In With the Old? Examining When Boomerang Employees Outperform New Hires

Keller, JR; Kehoe, Rebecca R.; Bidwell, Matthew; Collings, David G.; Myer, Adam T.

doi:10.5465/amj.2019.1340

Cited by 23 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 81 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Despite the popular perception among HR and recruitment professionals that boomerangs should outperform other employees in general (c.f. Apy & Ryckman, 2014; Brin, 2018; Flesher, 2017; Grensing‐Pophal, 2020; HR Exchange, 2019; Nelson, 2016), our null performance findings between boomerangs and internal hires are consistent with findings from retail (Arnold et al, in press) and healthcare settings (Keller et al, in press). In addition, when Swider et al (2017) compared boomerang athletes to a narrow subset of stayers with similar career timelines, they also found that boomerangs did not perform as well as the stayers.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

“…Keller et al (in press) report, however, that boomerangs outperform external hires in jobs that require greater cooperation, concern for others, and social orientation, hypothesizing the reason for this is the advantage conferred by familiarity with the organization's social system. We offer an additional explanation, which is that these types of jobs would particularly suit employees who engage in greater extra‐role behaviors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Past research on white‐collar boomerangs has found they are more likely to have left their organization earlier in their tenure than those who quit and did not return, and were more likely to have left for personal reasons (e.g., relocating for a spouse or taking care of a sick parent) or alternate job opportunities than because of job dissatisfaction (Shipp et al, 2014). Boomerangs also tended to return relatively quickly (Keller et al, in press) and were frequently re‐recruited by a former colleague (Shipp et al, 2014).…”

Section: Conceptual Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, given their understanding of the organization they are (re)joining, boomerang employees could mitigate some of the costs of information asymmetries and time investment required to recruit and socialize other external talent (Bidwell, 2011). Second, boomerangs have been shown to be better performers when they gained practical experience in the interim firm (Swider, Liu, Harris, & Gardner, 2017), and outperformed other external hires when they were placed in roles that involve relational demands and administrative coordination (Keller, Kehoe, Bidwell, Collings, & Myer, in press). Third, boomerangs bring knowledge and networks from interim employment, which should give them an advantage over internal hires (Bruque, Moyano, & Piccolo, 2016), although enhanced performance compared to internal hires has not yet been found in other samples of boomerangs (Arnold, Van Iddekinge, Campion, Bauer, & Campion, in press; Swider et al, 2017).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Third, we build on the theoretical talent management model presented by Collings and Mellahi (2009) by suggesting that the boomerangs' ability to rebuild their psychological contract may explain why different groups within the labor pool (i.e., stayers and boomerangs) report different outcomes. Finally, we expand on the model of boomerang performance (Arnold et al, in press; Keller et al, in press; Swider et al, 2017) to identify other benefits that accrue to boomerang employees such as increased compensation, enhanced job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and greater time spent on extra‐role behaviors.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Hello again: Managing talent with boomerang employees

Snyder

Stewart

Shea

2020

Human Resource Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Boomerang employees—previous employees who return to an organization after an absence—offer unique value in the talent pool, representing external employees with internal job experience. Utilizing a sample from a professional services firm in the United States, we draw from the literature on talent management and renegotiated psychological contracts to compare the compensation, satisfaction, commitment, and performance of boomerangs to similar employees who never left the firm. We find that reentry yields improvements in compensation, satisfaction, and organizational commitment for boomerangs relative to matched internal employees. Archival analysis of hours worked reveals that boomerangs spend significantly more hours on extra‐role projects rather than in‐role billable client hours. Boomerang performance is, however, on par with that of matched internal employees who never left the firm. Implications for adopting a boomerang talent management strategy and the renegotiation of disrupted psychological contracts are discussed.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Conceptual Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Hello again: Managing talent with boomerang employees

Snyder

Stewart

Shea

2020

Human Resource Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Finding the right path to the top: How past interorganizational moves impact executive selection outcomes

Won

Bidwell

2023

Strategic Management Journal

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research summaryExecutives are a critical strategic resource but often build careers across multiple organizations. We explore how firms value that interorganizational mobility by studying executive selection. We suggest that hiring firms will value the diverse experience and adaptability that past mobility across organizations fosters, but that prior mobility can also signal a higher retention risk or lack of competency. Using data from an executive search firm, we employ search‐fixed effects model and structural equation models to estimate candidates' probabilities of receiving a job offer. We find that candidates' prior mobility indirectly increases their chances of being hired by increasing their functional diversity and reducing their tenure with their employer below 10 years. Net of these effects, prior mobility has a negative effect on hiring.Managerial summaryExecutives are increasingly building their careers across organizations. How do prospective employers evaluate their records of past moves when they are considered as external hires? We propose that by moving firms, individuals can accumulate diverse experience and become more adaptable, but employers may be concerned about retention or performance issues for those with records of frequent moves. Using executive search data, we find that prior mobility is valuable to the extent that it builds diverse functional experience; once it is accounted for, we find that prior mobility decreases the likelihood of receiving an offer. Further, staying at the same employer for 10 years or longer is unfavorable due to employers' concerns about adaptability and firm‐specific skills. Our survey of fifty‐four CHROs resonates with these findings.

show abstract

Different people, different pathways: Human capital redeployment in multi‐business firms

Sabel

Sasson

2023

Strategic Management Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research SummaryMulti‐business firms redeploy human capital to strengthen individual business units. However, we know little about the antecedents of such redeployments and their effects on unit outcomes. Contributing to the resource redeployment and strategic human capital literatures, we test the relationships between parent–unit industry relatedness, the direction of redeployment (parent‐to‐unit and unit‐to‐parent), the type of human capital, the likelihood of redeployment, and post‐redeployment unit closure. Using Norwegian population‐level microdata of spinouts, we find that parent–unit industry relatedness increases the likelihood of human capital redeployment and that this effect is stronger for generalists than for specialists. Further, we find that parent‐to‐unit and unit‐to‐parent redeployment of generalists and specialists have distinct effects on unit closure, largely because of differences in post‐redeployment unit performance.Managerial SummaryFirms with multiple business units often transfer employees between units to strengthen them. However, we do not know which employees are more likely to be sent and which employees, if any, affect the receiving unit's survival and performance. Analyzing over 9000 spinouts in Norway between 2004 and 2015, we find that employees are more likely to be sent when the parent and the unit are in related industries. We further show that employees with specialized professional knowledge are sent regardless of relatedness, while generalists are sent when industries are related. Regarding post‐transfer unit survival, we find that parent‐to‐unit and unit‐to‐parent redeployment of generalists and specialists have distinct effects on survival, largely because of differences in the impact on post‐transfer unit performance.

show abstract

In With the Old? Examining When Boomerang Employees Outperform New Hires

Cited by 23 publications

References 81 publications

Hello again: Managing talent with boomerang employees

Hello again: Managing talent with boomerang employees

Finding the right path to the top: How past interorganizational moves impact executive selection outcomes

Different people, different pathways: Human capital redeployment in multi‐business firms

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About