels and earnings. Children play a main role in the decision of mothers to provide labour, as they are usually seen as the primary caregiver. Nevertheless, mothers are confronted with incompatible hours of kindergarten and primary school with working hours and a general shortage of childcare. Against this background, this thesis analyses the effects of formal childcare on the employment behaviour of mothers on a basis of a literature research. Although childcare is proved to have positive impacts on the employment behaviour of mothers, the results of this thesis indicate for Switzerland a rather small effect of childcare in decreasing the gender gap in leadership. Possible explanations are given, concerning personal preference, economic affluence, social costs and barriers in the working environment. Finally human resource strategies are derived to promote gender equality in the workplace and a family-friendly work environment.