HR flexibility: Precursors and the contingent impact on firm financial performance

Using data from 170 for‐profit U.S. firms with 100 or more employees from 27 North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industry subsectors, we investigated firm‐level precursors of HR flexibility and industry‐level boundary conditions of the HR flexibility—firm financial performance relationship. The findings denote that a contingency illumination is warranted in which consideration should be given to firm‐level factors such as flexibility business strategy and high‐performance work systems, which may play a key role in engendering HR flexibility, and external factors such as industry dynamism and growth, which may serve as boundary conditions that influence the relevance and impact of HR flexibility. This study is an important extension of extant HR flexibility research and adds clarity regarding the roles and relevance of HR flexibility and the circumstances in which HR flexibility and/or its focal factors may augment (or diminish) firm competitiveness and performance.     

Understanding Employees’ Perceptions of Human Resource Practices: Effects of Demographic Dissimilarity to Managers and Coworkers

Strategic HRM researchers have increasingly adopted an employee perspective to understand the influence of HR practices on employee outcomes and have called for studies to explain variability in employees’ perceptions of HR practices. To address this research need, we used the social information processing perspective to examine the contextual influence of managers and coworkers on employees’ perceptions of HR practices and explore demographic dissimilarities as boundary conditions of the contextual influence. Conducting research in two organizational settings, we found that both manager‐perceived and coworker‐perceived HR practices were positively related to employees’ perceptions of HR practices. The results also revealed that employee demographic dissimilarity to coworkers in terms of age and organizational tenure weakened the positive relationship between coworker‐perceived and employee‐perceived HR practices. However, the relationship between manager‐perceived and employee‐perceived HR practices was not influenced by demographic dissimilarities. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Understanding how HR systems work: the role of HR philosophy and HR processes

Despite the proliferation of studies of HR systems, there are still substantial gaps in our understanding of how such systems actually work. This article, by focusing on the neglected areas of HR philosophy and HR processes in the composition of HR systems, and by using a qualitative, employee‐centred approach in the collection and analysis of data, provides new insights into the working of HR systems. Using data from interviews with 56 knowledge workers employed in the information and communications technology sector in Ireland and the UK, we explore employee‐level reactions to two different types of HR systems. We highlight the various ways in which HR processes interact with HR practices and the different outcomes that may result, and we identify the key role of HR philosophy in HR system operation.     

Line Managers’ Rationales for Professionals’ Reduced‐Load Work in Embracing and Ambivalent Organizations

This study examines line managers’ rationales regarding reduced‐load work (RLW), an emerging talent management practice allowing professionals to reduce their workload and take a pay cut, while actively remaining on a career path. Unlike flextime and telework, RLW addresses professionals’ core problems of rising work hours and workloads. Interviews with 42 managers in 20 North American employers suggested that managers were more likely to support RLW for employees whom they saw as (1) high‐performers, (2) flexible in their use of RLW, and (3) doing conducive jobs. Interviews with 20 HR experts and 24 senior executives revealed four dimensions of organizational support, two cultural (senior management support and discourse on career penalties) and two structural (adaptation of HR systems and organizational diffusion). In embracing organizations there was a higher frequency of more supportive managers than there was in ambivalent organizations. Managers’ rationales were connected to their organizational contexts, albeit loosely, suggesting managerial implementation agency. The same rationales were more likely to be used in supportive ways in embracing contexts and in less supportive ways in ambivalent contexts. This study suggests that managerial and organizational support for flexible talent management practices dovetail in nuanced and important ways. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Entitlement to Work‐Life Balance Support: Employee/Manager Perceptual Discrepancies and Their Effect on Outcomes

We broaden contemporary understandings of the relationship between HR practices that support work‐life balance and organizational as well as individual outcomes, through a focus on perceptual discrepancies of entitlement. To theorize this notion, we adopt the self‐perception accuracy model and extend it by investigating whether any employee/management discrepancies in perceptions of entitlement mediate the relationship between HR practices supporting work‐life balance and outcomes. We use data from 20 European countries and apply a multilevel statistical methodology. Our results did not reveal significant mediation effects, but the perceptions of managers, not of employees, are related to HR practices that support work‐life balance. Furthermore, employees tend to have higher expectations of entitlement than does management. Finally, the more aligned management and employee perceptions of entitlement, the higher the positive organizational and individual outcomes over and above contextual idiosyncrasies. Findings denote that, in achieving positive outcomes for employees and organizations, managing perceptions regarding organizational support for work‐life balance is more important than actual support practices. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Reducing burnout in call centers through HR practices

