The effects of managerial turnover on employee performance

Introduction Managers are a crucial ingredient of a well-functioning team. Thus, managerial turnover is critical for teams worldwide and of all sizes. Moreover, the teams themselves are becoming increasingly diverse and international, which poses a major challenge for managers. Managing a team b...

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Main Authors: Marco Henriques Pereira, Helmut Max Dietl, Markus Lang, Johannes Orlowski
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Bern Open Publishing 2023-02-01
Series:Current Issues in Sport Science
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ciss-journal.org/article/view/9372
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author Marco Henriques Pereira
Helmut Max Dietl
Markus Lang
Johannes Orlowski
author_facet Marco Henriques Pereira
Helmut Max Dietl
Markus Lang
Johannes Orlowski
author_sort Marco Henriques Pereira
collection DOAJ
description Introduction Managers are a crucial ingredient of a well-functioning team. Thus, managerial turnover is critical for teams worldwide and of all sizes. Moreover, the teams themselves are becoming increasingly diverse and international, which poses a major challenge for managers. Managing a team becomes even more challenging when new managers take over a team they do not yet know. This article examines the effects of managerial turnover on employee performance by considering the tradeoff that originates from these two managers’ responsibilities. The tradeoff exists between the employees’ work quality, depending on the task allocation, and the employees’ exerted work, depending on employee motivation. We measure performance not on a team but on an individual employee level. To overcome the obstacles in measuring the individual employee’s performance, we focus on the sports industry, in which the performance of employees is highly measurable and comparable. On the one hand, to measure how efficiently managers allocate tasks, we look at pass accuracy. On the other hand, to measure how effectively managers motivate their employees, we look at distance covered, runs, and sprints performed. Methods To explore how managerial turnover affects individual employee performance, we built a unique 7-year panel dataset consisting of performance, game, and contextual data of 1,284 players playing across 2,141 German first soccer division (Bundesliga) games covering the seasons 2011/2012 to 2017/2018. The final sample contains 29,962 player-game observations for a total of 929 players. Using four fixed effects instrumental variable regression models, we uncover the causal relationship between managerial turnover on the one hand and employee performance on the other hand. Results The results demonstrate that managerial turnover negatively affects work quality because new managers allocate tasks less efficiently. Moreover, the results demonstrate that managerial turnover positively affects employees’ efforts because new managers motivate more effectively. By combining arguments of the human capital theory, the social capital theory, and the principal-agent theory, we can theoretically explain these opposing effects and the inconclusive past results. Discussion/Conclusion The contributions of this article to the existing body of literature on the effects of managerial turnover are twofold. First, this article is the first to examine the effects of managerial turnover on the individual level rather than overall team performance. Second, we split the individual employee performance into work quality and effort and connect these performance categories with two prominent managers’ responsibilities allowing a better understanding of the relationship between managerial turnover and employee performance and explaining previous theoretical and empirical research’s inconclusive findings. The results have important implications for human resource management.
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spelling doaj.art-6e740cab5e2a478f84aafdbadd0e99112023-02-16T03:15:16ZengBern Open PublishingCurrent Issues in Sport Science2414-66412023-02-018210.36950/2023.2ciss078The effects of managerial turnover on employee performanceMarco Henriques Pereira0Helmut Max Dietl1Markus Lang2Johannes Orlowski3University of Zurich, SwitzerlandUniversity of Zurich, SwitzerlandUniversity of Lausanne, SwitzerlandUniversity of Zurich, Switzerland Introduction Managers are a crucial ingredient of a well-functioning team. Thus, managerial turnover is critical for teams worldwide and of all sizes. Moreover, the teams themselves are becoming increasingly diverse and international, which poses a major challenge for managers. Managing a team becomes even more challenging when new managers take over a team they do not yet know. This article examines the effects of managerial turnover on employee performance by considering the tradeoff that originates from these two managers’ responsibilities. The tradeoff exists between the employees’ work quality, depending on the task allocation, and the employees’ exerted work, depending on employee motivation. We measure performance not on a team but on an individual employee level. To overcome the obstacles in measuring the individual employee’s performance, we focus on the sports industry, in which the performance of employees is highly measurable and comparable. On the one hand, to measure how efficiently managers allocate tasks, we look at pass accuracy. On the other hand, to measure how effectively managers motivate their employees, we look at distance covered, runs, and sprints performed. Methods To explore how managerial turnover affects individual employee performance, we built a unique 7-year panel dataset consisting of performance, game, and contextual data of 1,284 players playing across 2,141 German first soccer division (Bundesliga) games covering the seasons 2011/2012 to 2017/2018. The final sample contains 29,962 player-game observations for a total of 929 players. Using four fixed effects instrumental variable regression models, we uncover the causal relationship between managerial turnover on the one hand and employee performance on the other hand. Results The results demonstrate that managerial turnover negatively affects work quality because new managers allocate tasks less efficiently. Moreover, the results demonstrate that managerial turnover positively affects employees’ efforts because new managers motivate more effectively. By combining arguments of the human capital theory, the social capital theory, and the principal-agent theory, we can theoretically explain these opposing effects and the inconclusive past results. Discussion/Conclusion The contributions of this article to the existing body of literature on the effects of managerial turnover are twofold. First, this article is the first to examine the effects of managerial turnover on the individual level rather than overall team performance. Second, we split the individual employee performance into work quality and effort and connect these performance categories with two prominent managers’ responsibilities allowing a better understanding of the relationship between managerial turnover and employee performance and explaining previous theoretical and empirical research’s inconclusive findings. The results have important implications for human resource management. https://ciss-journal.org/article/view/9372managerial turnovermanagerial skillsemployee performancesports management
spellingShingle Marco Henriques Pereira
Helmut Max Dietl
Markus Lang
Johannes Orlowski
The effects of managerial turnover on employee performance
Current Issues in Sport Science
managerial turnover
managerial skills
employee performance
sports management
title The effects of managerial turnover on employee performance
title_full The effects of managerial turnover on employee performance
title_fullStr The effects of managerial turnover on employee performance
title_full_unstemmed The effects of managerial turnover on employee performance
title_short The effects of managerial turnover on employee performance
title_sort effects of managerial turnover on employee performance
topic managerial turnover
managerial skills
employee performance
sports management
url https://ciss-journal.org/article/view/9372
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