Human Resource Practitioners Research Articles

THE IMPACT OF REMOTE WORK ON HR PRACTICES: NAVIGATING CHALLENGES, EMBRACING OPPORTUNITIES

The COVID-19 pandemic has enhanced the rise of remote work, revolutionized organizational operations, and significantly impacted human resources (HR) practices. This paper explores the profound effects of remote work on HR functions, addressing both challenges and opportunities in this new paradigm. The shift to remote work has increased flexibility for the workforce and opened access to a global talent pool. However, it has not been without its challenges for HR professionals. They now face hurdles in engaging employees, managing performance effectively, and promoting team collaboration. Ensuring a unified organizational culture and cultivating a solid connection among remote workers have become pressing concerns. This research emphasizes the significance of HR departments adapting to the realities of remote work. It proposes a need for redefining talent acquisition, training, performance evaluation, and employee engagement strategies. By analyzing real-world case studies and expert insights, this study offers valuable guidance to HR leaders and practitioners in effectively navigating challenges and optimizing remote work arrangements. Embracing remote work provides clear advantages for organizations that enhance resilience and attract top talent. In this regard, HR professionals must proactively adopt technology and acquire new skill sets to optimize remote work environments. As organizations navigate the challenges of remote work, the HR function plays a fundamental role in shaping work's future and nurturing a thriving workforce. This study offers valuable insights, empowering HR practitioners to position their organizations for success amid this evolving landscape.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0056/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Engaging First Nations People at Work: The Influence of Culture and Context

The paper seeks to understand organisational context and culture’s influence on engaging First Nations People in Canada in work. Organisations have many opportunities to attract and engage Indigenous people, who have distinct worldviews and unique cultural customs not necessarily reflected in a North American workplace. Indigenous people also grapple with the historical and ongoing disparate impacts of settler colonialism that intersect colonial systems in most every area of their lives. This study worked within Indigenous research principles to encourage the articulation of deeply felt experiences and points of view of how First Nations people viewed and interacted with their work. The findings reviewed the experiences of twelve First Nations individuals working in non-Indigenous organisations. Through anti-colonial and critical organisational theoretical lenses, the study reveals how the context and culture that defined this sample of First Nations people shaped their views of what is essential to engaging them in the workplace. The findings illustrate what First Nations people would like to see in a workplace culture, what they feel needs to be recognised as part of their unique Indigenous context, and the approaches and practises that are most important for engaging them. Understanding the effect of context and culture on positive work interactions provides new information for organisational leaders, managers, diversity officers, and Human Resource practitioners to better support First Nations engagement in the workplace. It may also offer an approach to better engaging other culturally diverse organisational groups. The results add value to the fields of critical theory, anti-colonial theory, critical management studies, and Indigenous wholistic theory. The results further the discussion on the processes of decolonization and the recognition of Indigenous and minority rights in the workplace.

COVID-19: Job insecurity as a moderator of e-learning acceptance in Indian organisations

Orientation: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused the loss of jobs of more than 340 million individuals worldwide in the middle of 2020. At the same time, COVID-19 pandemic sparked increased usage of digital products, Internet resources, online media technology and e-learning practices.Research purpose: The research strives to explore the moderating role of job insecurity caused by the coronavirus towards the usage of e-learning.Motivation for study: This study aimed to assess the behavioural effects of employees working in the most damaged sectors related to rental and business services of Indian businesses.Research approach/design and method: The investigation used a structured questionnaire for the survey data obtained from 307 employees from the most affected sectors in major cities of India. The research utilised the conservation of resources (COR) theories and the General Extended Technology Acceptance Model for e-learning (GETAMEL) framework for the investigation. To probe the evidence, the researchers used Structural Equation Modelling techniques.Main findings: The findings revealed a substantial impact of ‘job uncertainty’ as a moderator in employees’ acceptability towards e-learning.Practical/managerial implications: The study provides a deep insight to experts, educators, top management, policymakers, team managers and human resource (HR) practitioners about the moderation effect of job insecurity created by pandemics on technology acceptance.Contribution/value add: This study is unique as no researcher investigated the moderating influence of job instability on e-learning acceptability.

