Strategic Human Capital
Description
My research focuses on the links between managerial background, job attributes, organizational/firm characteristics, and firm performance. Broadly speaking, I am interested in how a manager's skills, knowledge, connections, experiences, and other attributes interact with the firm and industry environment and shape outcomes (both for the firm and the manager).
To study these questions, I assembled a proprietary database of the complete coaching staffs of every National Football League franchise, from 1970-2007 (and is currently updating the data through the 2009 season). The data includes the coaches' demographic details and the coaches' non-NFL coaching positions prior to their final NFL job, and it incorporates team performance and player performance data.
In a paper examining the performance teams with relative strength or weakness in the area of expertise of a newly-hired head coach ("Hiring for Strength, Hiring for Weakness"), I find that performance suffers when teams hire a head coach whose background (offensive or defensive) is in the area of relatively weaker performance.
In a related project, I have worked with Professor Boris Groysberg on a paper exploring how military experience shapes the creation of strategic human capital, impacting CEOs' later performance in different firm and industry environments (forthcoming in the Harvard Business Review). The paper identifies salient differences in the managerial environment of the elements of armed services (Army, Navy, Air Force, etc.) and links these differences to the development of strategic human capital.
I am also in early stages of work on the following projects:
- A paper examining the impact of sequences of positions and experiences on later performance in leadership roles (using the NFL coaching data).
- A study of hiring, performance evaluation, compensation, advancement, and exit for managers a large consumer packaging firm (with Professor Boris Groysberg) using archival data provided by the firm.
- A longitudinal study of the adoption of senior management positions and structures, firm and industry characteristics, and firm performance (with Professor Julie Wulf) using archival data on the evolution of senior management hierarchies of Fortune 500 firms over a 15 year period.