Dr. Liat Eldor is an Associate Professor at Coller Business School at Tel Aviv University after completing a post-doc research position at Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania.
I study how modern features of HR practices and new work arrangements affect organization-level outcomes related to business performance. In my research models, I apply OB theories and concepts at the organizational level to address contemporary challenges in managing people and new developments in HR practices such as non-standard arrangements of work, and work engagement and leadership issues in the gig economy.
To conduct my research, I employ a wide range of data methodologies, including panel-data, longitudinal measures, and experimental assessments. I obtain these data through close collaborations with leading business organizations such as Tata, TCS, Uber, as well as public agencies. The contexts span from leading retail chains to global high-tech companies and service organizations. I use a wide array of - quantitative and qualitative- methods, including multi-level hierarchical and FX models, Kernel regressions, economics-based techniques, field experiments, interviews, and advanced AI-based Large Language Models (LLMs) text analysis.
Focusing on the topic of work engagement in my PhD studies, my interest in coming to the Wharton School as a Post-Doctoral Fellow, supervised by Prof. Peter Cappelli, was to develop HR expertise that uses my OB academic background and to transition to studies that were closer to business and organizational phenomena and to HR practices. This transition is evident in my publications in recent years as an assistant professor at Coller Management School at Tel Aviv University.
In my Academy of Management Journal paper “Agent Temps Hurt Business Performance,”, I integrate social identity theory with the topic of non-standard work arrangements to examine the now common blended workplace, where standard employees work alongside temporary agency workers. In contrast to the prevailing assertion that the use of an agency workforce benefits organizations by allowing them to respond faster to changing market conditions, I find greater use of agency temps actually hurts business performance. A novel feature of this study is that it has robust measures not only of sales at the organization level but also of the quality of customer services as assessed by secret shoppers. I examine these relationships using panel data of a range of employee and organization-level sources over four years from a retail chain.
The explanation for this relationship is that agency workers have a negative effect on the identification that regular employees have with their workplace (using social identity theory and status-based argument) which, in turn, reduces their performance and that of the organizations where they work. Applying OB theories from the diversity literature about blurring boundaries between racial groups, I also introduce two workplace-level buffering strategies, one business-oriented (shared instrumental values), and the other social (integration practices) that moderate the detrimental effects of a blended workplace on the identification of standard employees and business performance.
In my co-authored theoretical paper, “The Use of Contracts of Employees: Their Widespread Use and The Implications for Management”, published in Academy of Management Annals, I study the increasing use of contractual practices (typically used in non-standard work employments), such as noncompete agreements and mandatory arbitration clauses in traditional organizational settings. In this paper, I argue that this phenomenon is far more common in conventional employment than acknowledged academically; yet understudied in the management literature. I identify the various contracting arrangements now imposed on regular employees and their effects and implications, as well as what happens when these two systems—contracting and traditional-- operate at the same time in organizations, an increasingly common phenomenon nowadays.
My solo-authored paper “Leading by Doing”, published in Academy of Management Journal, introduces the concept of leading by doing. I explore whether leading by doing, where leaders actually manifest the desired behaviors rather than simply telling subordinates what to do, is more effective in cultivating firm-level engagement and productivity. While the idea of leading by doing is commonly advocated in practice, perhaps surprisingly, there have been no empirical studies testing it nor any efforts to establish it as an academic construct. This study is also novel in that, while most research on the effects of leadership has focused on the employee/individual level, my study looks at organization-level outcomes. In this solo-authored paper, I argue and demonstrate that leading by doing is distinct from other verbally-oriented leadership approaches such as charismatic leadership- where the leader articulates the desired expectations but does not illustrate them in an observable way. Using three-time-point panel data derived from different sources, the findings provide evidence that leading by example improves firm-level work engagement and productivity after taking into account the potential influence of other leadership characteristics.
My solo-authored paper “The Effect of Organizational Authenticity on Employees’ Performance: Evidence from A field Experiment”, recently accepted in Journal of Management continues my interest in integrating OB theories and concepts with important HR practices, this time using a field experiment to study the effect of organizational authenticity on performance outcomes. Whereas most organizational, HR practices try to communicate the positive attributes of the organization, I propose that expressing organizational authenticity, that represents both the favorable and less favorable attributes of life in the organization, would lead to greater organizational effectiveness. In contrast to this traditional ‘strength-based’ approach, my field experiment in a global high-tech company (Tata Consultancy Service), demonstrates that organizational authenticity—emphasizing both favorable and less favorable attributes— enhances long-lasting performance and organizational effectiveness. I measure performance at four-time points: at the beginning of intervention (T1), at end of one-month training (T2+T3), and four months on the job (T4).
Current & Future Research
Building on these contributions, my ongoing and future research focuses on advancing OB theories and HR models (e.g., Yukl’s leadership taxonomy, Franch & Raben’s model of power), developed for traditional workplaces, by studying how they fit for non-conventional workforces and new work contexts.
For example, I lead a lab exploring engagement, leadership, and power in gig economy settings and nonstandard work dynamics, where two PhD students from Tel Aviv University/Coller School collaborate and work closely with PhD students from the University of Pennsylvania and India Institute of Science. We employ qualitative methods (e.g., interviews with 200 gig workers in India and the USA). We also employ quantitative techniques (e.g., AI-based text analysis of WhatsApp chats and gig forums). We analyze content, tone, and structure using cutting edge methods such as LLMs, fine tuning, clustering, LDA, and network analysis. We use Python coding to train AI sophisticated models to identify nuanced incidents and unique characteristics in large scale of data (3 million records). The project is funded by the Israeli Scientific Foundation for three years as well as by Wharton Center for Human Resources & Wharton People Analytics. The first paper is already accepted to 2025 Academy of Management Conference and EURAM Conference and is under review process in Administrative Quarterly Science, another is under writing stage, while other models are at analyzing stage.
I am also involved with faculty colleagues and post doc students at Wharton with a large-scale project with a U.S.-based high-tech company to identify the most effective HR practices for enhancing organizational engagement in remote working modes. Collaborating closely with their HR department, we intend to analyze 10-year, HR-based data (e.g., various performance metrics, absenteeism, PTOs, perks) and text-based data (e.g., Slack messages, managerial feedback records). We then intend to run field experiments in the company to establish causal links between the proposed HR practices and organizational outcomes. I plan to involve 2 PhD students from Tel Aviv University/Coller Business School in this project.
I am currently engaged in mixed method- experimental field and qualitative- research projects at a multi-national technology corporation, which aim at rethinking its leadership strategy by replacing human leadership with algorithmic management/AI in daily leadership responsibilities. The focus is on how AI-based leadership can be effectively implemented well as scaled in large, multicultural settings.
My research integrates theories and models from OB with challenges in HR and employment relations, offering actionable solutions for contemporary organizational challenges. Through advanced methodologies, cross national and inter-university collaborations, and a focus on impactful questions, I aim to advance theoretical knowledge in the management field and contribute to organizational practice.