Towards a future-proof organisation: using foresight in HR and organisational development

PurposeAlthough trends such as digitisation, demographic change and flexibilisation of work have been recognised by many human resource (HR) practitioners, this viewpoint paper argues that future-orientation in the HR sector could benefit from making use of the foresight perspective. Foresight is understood as the systematic, method-guided analysis and discussion of possible future developments. The goal is to build future-robust structures in organisations at an early stage and to identify emerging skill needs. This paper aims to make HR professionals aware of the potential of foresight for their strategic activities.Design/methodology/approachIntroducing the approach of strategic foresight to the field of HR, this study derives the argumentation from a discussion of literature and practitioners’ experiences.FindingsSo far, foresight in companies has mainly been conducted by strategy and innovation units, with HR and organisational development playing a subordinate role. However, foresight can contribute to gaining a competitive advantage and proactively shape future success factors in the organisation.Practical implicationsThe authors advise practitioners to begin implementing strategic foresight within HR departments and organisational development to build future-proof organisations.Originality/valueThis paper introduces strategic foresight to the field of HR and points to a lack of integration between potentially existing foresight activities and people and culture considerations for the future.

Creating Sustainable High-Performance Human Resource Practice through Employees Learning Agility. The Transition Adaptive Approach

Recently, the Covid 19 posed enormous challenges compelling organizations to adapt to unforeseen events as a result of direct immediate threats thereby pushing human resource practitioners to reshape their existing human resources practice. To the researchers’ knowledge, no study has so far investigated the relationship between employee learning agility (ELA) and high-performance human resources practice (HPHRP) particularly, the mediating effect of person-organization fit (P-O fit) to reshape the human resource practice through transition adaptive theory. A self-completed survey from public sector employees in the Fiji Islands yielded a sample of data with 351 participants. The proposed model was analyzed through structural equation modeling (SEM), showing a model fit for the research. The findings show that ELA significantly enhances HPHRP. This suggests that learning opportunity provides an opportunity to adopt, modify and recombine the current knowledge with new knowledge in creating new knowledge stock. The diffusion of such knowledge can assist significantly in improving human resource practice. Moreover, the mediating effect of P-O fit shows the congruence between ELA and organization, further suggesting that employees perform best in an environment that supports their salient needs and recognizes their knowledge, abilities, and skills in reshaping human resources practice. As such, this becomes our significant contribution to the extant literature on human resource management. Finally, the current research offers theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and further research directions.

Professionalism and professionalization in human resources (HR): HR practitioners as professionals and the organizational professional project

Abstract This article investigates how human resources (HR) practitioners operate, and understand themselves, as professionals, and considers the implications for understanding HR professionalization. Using rich, in-depth qualitative data collected from 20 in-depth interviews with experienced UK-based HR practitioners, and based on a largely phenomenological method, the research explores the nature of: the HR professional role, HR professional knowledge, HR professional ethics, and HR professional identity. It shows how HR professionalism is grounded in, and a product of, the organizational activities and experiences of practitioners themselves. There is a particular value attached to the operational and relational aspects of HR practitioners’ role, based on the importance of ensuring that their activities and interventions contribute to the functioning of their employing organizations, from which they seek to derive greater professional standing. Informed by a neo-Weberian approach, which emphasizes the dynamics of distinctive professional projects, the research draws attention to the ‘organizational’ dimension of HR professionalization. It offers an alternative way of understanding the professional project in HR, one that avoids viewing it either as a function of a strategic, business partnering agenda or contingent upon HR becoming less managerialist and more receptive of a wider range of stakeholders. The organizational focus of HR professionalism, and its operational character, should not simply be considered as obstacles to professionalization. Rather, they can be viewed as important features of the—‘organizational’—professional project evident in HR; a project which derives legitimacy from its connection to, and alignment with, the operations of practitioners’ employing organizations.

Artificial intelligence adoption among human resource professionals: Does market turbulence play a role?

