“It’s The Right Thing To Do”: Motivation To Improve Job Quality In Small To Medium-Sized Enterprises
Paper presentation at the Academy of Management’s 2022 Annual Meeting
August 8, 2022, Seattle, WA - WORC was pleased to present original research at the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management with our co-author Dr. Samantha Conroy, Associate Professor of Management at Colorado State University. The research, conducted in partnership with the National Fund for Workforce Solutions with generous support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, explores the motivations of small to medium-sized enterprises for improving job quality.
Data from small to medium-sized enterprises in our study show that leaders were motivated to take steps to improve job quality based on:
Leaders’ personal values and belief in basic human rights
Leaders’ understanding of the realities of their frontline employees’ lives
Leaders’ knowledge of options for how to improve job quality
Read the paper abstract here:
“It’s the Right Thing to Do”: Motivation to Improve Job Quality in Small to Medium-Sized Enterprises
Authors:
Ellen Frank-Miller, Workforce & Organizational Research Center
Samantha A. Conroy, Colorado State University
Margaret P. Jendrek, Workforce & Organizational Research Center
Sophia R. Fox-Dichter, Workforce & Organizational Research Center
Madison K. Ryan, Workforce & Organizational Research Center
Frontline workers represent some of the most critical employees in an organization yet often experience low job quality (e.g., low pay, low autonomy, low job security). Some organizational leaders choose to intentionally improve job quality while others do not. Research provides little evidence about what drives organizational leadership to increase job quality through high quality human resource management practices.
This is especially true for research on small to medium-sized enterprises (SME). We use a qualitative approach based on interviews with senior leaders, HR leaders, frontline supervisors and frontline employees across 10 organizations to increase understanding of the motivational factors behind improved job quality for front-line workers in SMEs.
Our findings indicate that factors beyond the external and organizational environment play a key role in job quality improvement decisions. Specifically, leaders are motivated to improve job quality based on their personal values (i.e., doing the “right thing” the “right way” and a belief in basic human rights), their understanding of employees’ lives, and the knowledge of “how” to improve job quality. Through this inquiry, we contribute to research on human resource management practices in SMEs, research on job quality for low-wage and frontline workers, and research on managerial HR philosophy
Acknowledgements
This research was conducted in partnership with the National Fund for Workforce Solutions and funded by a generous grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
