HRM implementation by multiple HRM actors: a social exchange perspective

Abstract

In this study, we understand HRM implementation as a social process that depends on the social exchange relationships between line managers and both HRM professionals and employees. As such, we offer a fresh approach to understanding HRM implementation by concentrating on the social exchange among HRM actors. We do so by investigating to what extent these exchange relationships influence HRM implementation, as reflected in employees’ perceptions of the presence of HRM practices and their affective commitment. We collected multilevel data from two sources (line managers and employees) and in two phases in a Dutch engineering firm, and obtained fully matched manager – employee information from 75 employees and 20 line managers. Our results show that employees perceive a larger number of HRM practices when they have a good relationship with their line managers and when their line managers are motivated to implement HRM practices. Line managers, in turn, reciprocate perceived support from the HRM department with greater motivation to implement these practices. We conclude that because HRM actors engage in social interactions, HRM practices will be implemented at the organizational level because employees perceive the presence of HRM practices and then reciprocate this with affective commitment.     

Accidental,unprepared, and unsupported: clinical nurses becoming managers

To what extent have hospitals developed their skilled clinicians to perform the administrative and human resources (HR) manager role of the ward manager? We consider this research question through an analysis of an acute hospital called ‘The Hospital’ where the executive team is aiming to adopt a form of high-performance work system (HPWS). We focus primarily on explanations in terms of conditions, rather than the personalities of individual managers, which are most powerful in shaping their behaviour. There has long been a failure of hospitals (and other employing organisations) to develop fully the skills required by employees before they become line managers. Line managers are a critical link in the high-performance chain and this study illustrates that, despite their rhetoric, hospitals may still have much potential for implementing schemes to develop nurses further to prepare them for line-manager positions and to support them after they move into such roles. We infer from this study that such hospitals may not yet have completed the journey to having HPWS. Hence, there is still much scope for such hospitals to progress and enjoy the benefits that proponents claim for HPWS.     

The difference a manager can make: organizational justice and knowledge worker commitment

The quality of the employment relationship is argued to be central to knowledge workers' commitment, which in turn supports knowledge creation. Given the high levels of discretion enjoyed by knowledge workers, managers' decisions over work distribution, content and resources become more critical for commitment and knowledge creation. However, little research has explored how justice perceptions shape the quality of the employment relationship and the consequences for commitment. Using a sample of 429 R&D workers from across six science and technology-based firms this paper explores the three-way interaction of procedural and interactional justice with the psychological contract to predict knowledge worker commitment. We found that when employees simultaneously perceived high levels of procedural and interactional justice this moderated the relationship between psychological contract breach and knowledge worker commitment. Furthermore, where there was contract breach, positive perceptions of procedural justice moderated the relationship with commitment. However, in the context of contract fulfilment, low perceived levels of interactional justice predicted lower comparative levels of commitment, regardless of the level of procedural justice.

The results suggest that the perceived quality of the relationship between knowledge workers and their manager can make a positive difference in the context of breach of the psychological contract and this in turn can help maintain levels of commitment important for knowledge creation.     

You care about me,but can I count on you? Applying a psychological contract perspective to investigate what makes employees willing to be internally employable

Abstract

For this study, we adopted a psychological contract-based perspective to investigate whether the fulfillment of perceived developmental promises made to employees is positively related to their willingness to accept internal job-related changes when needed by the organization, a construct we refer to as the willingness to be internally employable. We also examined the role played by line managers in facilitating employees’ willingness to be internally employable by fulfilling perceived developmental promises. We tested our conceptual model with data collected from ninety-eight recently hired employees in a Norwegian organization under an initiative emphasizing employee development. We found that developmental promise fulfillment is more important for employees’ willingness to be internally employable in this context than any perceived provision of developmental inducements in isolation. Further, we found that employee perceptions of the developmental support provided by their line manager related positively to their willingness to be internally employable by way of developmental promise fulfillment; however, this was not the case with perceived developmental inducements. Our findings support the importance of developmental promise fulfillment in fostering employee willingness to be internally employable and the critical role played by line managers in fulfilling developmental promises that employees believe have been made by their organization.     

Justice source and justice content: evaluating the fairness of organisational career management practices

This article presents part of the findings of a multi‐method study into employee perceptions of fairness in relation to the organisational career management (OCM) practices of a large financial retailer. It focuses on exploring how employees construct fairness judgements of their career experiences and the role played by the organisational context and, in particular, OCM practices in forming these judgements. It concludes that individuals can, and do, separate the source and content of (in)justice when it comes to evaluating these experiences. The relative roles of the employer, line manager and career development opportunities in influencing employee fairness evaluations are discussed. Conceptual links with organisational justice theory are proposed, and it is argued that the academic and practitioner populations are provided with empirical evidence for a new theoretical framework for evaluating employee perceptions of, and reactions to, OCM practices.     