AbstractDrawing from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Technology‐Organization‐Environment (TOE) framework, this study investigates the factors that influence the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) among human resource (HR) professionals in the tourism organizations of Malaysia. Responses were collected from 389 HR employees working at tourism organizations. Based on a partial least squares‐structural equation modeling (PLS‐SEM) analysis, results revealed that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, technology competency, top management support, and competitive pressure have significantly positive impacts on AI adoption in the tourism industry in Malaysia. The study's contribution to the TAM and TOE models is the inclusion of market turbulence as a moderating factor, which has been found to be a significant moderator as it enhances the understanding of HR practitioners and others regarding the factors that are most influential in AI adoption among HR employees in the tourism industry. The model developed in this study highlights how market turbulence can foster the relationship between AI adoption and organizations. In addition to the managerial and theoretical implications, the study also discusses its limitations and outlines directions for future research.

Towards Achieving Electronic Human Resource Management: Challenges Facing Public Enterprises in Adopting Technology

This study examined the challenges that are faced by South African public enterprises in implementing digitalization in the Human Resource Management (HRM) department. A qualitative research approach was used with data obtained using structured interviews from a public enterprise, and Human Resource Practitioners were used to conduct interviews in this study. Purposive non-probability sampling was applied in engaging 15 participants in a public corporation and data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The study revealed that HRM departments do not entirely make use of technology in their operations. The inability to use technology is due to a lack of in-house digital training, and the organization’s inability to quickly swiftly respond to environmental changes due to bureaucratic structure. It was therefore recommended that public entities embark on extensive employee digital training and implementation of effective internal digital systems for organizational effectiveness.

Human Resource Information System (HRIS): An Evaluation of Net Benefits Based on the Perception of HR Practitioners

In this day and age, the use of information systems (IS) in workplaces is indispensable. IS has been an effective tool in enhancing operational efficiency and for empowering the workforce. Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) have been recognized as one of the major modern human resource (HR) tool (Jahan, 2014). HRIS handles the processes and transactions involved in managing human resources such as recruitment, training, benefits administration and employee records-keeping (Laudon & Laudon, 2014). With the strategic role that IS delivers to organizations nowadays, it is imperative that IS be evaluated on its effectiveness especially in the area of human resource management. The objective of this study is to evaluate the factors that affect the net benefits of human resource information systems (HRIS) in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry in the Philippines. Using the updated DeLone and McLean IS success model, the study will investigate the factors that contribute to the implementation of HRIS based on the perception of HR practitioners. These factors are: system quality, information quality, service quality, use, user satisfaction and net benefits. Moreover, the relationships between and amongst these factors will be studied and how these factors affect the net benefits that HRIS delivers to organizations particularly in the BPO industry in the Philippines. A total of 214 respondents (n=214) who are HRIS users were asked to answer an online-based survey questionnaire. The research revealed that use and user satisfaction have positive effect on HRIS net benefits. In addition, the study has validated and confirmed the D&M IS success model in the context of HRIS use in the BPO industry in the Philippines. These findings offer valuable insights to HRIS implementers and business owners on how to strengthen the effectiveness of HRIS and maximize its potentials for the delivery of fast, quality and efficient HR services in the BPO industry.

Ethical violations: Shortlisting and interviewing processes in the South African public service

Background: Ethics, integrity and accountability in public service departments have weakened. These departments face ethical violations in recruitment, shortlisting, interviewing and appointment processes despite the presence of human resource management prescripts in place.Aim: This study aimed to probe the level of ethical violations in recruitment, shortlisting and interviewing processes, and describe the challenges faced by human resource practitioners and panel members in South Africa’s public service departments.Setting: Both the national and provincial public service departments of South Africa.Methods: The study adopted the qualitative modernistic research approach. A semi-structured electronic questionnaire was used to gather views from 528 participants, including human resource practitioners and line managers serving as panel members.Results: Ethical violations result in human resource practitioners and panel members being compromised, maltreated, victimised and bullied in the workplace. During recruitment, shortlisting, interviewing and appointment stages, abuses of power, undisclosed conflicts of interest and even patronage by political heads and top-and-middle management are acutely rife. Ethical violations inhibit the human resource functionary from building an ethical, professional and capable public service.Conclusion: Ethical violations during recruitment phases are exacerbated by political heads and top management’s observable disregard of prescripts.Contribution: This study will encourage management to consider human resource practitioners’ role in managing ethical dilemmas and galvanise employees towards maintaining ethics and jointly desisting from unethical practices.

