HR systems,attachment styles with leaders,and the creativity–innovation nexus

The aim of this paper is to bring together literature on strategic human resource management and leadership and theorize about their cross-level interplay. Specifically, we offer propositions in relation to the interactive influence of attachment styles that followers perceive to have developed in their dyadic relationship with their leaders/supervisors and HR systems on individual innovation processes. We narrow in on three leadership attachment styles perceived by employees (secure, anxious, and avoidant) and two opposite HR systems in organizations (compliance and commitment) in order to propose that their interactions have different roles in predicting two different elements of employees' innovative work behavior: idea generation and idea implementation behaviors. Our theorizing results in a conceptual model and a matrix of 12 specific propositions about potentially promoting (complementing or positively supplementing) or inhibiting (in the case of no fit or negative supplement) multiple effects of different combinations of attachment styles and HR systems. We conclude by discussing suggestions for future research, methodological considerations, and practical implications.     

Leadership development in selected leading Thai companies

This research examined leadership development (LD) and leadership development programs (LDPs) in three selected Thai businesses. The research purpose was to identify and explore the features, leaders' competencies, activities and programs, key elements, and critical issues of LDP in these organizations. A case‐study approach was employed as the research method. The data were collected through company documents, questionnaires, and interviews of managers who were directly responsible for leadership development in their organization. Three levels of LDPs were commonly found among the studied companies: those organized for supervisors, managers, and executives. Leaders' competencies were derived from the companies' vision, mission, and values, business drivers, and top management judgment. Development activities included formal training, development activities, and self‐initiative undertakings. Common key elements of LDPs were support from top management, adherence to human resource development (HRD) and business strategic plans, and emphasis on coaching and mentoring. The critical issues included top management trust in employees' abilities; competence and independence of local internal staff; evaluation of LDP effectiveness; level of engagement by potential company leaders; and costs of building, executing, and evaluating LDP.     

Human Resource Management Practices and Trust in Public Organizations

Abstract

Trust has been acknowledged as a valuable managerial resource within organizations. Working as a lubricant of organizational functioning, trust reduces opportunistic behaviours while it increases voluntary compliance to organizational norms and rules as well as enhancing individual and organizational performance. Considering the importance of trust, it is worthwhile to explore what factors may help build trust within organizations. This research investigates whether perceptions of several human resource management (HRM) practices are associated with trust in government organizations. According to social exchange theory, HRM practices signal management's commitment to employees which in turn leads to greater trust in the organization. Using data from an employee survey conducted for the Georgia Department of Transportation in 2007, this research tests how employee perceptions of HRM practices are related to trust in three distinct levels of management in a large department of state government: trust in department leadership, trust in one's leadership team, and trust in one's supervisor. Binary logit analyses suggest that perceptions of HRM practices focusing on autonomy, compensation, communication, performance appraisal, and career development are associated with trust in public organizations. According to the result, those practices present variation in their leverage on trust in leadership at different levels.     

Committed to the organization or the job? Effects of perceived HRM practices on employees' behavioral outcomes in the Japanese healthcare industry

This paper attempts to document how employees' perceptions of organizations' human resource management (HRM) practices influence their work behavior and outcomes, including the level of turnover intentions and job quality improvement, in a Japanese organizational and management context. In particular, an examination was made to clarify the mediating role of person–environment (P–E) fit and multiple aspects of work commitment to reach possible explanations of the relationships between perceived HRM practices and employees' behavioral outcomes, following recent work that studied the above linkages. The results of structural equation modeling using a sample of 1052 healthcare service employees in Japan provided basic support for the idea that the effects of HRM practices and employees' behavioral outcomes are neither direct nor unconditional. Moreover, employees' evaluations of their fit and commitment to their organizations were found to be the important mediators of the relationships between perceived HRM practices, while their evaluations of their fit to and involvement in their jobs were not. The findings are used to discuss why the specific forms of P–E fit and work commitment appear salient in Japanese organizations. The generalizability of the findings and the limitations of the study are discussed.     

