About

Rebecca Kehoe is a Professor of Human Resource Studies at the ILR School at Cornell University. Her research focuses on strategic human resource management, with particular interest in understanding how organizations achieve human resource-based competitive advantage. She examines questions related to the strategic alignment of firms’ HR investments and the role of line managers in HR practice design and implementation. Additionally, her work in human capital explores how star performers influence the learning, performance, and career outcomes of their peers, as well as the factors that shape employees' transitions between jobs and organizations. Her scholarly contributions have been published in prominent journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Personnel Psychology, and ILR Review. She has served as an Associate Editor at Personnel Psychology and has held leadership roles within professional organizations, including the Strategic Human Capital Interest Group within the Strategic Management Society and the HR Division of the Academy of Management, where she is currently the Strategy Lead. Rebecca Kehoe holds a Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. from Cornell University and previously served on the faculty of Rutgers University. She has taught courses in Human Resource Management and Business Strategy.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Business
• Process management
• Finance
• Economic growth
• Economics
• Psychology

Selected publications

• Movin’ and Groovin’! Increased Prior Mobility Facilitates Newcomers’ Transitions Into Organizations

  Academy of Management Journal · 2026-03-19

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Integrating insights from research on newcomer socialization and generalization of learning, we theorize that individuals’ prior mobility across organizations may offer learning opportunities that mitigate the barriers they face as newcomers transitioning into subsequent employment contexts. Building on evidence that individuals experience a temporary decline in performance when they switch employers, we argue that more mobile individuals will experience a smaller performance decline and shorter time to performance recovery following entry into a new employer as they are better equipped to adapt to the norms, values, and expectations of new organizational social contexts. We further theorize that the benefits associated with prior mobility are likely to be greatest when newcomers’ social integration into a new organization is more challenging or more central to their new role. We find overall support for our theory using data on moves made by 8,693 hedge fund managers between 2,129 firms in the U.S. hedge fund industry from 2004 to 2019. We contribute to research on the influence of individuals’ career experiences on their transitions into new organizations, and offer insights to ongoing conversations related to the implications of employees’ investments in firm-specific human capital.

  PublisherDOI

• Turning the Tide: The Impact of Performance Decline on Human Capital Investment

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  articleSenior author

  We investigate how firms adjust human capital investments (HCI) in response to performance declines by integrating insights from the behavioral theory of the firm (BTOF) and prospect theory. We propose and find a curvilinear relationship between magnitude of performance decline and changes in HCI: firms experiencing moderate declines adopt risk-averse strategies, reducing HCI to preserve financial stability, while those facing severe declines take risk-seeking actions, increasing HCI to enable transformational recovery. These patterns are moderated by financial leverage, industry munificence, and product strategy change. Firms with higher financial leverage or operating in low-munificence industries exhibit stronger tendencies to increase HCI during severe declines. Similarly, firms pursuing product strategy change demonstrate greater HCI increases compared to those maintaining the same strategy. Our findings contribute to strategic human resource management (SHRM) and resource management literatures by uncovering the contingent and dynamic nature of firms’ HCI responses to performance decline and the role of contextual factors in shaping these decisions.

  PublisherDOI

• Revisiting Firm-Specific Experience: Implications for Internal Hires’ Selection and Role Transitions

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  articleSenior author

  Internal hires often have an initial performance advantage over external hires due to their firm-specific experience, which includes established colleague networks and familiarity with the firm’s social system. While existing studies typically view firm-specific experience as an advantage that prepares internal hires for success in new positions, this paper explores the unexpected challenges it can present as internal hires transition into new roles. Drawing on Mintzberg’s (1971) analysis of managerial behaviors, we suggest that, when available, managers use shortcuts and heuristics to manage their multifaceted responsibilities. In the hiring context, we propose that managers may be especially inclined to adopt shortcuts in their treatment of internal – relative to external – hires, leading internal hires to experience less formal evaluation in selection, less formal onboarding support, and greater unfamiliar responsibilities in their new roles. Using survey data from over 600 new hires and 200 hiring managers at a large healthcare company, we find support for our predictions that internal hires receive less formal onboarding and face more unfamiliar responsibilities in their new roles, while our prediction regarding formal evaluation is not supported.