Previous research on call centers has demonstrated that human resource (HR) practices can be related to employee stress; however, these studies did not examine the linking mechanisms underlying these associations. Using the job demands–control (JD‐C) model as a theoretical framework, we examine perceived job demands (namely, emotional dissonance and quantitative demands) and autonomy as potential mediators in the relationship between HR systems and burnout (exhaustion and cynicism). We distinguish between HR control systems, which include performance monitoring practices, and HR involvement systems, which include training, participation, and performance‐related pay. This study samples 811 employees working in 11 call centers. Our findings support the idea that HR systems can help reduce burnout in call centers by verifying that HR control systems associated with more emotional dissonance and less autonomy increase burnout. On the other hand, an HR involvement system decreases workers' burnout because it alleviates the job demands of emotional dissonance and quantitative demands. This study fills a gap in the literature between HR systems and burnout by demonstrating the role job demands and autonomy play in explaining how HR systems improve or decrease workers' exhaustion and cynicism. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Confucianism,Moral Equality,and Human Rights: A Mencian Perspective

This paper attempts to show the compatibility between Confucianism and human rights, first by revisiting the moral philosophy of Mencius, a key founder of the Confucian tradition, then by reconstructing the Mencian‐Confucian idea of human rights from the perspective of his moral philosophy. One of my central claims is that not only did Mencius acknowledge core human rights—socioeconomic as well as civil‐political—justified by his foundational faith in universal moral equality and human dignity, but he further understood the right to subsistence as an essential part of Confucian‐constitutional rights. Contrary to the widely received notion that in Mencian‐Confucianism the right to subsistence has an overriding value vis‐a‐vis civil‐political rights, I argue that Mencius (and Confucians in general for that matter) never stipulated such a lexical ranking among rights. I conclude by discussing how the type of Confucian moral reasoning that Mencius employs in justifying the moral value of human rights can be re‐appropriated to produce Confucian rights suitable for today. … … … … … …     

Discretionary and transactional human resource practices and employee outcomes: The role of perceived organizational support

Utilizing perceived organizational support (POS) as the mechanism linking HR practices to employee behaviors in the workplace, we examine a broad set of HR practices in order to understand the relative importance of each HR practice (i.e., those that explain incremental variance over other practices) in influencing employee behaviors. We differentiate between discretionary and transactional HR practices to test the discretionary investment requisite of POS theory. The results show that of the eight discretionary practices, only participation and decision making directly influenced the extra‐role behaviors that employees exhibit, and only training and development directly impacted the customer‐oriented behaviors. Furthermore, one of the transactional HR practices was found to have a direct effect on organizational citizenship behavior. Our findings indicate that the performance management process, promotional opportunities, participation, and involvement in decision making affect how employees behave toward the customer and the extra‐role behaviors they exhibit. Furthermore, this occurs through the view employees develop of the organization as a place to work. That is, these four HR practices demonstrate to employees that they are valued, and, in turn, this feeling of being appreciated impacts their commitment to delivering high‐quality service to the customer and going beyond their job responsibilities. Implications for research and practice are discussed. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

High‐commitment human resource practices and employee outcomes: The contingent role of organisational identification

In this paper, we examine whether the relationship between high‐commitment human resource (HR) practices and two employee outcomes, quit intentions and organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs), is contingent on organisational identification. Incorporating insights from both social exchange and social identity theories, we propose that the relationship between high‐commitment HR systems, intention to quit, and OCBs is attenuated when employees strongly identify with their organisation. This proposition was tested and supported with employees of a Swedish relocation company and a Greek shipping organisation. For high identifiers, as perceptions of HR practices deteriorated from high to low, they were associated with smaller increases in quit intentions and smaller decreases in citizenship behaviours. But overall, high identifiers always had lower quit intentions and higher citizenship behaviours than low identifiers, which is managerially reassuring.     

My Strengths Count!