Trust in the employer: the role of high-involvement work practices and procedural justice in European organizations

Despite the central role of trust in the organizational sciences, we know little about what makes people trust the organizations they work for. This paper examines the antecedents of employees' trust in their organizations drawing on survey data from over 600 European professional workers and managers. The results revealed direct as well as indirect relationships of both human resource (HR) practices and procedural justice with trust. The relationships of both HR practices and procedural justice with trust were partially mediated by perceptions of organizational trustworthiness (in terms of perceived ability and trustworthy intentions of the organization). Justice and HR practices were also found to interact such that justice forms a stronger predictor of trust in organizations when HR practices are less developed. In addition, employees' dispositional propensity to trust explained significant variance in employee trust in their organization, even when it was controlled in our analysis. The implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed.     

Employees' Nonwork Obligations and Organizational Commitments: A New Way to Look at the Relationships

The authors 1 adopted a family resource view of nonwork obligations and examined these obligations' relationships to dimensions of employees' organizational commitment. Complex interactions were found between employees' marital status, number of children, and having relatives nearby as related to the continuance dimension, but not the affective dimension, of commitment. In particular, results were strongest when the focus was on employees' perceptions of whether they would experience a high personal sacrifice if they were to leave their organizations. These findings are discussed in the context of developing family‐friendly human resource programs that may help employees feel less “trapped” in organizations. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The role of organizational culture in the relationship between leadership and organizational commitment: an empirical study in a Greek organization

The aim of this paper is to explore the nature of relationships between organizational culture and leadership behaviours in affecting employees' commitment to their work organization. Building on organizational commitment literature, this study used a survey methodology. Empirical evidence was obtained from 300 employees working in a large Greek service company. The analyses indicated that the culture orientations examined served as mediators in the relationship between leader behaviour and followers' affective and normative commitment to the organization. The findings also indicated that continuance commitment is a two-dimensional construct; the ‘personal sacrifices’ dimension was found to be related to organizational culture and transactional contingent reward. This research paper has key messages for practitioners contributing to the fields of commitment, organizational culture, leadership and human resource management.     

Do all institutions benefit from leadership training? Challenging tradition through systems inquiry

There is a fascination in the business community with leadership. There is an endless stream of training and development programs on how to become effective leaders to the extent that leadership training is now a big business. But the fascination is not restricted to the business community. People are enthralled by the idea of leadership, search for more information on it, and truly believe that by becoming a leader, they can reach a more desirable future. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that all organizations do not benefit universally from their investment in employees' leadership training. After reviewing the leadership literature and systems concepts, it is recommended that the redesign of an organization in a social systemic framework will lead to optimization of benefit from leadership training.     

Examining transformational leadership,job satisfaction,organizational commitment and organizational trust in Turkish hospitals: public servants versus private sector employees