  PublisherDOI

• Leveraging Strategic Human Capital for Entrepreneurial Performance

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2024-07-09

  articleSenior author

  Entrepreneurial new ventures harness founders’ and employees’ human capital to enhance performance. Individual knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) aggregate at the firm level to create competitive advantage for new ventures. In this symposium, we bring together four papers that study how individual human capital influences firm-level outcomes. Different types of human capital at different levels of analysis are introduced, thereby highlighting novel mechanisms of how they influence entrepreneurial ventures’ strategy and performance. Cognitive Diversity, Experimentation, and Performance in Early-Stage Ventures Author: Andrea Contigiani; The Ohio State U. Fisher College of Business An Exploration of How Prior Team Experience Shapes Management Practices for Manufacturing Startups Author: Florence E M Honore; U. of Wisconsin, Madison Author: Jungwon Alexander Son; U. of Wisconsin-Madison Hiring, Founder, and Entrepreneurial Innovation Author: Yeojin Kim; U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Workers’ Perceptions of Firm-Specific Human Capital and New Venture Survival Author: Bukky Akinsanmi Oyedeji; London Business School

  PublisherDOI

• New Insights on Employee Mobility: Internal, External, and In Between

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2024-07-09

  article

  Employee mobility scholars have demonstrated a longstanding interest in the performance implications of internal and external hiring. Scholars examining direct comparisons have found that internal hires perform better initially, with external hires eventually closing the performance gap over time. Meanwhile, scholars focusing on the integration of external hires have documented factors (e.g., co-mobility, external social capital, hiring firm capabilities) that ease the performance challenges external hires face as they enter new firm. This symposium presents four papers that extend this work in several ways. First, the papers highlight that the outcomes associated with moves across jobs and firms are heavily shaped by a variety of contextual factors, including organizational strategy and structure, the status dynamics within and between work groups, and the availability of mobility options outside a firm. Additionally, the papers examine the implications of internal and external mobility for a range of outcomes, extending the focus from new hires’ individual job performance (e.g., performance ratings) to include differences in exploratory innovation and new hires’ socialization experiences at the individual level, quality rankings at the law practice level, and workplace accidents at the firm level. The authors of these papers examine their research questions across a variety of empirical contexts (e.g., health care, legal services, multi-business firms) and draw on a variety of data sources, including administrative data, market intelligence data, and company survey data, which collectively provides future scholars with a roadmap of potential options for studying mobility-related questions. The Dark Side of Multi-business Firms: Evidence from Workers’ Accidents in France Author: Rocio Bonet; IE U. Author: Federica De Stefano; HEC Paris Group Factors and the Market for Quality: Examining Mobility of High Caliber Professionals Author: Claudia Gabbioneta; U. of York Author: John Mawdsley; HEC Paris Author: Daniel Muzio; U. of York Two Routes to Get Up to Speed: Comparing Socialization Between Internal and External Hires Author: JR Keller; ILR School @ Cornell U. Author: Rebecca Rheinhardt Kehoe; Cornell U. Author: Joanne Cao; Cornell U. Unleashing Innovation: The Impact of Inventor Mobility on Exploratory Value Creation in Firms Author: Eunkwang Seo; Oklahoma State U. Author: Federico Aime; Oklahoma State U.

  PublisherDOI

• Unpacking the Dynamics of Performance, Status, and Assessed Potential Among Exceptional Employees

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2024-07-09

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Amidst increased awareness of human capital as an important source of competitive advantage, many scholars have recognized that not all employees contribute equally in organizations. This has led researchers to devote increased attention to a few subsets of employees – including stars, high performers, high status individuals, and high potentials – whose contributions tend to attract disproportionate attention and investment in their employing organizations. The resulting lines of inquiry have produced research examining the work-related experiences and outcomes of these exceptional individuals, as well as the favorable and unfavorable influences they exert on their peers. At the heart of many findings on these issues is the operation of cumulative advantage, a phenomenon wherein individuals who attain an early performance- or status-based advantage advance along a path paved with greater opportunities, increased access to resources, and favorable evaluation biases that set the stage for subsequent advantages in attaining continued high performance and recognition. The purpose of this symposium is to unpack the taken-for-granted dynamics of performance, status, and assessed potential (and/or evaluations of performance) among these exceptional employees, with a focus on the distinct influences of each as they relate both to how these individuals come to arrive where they are and how they influence those around them. In turn, the discussion will involve a consideration of how these individuals, their peers, and their broader work environments are most effectively managed to enhance the benefits and minimize the costs associated with the operation of cumulative advantage.