This article builds on the argument that research on the link between HRM and performance benefits from investigating how HR practices are envisioned by managers (in terms of underlying philosophies), and how they are perceived by employees (in terms of psychological climates). Our study focuses on the effects of a strengths‐based HR philosophy assuming that employee performance can be maximized through leveraging individual strengths. This philosophy relates to a strengths‐based psychological climate, that is, employee perceptions of the opportunities they get to identify, develop, and use their strengths. We hypothesized that a strengths‐based psychological climate positively influences employees’ positive affect, which in turn enhances their in‐role and extra‐role performance. In our study, 442 respondents working in 39 departments of eight Dutch and Belgian organizations gave ratings on the strength‐based psychological climate of their organization, and indicated their level of work‐related positive affect, in‐role performance, and extra‐role performance. Results of multilevel hierarchical regression analyses supported our hypotheses by indicating that strengths‐based psychological climate was positively linked to in‐role and extra‐role performance, and that this link was mediated by positive affect. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How Top Management HR Beliefs and Values Affect High‐Performance Work System Adoption and Implementation Effectiveness

What explains why high‐performance work systems (HPWSs) are not adopted more widely by firms that would appear to benefit economically by adopting them? We address this question by drawing on the upper‐echelons perspective to consider the role of the top managers’ beliefs concerning the financial payoffs from investments in HR (“HR cause‐effect belief”) as well as their employee‐centered value‐based beliefs (labeled “HPWS values”). We propose a conceptual model in which top management HPWS values moderate the relationship between HR cause‐effect beliefs and the intensity of HPWS programs reported by managers as well as the relationship between HPWS programs and employees’ perceptions of implemented HPWS practices. We test our model using a unique multisource data set collected from 120 hotel franchisees that includes survey responses from 648 managers and 1,293 employees. We find that firms’ ability to translate top managers’ cause‐effect beliefs about the economic value of HR investments into adoption of HPWS programs, as well as their ability to effectively implement these HPWS programs, is significantly affected by the value‐based HR beliefs held by top managers. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The role of employee HR attributions in the relationship between high‐performance work systems and employee outcomes

Although research has shown that the use of high‐performance work systems (HPWS) is associated with employee outcomes, our knowledge of the meanings employees attach to HPWS systems and how these shape employee outcomes is still limited. This study examines the signalling impact of enacted HPWS on HR well‐being and HR performance attributions, and how these influence happiness‐ and health‐related outcomes. Using multilevel data (1,065 employees nested within 150 work units) obtained from multiple sources (line managers and employees), our results show that coverage of HPWS was positively associated with the two HR attributions. In addition, HR well‐being attributions were associated with higher levels of commitment and lower levels of job strain. HR performance attributions were associated with higher levels of job strain. The findings of this study highlight the importance of taking into account how employees attach meaning to enacted HPWS in order to predict employee outcomes.     

Depletion or expansion? Understanding the effects of support policy use on employee work and family outcomes

Past research on the effects of employees' use of work–family support policies tends to draw on a depletion perspective suggesting that using these policies may reduce work–family conflict. The emphasis on depletion fails to consider the expansion perspective that assumes that using work resources may enrich family functioning. Using a sample of 113 matched employee–supervisor pairs and a 1‐month separation between predictor and criterion measurement, we found support for the expansion rather than the depletion perspective. Specifically, the relationships between support policy use and employee job satisfaction and family efficacy (but not organisational citizenship behaviour) were mediated by work‐to‐family enrichment; these effects were realised only for employees with high levels of family identity. In contrast, no support was found for family‐to‐work conflict as a mediator of the model.     

Are you really doing good things in your boss's eyes? Interactive effects of employee innovative work behavior and leader–member exchange on supervisory performance ratings

Organizations increasingly depend on employee efforts to innovate. However, the quality of relationships between leaders and employees may affect the recognition that employees receive for their innovative work behaviors. Drawing from a social cognition perspective, we tested a model in which leader–member exchange (LMX) moderates the impact of employee innovative work behavior on supervisory ratings of employee performance. Results from two multisource studies combining self, colleague, and supervisor ratings consistently showed that employees receive more favorable performance ratings by engaging in innovative work behavior when they have high‐quality LMX relationships. Moreover, we found that this interactive relationship was mediated by leader perceptions of innovative employee efforts, providing support for a moderated mediation model. Implications for the literatures on performance appraisal, LMX, and innovation are discussed.     