Inclusive talent management philosophy, talent management practices and employees’ outcomes

PurposeThis study aims to propose that inclusive talent management (TM) philosophy and TM practices are related to individual outcomes, such as job satisfaction, turnover intentions and job performance.Design/methodology/approachUsing the resource-based theory, the research explores the mediation relationship between inclusive TM philosophy and job satisfaction, turnover intentions and job performance via TM practices. The study uses structural equation modelling for analysing the data collected through a questionnaire-based survey among a sample of 373 employees and 65 supervisors.FindingsThe results show that inclusive TM philosophy is positively related to individuals’ job satisfaction, job performance and decreased turnover intentions, through TM practices.Research limitations/implicationsThe study’s limitation lies in its restriction to a narrow set of organizations operating in Romania, thus limiting the generalization of the findings. Consequently, future studies can extend the scope of the study to include a larger sample size consisting of more organizations operating across multiple sectors and countries. While it is appropriate to assess talent philosophies at the level of the individual employees, future studies may wish to tackle the constructs from the organizational (managerial) standpoint where the TM practices and programmes are designed. Furthermore, future researchers could draw comparisons with large enterprises to investigate the differences in the impact of implementing TM practices within these organizational types. Finally, future research could explore the outcomes of inclusive TM philosophy by using a qualitative design, which sheds more light on other factors that support or hinder the outcomes of embracing inclusive TM in organizations.Practical implicationsThe study’s findings have practical implications for organizations that want to improve their employees’ outcomes and provide evidence on how organizations can achieve this through their TM practices. First, the paper establishes a relationship between inclusive TM philosophy and employees’ outcomes (turnover intention, job satisfaction and job performance) through the mediating impact of the organization’s TM practices in the context of organizations operating in Romania. The relevance of the context for TM studies has been highlighted in the literature, and thus, the findings make an important contribution to the TM literature, given the limited number of empirical studies on TM practices from emerging European countries (Skuza et al., 2013). Second, the model was tested empirically by collecting data from two sources – employees and supervisors from the surveyed organizations. The perception among employees that they are treated as a talent by the organization can have a positive impact on their satisfaction, and job performance, and decrease their turnover intentions. This suggests that organizations should invest in talent development programmes to help their employees develop into talented performers who help improve the organization’s performance. The findings are of particular importance to human resources practitioners, as it suggests that organizations should consider implementing TM practices systematically across the organization to ensure that all employees benefit from them. By doing this, organizations can improve individual outcomes, which can ultimately lead to improved organizational performance.Social implicationsOrganization that develop the talent of their workforce in its totality are likely to be more successful in the long term. Similarly, it can be inferred that organizations that enhance the talent of their workforce through practices such as staff rotation, talent identification are likely to derive greater benefit from the capabilities that their staff display.Originality/valueThe study sheds light on the impact of talent philosophies and TM practices on outcomes at the individual employees’ level, which is an understudied study area within the broader TM discipline.

Welcome to Our (Divided) Team

Abstract: Since team colleagues and leaders are the first points of contact for organizational newcomers, they could play an important role in newcomers’ socialization success. On the basis of the social identity approach and signaling theory, we expect perceived subgroups in the team and leader–member exchange (LMX), respectively, to predict socialization outcomes (i. e., social integration, organizational attractiveness, intentions to remain). Furthermore, we expect psychological safety to mediate these processes. We conducted a two-wave field study ( N = 56 interns) and an experimental vignette study ( N = 144 students). Results showed perceived subgroups (only in Study 2) and LMX to be related to socialization outcomes. Study 2 showed these relationships to be mediated by psychological safety. Thus, newcomers’ perceptions of their team and leader may be important in determining whether newcomers feel integrated and perceive their organization as attractive to remain in. Human resources practitioners should make organizational insiders aware of their role in newcomer socialization.

