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“For a Mess of Pottage”··: Incentivizing Creative Employees Toward Improved Competitiveness

May 19, 2013

 I.  Introduction Managing employees’ talent, promoting innovation, and improving productivity are critical challenges for organizations. Creative employees and the innovative products they develop can make a tremendous contribution to an organization’s success and competitive position.[1]  While employed inventors play an extremely important role in the production of an organization’s technological innovations, they are often either unrewarded or insufficiently rewarded for their achievements.[2] The analysis and ...

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Labor Rights, Associate Duties, and Transnational Production Chains

May 1, 2013

I. Introduction In this article we propose to contribute to the philosophical debate on global justice by viewing labor relations as a type of association which implies moral commitments among its participants. We argue that such a view of associative duties justifies a cosmopolitan approach to labor standards, calling for the regulation and enforcement of labor rights beyond the limited borders of the nation-state. Since the 1980s, the debate on global justice has by and large focused on the question of whether th...

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Workplace Violence: Why Every State Must Adopt a Comprehensive Workplace Violence Prevention Law

April 13, 2013

On August 24, 2012, a fired clothing designer gunned down a former co-worker outside the Empire State Building in New York City.[1] The violent act was the culmination of built up tension between two former co-workers.[2] Their anger towards one another had already resulted in at least one physical confrontation at work that led to both men filing police reports against each other.[3] This case is an extreme example of workplace violence; however, workplace violence takes many forms and occurs with great regularity...

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  • “For a Mess of Pottage”··: Incentivizing Creative Employees Toward Improved Competitiveness
  • Labor Rights, Associate Duties, and Transnational Production Chains
  • Workplace Violence: Why Every State Must Adopt a Comprehensive Workplace Violence Prevention Law

The Benefit of Adopting Comprehensive Standards of Monitoring Employee Technology Use in the Workplace

September 22, 2012

With the explosion of technology has come the opportunity for nearly all aspects of everyone’s life to be monitored.  A phone GPS can detect a person’s whereabouts at any time; keystroke monitors can record anything a person types on a keyboard; cameras can, and do, monitor movements in schools, stores, parking lots, homes, and many [...]

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May the Best (Looking) Man Win: the Unconscious Role of Attractiveness in Employment Decisions

February 14, 2013

In 1972, Karen Dion, Ellen Berscheid, and Elaine Walster set out to determine whether people hold “stereotyped notions of the personality traits possessed by individuals of varying attractiveness.”[1] Their study provided participants with photographs of subjects previously classified as attractive, moderately attractive, or unattractive and asked them to record their impressions of each.[2] The results [...]

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Personality Tests in Employment Selection: Use With Caution

January 26, 2013

Many employers utilize personality tests in the employment selection process to identify people who have more than just the knowledge and skills necessary to be successful in their jobs.[1] If anecdotes are to be believed—Dilbert must be getting at something or the cartoon strip would not be so popular—the work place is full of people [...]

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The Future of Human Resources: Shifting to a Network Driven Approach

January 4, 2013

Introduction As companies continue to thrive in a global context, the nature of work and organizational relationships will grow increasingly complex.  Initiatives will span across traditional functional and geographical boundaries, heightening the need for greater knowledge sharing and collaboration.  With a higher premium placed on achieving flexibility and agility, organizations that rely on strong internal [...]

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Maternity and Paternity Leave: A Guided Approach for Employers With Employees Utilizing Surrogate Births and Other Reproductive Methods

December 11, 2012

Forty-one-year-old mother Ms. Kara Krill (“Krill”) filed suit[1] in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts on August 26, 2011 against her former employer, Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Cubist), for refusing to provide Krill with certain fringe employment benefits, including “thirteen weeks of paid maternity leave for the birth and care of a [...]

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Reputation Insurance: Why Negotiating for Moral Reciprocity Should Emerge as a Much Needed Source of Protection for the Employee

November 23, 2012

In March 2011 the Warner Brothers television studio made headlines when it terminated its employment contract with Charlie Sheen for the hit television show Two and A Half Men. Sheen was terminated after going on a public tirade that included several well-publicized drug binges as well as making allegedly anti-Semitic comments about the show’s executive [...]

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Leading Through Transition: Human Capital Strategy for Mergers and Acquisitions

November 5, 2012

As the official coverage provider, the Cornell HR Review covered the keynote and panel discussions at the Human Capital Association’s (HCA) 10th Annual Symposium. The HCA is a student-run organization within Cornell University’s S.C. Johnson School of Management and School of Industrial and Labor Relations. The organization strives to drive the future of the HR [...]

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Use of Social Media in Employment: Should I Fire? Should I Hire?

October 30, 2012

It used to be that writing on someone’s wall would get you in trouble, tweets were only for the birds, and poking was rude.  The advent of social media has revolutionized the way we communicate as a society, and wireless technologies allow us to do so faster than we ever thought possible.  The lines between [...]

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The Duplicity of Talent: A Delicate Balance of Critical Leadership Competencies

October 9, 2012

In 1961, Americans raved about the Machiavellian office politics play entitled How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.  The satirist production follows the journey of a newly hired and eager young man, J. Finch, who rises from the mailroom to the top of the corporate ladder in a matter of days. Although not equipped [...]

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