  PublisherDOI

• A call to action: Taking the untenable out of women professors’ pregnancy, postpartum, and caregiving demands

  Industrial and Organizational Psychology · 2023-05-09 · 17 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Despite becoming increasingly represented in academic departments, women scholars face a critical lack of support as they navigate demands pertaining to pregnancy, motherhood, and child caregiving. In addition, cultural norms surrounding how faculty and academic leaders discuss and talk about tenure, promotion, and career success have created pressure for women who wish to grow their family and care for their children, leading to questions about whether it is possible for these women to have a family and an academic career. This paper is a call to action for academia to build structures that support professors who are women as they navigate the complexities of pregnancy, the postpartum period, and the caregiving demands of their children. We specifically call on those of us in I-O psychology, management, and related departments to lead the way. In making this call, we first present the realistic, moral, and financial cases for why this issue needs to be at the forefront of discussions surrounding success in the academy. We then discuss how, in the U.S. and elsewhere, an absence of policies supporting women places two groups of academics—department heads (as the leaders of departments who have discretion outside of formal policies to make work better for women) and other faculty members (as potential allies both in the department and within our professional organizations)—in a critical position to enact support and change. We conclude with our boldest call—to make a cultural shift that shatters the assumption that having a family is not compatible with academic success. Combined, we seek to launch a discussion that leads directly to necessary and overdue changes in how women scholars are supported in academia.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Unpacking the Relationship(s) Between Experience and Performance

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2023-07-24

  article

  Experience is a pervasive concept used in a variety of fields as well as laymen’s conversations. In the management field, the meaning has not only relied on individuals’ work experience but also grown beyond individuals to produce constructs such as teams’ shared experience and organizational-level experience. The richness in the use of experience has led to a variety of meanings, values, and applications for a concept that many scholars and readers might take for granted. Because experience work has spanned research traditions and levels of analysis, scholarly studies can simultaneously build upon one another, exist beside each other, or contradict each other. Therefore, the purpose of this panel symposium is to engage accomplished scholars who have significantly advanced the fields’ view of individual, shared, and/or organizational experience through their research to reflect on their use of experience in research as well as on the assumptions that underlie their research at the individual and/or organizational levels. This reflection and the subsequent moderated discussion aim to uncover the variation in measurement, value, and implications of experience in individuals, teams, and organizations and to better our collective understanding of both the diversity of experience research and its value overall for management scholars. Finally, the panelists will suggest avenues for future research and engage with the audience about promising areas for their work.

