Individual well-being and performance at work in the wider context of strategic HRM

Abstract

Theory in work psychology has signifi cantly enhanced our understanding of how employees experience work. For example, the demand-control-support model of job strain (Karasek, 1979; Karasek & Theorell, 1990) and, more broadly, the job demands-resources model (Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner & Schaufeli, 2001) have spawned major streams of research that have helped us to understand the general forces that shape employee well-being and contribute to individual performance. However, although much is known about the linkages between work characteristics, well-being and performance, research in work psychology has had less to say about how the wider context affects these relationships. While scholars such as Parker, Wall & Cordery (2001) have proposed frameworks that situate work design within the organisational context, a better understanding is needed of how contextual factors affect relationships among work characteristics, well-being and performance. In reality, employees work within an environment that incorporates their organisation and the actors within it, the industry or industries in which it is located, and the society or societies in which it operates. These contextual variables are both complex and consequential. They can make a profound difference to the management of people and to their well-being. Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) is a fi eld of business research that focuses on how human resource management contributes to organisational performance, incorporating the effects of HRM on employee interests. The fi eld of SHRM thus shares work psychology’s interest in employee behaviour and well-being, and can learn much from it. However, studies in SHRM also explore how patterns of HRM vary within and across organisational, occupational, industry and societal contexts, and analyse the role of HRM within the dynamics of business strategy. This is a perspective that can enrich studies in work psychology.