Organizational Human Resource Practices Research Articles

The deep roots of cross-cultural differences in organizational behavior: Do human resource management education has to respect them?

This paper delves into the deep-rooted factors causing cross-cultural differences and their subsequent impact on the effectiveness of human resource practices in organizations. Drawing from a thematic review of findings from diverse fields such as developmental economics, anthropology, and linguistics, the study explores how historical events, language, geography, and biology influence individual ethics, preferences, and decision-making styles. Multiple conceptual frameworks are introduced to guide the integration of these deep-rooted factors into cross-cultural management education. The article suggests several research directions to enhance human resource management and cross-cultural management education. The emphasis is placed on the importance for researchers and educators in the field to employ constructs and methodologies from various disciplines to comprehend the origins and enduring nature of cross-cultural organizational behavior differences. Without understanding the underlying reasons for cross-cultural differences, intercultural management cannot be practiced effectively. Despite the insights provided, it's crucial to acknowledge the currently limited research connecting historical, biological, or linguistic factors to modern organizational outcomes. This limitation makes the provided recommendations largely conjectural.

The mediating effect of knowledge sharing and usage on Human Resource Practices and Innovative Behavior: Developing vs. countries of crisis

Purpose: As the work context and the national setting of countries are dynamically evolving, enhancing managerial human resource practices (HRP) is critical, to augment and enrich employee innovative behavior (IB) while promoting positive knowledge usage (KU) and sharing (KS). Henceforth, this paper examines their latent ambidexterity as a consequence of HRP and strategies. Design/methodology/approach: After a thorough literature review revealing evidence of relationship that adjoins HRP and IB as a result of the mediations between KS and KU. A quantitative questionnaire is designed and the data are analyzed via the SPSS software, taking into account that the data focused on respondents from Lebanon and GCC region. Correlations between the variables and the mediators is thoroughly examined and investigated. Findings: There is a direct relationship between HRP and IB through a partial sequential mediation of KS and KU in GCC region. On the other hand, it is identified that the effects of HRP and IB are significant solely upon the verdict of a sequential mediations between the mediators. Originality/value: This study yields a profound apprehension of the correlation between HRP and IB in the workplace along with the mediating roles of KS and KU on the relationship. Contributing in highlighting the role of effective HRP in organizations, while inculcating managers to the proper way of utilizing KS and KU according to the macroenvironment of the organization. Which in this study focused on Lebanon a country facing a revolutionary crisis and the GCC region that are witnessing unprecedently prosperity and wealth. This relationship is uniquely designed to study the relationship between the variables at hand, examining the outcome of the study prototypically in Lebanon and the GCC region. Keywords: HRM practices, Innovation, Knowledge usage, Knowledge sharing, Crisis

Review of Human Resource Management Practices Supporting the Development of Employee Wellbeing

Current study reviews theoretical and research background of how organizations might approach employee wellbeing. The concept of employee wellbeing covers a wide spectrum of the individual’s working life influencing the person’s bio-psycho-social wellbeing, while having an impact on the efficiency and longterm functioning of the organizations, as well as on the health of society and productivity of the economy. Promotion of employee wellbeing mainly appears in the form of operative human resource practices in organizations. The human resource development strategy of employee wellbeing is a determining factor of future labour market and economic efficiency. Raising the topic to the level of organizational learning is forecasted by organizational changes. The impact of employee wellbeing on organizational indicators directs the focus on exploring the strategic nature of wellbeing and to expanding the existing knowledge in this field, especially in the context of challenging economic, environmental and human resource factors. Emphasis has also been put on the economic, environmental and labour market driven context of the continuously changing world, including the severe impacts of pandemic, therefore providing a sound basis for the need of discussing organizational strategies and practices of developing employee wellbeing. Reviewing three models for human resource development practices might support elevating the subject to level of organizational strategies, thus might result in improved employee wellbeing and organizational outcomes. Through their comprehensive and complex approach, the reviewed models might provide a sound basis for the strategic approaches to the development of employee wellbeing.