MEDIATING ROLE OF JOB EMBEDDEDNESS IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEIVED ORGANISATIONAL SUPPORT, PERCEIVED CO-WORKER SUPPORT AND EMPLOYEE RETENTION IN MALAYSIAN PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES

The shortage of academic staff in private universities is at an alarming stage and would have a huge-impact on educational quality. This study aims to examine the mediating role of job embeddedness (JE) in the relationship between perceived organizational support (POS), perceived co-worker support (CWS) and employee retention (ER) in Malaysian private universities. Numerous studies have been conducted to examine POS, CWS and turnover with on-the-job factors such job satisfaction and job commitment. These two on-the-job factors are the two attitudinal constructs most frequently studied by the researchers. However, the mediating role of JE plays in understanding ER has yet to be completely specified. Stratified sampling technique was used to collect data from 482 academic staff. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to test all the hypotheses. The findings indicated that JE mediates the relationship between POS and ER partially. However, there is no direct relationship between CWS and ER. ER cannot be increased by providing high CWS directly. It should go through JE as a mediator. This study could contribute fresh-insight for human resource practitioners from private universities to get more effective retention strategies on how to retain staff even if an opportunity arises by emphasizing JE.

Self-directed learning motivational drivers of working professionals: confirmatory factor models

PurposeAs learning at the workplace is predominantly self-motivated, this study is aimed to identify and categorize the motivational drivers for working professionals to pursue self-directed learning (SDL) at the workplace.Design/methodology/approachA total of 23 variables were identified as drivers for working professionals to initiate, pursue and sustain self-directed learning at the workplace through literature review, interviews and focused group discussions with senior leaders from the industry. The participants were a mix of senior professionals responsible for leading large teams in their organizations and those appointed as people development leaders in their respective organizations. A questionnaire was developed based on the identified drivers and administered online. Around 315 working professionals were surveyed. Structural equation modelling and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) methods were used to verify the scale and assess its validity and reliability.FindingsThe results suggested that SDL motivational drivers for working professionals can be categorized into two broad categories, namely extrinsic (14 drivers) and intrinsic (9 drivers). Further, extrinsic drivers were subdivided into three categories: job expectations (6 drivers), negative consequence (2 drivers) and positive reinforcement (6 drivers) based on the initial exploratory and subsequent confirmatory analysis. The results suggest that job expectations and positive reinforcement positively influence the intrinsic motivation of an individual to pursue SDL and negative consequences negatively impact the intrinsic motivation.Practical implicationsThe findings from the study will be useful for human resource practitioners, managers and e-Learning companies to draw strategies for building an SDL culture. It also supports the advancement of research in adult education and learning in the workplace.Originality/valueA new scale to measure motivation for SDL by employees at the workplace is proposed. There are no scales available to measure employee motivation for pursuing SDL at the workplace to the best of our knowledge.

Perspectives of human resource practitioners in two urban local authorities in Zimbabwe

Orientation: This study examines the experiences of human resource (HR) practitioners in two urban local authorities (ULAs) in Zimbabwe.Research purpose: The research aimed to understand the human resource management (HRM)-oriented strategies and the extent to which HR practitioners’ experiences could enable effective implementation.Motivation for the study: There is a need to understand the challenges HR practitioners in ULAs in Zimbabwe face in delivering effective HRM.Research approach/design and method: The study adopted a qualitative research approach using semi-structured interviews with 17 purposively selected HR practitioners. Thematic analysis was used to extract themes from the interviews.Main findings: The findings revealed five themes of HRM challenges in Zimbabwean ULAs, including political interference, resource constraints, bureaucracy and the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Human resource management delivery is hindered by stakeholder involvement, performance management gaps, technology gaps and limited interaction with line management. Additionally, traditional HRM approaches committee-focused procedures, and inadequate investment in employee education limit HRM capabilities and procedures.Practical/managerial implications: The study suggests that policymakers and HR practitioners in ULAs in Zimbabwe should pay attention to the identified HRM challenges and proposed solutions to enhance HRM delivery and HR performance. The proposed conceptual model can serve as a guide to overcoming HRM challenges.Contribution/value-add: This study adds to the limited research on public sector HRM in Africa, and stakeholders and HR practitioners can benefit from the conceptual model and recommendations for streamlining HRM procedures in ULAs in Zimbabwe.