可雇佣性能力导向下的管理人员开发

管理人员是企业的核心员工,企业管理人员的开发一直是企业人力资源开发及管理工作的重点。不同层级的企业管理人员有不同的可雇佣性能力开发路径。基层管理人员重技术培训,高层管理人员重反思和自省,中层管理人员的开发最为丰富和全面。     

A comparative study of the effects of ‘best practice’ HRM on worker outcomes in Malaysia and England local government

This paper presents the findings of a cross-cultural comparison of the effects of ‘best practice’ HRM using employees from a matched sample of local government service departments in England and Malaysia (England n = 569, Malaysian n = 453). The paper tests the universal ‘best practice’ thesis, and also assesses the perceived level of up-take of HR practices in the two samples. The research also considers the effects of the psychological climate and employees' perceptions of trust on five work-related outcomes, namely job satisfaction, motivation, organizational citizenship behaviour, stress and quit intentions. The findings reveal that the Malaysian workers perceived the up-take of HR practices to be higher in comparison to their counterparts in England. A less consistent pattern emerged with regards to perceptions of climate. OLS regression revealed that consistent with the universal thesis, a bundle of HR practices significantly predicted employee outcomes in the hypothesized directions in both samples. Therefore, these findings provide strong support for the universal thesis.     

Human resource management practices and voluntary turnover: a study of internal workforce and external labor market contingencies

We tested relationships between employee quit rates and two bundles of human resource (HR) practices that reflect the different interests of the two parties involved in the employment relationship. To understand the boundary conditions for these effects, we examined an external contingency proposed to influence the exchange-based effects of HR practices on subsequent quit rates – the local industry-specific unemployment rate – and an internal contingency proposed to shape employees’ conceptualization of their exchange relationship – their employment status (i.e. full-time, part-time and temporary employment). Analyses of lagged data from over 200 Canadian establishments show that inducement HR practices (e.g. extensive benefits) and performance expectation HR practices (e.g. performance-based bonuses) had different effects on quit rates, and the former effect was moderated by unemployment rate. The effects of HR practices on quit rates did not differ between FT and PT employees, but a different pattern of main and interactive effects was found among temporary workers. These findings suggest that employees’ exchange-based decisions to leave may be less affected by the number of hours they expect to work each week, and more by the number of weeks they expect to work.     

Cultural diversity in hospitality work: the Northern Ireland experience

International workers are a growing category of employees in the hospitality industry of Northern Ireland (NI). The retention and skills shortages of the industry are significant factors in facilitating this increase. Thus, international workers could be an invaluable new source of labour for the hospitality industry, provided that they are properly looked after and managed. However, little is known about the number of people moving to Northern Ireland to take up work in the hospitality industry. This paper sets out to answer some of the ‘unknowns’ – including nationality, demographic characteristics, educational, employment and economic background. The paper draws on data collected through a survey of migrant workers in nine hotels in Northern Ireland and focus groups with migrant employees in all of the survey establishments. Issues of social integration within the workforce and the wider community as well as the future that migrant workers see for themselves are discussed from a human resource perspective.     

Building effective organizations: transformational leadership,collectivist orientation,work-related attitudes and withdrawal behaviours in three emerging economies

Abstract

Previous cross-cultural research on transformational leadership has focused mainly on replicating the augmentation effects of transformational leadership over transactional leadership on followers’ attitudes and behaviours. Relatively few studies have systematically examined cultural impacts in moderating the influence of transformational leadership on work-related outcomes taking a cross-cultural perspective. Using a field survey of 577 employees from banking and financial sectors in three emerging economies, namely: China, India and Kenya, we examined the moderating effect of collectivism on the relationships between transformational leadership, work-related attitudes and perceptions of withdrawal behaviours. Our results found support for the moderating effect of collectivism on the relationship between transformational leadership and work-related outcomes, such as facets of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and perceptions of organizational withdrawal behaviours. In addition, our results lend support to the view that transformational leadership might be effective across cultures. The implications of these findings for future research on transformational leadership and cross-cultural research are discussed.     

A multilevel examination of the relationship between role overload and employee subjective health: The buffering effect of support climates

Although the belief that support alleviates the detrimental effect of job demands on employee health is intuitive, past research has produced an equivocal picture, requiring a renewed evaluation of this relationship. In the present study, we examine three sources of support (from the organization, leader, and team) that employees may draw from to reduce the negative effect of a specific job demand, that is, role overload. Unlike most prior research, we focus on these sources of support at the group level of analysis to determine the relative effectiveness of organizational support climate, leadership climate, and team climate as moderators of the role overload–subjective health relationship. Hierarchical linear modeling of data from 2,288 employees nested in 132 workgroups in a state administration of Switzerland revealed that, after controlling for individual perceptions of support, team climate weakened the negative relationship between role overload and health. We did not find support for the buffering effect of organizational support or leadership climates. The article provides a nuanced test of the support‐buffering hypothesis by simultaneously exploring individual and group‐level sources of support and by demonstrating that some sources of support matter more than others in ameliorating the negative outcomes of role overload.