Green Human Resource Management: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Directions

This study addressed three basic questions regarding GHRM: the first - which green human resources management practices have or have not obtained better attention in organizations?; the second question - what are the contributing factors to the effective implementation of green human resource management in organizations? And the third - what are the major barriers to the practical implementation of green human resource practices in organizations? The research employed a systematic review strategy for the questions indicated above. In this respect, clear inclusion and exclusion criteria were employed to select 51 relevant articles from 417 GHRM articles obtained from various databases for analysis purposes. In addition, other research methods were used in the study, such as the collected data being analyzed via content analysis and presented descriptively using descriptive research design. The study results indicated that selection and requirement, training and development, and discipline management GHRM practices have obtained better attention in organizations; on the contrary, socialization, participation and working relationships, and retention practices acquired the least attention and still not yet getting sufficient emphasis. With regard to effective factors to implement GHRM, social responsibility, green missions, strategies, goals and policies, citizenship behavior, financial and non-financial motivation, green training, and teamwork are playing major roles; conversely, lack of knowledge and awareness, lack of training/technical support, lack of organizational leadership support, lack of a comprehensive plan to implement green human resource management, and lack of green culture, are the major barriers.

High performance yet ethically risky? A self‐regulation perspective on the double‐edged sword effects of the performance‐oriented human resource system

AbstractPerformance‐oriented human resource system (HRS) brings both benefits and risks to organizations. Prior studies mainly reported the positive impact of performance orientated HRS on organizational and employee performance, ignoring its negative impact on employee behavior. Based on self‐regulation theory, this paper examines the double‐edged sword effects of performance‐oriented HRS on employee outcomes. Multiwave data from a total of 253 employees indicated that perceived performance‐oriented HRS can predict employees’ concerns with performance. This system could improve their willingness for self‐development, but it may also reduce employees’ moral awareness, which increases employees’ unethical behavior. Employees’ self‐control moderates the negative effects of performance‐oriented HRS; that is, when employees’ self‐control is low, performance‐oriented HRS leads to a stronger influence on employees’ unethical behaviors through moral awareness than when it is high. The results enhance our knowledge of the effects of performance‐oriented HRS on employees’ attitudinal and behavioral outcomes and provide new insights for countering the negative effects of performance‐oriented HRS in organizational human resource practices.

The design and implementation of age-related HR practices across firms in institutional contexts: evidence from Thailand

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the design and implementation of age-related human resource (HR) practices across organizations located in the institutional contexts of the under-researched emerging market economy of Thailand.Design/methodology/approachA cross-case analysis of five organizations is conducted across industries. The empirical evidence in this paper draws on semistructured interviews and focus groups with older workers of each organization, semistructured interviews with top managers and/or HR managers of each organization, field visits to each organization located in Bangkok and other provinces in Thailand and a review of archival documents and Web-based resources.FindingsThis paper proposes that firms design and implement various age-related HR practices, including the extension of the retirement age, financial planning facilitation, the bundling of maintenance and the bundling of utilization, to ensure that older workers in their firms maintain their current level of functioning to cope with the problem of skill shortage in the Thai labor market, have sufficient savings after retirement to respond to the “productivist informal security” welfare state regime and return to previous levels of functioning after facing losses in their careers.Research limitations/implicationsDue to the fact that this research is based on case studies of age-related HR practices in five firms across industries in Thailand, the findings may not be generalizable to all other firms across countries. Rather, the aim of this paper is to enrich the discussion regarding the design and implementation of age-related HR practices in organizations. Another limitation of this research is that it does not include firms located in several industries, such as the financial services industry and the education industry. Future research may explore age-related HR practices in organizations located in these industries. Moreover, quantitative studies using large samples of firms across industries might also be useful for fostering an in-depth understanding of the design and implementation of age-related HR practices in organizations.Practical implicationsThis paper provides practical implications for top managers and/or HR managers of firms in Thailand and other emerging market economies. That said, these top managers and/or HR managers can implement age-related HR practices to respond to the problem of skill shortage in the labor market, ensure that older workers have sufficient savings after retirement and help older workers return to previous levels of functioning after facing deterioration in health conditions and/or losses in their careers.Social implicationsThis paper provides policy implications for the government and/or relevant public agencies of Thailand and other emerging market economies that still face a severe skill shortage problem. Older workers who possess tacit knowledge and valuable experience and are still healthy can be considered excellent alternates for firms to help alleviate the skill shortage problem in the labor market. However, firms should implement age-related HR practices to retain this group of employees overtime.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the literature on comparative institutionalism and human resource management, specifically regarding age-related HR practices, in the following ways. First, this paper examines how firms design and implement age-related HR practices to respond to the country’s macro-level institutions. Additionally, in this paper, the author triangulates the findings from older workers with those from employers to ensure that actual HR practices perceived by older workers are in line with HR practices perceived by top managers and/or HR managers. Moreover, the literature on age-related HR practices has likely overlooked emerging market economies, including the under-researched country of Thailand, because most studies in this area have focused on developed economies. Therefore, the findings in this paper provide an in-depth analysis of the design and implementation of age-related HR practices across firms located in the emerging market economy of Thailand to respond to the national institutional context.