  PublisherDOI

• New Avenues for Line Managers’ Agency in the Implementation of HRM Practices

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2023-07-24

  article

  No matter how well designed and intentioned HRM practices are, they amount to little if not properly implemented at the workplace. While the main implementers of HRM will vary, line managers are often at the center of the implementation process (Townsend, Bos-Nehles & Jiang, 2022). They are the “messengers” that translate corporate policies into their work units, crucially shaping employees’ attitudes and behaviors (Townsend, Wilkinson, Allen, & Bamber, 2012; Kehoe & Han, 2020). As noted by Purcell and Hutchinson (2007), employees’ experience of HRM practices “is inexorably linked with their relationship with their FLM [front line manager]” (p. 16) because line managers are regarded as agents of an organization. Thus, in line with this year Annual Meeting’s running theme, whether workers experience being at the front and center of the organization significantly depends on their relationship with their supervisors, and the way line managers take on their HRM responsibilities. Underlying some of the research in this area, there has been the implicit assumption that effective implementation occurs when line managers faithfully and consistently translate corporate policies in the ways they are intended. Traditionally, the literature on HRM implementation has assumed that effective implementation by line managers requires them to closely follow HRM directives. When disconnections have been identified, this has often been framed as line managers’ fault (McGovern et al., 1997), and seen as a problem to be solved in order to increase the strength of the HRM system (Bowen & Ostroff, 2004). While this idea is not inherently wrong, it tends to pay little attention to line managers’ agency in that process, and to the need for workforce differentiation (Kehoe & Han, 2020). It also runs against more recent conceptualizations of implementation, which explicitly acknowledge its malleable nature, emphasizing variability in the way in which different actors directly or indirectly influence how a particular policy is used (Bondarouk, Trullen, & Valverde, 2018; Trullen, Bos-Nehles, & Valverde, 2020). Line managers may not only implement HRM in a narrow sense, but also complement, edit, and innovate in delivering HRM to their work units, modifying their HRM-related decisions as they see fit (Bos-Nehles, Bondarouk, & Labrenz, 2017). Understanding line managers’ agency in HRM thus goes hand in hand with more nuanced and less linear perspectives on implementation (Brandl, Keegan & Kozica, 2021), which can acknowledge managers not as passive recipients or mere conduits of practices, but as active shapers embedded in particular cultural and political contexts (López-Cotarelo, 2018; Kurdi-Nakra & Pak, 2022). In this symposium we will aim to find answers to the following questions: How much agency should line managers get in the implementation of HRM practices? What factors influence line managers’ implementation behaviors and with what consequences? And how do line managers’ relationships with other actors (mainly HR and employees) affect implementation outcomes? The four papers in this symposium will address these questions from different angles. The first two papers will look at line managers’ implementation behaviors as well as potential antecedents and consequences of those behaviors by means of 1) a systematic review of the literature on line managers and HRM implementation and 2) an in-depth exploratory study of variation in manangers’ implementation of scheduling practices and its impact on performance. The next two papers will address the relevance of line managers’ connection with other actors in implementing practices by 3) testing in a vignette experiment how employees react to implementation messages received from different sources - including the line - and 4) showing how HR and line managers mutually negotiate and socially construct the meaning of effective implementation at different stages of the implementation process. Because of the different methodologies and theoretical perspectives adopted and the common focus of study, this symposium has the potential to offer interesting avenues for future research in this area. The ‘What, When and How’ of Line Managers’ Involvement in HRM implementation: Author: Aneeqa Suhail; Human Resource Studies, Tilburg U. Author: Jeske Van Beurden; Tilburg U. Author: Anna C. Bos-Nehles; U. of Twente Local managerial cultures, variation in HRM management practice implementation Author: Alex Kowalski; ILR at Cornell Communicating HRM practices: a vignette experiment on different HRM communicators Author: Renee Vermeulen; Utrecht U., Utrecht U. School of Governance Author: Carina Schott; Utrecht U., School of Governance Author: Eva Knies; Utrecht U. Toward a relational view of HRM implementation:building social relationship between HR and the line Author: Shuichi Moritani; Kwansei Gakuin U., School of Business Administration

  PublisherDOI

• Employee Perceptions of HR Practices: A Focus on HR Salience

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2023-07-24

  article

  Strategic human resource management (SHRM) research has shown that employees’ perceptions of human resource (HR) practices, rather than the implemented HR practices as rated by managers influence employees’ behavior and outcomes. Despite the indications of the importance of employee perceptions of HR practices, we still have a limited understanding of the influence of the salience of HR practices on how employees evaluate and respond to HR practices. Accordingly, the set of papers in this symposium aims to shed light on (1) the employee perspective on HR salience, i.e., the temporality issues concerning HR practice salience for individual employees and the role of HR practice salience in influencing employee perceptions of HR practices and employee outcomes and (2) the employer perspective on HR salience, i.e., the salience of HR systems and its impact on employee outcomes. Collectively the papers suggest that HR salience plays an important role in how employees experience and react to HR practices. The Paths of HR Salience: Understanding Employee Perceptions of HRM Practices Over Time Author: Sargam Garg; California State U. Sacramento Line Manager and Employee Perceptions of HRM and Employee Commitment: The Role of HR Salience Author: Jeske Van Beurden; Tilburg U. Author: Karina Van De Voorde; Tilburg U. Author: Marc Van Veldhoven; Tilburg U. HR salience: Beware of shifting tides Author: Adelle Bish; North Carolina A&T State U. Author: Frances Jorgensen; Royal Roads U. Relationships between HPWS, HR attributions and employee wellbeing and performance Author: Manh Dao; Nottingham Trent U. Author: Helen Shipton; Human Resources Author: Daniel King; Nottingham Trent U. Author: Hoa Do; Aston U. Team-level HPWS and engagement. The moderating roles of emotional and cognitive trust in the leaders Author: Madleen Meier-Barthold; Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus U. Author: Kerstin Alfes; ESCP Business School Author: Adrian Ritz; U. of Bern

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Frederick Scott Bentley

  University of Delaware

  25 shared

• Christopher J. Collins

  14 shared

• Patrick M. Wright

  University of South Carolina

  8 shared

• Daniel Tzabbar

  Drexel University

  7 shared

• Gina Dokko

  University of California, Davis

  7 shared

• Rhett Andrew Brymer

  7 shared

• Joonyoung Kim

  University of Missouri

  6 shared

• JR Keller

  Cornell University

  6 shared

Labs

• The ILR SchoolPI