Leadership, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and trust have become important processes for healthcare management in recent years. One of the contemporary human resource management functions in the organizations involves engaging in leadership development, improving organizational trust and organizational commitment and increasing job satisfaction. Considering the rapidly changing healthcare technology and higher levels of occupational complexity, healthcare organizations are increasingly in need of engaging in leadership development in any given area of expertise to address ever-changing nature of the industry and the delivery of quality of care while remaining cost-effective and competitive. This paper investigates the perceptions of both public servants and private sector employees (outsourcing) on transformational leadership, organizational commitment, organizational trust and job satisfaction in Turkish healthcare industry. Additionally, the paper analyzes the predictability of organizational commitment based on employee – both public servants (physicians, nurses, administrative personnel and other healthcare professionals) and private sector employees (outsourcing) (auxiliary services such as administrative assistants, security personnel, kitchen, laundry and housekeeping employees) – perceptions of transformational leadership, job satisfaction and organizational trust. Using a survey instrument with items adopted from the transformational leadership inventory (TLI) [Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Moorman, R. H., & Fetter, R. (1990). Transformational leader behaviors and their effects on followers' trust in leader, satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Leadership Quarterly, 1, 107–142], the organizational commitment questionnaire [Meyer, J. P., & Allen, N. J. (1997). Commitment in the workplace: Theory, research, and application. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage], the organizational trust inventory (OTI) [Cummings, L. L., & Bromiley, P. (1996). The occupational trust inventory (OTI): Development and validation. In R. Kramer & T. Tyler (Eds.), Trust in organizations: Frontiers of Theory and Research (pp. 302–330). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage] and job satisfaction survey (JSS) [Spector, P. E. (1985). Measurement of human service staff satisfaction: Development of the job satisfaction survey. American Journal of Community Psychology, 13, 693–731], this quantitative study was conducted among 2108 healthcare employees (public servants and private employees) in two large government hospitals in Turkey. The study findings indicate a significant difference between the public servants and private sector employees in terms of their perceptions on two dimensions of transformational leadership (being an appropriate model, providing individualized support), overall transformational leadership and one dimension of job satisfaction (communication). The two dimensions of job satisfaction – operating procedures and communication – as well as organizational trust were the significant predictors of organizational commitment of public servants, whereas the two dimensions of leadership – individualized support and fostering the acceptance – as well as the two dimensions of job satisfaction – promotion and contingent rewards – and organizational trust were the significant regressors of organizational commitment of private sector employees. In addition, there is a significant difference between the predictors of the dimensions of organizational commitment (transformational leadership, job satisfaction and organizational trust) in terms of public servants versus private sector employees. Finally, organizational trust has a significant effect on overall organizational commitment as well as its three dimensions for public servants and private employees.     

The role of collaborative human resource management in supporting open innovation: A multi-level model

With open innovation (OI) playing an important role in many organizations' innovation strategy, there is growing interest in the human aspects of OI. An important challenge for managing OI remains the motivation of individuals for knowledge sharing and sourcing (KSS). To address this issue, we argue that managers responsible for OI need to use collaborative human resource management (collaborative HRM) practices to create the conditions to develop relational leadership and an open innovation mindset (OI mindset) among employees. Since OI research is largely focused on the organizational level, the micro-foundations of OI, as well as the interdependencies across team and individual levels are not yet fully understood. There is no systematic approach for understanding the role of collaborative HRM and the process through which employees' KSS and use OI within their organizations. We build on social exchange theory to develop a multi-level model of collaborative HRM practices used through relational leadership and OI mindset to enable employees to KSS and improve OI performance.     

Top management leadership,employee empowerment,job satisfaction,and customer satisfaction in TQM organizations: an empirical study

Top management leadership and employee empowerment are considered two of the most important principles of total quality management (TQM) because of their assumed relationship with customer satisfaction. As a result, many top management leadership and employee empowerment strategies and practices have been suggested in the management literature. However, few studies have been done to test this assumed relationship and determine which of these strategies and practices may be most effective in bringing about the intended results. This study surveyed organizations that have adopted TQM to determine the relationship between top management leadership, employees' empowerment, job satisfaction, and customers' satisfaction. The results reveal positive correlation between top management leadership, employee empowerment, job satisfaction, and customer satisfaction. Employee empowerment and improved levels of job satisfaction are facilitated by top management leadership and commitment to the TQM goal of customer satisfaction by creating an organizational climate that emphasizes total quality and customer satisfaction. Effective strategies for achieving employee empowerment and job satisfaction, together with top management leadership roles in a TQM environment, are identified and discussed.     

