Research
It’s one thing to have access to research. It’s another to have access to research that matters.
Housed in Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, HRPI is able to deliver research that’s directly applicable to the HR issues you’re looking to solve and to provide you with the opportunity to connect with both leading experts from a Research I university and fellow top-level Human Resources executives.
Everything we’ll share with you has been particularly selected to ensure its relevance to you and your organization. We know what kind of research makes a difference; we’ve learned that from you. Now, you’ll get the research you’ve been looking for from us.
Research from our Faculty Fellows
HRPI Faculty Fellow Michel Anteby published research in Administrative Science Quarterly
Bourmault, N., & Anteby, M. (2023). Rebooting One’s Professional Work: The Case of French Anesthesiologists Using Hypnosis. Administrative Science Quarterly, 0(0).
Abstract
Individuals deeply socialized into professional cultures tend to strongly resist breaking from their professions’ core cultural tenets. When these individuals face external pressure (e.g., via new technology or regulation), they typically turn to peers for guidance in such involuntary reinventions of their work. But it is unclear how some professionals may voluntarily break from deeply ingrained views. Through our study of French anesthesiologists who practice hypnosis, we aim to better understand this little-explored phenomenon. Adopting hypnosis, a technique that many anesthesiologists consider subjective and even magical, contradicted a core tenet of their profession: the need to only use techniques validated by rigorous scientific-based research. Drawing on interviews and observations, we analyze how these anesthesiologists were able to change their views and reinvent their work. We find that turning inward to oneself (focusing on their own direct experiences of clients) and turning outward to clients (relying on relations with clients) played critical roles in anesthesiologists’ ability to shift their views and adopt hypnosis. Through this process, these anesthesiologists embarked on a voluntary internal transformation, or reboot, whereby they profoundly reassessed their work, onboarded people in adjacent professions to accept their own reinvention, and countered isolation from their peers. Overall, we show a pathway to such reinvention that entails turning inward and outward (rather than to peers), a result that diverges significantly from prior understandings of professionals’ transformations.
HRPI Faculty Fellow Connie Noonan Hadley Publishes New Research – How Coworking Spaces Impact Employee Well-Being.
Debates over hybrid work policies continue to revolve around two primary work locations: the office or the home. The authors argue this is a limited viewpoint, especially when it comes to addressing the significant problem of employee loneliness. There is a third space to consider: coworking sites. In the authors’ research, knowledge workers rated such spaces as more interpersonally satisfying than working from the office or from home. One big reason is that coworking sites offer better opportunities for employees to relationally craft their jobs — that is, pick which other professionals they engage with during the workday, and how. Social autonomy is a basic need of employees, one that will continue to drive their employment decisions in the years to come. The authors offer five pieces of advice for how employers can leverage the unique assets of coworking sites in designing their hybrid work policies.
We are pleased to share three research papers from HRPI Faculty Fellow Ana Albuquerque with relevance for HR practitioners:
Are ISS Recommendations Informative? Evidence from Assessments of Compensation Practices
Wondering whether to follow proxy advisors’ recommendations on compensation issues? New study shows that ISS Say-on-Pay recommendations are of lower quality during the busy season when proxy advisors are the busiest and hire temporary analysts to assess the quality of the pay packages. Read the summary..
Are CEOs paid extra for riskier pay packages?
How much to compensate executives for pay at risk? Recent study shows that executives require a risk premium of 15%. Also, the risk premiums for cash bonus grants and option grants are significantly smaller than that from stock grants. Read the summary.
Complexity of CEO Compensation Packages
Have pay packages become overly complex? New study finds that CEO pay packages’ complexity have significantly increased with deleterious consequences; too complex packages are associated with lower future firm performance. The unintended consequences of complexity confirm concerns raised by investors and the media. Read the summary.
Funded Research
Beginning in February 2019, the Human Resources Policy Institute has awarded $55,000 in grant funding for timely and important research relevant to human resources. These HRPI Research Awards support doctoral students and faculty from across Boston University who are conducting promising early-stage research. Below, we list in alphabetical order the awardees from 2019 and 2020, and the focus of their funded research.
Michel Anteby, Dean’s Research Scholar and Associate Professor of Management & Organizations, is researching the phenomenon of foreign workers paying to work in the United States.
Francois Brochet, Dean’s Research Scholar and Associate Professor of Accounting and Ana Albuquerque, Associate Professor of Accounting, are investigating corporate boardroom diversity and whether gender diversity is associated with increasing corporate social responsibility within organizations.
Patricia Cortes, Associate Professor of Markets, Public Policy and Law, is studying gender inequality, particularly gender differences in the process of negotiating job offers.
Audrey Holm, Lecturer in Management and Organizations, is examining outcomes following the reintroduction of formerly incarcerated individuals into the workplace.
Arunima Krishna, Assistant Professor of Public Relations, seeks to elucidate employees’ perceptual and behavioral reactions to organizational misconduct.
Sanaz Mobasseri, Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations, examines the consequences of alleged workplace misconduct on labor market outcomes of the accused.
Micah Rajunov, doctoral candidate in Management and Organizations, investigates the world of professional gaming and the intersection of digitized life, shorter-term, insecure employment and the blurred relationship between work and non-work.
Eileen Suh, doctoral candidate in Management and Organizations, and Celia Chui, Postdoctoral Fellow in Management and Organizations, are examining masculine organizational cultures and their association with higher levels of corporate misconduct.
Danielle Rousseau, Assistant Professor of Applied Social Sciences, is researching how to accurately measure and effectively utilize employees’ self-reported gender identifies in a global context.
Are you a researcher ready to explore the complex and compelling world of HR?
HRPI puts cutting-edge research to use by sharing insights with top-level HR executives in major corporations. For researchers eager to make waves by impacting contemporary issues in HR, send email to hrpi@bu.edu.
Are you an organization eager to help facilitate more cutting-edge research?
Committed to spreading knowledge? We have that in common. HRPI is committed to finding, funding, and delivering the best research in the HR sphere. Help us redefine research by sponsoring a research project. Email HRPI Assistant Director Sandy Keldsen at zarotney@bu.edu for more information.
Are you an HR executive, Questrom affiliate, or BU community member ready to learn all about the latest in HR topics?
For anyone looking to explore new research, HRPI is a skilled matchmaker in bringing eager minds like you together with brilliant, forward-thinking researchers. For more information, email HRPI Assistant Director Sandy Keldsen at zarotney@bu.edu.