Workplace bullying and employee outcomes: a moderated mediated model

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between workplace bullying and employee outcomes in a healthcare setting. Drawing on HR process theory, we investigate the mediating role of the perceived effectiveness of implementation of anti-bullying practices on employee outcomes and whether targeted line manager training was a moderator of that relationship. Our multi-level analysis (utilising responses from 1507 employees within 47 hospitals with matched HR Director interviews), finds that the relationship between workplace bullying and employee outcomes is partially mediated by employees’ perceived effective implementation of intended anti-bully practices. The mediated relationship is moderated by targeted line manager training in anti-bullying practices. The mediated moderation model illustrates that it is effective implementation of anti-bullying practices enhanced by targeted training that is required to reduce bullying probabilities and their associated negative employee outcomes. The paper contributes to resource based view of the firm, HR process and human capital theories. The implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Worker voice,managerial response and labour productivity: an empirical investigation

This article investigates the relationship between worker voice practices, employee perceptions of managerial responsiveness and labour productivity. It argues that managerial responsiveness is a critical but under‐investigated variable in the study of the relationship between worker voice, human resource management and performance. Our results suggest that managerial responsiveness to worker voice does lead to superior labour productivity. However, this relationship is only found in non‐union workplaces and there is little relationship between formal voice regime and productivity. One important implication of this finding is that more responsive management will result in improved productivity, so policy interventions should focus on how to motivate managers to become more responsive to their employees.     

Employees as Active Consumers of HRM: Linking Employees’ HRM Competences with Their Perceptions of HRM Service Value

Recognizing the importance for companies of having high‐quality employment relationships with employees, previous studies have sought to explain the variability in employees’ perceptions of HRM service value. However, most of these studies view employees as inactive in employment relationships and, therefore, do not consider whether employees’ own attributes affect their perceptions of HRM service value. In accepting the alternative notion that consumers create value “in use,” the current study regards employees as active consumers of HRM practices, and so examines the extent and way in which employees’ HRM competences (i.e., knowledge, skills, and abilities) explain the variability in HRM service value. Based on data collected from 2,002 employees in 19 companies in the Netherlands, a positive relationship has been found between employees’ HRM competences and their perception of HRM service value, albeit one that is mediated by the perceived quality and nonmonetary costs of HRM services. The main implication of our findings is that employees should be seen as active agents in employment relationships who, through coproducing and consuming HRM services as well as leveraging their knowledge and skills, influence the value of HRM services and have the potential to increase or undermine the outcomes of the employment relationship. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

How does distributive justice affect work attitudes? The moderating effects of autonomy

Organizational justice has been a frequently used lens for understanding employee attitudes, particularly towards the fair distribution of rewards. This study of 184 New Zealand employees found distributive justice relating to pay, benefits, and rewards to be significantly linked to job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Further, job autonomy was found to significantly interact with these relationships. While employees with high job autonomy reported higher job satisfaction and lower turnover intentions when distributive justice was high, employees with little job autonomy registered significantly larger changes in work attitudes. The findings highlight the importance of felt independence and autonomy over work in the role that justice perceptions play in organizations.     

Should the firm or the employee pay for upskilling? A contract theory approach

Upskilling involves costly effort on behalf of existing employees to acquire new skills that are required to execute high value-added projects. A firm-financed training scheme allows the screening of applicants but comes with the cost of hidden actions, as some employees might train themselves yet continue working on low-value projects. A policy relying on worker self-training and incentive compatible contracts allows attracting more workers to high-value projects, yet it must grant a positive informational rent to flexible workers. The analysis reveals the optimal contract specific to each of the two training schemes. The profit comparison shows that the training strategy depends on how large is the net value created by upskilling, which is a characteristic of the business or industry.     

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.     

Fairness perceptions and work attitudes revisited: roles of employee specialty,hospital level and ownership

Compensation is widely acknowledged as an important job element in the eyes of employees. Health care is a special industry in which compensation received by employees differs greatly. This study examines empirically the relationships between hospital employees' perceptions of compensation fairness and their work attitudes, taking into account the roles of employee specialty, hospital level and ownership. Using data from 2,938 employees of thirty hospitals in Taiwan, the results indicate that fairness perceptions and work attitudes differ significantly among hospital employees according to their specialties. Hospital level and ownership exert impacts on employees' fairness perceptions, although not on their work attitudes. A positive relationship is observed between fairness perceptions and work attitudes of hospital employees.     

Multinational Retailers in China: Proliferating ‘McJobs’ or Developing Skills?*

abstract Much has been written on the nature of skills and the extent to which there is increased skills development or a deskilling of workers in modern workplaces. This paper broadens the debate and explores these issues in the novel context of UK‐ and Japanese‐
invested retailers' operations in China. Data derived from over two hundred interviews at twelve retail stores in six Chinese cities and questionnaires completed by almost eight hundred employees elicited contextualized accounts of interactive service workers' own perceptions of their training and skills development. It was found that these firms made a substantial contribution to skills development, fostered and enhanced both directly by company training and also through experiential workplace‐based learning. It might be, however, that this constitutes an essential but ‘one‐off’ increase in skills in transitional economies such as that of China.     

