Human capital and strategic persistence: An examination of underperforming workers in two emerging economies

Joseph Amankwah-Amoah, Simeon Ifere and Richard Nyuur

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Despite the considerable research on strategic persistence, there remains a lack of understanding as to why companies persist with underperforming workers. Our study seeks to fill this gap in the literature by integrating the concepts of the paradox of success, external legitimacy, nepotism and the escalation of commitment perspectives to develop an integrated explanation for persistence with underperforming workers. Drawing on insights from two emerging economies in Africa: Ghana and Nigeria, we uncovered that persistence with underperforming workers stem from information hoarding, favouritism through tribalism and externally imposed constraints. Our study also articulates the underlying processes inherent in such persistence. The wider implications for theory and public policy are examined.

Keywords: Africa; underperforming employees; human capital; underperforming workers; talent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L1 L3 L38 M0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Forthcoming in Journal of Business Research (2016): pp. 1-36

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/71629/1/MPRA_paper_71629.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:71629

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().