ARE THE 100 BEST BETTER? AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BEING A "GREAT PLACE TO WORK" AND FIRM PERFORMANCE

We argue that positive employee relations effectively serves as an intangible and enduring asset, and may, therefore, be a source of sustained competitive advantage at the firm level. We survey a number of measures of firm‐level performance and conceptualize how each measure is likely to be affected...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPersonnel psychology Vol. 56; no. 4; pp. 965 - 993
Main Authors FULMER, INGRID SMITHEY, GERHART, BARRY, SCOTT, KIMBERLY S.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.12.2003
Subjects
Academic Achievement
Accounting
Attitudes
Benchmarking
Competition
Competitive advantage
Effect Size
Employee attitude
Employee Attitudes
Financial performance
Human resources
Hypotheses
Job Performance
Job Satisfaction
Labor Force
Meta Analysis
Outcome Measures
Peer Groups
Strategic management
Strategic Planning
Studies
Workforce
Working conditions
United States > US
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Summary:We argue that positive employee relations effectively serves as an intangible and enduring asset, and may, therefore, be a source of sustained competitive advantage at the firm level. We survey a number of measures of firm‐level performance and conceptualize how each measure is likely to be affected by highly positive firm‐level employee relations. We then empirically investigate whether positive employee relations is related to firm performance, focusing on publicly traded firms included in the “100 Best Companies to Work for in America.” The relative performance of these “Best Companies” is examined via comparisons to both companies in the broad market and a group of matched firms. Our analyses suggest that companies on the 100 Best list enjoy not only stable and highly positive workforce attitudes, but also performance advantages over the broad market, and in some cases, over the matched group.
Bibliography:ArticleID:PEPS965
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istex:67F2CDF9336BA0F72DDD3A9C2B7A9F5A9E1F35DA
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the August 2000 meeting of the Academy of Management in Toronto, Ontario.
We appreciate the helpful comments received from the editor and two anonymous reviewers. We thank Ed Gubman, Ray Baumruk, Craig Lewis, Christoph Schenzler, and seminar participants in the Management Department at Michigan State University and in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University for their assistance and insightful comments.
ISSN:0031-5826
1744-6570
DOI:10.1111/j.1744-6570.2003.tb00246.x