How Customer Requests Influence Frontline Employee Job Outcomes: The Role of Personal Appraisal Tendencies and Situational Customer Demandingness

This study investigates how customer requests, a common phenomenon, influence frontline employee (FLE) job outcomes. We propose and demonstrate that (1) FLEs possess tendencies to appraise customer requests in both positive (i.e., challenge appraisal tendency) and negative (i.e., hindrance appraisal tendency) ways, (2) higher levels of challenge appraisal tendency result in higher levels of FLE performance and lower levels of turnover (mediated through job engagement), (3) higher levels of hindrance appraisal tendency lead to increased FLE turnover (mediated through job stress), (4) the effects of FLE appraisal tendencies on situational engagement and stress are magnified when a specific customer request is deemed to be more (rather than less) demanding, and (5) customer request appraisal tendencies are shaped by the interaction between FLEs’ level of prosocial motivation and intrinsic motivation. These results are very encouraging for managers as they imply that FLE responses to customer requests are not determined by the nature of the requests themselves (which is beyond their control) but, rather, they are a function of how FLEs construe customer requests, a process that can be influenced through organizational human resource practices.

Are women from Venus? A mixed-method study determining important predictors of job pursuit intention across gender groups

PurposeDespite studies claiming gender inclusion is beneficial for organizations, the under-representation of females in the workforce is a reality. As recruitment practices impact employees' entry into organizations, examining the salient predictors of job pursuit intention might foster gender inclusivity.Design/methodology/approachBased on a mixed-method study conducted in two phases (Phase 1: a sample of 2,084 professionals; Phase 2: interviews of 20 senior human resource (HR) professionals and interviews with 26 women professionals), we examine the key predictors of job pursuit intention of women. We employed a qualitative study as Phase 2 employed a qualitative study to understand why some of the proposed hypotheses were not supported.FindingsWe found that work–life balance, perceived job security and perceived ethical behavior of organizations were more important for female than the male applicants in influencing their job pursuit intention. Also, the type of work and person–organization (P–O) fit were found to be equally important for both the gender groups. The implications of the study to theory and practice were discussed.Research limitations/implicationsOur study extends the existing literature by identifying salient factors (such as work–life balance, perceived job security and ethical citizenship) that are found to be more important for female applicants compared to their male counterparts while pursuing a job. Also, females were found to worry more about losing or not finding a job than males. Our results further indicate that type of work and P–O fit have a significant effect on job pursuit intention for both male and female applicants. The study addresses the need for research on targeted recruitment to increase gender inclusion.Practical implicationsThe contribution of this paper lies in identifying critical factors relevant to the female applicants in India who potentially constitute a large talent pool waiting to be leveraged. It adds to the body of knowledge on enabling inclusivity and affirmative action for increasing gender diversity through recruitment. By highlighting the factors that should be given prominence in job promotions to attract more female candidates and emphasizing the gender-focused HR policies and practices and through internal and external communication, it helps practitioners attract and retain female applicants in an emerging economy like India.Originality/valueOur study contributes in three ways. First, it attempts to plug the gap by investigating gendered preferences in job pursuit intentions between male and female applicants, especially in different cultural environments and in emerging markets such as India. Second, existing studies on job pursuit intentions were based mostly on inputs from student respondents. Our study has collected data from professionals working in organizations who have worked and experienced gender-related HR practices in organizations. Third, our study used a mixed-method approach to get a nuanced understanding of female talent expectations and preferences during the job-seeking behavior.