Knowledge transmission in the second part of careers: does formal training matter?

PurposeThis paper examines to what extent formal training targeted to workers aged 45 and over could enhance their knowledge transmission activities specifically in changing work environments. This is a key issue for human resources practitioners. Allowing older workers to keep on interacting with their colleagues and transmitting their knowledge acquired through experience reduces the risk for firms of losing critical knowledge assets.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use French-matched employer–employee data to estimate the effect of participation in training sessions intended to support change on the probability for workers aged 45–59 of frequently showing work practices to their co-workers. To account for selection bias in training, the authors reduce the group of untrained workers to those who wanted to attend a training session but had to cancel their participation for exogenous reasons. Leuven and Oosterbeek (2008) show that this is a valid approximation of a random assignment to training.FindingsTraining with the intention to support change for workers aged 45 and more significantly increases knowledge transmission for training participants. This effect is not strictly related to a supervising role as it is significant for workers without subordinates; it holds when the authors address the selection bias in training by narrowing down the comparison group. When training comes as a response to mitigate the potential negative effects of technological or organizational changes in the work environment, it helps workers aged 45–59 maintain their contribution to the knowledge base of the production.Research limitations/implicationsOur findings suggest that two main aspects have to be borne in mind when assessing the effectiveness of training for older workers. First, the reasons for training must be carefully considered, especially if it occurs in response to technological or organizational change in the workplace. Second, the continuation of interactions between older workers and their co-workers must be factored. If the public debate acknowledges that employee learning and development is critical in times of structural change and crisis, the outcomes of knowledge transmission within workplaces in terms of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, productivity or innovation, which the authors do not cover in this paper, deserve further investigations. In particular, the authors believe that studying how the training that supports technological and organizational change influences the relationship between age diversity and firm productivity is a promising avenue for future research.Practical implicationsThe implication of this article for human resource managers is that there may be a substantial cost to not updating the skills of older workers after technological or organizational change. Indeed, it is likely that a large proportion of jobs will only be partially automated, which implies that while some tasks will disappear, rendering the corresponding skills obsolete, others will persist and the skills associated with them will remain useful to organizations. If older workers are excluded from their work collectives after these changes, because their skills have not been updated through training, the knowledge from their accumulated experience that remains valuable will be irrevocably lost when they retire.Originality/valueThis study sheds a new light on the effectiveness of older workers’ training. Some contributions argue that training for older workers is not very effective because it has no significant effect on employment duration, earnings or relative productivity. The authors show that specific types of training to update skills after a technological or organizational change allow older workers to keep interacting with their co-workers and pass on their knowledge gained through experience, thereby reducing the risk for firms of losing critical knowledge assets.

Artificial intelligence as a boundary-crossing object for employee engagement and performance

The study proposes AI-powered tools and applications as boundary-crossing objects to examine how AI performance can affect employees' job engagement, service and job performance. Job security is modelled as a moderator in the boundary-crossing process. Several theories including boundary crossing, goal setting and self-regulation are drawn on to posit these relationships. The study was undertaken with Australia-based full-time employees who had experience with AI-powered tools at work. The results show that AI performance had a significant effect on job engagement, and employee service performance, which were significantly related to job performance appraisal. Job engagement and service performance exhibited significant mediation effects between AI and job performance. The moderation effect exerted by job security was significant in enhancing employees’ job engagement and service performance. The study contributes to service research and human resource management literature. The findings have implications for service marketers and human resource practitioners.