Motivating Employees towards Sustainable Behaviour

Workers engaging in voluntary and unrewarded environmental actions that go above and beyond their job requirements in an organizational setting can crucially contribute to a reduced environmental impact of organizations. This research investigates some of the factors that may contribute to the emergence of such organizational citizenship behaviour directed towards the environment (OCBE). The hypotheses predicted employees' concern for the environment, employees' perceived organizational support for environmental efforts and organizational commitment as antecedents of OCBE. Employees from two organizations (n = 547) completed an online survey. Controlling for organizational tenure, a significant relationship between (a) employees' concern for their environment and OCBE, (b) perceived organizational support for environment efforts and OCBE and (c) organizational commitment and OCBE were found. Furthermore, organizational commitment mediated the relationship between perceived organizational support for environmental efforts and OCBE, but not environmental concern. This study's insights into the factors that can drive employees' engagement in small, voluntary environmental actions at work can guide organizations wishing to encourage such behaviours. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Work outcomes of relational demography in Chinese vertical dyads

Relational demography refers to the demographic differences (such as gender, age, race, and tenure) between supervisor and subordinate. This study examines its impact on employees' work outcomes in the setting of a foreign-invested enterprise in China. We hypothesize that dissimilarities on demographic attributes between supervisor and subordinate affect subordinate's leader–member exchange, trust in organization, in-role performance, and organizational citizenship behavior. The hypotheses were tested on 239 supervisor–subordinate dyads via a questionnaire survey. The results of regression analysis showed that dissimilarities in gender and organizational tenure had negative effects on the outcome variables. In particular, a female supervisor with male subordinate displayed the lowest level of leader–member exchange and trust in the organization. Implications of these findings on human resource management are discussed.     

Inspiring employees' ecological behaviors: The roles of corporate environmental strategy,biospheric values,and eco-centric leadership

The consequences of environmental degradation have steered organizations to promote pro-ecological behaviors among their employees, and achieving this effectively is paramount for business and environmental sustainability. Applying a multilevel integrated approach, this study investigates the impact of corporate environmental strategy, biospheric values, and eco-centric leadership on employees' ecological behaviors. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from 289 employees from a cross section of industries in Bangladesh. The findings reveal the significant influences of environmental strategy and biospheric values on employees' ecological behaviors as well as the moderating role of eco-centric leadership. The study also provides some significant insights for formulating environmental strategy and inspiring employees' ecological behaviors in organizational contexts. Theoretical and managerial implications as well as future research directions have also been provided.     

Middle Manager Leadership and Frontline Employee Performance: Bypass,Cascading, and Moderating Effects

We investigated the relationship between middle managers' transformational leadership and the performance of frontline employees who are two levels below the middle managers. We identified two pathways through which this cross‐level influence occurs and tested two moderators operating on these two pathways. The first pathway is a direct effect from middle managers to employees, bypassing the influence of employees' immediate supervisor (the bypass effect). We further hypothesized that the bypass effect is moderated by the employees' collectivistic value. The second pathway is a cascading of leadership behaviours from middle managers to first‐line supervisors, whose transformational leadership then enhances employees' performance (the cascading effect). We further hypothesized that this cascading effect is moderated by the supervisors' power distance value. These hypotheses were tested with a sample of 491 frontline employees, 98 frontline supervisors, and 30 middle managers in three organizations in China. The three‐level hierarchical linear modelling results supported the four hypotheses.     

Trust in management: the role of employee voice arrangements and perceived managerial opposition to unions

This study examines the relationship between employee voice arrangements and employees' trust in management using data from the 2007 Australian Worker Representation and Participation Survey of 1,022 employees. Drawing on social exchange theory and employee relations literature, we test hypotheses concerning the relationships between direct and union voice arrangements, perceived managerial opposition to unions and employees' trust in management. Consistent with our predictions, after controlling for a range of personal, job and workplace characteristics, regression analyses indicated that direct voice arrangements were positively related to employees' trust in management. Union voice arrangements and perceived managerial opposition to unions were negatively related to trust in management. The article concludes by highlighting the study's implications for management practice and avenues for further research.     

Perspectives on line managers in human resource management: Hilton International's UK hotels

Although contextual factors act to encourage the devolvement of human resource management to line managers, recent research indicates that there is substantial potential for human resource specialists and line managers to share more effectively responsibility for their organization's human resource activities in business partnerships. The foundation for this is arguably commonality in opinions on the principles and practices of human resource activities. However, line managers and human resource specialists often have dissonant opinions on human resource management.