Financial Systems Theory and Control of Finances: The Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment in the Relationship between Transformational Leadership and Employee Engagement: An Evidence from Vietnam

Employee engagement has been closely linked to work attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, intentions to quit, withdrawal), employees' innovation, organizational success and financial performance (e.g., profits, shareholder return) and, therefore, getting much attention from academia and practitioner communities. Additionally, to have a full insight in employees, organizations have to take care of psychological side of employees, which manifests in psychological empowerment. This study investigates the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee engagement in the context of Vietnam. Data were collected through a survey conducted in Vietnam using 254 respondents who are employees and managers. A researcher-administered questionnaire survey method was used for data collection. The findings reveal that Psychological Empowerment is significantly related with Transformational leadership and Employee Engagement; there is a direct effect of Psychological Empowerment and Employee Engagement; and Transformational leadership not only has a direct impact on Employee Engagement, but also has indirect effect through Psychological Empowerment as a mediating variable. These findings have several implications also for human resource practices in organizations. It is expected that this study provides valuable information to consider in business practice for the development of interventions aimed at mitigating turnover behavior and maximizing organizational performances through an engaged workforce.

A Self-Regulation Perspective on the Double-Edged Sword Effects of the Performance-Oriented HRS

The performance-oriented human resource system (HRS) brings both opportunities and challenges to employees. Prior studies mainly report the positive impact of high-performance work on organizational and employee performance, ignoring the negative impact on employee’s behavior. Based on self-regulation theory, this paper discusses the double-edged sword effects of the performance-oriented HRS on employees. A total of 253 employees were studied in three waves, and the linear model was used to analyze the data. The results indicates that the perceived performance-oriented HRS not only can positively predict employees' concerns with performance and improve their willingness of self-development but also may lead to resource depletion and lower employees' moral awareness, which increases the risk of employees' unethical behavior. Employees' self-control is a regulator of the negative effect of a performance-oriented HRS. That is, when employees’ self-control is low, the performance-oriented HRS has a stronger influence on unethical behavior through moral awareness than when it high. The above results can broaden our understanding of the effects of the performance-oriented HRS on employees, and provide some new insights for intervening the effects of performance-oriented HRS in organizational human resource practices.

To study the context of organizational level factors for promotion of gender equality in the State of Gambella Region in Ethiopia

It is not possible to achieve a controversial goal, such as gender equality, without a clear strategic plan setting out policy, objectives, action, time frame and resources. Any organizational entity of the public or private sector nature should contribute to enhancing greater gender equality in order to minimize the widely expanding gender equality gap between men and women. It should be able to contribute substantively to greater gender equality by having the appropriate gender mainstreaming structures, policies and procedures in place. The objective of this article was to show the existing situation of organizational (input) level factors towards the promotion of gender equality in the Gambella Peoples’ National Regional State of Ethiopia. The study has shown that the basic policy documents did not exist in several public sector organizations. Certain basic gender and gender-related strategies to implementing the gender and gender-related policy documents were not practiced in the public sector offices. The existing gender and gender-related strategies to implementing such gender policy documents were not clear to the civil servants. Gender focal point networking were absent in the public sector organizations. It has also shown that equal hiring or employment opportunities or practices were existing, gender unit department (division) activities were incorporated in the basic organizational core policy goals, objectives, and projects, and job responsibilities and mandates for the gender unit departments or divisions were existing in the public sector offices. The human resources development aspect and the work organization aspect of the organizational human resource practices were not building the capacity of the public sector staff in terms of a number of elements. But, documenting, updating, respecting, and utilizing the existing job descriptions for the GU staff were practiced as the organizational human resource practices to building the capacity of the public sector staff at the regional and local administrative level in the Gambella regional state.

“Don't you want to stay?” The impact of training and recognition as human resource practices on volunteer turnover

Managing volunteers is a difficult undertaking. This study draws on human resource (HR) management theory and literature to investigate the effect of two HR practices—training and recognition—on volunteer turnover. We use longitudinal administrative data collected by an Indiana nonprofit organization, which contains individual volunteer characteristics, organizational HR practices, and information on actual turnover behavior. We found that recognizing volunteer contributions with awards predicted volunteer retention in the following year. Training did not have a direct effect on volunteer turnover, but interacted with gender; men who received training were more likely to stay than women. The study contributes to the literature on HR management in the volunteer context, adds to the emerging literature on awards as incentives for volunteers, and addresses the common method bias by using longitudinal data.

Returning to Work after Childbirth in Europe: Well-Being, Work-Life Balance, and the Interplay of Supervisor Support.