Ostracism Amongst Junior Employees

This study provides tenets that guide a wide range of researchers, industry practitioners, and academics in order to work multifaceted environment of workplace ostracism, work engagement, and turnover intention. The prevalence of turnover intention has received critical attention among Human Resource practitioners as the alarming statistics nowadays allude to global epidemic of actual turnover. High turnover can be costly to any organization. Therefore, this issue needs special attention as it may impact the company’s bottom line. Based on the research philosophies of positivism, this study employs a deductive approach or quantitative research design. This shall provide empirical evidence of the effect of ostracism on turnover and moderated by work engagement. Based on the available literature, a comparative analysis of different experiences with ostracism and turnover from diverse background studies has shown their adequacy for the requirement to involve work engagement as the mediator. This study only looking from East Culture’s perspective which is the Malaysian Private Higher Education Institutions (MPHEIs). It is a cross-sectional, which prevents examining the evolution over time of the phenomenon under investigation. Many studies have examined the antecedents of turnover intention, however, the effects of relational experiences at work on turnover intention amongst junior employees have not been fully explored.

Inclusive workplace practices: understanding disability-assistance animal stereotype-bias signals

Purpose This study aims to fill a distinct gap in the literature on disability-assistance animals (disability-AAs) and inclusive employment by investigating human resource (HR) practitioners’ perceptions of disability-AAs in the staffing process and workplace. HR practitioners play a critical role in accommodation and inclusion, yet their experiences and insights have been largely ignored in prior research. Design/methodology/approach This study used a phenomenological approach, drawing on signaling theory and employability constructs, to explore insights from 17 HR practitioners’ experiences with assistance animals in the workplace. Findings The potential for unconscious bias in employment practices was found, as well as a significant percentage of practitioners who were unprepared to handle animal accommodations. First, the potential development of a positive stereotype bias suggests all genuine assistance animals are high functioning. Second, the assumption that employees’ assistance animal requests for invisible disabilities without previous disclosure are presumed fraudulent until proven valid. Research limitations/implications As a qualitative study, findings from this study are not generalizable to a larger population but may be transferable to similar employment contexts. Originality/value This study extends knowledge from previous studies, which focused predominately on insights from disabled individuals, animal trainers and therapists, to the HR practitioner domain in creating a more inclusive work environment. Findings from this study suggest the need to improve education about disability-AAs and the potential for unconscious bias for HR practitioners and hiring managers when accommodating requests, particularly when those assistance animals are not described as high functioning.

Evasive (knowledge) hiding and task performance: the moderating role of accumulative job resources

PurposeBuilding on the premise of conservation of resources theory (COR) that people protect their knowledge as a resource, the authors questioned whether the contextual nature of job resources buffers the counterintuitive positive relationship between evasive knowledge hiding (KH) and task performance.Design/methodology/approachTwo multisource field survey studies were conducted to examine the moderating influence of task-job resources on the knowledge hiders' task performance. Hierarchical regression analyses tested the main effect of evasive KH on task performance. In addition, conditional process analyses were applied to examine two-way and three-way interactions of evasive KH, job autonomy and task variety.FindingsThe data analysis showed a positive relationship between evasive KH and task performance. Moreover, the authors found that employees receiving accumulative task-job resources continued to hide knowledge and used abundant resources to increase their task performance further. However, contrary to expectations, for employees—who received partial task-job resources—their task performance deteriorated when evasively hiding knowledge.Practical implicationsManagers and human resource practitioners should acknowledge that employees' evasive KH to co-workers is not always wrong and should not be treated like it is. Moreover, they are endorsed to pay attention and invest in job resources since job autonomy and task variety create a beneficial context for knowledge holders' task performance.Originality/valueThe authors provided novel theoretical (the gain-loss perspective of COR theory) and consistent empirical (confirmed by two field-study evidence) arguments for an important contextual role of an HRM practice of job design in shaping the underrepresented knowledge behavior–task performance relationship.