Profiling the desirable psychological contract for different groups of employees: evidence from Greece

This study aimed to examine potential variations in employees' perceptions of the desirable psychological contract, based on gender, age, and educational level. A total of 1145 employees – 642 of whom were female – aged between 18 and 64, who had attended all educational levels, participated in the study. T-tests and analyses of variance suggest that there is no uniform view of the psychological contract content among different groups of employees. With the exception of involvement with decision-making affecting the organization, women tend to expect more from their employment relationship. As for age groups, the ‘new generation’ emphasizes balance in personal life, the ‘old generation’ is rather indifferent, while the ‘desert generation’ is the most demanding and attached to the ‘old psychological contract’. Finally, individuals with at least college education have relatively increased expectations, with the exception of co-worker support for personal problems and continuous training.     

The Experience of Untapped Potential: Towards a Subjective Temporal Understanding of Work Meaningfulness

In this paper, we propose that untapped potential acts as a subjective temporal meaning‐making mechanism. Using a two‐wave survey design, we examine the relationship between job characteristics, untapped potential, and work meaningfulness in a heterogeneous sample of 542 employees. We found that employees’ perceived amount of untapped potential mediates the effects of skill variety, autonomy, and job feedback on work meaningfulness. This mediated relationship was moderated by the valence employees attributed to their untapped potential. Moreover, decreases in the perceived amount of untapped potential over time were related to increases in perceived work meaningfulness. Our research shows that work that allows employees to move beyond the here‐and‐now by providing opportunities to realize future work selves is experienced as particularly meaningful. We conclude that, if we wish to understand what makes work meaningful for employees in the present, we need to know how it aligns with their self‐perceptions in the future.     

It Takes Three to Tango: Exploring the Interplay among Training Intensity,Job Autonomy,and Supervisor Support in Predicting Knowledge Sharing

This study explored whether the relationship between perceived training intensity and knowledge sharing is prone to combined moderating influences. We operationalized perceived training intensity as a challenge stressor, in accordance with the challenge‐hindrance framework of work stressors. The results of a study of 129 employees from three Norwegian service industries revealed a positive relationship between perceived training intensity and supervisor‐rated knowledge sharing for employees reporting high levels of perceived job autonomy and high levels of perceived supervisor support. In contrast, we found a negative relationship between perceived training intensity and supervisor‐rated knowledge sharing for employees reporting high levels of perceived job autonomy and low levels of perceived supervisor support. These findings suggest that supervisors are of vital importance in facilitating knowledge sharing among employees in settings where developmental challenges are prevalent and perceptions of job autonomy are high. Implications for future research and practice are also discussed. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Cultural differences in organizational citizenship behavior: a comparison between Chinese and American employees

The present study examined the differences in the perceptions of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) between Chinese and American employees. Survey responses concerning the presence of OCB in their organizations were collected from a total of 393 employees. Analyses showed that Chinese and American employees reported similar levels of personal support and conscientious initiative in their organizations, but Chinese employees reported higher levels of organizational support in comparison with American employees. In addition, results indicated that perceptions of personal support, organizational support, and conscientious initiative were a function of job/hierarchical level such that management reported lower levels on all three dimensions of OCB. Finally, the results showed that country and job/hierarchical level do not interact to influence perceptions of organizational citizenship behavior. Implications and directions for future research on cultural differences in organizational citizenship behavior are discussed.     

Perceptions of On- The-Job Discrimination and Employees With Disabilities

This study examines factors that predict perceptions of workplace discrimination by employees with disabilities. Individual level variables are combined with organizational level variables in a single model of perceived inequality. Data came from surveys administered to employees with disabilities and their respective employers. Individual and organizational variables together provide a better understanding of perceived discrimination than either set alone. Despite the predominance of studies that demonstrate inequality in compensation, this study shows that employees experience discrimination over most terms/conditions of employment.     

How can personal development lead to increased engagement? The roles of meaningfulness and perceived line manager relations

There is an increasing need to understand the psychological processes that link personal development with employee engagement, particularly the boundary conditions at which these occur. The current study sought to meet this need by testing whether perceived opportunities for development are positively associated with job engagement indirectly through the experience of meaningfulness, and whether this indirect relationship is conditional on the level of perceived line manager relations. Questionnaire data was collected from 152 UK workers from a range of occupations and organizations. The results found support for all the hypotheses. In particular, the positive effects of perceived opportunities for development on job engagement (measured one month later) via meaningfulness were only significant for those who perceived that they had a good relationship with their line manager. Thus, there is a need for line managers to develop high quality relationships with their direct reports in order for development practices to translate into positive psychological outcomes. Engagement theory could be advanced by further understanding broaden-and-build and social exchange processes.     

The role of line managers in employee career management: an attachment theory perspective

Line managers increasingly play a key role in organizational career development systems, yet few studies have examined the nature of this role or its implications for employee career attitudes and behaviors. In two studies, we used attachment theory to explore this issue. In Study 1, in-depth interviews (N = 20) showed that employees viewed career management as a relational process in which line managers are expected to act as ‘caregiver’ to support individualized career development. Study 2 was a large-scale international survey (N = 891). Participants scoring higher on attachment avoidance in their line manager relationships reported more negative perceptions of career growth opportunities, lower participation in organizational career development activities and higher turnover intentions. Trust in the organization partially mediated the relationship. Theoretical and practical implications for HRM are discussed.