Parents returning to work after the arrival of a new son or daughter is an important question for understanding the trajectory of people's lives and professional careers amid current debates about gender equality and work-life balance (WLB). Interestingly, current research concludes that general WLB practices at the workplace may be necessary in the specific case of women returning to work after childbirth because of the particular maternal and infant factors involved. However, WLB practices as a flexible arrangement may work against women because they may be viewed as a lack of organizational commitment. Therefore, research on this topic could benefit from considering supervisor support as a complement of such practices, but previous research has analyzed WLB and supervisor support separately and scarcely. To fill this gap in the literature, we use two sub-samples of 664 female employees and 749 male employees with children under the age of one from 27 European countries participating in the 6th European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS-2015) to study the impact of perceived WLB on European women's perceived well-being after childbirth, in contrast with previous literature. We also analyze the impact of perceived supervisor support (SS) and its interaction with perceived WLB on women's well-being after childbirth, and explore differences with men after childbirth, a collective underexplored by the literature. We find significant gender differences on the relative impact of WLB, SS, and their interaction on perceived job well-being. Our results have important implications for human resource practices in organizations. In particular, they suggest that gendered WLB practices should be encouraged, and stress the relevance of the human factor over human resource practices in addressing the difficulties that women returning to work face after childbirth.

Appraisal Participation and Perceived Voice in Annual Appraisal Interviews

Appraisal interviews (AIs) are one of the most commonly used human resource practices in organizations. However, they are often criticized for comprising conflicting purposes. In this study, we focus on contextual factors of the appraisal process. Specifically, we propose that AIs follow a two-phase model of performance evaluation and development planning. These two phases trigger different levels of employee appraisal participation which, in turn, affects employees’ perception of voice. In a sample of 48 audiotaped AIs, we coded employees’ objective appraisal participation throughout the entire interview session and linked it to subsequent ratings of perceived voice. Results showed that interviews were highly leader-centered and mainly concentrated on performance evaluation. Employees’ appraisal participation was significantly lower during performance evaluation than during development planning. Appraisal participation during development planning, but not during performance evaluation, was related to subsequent ratings of perceived voice. In addition, this relationship was moderated by supervisor trust.

For All Good Reasons: Role of Values in Organizational Sustainability

Management practices are at the heart of most organizations’ sustainability efforts. Despite the importance of values for the design and implementation of such practices, few researchers have analyzed how human values, particularly ethical values, relate to human resource management practices in organizations. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to integrate scholarship on organizational sustainability, human resource practices, and values in delineating how four specific values—altruism, empathy, positive norm of reciprocity, and private self-effacement—support effective human resource practices in organizations. This set of distinct values has sustainability implications, global relevance, and ethical significance. Propositions that indicate relationships among these values, human resource practices, and organizational sustainability, as well as the effects of the resource-based view to potentiate these relationships, are developed. This analysis suggests that ethical and multicultural values are important for planning and implementing effective management practices and organizational sustainability.

Connecting organizational human resource practices to consumer satisfaction

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide researchers and practitioners an understanding of one potentially direct linking mechanism between organizational practices and consumer satisfaction with a service.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is conceptual and the approach adopted is analytical. Extant research and concepts, including from psychology and economics, have been used to develop propositions and to discuss both research and managerial implications.FindingsProvides conceptual support for a psychological dynamic or mechanism linking service employees' job autonomy and consumers' service satisfaction.Research limitations/implicationsThe article provides a novel way of thinking about consumer satisfaction. A limitation of the paper is that it is conceptual. Research is required to test empirically the various research propositions. In this manner, research in this area can be furthered.Practical implicationsFurther research in this area may provide more directed solutions to service quality and consumer satisfaction issues.Originality/valueThe article proposes an entirely novel way to imagine the service exchange. It moves extant research further by outlining a causal mechanism rather than correlational connections between organizational practices and consumer satisfaction.

A Contextual Analysis of Organizational Commitment

The structural transformation of American organizations has had a tremendous impact on organizational human resource practices, particularly on employer-employee relationships. In this paper I analyzed how different organizational structures affect the organizational commitment of employees at different occupational ranks. Using data from the 1991 General Social Survey (GSS), I found that the occupational effect on organizational commitment, in which higher ranking employees demonstrate greater commitment than do lower ranking employees, is contingent on organizational structure. On the one hand, highly bureaucratized organizations produce a commitment gap: Managers have a higher organizational commitment than do workers. On the other hand, organizations with many high-performance work practices elicit high levels of organizational commitment from workers but relatively low levels of commitment from managers. I discuss the theoretical implications of these empirical findings.