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 in:Personnel psychology 2003-12, Vol.56 (4), p.965-993
Main Authors: FULMER, INGRID SMITHEY, GERHART, BARRY, SCOTT, KIMBERLY S.
Format: Article
Language:English
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
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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.
ISSN:0031-5826
1744-6570
DOI:10.1111/j.1744-6570.2003.tb00246.x