This paper explores line manager and human resource specialists' perspectives on line manager involvement in human resource management, theoretically and empirically. The primary work comprises a survey of the views of line managers and human resource specialists on devolving a range of human resource activities to line managers in a case organization, Hilton International's UK hotels. Differences between line managers' and human resource specialists' perspectives are found in five aspects: understanding and ownership of the company's service and HR strategy; line manager involvement in and rankings of HR activities; HR specialists' support of line managers; barriers to line managers' involvement in HR activities; and the competence of line managers in HR activities. Importantly, it is found that where there are divergent views across line managers and their HR specialist in their hotel there is poor hotel business performance and, conversely, convergent views are evident in the effectively performing hotels. These findings may have resonance for other organizations in devolving human resource management to the line and developing human resource business partnerships for business performance. It is proposed that three types of line manager buy-in are central to their active involvement in HR, namely: conceptual understanding of the rationale for their involvement; implementation effectiveness through HR role clarity and capability; and affective commitment in believing in the value of their involvement in HR.     

Gainsharing and knowledge sharing: the effects of labour–management co-operation

We compare patterns of employee knowledge sharing in the form of suggestions for reducing costs and improving productivity submitted as part of a gainsharing reward system in two organizations. Combining insights from recent studies that use employee risk sharing and organizational learning frameworks to understand how gainsharing programmes work, we propose that employees' willingness to share high-risk (second-order-learning) knowledge with management is affected by the degree of labour–management co-operation and trust. Specifically, we hypothesize that union support and involvement in gainsharing affects employee knowledge sharing by increasing employees' initial acceptance of the compensation risk associated with gainsharing and by facilitating employee willingness to take on additional compensation and employment risk over time. We test these hypotheses using time series data on employee suggestions and gainsharing performance at two locations with similarly structured gainsharing plans but different levels of labour–management co-operation. The results generally support our hypotheses. We conclude by considering the implications of these results for gainsharing design and implementation as well as the broader implications of the effect of HR practices on employee knowledge sharing and knowledge management in organizations.     

Effects of strategic human resource management on strategic vision

It is pertinent for organizations that operate in a highly competitive environment to pursue a strategic vision. This study explores the effects of strategic human resource management (SHRM) on the implementation of a strategic vision. Other constructs of importance in the model include leadership, commitment and organizational structure. A total of 400 questionnaires were sent by mail to organizations of various industries and the total number of respondents was 104. Leadership was found to be significant in eight out of ten of the hypotheses, thereby indicating that the leadership of an organization plays an extremely important role in the achievement of a vision. Also, SHRM functions such that HR planning, recruitment and selection, rewards and compensation as well as training and development have significant effects in the achievement of different visions. For the vision of regional growth, leadership and organizational structure was found to be significant. Where market growth is pursued, leadership, reward system, commitment, training and staffing are significant. In the case of a strategic vision of mergers and ventures, only leadership was found to be significant. The only significant factor in the vision of low cost and productivity is planning. For a vision of customer focus and innovation, leadership and selection are the significant factors. Where innovation and product development are pursued, only planning is significant. For organizations that pursue cluster visions, the factors that are significant include leadership, commitment and selection.     

Exploring the black box in Spanish firms: the effect of the actual and perceived system on employees' commitment and organizational performance

Several studies in strategic human resource management have described a relationship between people-management practices and organizational performance. However, the mediating processes that explain such a relationship remain unexplored. This study examines how both the actual people-management system (assessed by managers) and the perceived system (assessed by employees) influence employees' commitment, and how this in turn contributes to employee and organizational outcomes. Multilevel analyses of a sample of 732 employees from 26 Spanish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) supported a model in which employees' commitment mediates between the actual system and unit-level absenteeism, which in turn has an effect on productivity. Results also showed the importance of the perceived system in attempting to understand the true effect of the actual system on employees' commitment to the organization.